Racism in India

Yesteraday evening, after a game of Risk II with Aditya and SKG(friends from IIML for those who do not know them), myself, PP and SKG got into a discussion on problems we find in general in India. After wandering and trashing communists, TATA's, Birla's and Pratiba Patil, we did come across an interesting and disturbing aspect. Indians are highly racist. Racist not in the conventional sense where you discriminate against based on race but racist in the sense where discrimnation is based not on your abilities/qualifications.

The first and obvious instance is matrimonies. 90% of matrimonies feature either caste or the widely prevalent, "wanted fair, beautiful bride". I have no clue how Indians get fascinated with fairness. Are dark people not beautiful? Will a dark-colored woman make marriage life difficult? Or do fair women result in lower electricity bill due to their radiating light all around them. But we have the gumption to go all around saying that Indians are discriminated against.

The other major racism instance is while dealing with people from Africa. In India, there is a strong belief that people from Africa are inferior, lazy and quite recently I came across this one, drug junkies. And all these beliefs based on the observation of a small number of students who come to study in our colleges. The students, who lack of knowledge and communication skills in English, are mistaken and mislabeled as being dumb. And as far as drug junkies, it is just bull.

We complain about the treatment given to Md Haneef, who we presume to be innocent. But are we willing to extend the same trust in the hundreds of people languishing in Indian jails who go on for years even without seeing a trial? What about those who are victims of street justice which the lot of hindi news channels show us? Our media doesn't get into frenzy about it. I do not find interviews of the victims in newspapers. I am not saying that what's happening wtih Haneef is right, but that what's happening in India is also wrong.

P.S: Just started reading the book fooled by randomness. Will certainly publish a review once I am done with it.