To make my point clear - here’s a case in point: Way back when the west was playing white supremacist, Indians lived in harmony and peace and skin color had little affect on their day to day matters; however Indians were plagued by the caste system - equally worse or even more horrible.

Today, as it seems the west has evolved and redefined itself as the role model for the rest of the globe, the problem has been craftily shifted along the political and social lines. I feel the west tends to be more politically correct but the society at large has yet to embrace the yellow, brown and black people.

I will have to agree with you that the West always succeeds in giving the rest a bit of the curry when it comes to societal attitudes!!

Every culture has its positives and its negatives which it wants to boast or hide under the rugs! Now that we have fondled with this point I am wondering is that why Indian goverment is trying to grease up things by the class reservations!

Anyway, as I said you simply cannot be sure. However, now that we have touched this case I cannot help thinking that maybe if “browns” had faced racism as severly as the “blacks” they would have been more sensitive and evolved in their outlook.

And when you ask why the government is playing the class card, there are 2 main reasons. One, they are playing because they can and two, it acts as a cover for their non-performance. Minorities in many countries go to polling booths every few years not to elect someone who will provide them better governance but to elect someone who will not take away their livelihood, their lives. Majority goes to polling booth lest a minority fella gets elected.

This reminds me of this Urdu couplet….

Ghar sajane ka tasawwur to bahot baad ka hai
Pehle ye tai to ho, ki is ghar ko bhachain kaise

Which roughly translates to…

Let’s worry about decorating the house later; after we have figured out a way to save it.

In short, many people will tell you that it is the power or the lust for power that makes politicians play with anything that they can.

I am surprised to read your last paragraph though. In a way it seems to belittle the humiliation that “brown” people suffered under the colonial rule. Or in a way condoning the acts of a perpetrator just because they weren’t as severe as that of another one.

Even if we were to assume your case, how can you rule out the fact that years of humiliation and disgrace would not have festered into a strong desire for revenge. What is Robert Mugabe doing? He’s not healing his wounds; he thinks he’s playing tit for tat!

Rascism has 2 main elements. One is the colour of the skin and the other is the wealth- ‘Might’ as Haris pointed out and all it’s synonyms including intelligence. I completely agree with you about the level of rascist remark made by the indians amongst themselves!

Also consider the West, particularly the United States. Here there are altogether differnet terms for poor white americans and poor black americans.”White trash” and the ‘n’ word are use to abuse one’s own brother respectively and state his identity/status!!

What is more shocking is that of lately rascism has yet another element to it and that is the Religious factor. I was watching this serial call “30 Days”…its a popular reality show where a person is asked to complete a task in 30 days to derive certain conclusions. The McDonald one was quite popular where this man ate only Mcdonald food for 30 days and ended up with liver failure and obesity.

Similarly they had conducted this show where a practicing christian guy had to live with a muslim family in Michigan and learn about Islam. The guy had to dress, pray, eat and sleep like the muslims do. This man David was quoted saying that for the first time in all his life he was stopped at the airport and scanned in a biased manner. Such acts are justified by the 911 factor however dogamtic it may be!

Another noteable point that comes out from this discussion is the ignorance of the West about the East. India being the second largest democratic country and having served as a playground for colonialism, racsim, imperialism, communalism… did not find its place in the History textbook of the west!

God has made us into nations and tribes so that we may know eachother not into black and whites so we may abuse eachother!

As for revenge- I would say “it’s a dish best served cold”!

The point that I do not completely agree with is
“The real problem lies in our Anglo-American centric world view”. If one talks about racism in India and keeping the literacy levels of the country in mind, I wonder how many do actually have any kind of view except the view running from their fore-fathers. The racism is India is not based on view its more related to inheritance of ideologies from generations.

The country is plagued by illiteracy, hypocrisy which helps the beneficiaries to maintain the status code as it had been for years.

Talking about stares, I always have wondered why is it more than not interpreted as a disliking and not interpreted as fear. The fear of unknown, but at the same time I do agree to the fact that in the “educated” Indian world, some of the racist thoughts are driven by views which are made available in the media.

