Racism and India

Of recently there has been a lot of news on racist attacks on Indians in Australia and there has been a lot of hue and cry over the racism by the Australians. The impact has gone to the tune that there has been a demand by certain influential leader against participation of Australian Players in IPL3.

I was aghast to actually see the reaction going this far and that sent me on an introspection of Indian Societies ties with Racism. I was astonished at the result that was in front of me when I sought answer to the question - Are We the Indians Racist? The answer was a BIG YES. YES we are racists, racists of highest order. Racist to the tune of being mad after Fair Color. Why, you don't agree??? Well check this out -

1. The first criteria for marriage in so called decent and well to do families (सभ्रांत परिवार as we call them in Hindi) - The girl needs to be fair (लड़की गोरी होनी चाहिए)
2. Girls are mad after fairness creams - they want to look fair to look attractive and as if that was not enough, now there are fairness cream for men too....funny
3. We are mad for Whites and we consider Blacks below dignity
4. Our influential political leaders make their bread and butter on the name of Religion, Caste, Creed and Race.
5. What happened in Mumbai for the way it has been publicized tht Mumbai is for Marathi Manus (Marathi People) is one of the biggest example of racism
6. The issue of Telangana is another clear sight of Racism, though there are other issues involved in it

The list may run endless as there are many such cases that can be highlighted across the Indian Society.

I mean it is seriously a BIG Joke when I see this hue and cry on Racism and our political leaders speak so loud about the way we need to react to the issue of Racism. However, in my opinion, the first and foremost thing to be tackled is to change the mindset of general public (the aam janta or the Mango People) towards the way they practice Racism in their daily lives.

I mean the two really Wonderful examples of tackling Racism is - Oprah Winfrey - Tommy Hilfiger case and the British Airways Case. In the former case, Oprah Winfrey openly asked Tommy Hilfiger about his racist comment on designing cloths for whites and not for the blacks, asians etc, to which he said yes he did make that remark and Oprah Winfrey told him to leave her show immediately. In the case of British Airways, a White Woman created hue and cry to be seated next to a Black Man, to which the reaction by the Crew was to shift the Black Man to First Class stating that it was ridiculous that he is seated to someone so ridiculous.

When today I am writing this post, the old saying "दिया तले अँधियारा" (Its always Dark Below the Lamp) is echoing in my mind. Yes - before making hue and cry and before Reacting to any racism stuff, we need to look at ourselves and we need to first change ourselves...else I don't think we have any right to call others as racism