Whether it’s the violent attack carried out against students emigrating from Africa or labelling someone with pale skin as a foreign tourist, this city demonstrates ill-informed opinion consistently. Racial identification, in a reminiscent of caste or class identification, has become an omnipresent yet uncomfortable topic, rarely discussed at length in ‘polite company’.
Any implication of racial discrimination that may arise from racial profiling is attributed to social conditioning or a ‘no harm, no foul’ attitude. To what extent does this attitude rise from intersectionality of spatiality, economic accessibility, and historical precedents?
Racism can widely be defined as perceiving biological characteristics within societal hierarchies.
If that is so, how are these hierarchies formed? Are these categories constantly changing? Or are they a static product of post-colonialism (states living with the legacy of colonialism)?
Racial categories existed before colonialism, such as mleccha (non-Vedic residents) being used, way back in 600 BCE. However, it seems that racial identities have changed over time. Identities are constructed through processes of negotiation and discourses. (Nayar, 2006) Colonial forms of knowledge production influenced this trend of thought. For instance, is it truly a coincidence racial categories have similarities with regionally and spatially derived identities? Ask yourself, when you think of an individual from a particular area in India or elsewhere, do you think of a few biologically characteristic that can define them? Is there a particular skin tone that is linked to a geographical location? Isn’t it an incorrect and reductionist approach?
While attempting to subvert a projection my own failings in an attempt to create a better, albeit a generalized understanding of racism in India, I have reached the conclusion that it might be useful to list down some of my own blatant racist comments.
One of the earliest memories I have of being racist is when a cousin of mine was visiting India. While traveling, incidentally, she had acquired a significant tan, and I bluntly asked her, “Why have you become so dark?” I felt uncomfortable that I had such a thought, but it did not occur to me how offensive that particular remark could be, until 15 years later, in a similar context, I was asked the same question from a relative.
Another example of my disdainful racist attitude was when in a conversation about cultural differences, a Dane pointed out my ignorance by sarcastically commenting, “so you don’t think I am brown enough?”At that point, I didn’t know that he was of Arab descent or that it is possible for someone outside of South Asian descent to recognize themselves as brown. When I reflect on that conversation, I can draw the conclusion, that my understanding was based on the assumption that citizens of Nordic countries are most likely to be white.
In the past two decades, I have come across many members of the Indian diaspora and I used to find it quite annoying whenever they brought up the topic of being ‘confused’ about their identity or when few of them stated that they didn’t consider themselves ‘brown enough or white enough’. I would chalk it up to an apologist behavior, where members of developed countries would use their identity as a means to play the victim card. The maximum amount of sympathy they garnered was when they recounted their experience of discrimination at the hands of majoritarian communities, in this case, white citizens, not realizing that racist attitudes exist across racial spectrum and by equating privilege with a particular region, I was erasing racial identity, thus adding a tag of affluence with a race, associated with a particular region.
Underwhelmingly, the only politically correct solution I have arrived at is to avoid labels and allow an individual to define who they are, irrespective of what might be the instinctive categorization. This approach can certainly be perceived as passive and neglectful of decades of discrimination.
Of course, I’ve experienced racism as well, directly and indirectly, such as being called exotic or being subjected to a misguided attempt of locating my diction with my geographic origin. My first encounter with the idea of social hierarchy based on skin tone was in school. A couple of female friends had confided in me that they felt discriminated against on the account of the colour of their skin. My reaction was a mix of perplexity and outrage, why would someone be ill-treated on the basis of their skin colour? Doubts were put to rest when a countrywide backlash happened against the now infamous Fair and Lovely ad campaign. Clearly, a social hierarchy created on the basis of features is existing in our surroundings.
While it’s contested whether we are living in a post-colonial era, we are certainly living in the era of decolonization, which includes questioning the racial and evolutionary bases of power. In India, regions, and race are aligned. Categorization of identity is built around their presumed ‘unique’ conditions. However, a collective one takes away the sheer singularity of individual suffering and identity.
Essentially, violence can be carried out through the prism of a racist category but the pain is unique to an individual’s suffering. Certainly, reducing someone’s identity to a particular category is disdainful. Categorization might be a useful tool to understand the world around us, but it’s prudent to not let a particular impression limit our understanding. Let’s look beyond the cover, shall we?