The colour of prejudice

Racism in India represents a curious anomaly

Caste biases are hardwired into Indian society as a religious construct. Communalism is a British-created paradigm that morphed into a majoritarian political movement in modern India. Entrenched racism across the social spectrum, however, remains a puzzle. Indians suffered nearly two centuries of racism in their own land at the hands of a colonial power. Yet, as cricketer Darren Sammy belatedly discovered, racism is an endemic feature of Indian society. Mr Sammy realised he was the unwitting victim of racism when he played for SunRisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League, ironically a hugely successful Indian innovation of a colonially inherited sport. He made this discovery after watching a potent Netflix monologue by Indian-American Hasan Minhaj, who hosts the weekly show The Patriot Act. Mr Minhaj pegged his commentary to the widespread protests against racism in the US to offer a sharp takedown of the innate racism of the Indian-American community, a trait it faithfully transported from the subcontinent. As he pointed out, Indians tend to use the common derogatory term kalu — which would loosely translate into the pejorative term “darkie” — in even casual references to dark-skinned people. This was the same name by which Mr Sammy remembers some of his SunRiser team-mates referred to him, and he took to Instagram to express his anger. Instead of an apology, Mr Sammy said, he was reassured after one of those team-mates explained that the term “operated from a place of love”. If that is the case, Mr Sammy and his kalu-calling team-mates have an unusual understanding of the term “love”. Kalu by no stretch of the imagination can be considered a term of affection (unless in reference to a black pet). As actor Swara Bhaskar pointed out in a tweet, “if someone used the N word at a black person & said they ‘operated from a place of love’ what would u say? Same with word ‘Kaalu’ & it’s (sic) variations”.
 

The episode has exposed an unedifying anomaly about racism in India. It is not a covert systemic issue as it is in Europe and the West, about which former West Indian fast bowler Michael Holding spoke eloquently to Indian journalists. Fair people do not noticeably dominate our institutions, nor are dark Indians discriminated against in jobs, police brutality, or places of entertainment. In fact, the Indian government has a proud history of standing against racism. India was a signatory to the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement between Commonwealth presidents and prime ministers to discourage their national teams from participating against Apartheid South Africa. India has also consistently extended aid, medicine, and technology in humanitarian crises there, opened universities to their students, and offered them refuge from civil wars. From 2008, Indian governments, have participated in Indo-African summits every three years. When a Congolese student was beaten to death in Delhi in 2016, then foreign minister Sushma Swaraj took pains to ensure that her government transported his body to his family and hastened to claim that it was not a racist attack (though that remains unclear).
 

Against this stand the billion-dollar industry in fairness creams, the signs in some Mumbai eateries stating “Blacks not allowed”, the racial slurs against African students and workers, and the unembarrassed demands in matrimonial ads for fair grooms and brides. Racism is implicit in former Aam Aadmi Party minister Somnath Bharti’s decision to lead a raid on Ugandan residents in a Delhi colony, accusing them of running — without a shred of evidence — a drugs and prostitution racket. The allegations turned out to be false. A case was brought against Mr Bharti, but he offered no apology. Mr Sammy laid bare this inconvenient truth for the world to see — in black and white. Unfortunately, that’s the way it is likely to stay.