Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Indians attacked in Australia: Aren't Indians racist?

News websites are rife with reports of ‘racist’ attack on Indian students in Australia. All reports are condemning the attack. Needless to say it is sad and uncalled for. Many have termed these as ‘communal attacks’ blatantly, while others have played them down by classifying as ‘opportunistic crimes’.

Suddenly everyone is asking / inquiring about hate crimes (if at all they are so)? Why are only Indians being attacked? And so on. Some say Indians are 'gobbling' jobs from other countries. Indian BPO/KPO etc have caused business losses to many firms aboard. Similarly, NRIs take prime positions in firms abroad. As a result there's lot of resentment in the native population.

OK May be. But what about the Indians?

Aren't we communal? Don't we look down upon folks who come from Bangladesh and mop floors in India? In fact just months ago Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) thrashed a handful of 'north-Indian's because these folks were making a living in Mumbai (which is supposedly in west-India). Wasn’t that communal?

Don't we classify ourselves in niche categories as north-Indian, Gujjus, north-east Indians, south-Indians, Brahmins, Mallus, Punjabis, Paharis and whoever. In fact this sense of identity (or pseudo-identity) is prevalent even in the most civilized circles of society.

I've heard people often say with pride, “hum logo mein to aisa nahin hota hai". (This doesn’t happen in our society)

Usually it cascades in the following order - I >>Me >> north-Indian >> Hindu >> Brahmin

Have heard people boasting about their castes and creeds often. Then how are we different from the assailants? Or how are people/groups like MNS different from the goons?

Aren’t we racist? Then why just pin-point a handful of Australians? Why make a hue and cry of this situation when we fall in the same category?

4 comments:

SA said...

Good take. It is even hard to see literates behave in a very similar fashion! People should understand that who ever you are, you are first a human!!

Wish this post shows some impact on these people.

Vikas Gupta said...

We are casteist, racist, communal, exploiters and whatnot. Infanticide, dowry deaths, child labour, riots, rape, murder, corruption, nepotism and whatnot. We are the baddest of them all. But we do not miss accusing others at the drop of a hat.

Good post.

Aravinda Prabhu said...

Two mistakes dont make one right. Well this has to be cleaned in India too.

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