T Thomas: India's shameful web of discrimination

There is hope that factors like education, urbanisation and the experience of working together in offices will reduce the scope for prejudice and help us see each other as equal human beings

Recent attacks against young African students in Bengaluru and Delhi have highlighted the problem of discrimination. The dictionary meaning of discrimination is "unfavourable treatment based on race, colour or sex". This list of factors can be extended to include religion and, especially in India, caste. Sometimes, the region of origin and language are also cause for prejudice - as can be seen sometimes in how people from the north-east are treated in other parts of the country. Our web of discrimination therefore is more pervasive and more complex than in many other parts of the world. Still, perhaps the most extreme form of racial discrimination was in South Africa through the long years of apartheid rule - where, as is known, the colour palette included not just whites and blacks but also browns.

On my first visit to South Africa in 1980 as a director of Unilever from London to our subsidiary in that country, Alex Bury, the chairman of our South African subsidiary (a very decent South African of British descent), came all the way to the aircraft to escort me through customs and immigration. On the way to the car I asked why he had taken the trouble to escort me from the aircraft. He told me that he had done so to prevent any embarrassment to me in customs and immigration, where the all-white staff could be rude to non-white people.

I stayed at the best hotel in Durban, overlooking the beach and the sea. One could see the beach segregated for whites, "coloureds", Indians and blacks. I was invited by the hotel to use the white beach as an honorary white. I declined the offer.

During my tenure in London I had to visit several other African countries where Unilever had oil palm plantations and other businesses. The head of our plantation business was a very affable and shrewd Scotsman, Leslie Davidson. Having worked in East Asia and Africa before coming to London, he knew that Africans would consider it strange that an Indian could be the boss of a white man like himself. He wanted to make it abundantly clear to his African colleagues and workers that I was the boss by his conduct and conversations throughout the visits we made together on that continent. Many Africans could not readily believe that a white man could be junior to an Indian; they were so used to seeing the white man always as the boss.

This was understandable, given the continent's colonial history. What is relevant today is that, in this racial milieu, traders from India managed to find a place which was somewhat subservient to the whites but superior to the blacks. As the Indians prospered economically through their trade, but did not integrate with the local Africans, they were often resented by the Africans - resulting in such outbreaks as Idi Amin throwing out all Indians from Uganda in the 1970s. Sometimes Indians were even more discriminatory in their attitude than the whites, causing natural resentment among Africans.

The treatment meted out to Africans in India today exacerbates this problem, as cultural differences and racial prejudice prevent proper social inter-action - even in the churches where the Africans go to worship. Some churches, like the Cathedral in Mumbai, make special efforts to befriend African visitors, and that has made a difference. The experience of racism that Africans suffer here in India will have negative repercussions for Indians back in Africa. An immediate backlash has already been seen in Congo. On a longer time-scale, it could affect Indian diplomatic efforts to reach out to Africa, where China has made substantial inroads.

The saying that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones is very apt when we as Indians complain about racial discrimination. India is a country which has perpetuated discrimination based on caste in all our major religions. Even in a minor community like Christians, to which I belong, there is discrimination between Syrian Christians and other Christians in Kerala (home to the largest Christian population in India). In Tamil Nadu, Christians who were converted from Hinduism in more recent times carry their caste appellation (like Vellala Christians) even after becoming Christians. Goan Christians are often careful to tell you that their ancestors were Brahmin. These caste considerations are a factor when it comes to marriages even today.

Still, there is hope that factors like education, urbanisation and the experience of working together in offices will reduce the scope for prejudice and help to see each other as equal human beings. We may have different skills, different customs and different mother tongues but in academia, in the factory or in the office, we have a sense of community and share common goals which can be attained only by overcoming our traditional discriminatory attitudes and practices, and by treating everyone as equal and worthy of respect.

The writer is a former chairman of Hindustan Unilever