Why stereotypical portrayal of Asok the IITian in Dilbert escaped criticism

As Dilbert comic strips get pulled for creator's racism, Asok was accepted as a satirical comment

A diminutive bespectacled man with curly hair, fitted with a crisp tie, a formal shirt, and a sassy sense of humour — Dilbert has been a long-time companion with our morning cuppa and the day’s bulletins.

However, hundreds of newspapers across the United States and other countries have either stopped or will stop running the “Dilbert” comic strip after its creator’s racist rant on a YouTube live stream. Scott Adams had said Black people were “a hate group” and that white people should “just get the hell away” from them.

Adams, the brain behind the widely syndicated comic strip that mocks office culture, has received wide-ranging criticism and rebuke from newspapers that had printed his work for years.

The USA Today Network, which publishes more than 200 newspapers, said it “will no longer publish the ‘Dilbert’ comic due to the recent discriminatory comments by its creator”.

Other news organisations that said they would discontinue the comic strip include The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The San Antonio Express-News and MLive Media Group, which has eight news publications in Michigan.

California-based Adams, who in the past has talked up Indians and introduced Asok, an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) graduate, into his comic strip, has gradually become more vocal in his support for the extreme right ideologies since the rise of Donald Trump in 2016.

The cartoonist’s right-ward turn comes as a surprise for many of his Indian readers, who will remember his cartoons for introducing Asok the IIT-ian in 1996, when the institute was relatively unknown in America.

Adams wrote in his book, Dilbert 2.0: 20 years of Dilbert, that the character’s name drew from one of his co-workers, whose name was also spelled ‘Asok’. 

In an interview to the Times of India in 2003, Adams explained his choice to include an Indian character saying, “It was impossible to add an African-American. When you are as white as I am, you have to be careful. To make a comic strip character funny, you have to make him flawed, and that is a sensitive issue. I'm not sure other communities would have taken it well. Asok's flaw is that he is inexperienced, although he is smart and intelligent. It's a gamble that has paid off.”

Adams also admitted that his exposure to Indians and Indian culture came from his friends in California. “Like I said, I have a lot of Indian friends. Doctors, engineers, retired professors, and a whole family, three generations of lawyers. So, I have India here,” he had said in the interview.

Asok has made near-regular appearances in the Dilbert comics as well as animated films and series. A spoof of the desi-American stereotype, who’s trained to sleep only on national holidays, can re-heat his tea by holding a cup to his forehead and thinking about fire, can solve difficult problems in a few keystrokes, but he is still susceptible to office politics and bullying.

The Dilbert creator told Indian media houses that he hasn't received any hate mail or criticism for the portrayal of Asok or IITs. Amongst the comics’ fans as well, the overtly stereotypical portrayal of Asok has been received as a satirical comment on the workplace stereotyping and latent racism prevalent in the face of increasing diversification of the American workplace. Asok's timid but witty comebacks to The Pointy-Haired Boss often help to magnify and lampoon such stereotypes.

One of the most important character developments for Asok came on February 7, 2014, when Dogbert – Dilbert's sadistic and megalomaniac dog who dreams to conquer the world and enslave all humanity – declared that Asok was gay. This was in protest of an Indian Supreme Court decision upholding a British-era law that indulging in homosexual activity is a crime.