We all know that.......
We are racist towards people from our own country!
A guy from Mumbai hates a guy from Bihar for no reason.
North Indians discriminate against people from the North East.
When people from South India visit North Indian states, they are teased with words like “Mallu” and “Kaalu.”
If we see anyone with slightly oriental features, we call them ‘Chinkee.”
Women tourists in India fear for their safety, life and dignity. Their embassies have started advising them to exercise caution in “Racist and Sexist” India.
I guess it’s safe to conclude that most Indians are racists. We are racist to foreigners. We are racist to each other. And most importantly, we’re racist towards our own selves.
We’re so desperate about changing the world’s perceptions about India. We want to tell the world that we are modern, we are educated and we are rich. That we’re not a land of snake charmers anymore.
But the first thing we should do is look into ourselves and understand that the West’s perceptions will change only when we change our own perceptions about ourselves.
Comments (4 so far )
The only point on which I agree with you is that we are very desperate to change the perception of world about India and to show that we are very modern. But the route we are taking for that is wrong and lazy. It has become a sort of a fashion to belittle our country and it's citizens so that the writer can project himself/herself as intellectual and progressive. But in doing so they forget that people in India are ultimately humans too and humans all over the world are the same.
For example the things that you described about the north Indians and south Indians happens between the English and the Scottish people too though both of them belong to the great Britain. And furthermore it is not called racism at all, it is regionalism- Preferential or biased treatment on the basis of your region.
Racism is discrimination on the basis of your race- Caucasian, African, mongoloid, red indian etc. here people of one race refuse to work with people of another race, share food or water with them, avoid touching them. Majority of nursing staff of all the hospitals in Delhi and most of India is South Indian and Manipuri yet I have never heard of a north Indian patient refusing to be taken care of and being fed by them.
What we see in India is balent regionalism and a massive inferiority complex that compels us to proclaim our superiority by ridiculing everyone else.
It is not racism to the most extent but the media is hell bent to call it that, maybe because it sounds cool in the international circles or maybe because they are just lazy and avoid to examine the problem.
I just hope that you don't follow them blindly and form your own opinions sensibly.