W.E.B. DuBois argued that racialism is the belief that differences between the races exist, be they biological, social, psychological, or in the realm of the soul.

The tendency of human to show superiority or rather to avoid being in a situation of inferiority leads him to use any of the above factors. In India, the social structure which has been carried over shares the beast portion for all causes.

I would like to once again commend you on the excellent writing and also the way the topic has been presented.

I will end using Haris’ idea of Urdu couplet ( which I really liked) by putting a few couplets by Sudarshan fakir which queries the mankind about the prevailing thought

Aaj ke Daur mein aye dost ye manzar kyuN hai
Zakhm har sar pe ,har ik haath mein patthar kyuN hai

Apna anjaam to maluum hai sab ko phir bhi
Apni nazaron mein har insaan sikandar kyuN hai.

[Friend, why in today’s world, though each person is bruised he still carries a stone in the hand]
[Every one know about the final destination and yet each one continues to consider himself to be Alexander ( there by just trying to conquer the world rather than love of the people)]

Waiting in anticipation for the next thought provoking article !!!

Sajid/-

What really led me to think and then write about an article like this was the times when I was in college and the foreign student advisor asked me to help out a group of foreign students, including one Sudanese, three Mongolian and one from Kazakhstan; get along around the campus. Being close to all five of them I was surprised to see how many of the Indians would openly exhibit hints and shades of xenophobia (these were the “educated” lot).

I do think that Sajid is absolutely right in saying that this attitude is due to inheritance of certain ideologies from forefathers (I’m sure Haris too has some interesting takes on this line). There is a missing link here though, which is that their ideologies were again built on the grounds covered by the European colonial rule in India (and most part of the world at that time). What education can do for us is induce us to appreciate our as well as other’s cultures.

I’ll agree with Haris that we cannot condone what happened in India but we cannot defy that what happened in Africa was much more severe. The reason for this is simple. It is because the reason of its origin differs from one country to another. Saima thoughtfully pointed out that racism has more than one dimension. Be it color of skin, religion (which is not a recent phenomenon for example, the war fought between the Muslim Turks and the Catholic Austro-Hungarians) or might. As for Robert Mugabe, he is a politician using ethnic disparity for his gain.

It is a thoughtful hope that if we can harangue about global village and spiel at length about how the world is shrinking we can also learn to accept world cultures without fearing the unknown. In the end I would like to quote an American writer to put things in perspective.

“To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.”
–William Faulkner

I thoroughly agree with what you have to say on racism. It really is an enigma which is wrapped up in a mystery which might unfold but never gets unwrapped. It includes quite a lot of aspects of the world wide (what we may term as) phenomena.

I look at racism as another word for ignorance. It’s another way of saying that nature should have only one type of flower, tree or animal. It’s another way of looking at the world with eyes closed for diversity and change. Racism is another word for immaturity. Another word for inferiority complex. As Freud very rightly stated that its counter part doesn’t exist. It is always this, which is in play . Its word for fear. Fear of the unknown is of course understandable. For most of us belong to different backgrounds with particular type environment. For example, a statistics from the US Census bureau, which said that a certain region with a population of 2,598,987 people is white. Which makes up for 95% of its population. There is only less than 1%of the black population. The rest 4% population comprises of Hispanic people. So meeting them would not be more than that of a passerby. Most of the time not even thinking of being acquainted with them, let alone trying to know them better or at a personal level. And are psychology runs like they are different from us. And this difference is generally viewed as negative. Often not put into words.

We are comfortable to where we belong and things we are well settled with. Very often repeating our parent’s philosophy. It sets are standards and we adopt them, unknowingly, which too is quite understandable. Racism at a local level, which passes from under the eye comprises of such type of racism.

Apartheid which exists at a world level is by and large due to the soft power the “whites” possess. It usually appeals to the senses, which explains the emptying of fairness creams stacks indicated by you. White color is considered symbolic of purity .I am reminded of a story I read while I was still a child in which the mother of the black child explains to him that the warmth of God’s love is received equally by one and all.

Eagerly looking forward for another of your enlightening article.
Best Wishes.