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Today the hottest news going round in the media is the insults meted
out to our actress Shilpa Shetty by her fellow inmates in the UK Reality show in the “Celebrity Big Brother” showed in Channel 4. Her house mates were allegedly called her dog, Paki, (I think she was called as Pakistani instead of Hindustani). Her inmates had also mocked at her way of talking Hinglsh instead of English and her table manners. Fortunately they had not mocked at her dress. May be she had dressed in European way instead of Hindustani way. Her Indian fans around the world felt insulted and started sending threatening emails to the channel. Immediately, our government had lodged a protest petition in the UK Embassy in India with a copy to the visiting British Chancellor of Exchequer personally by our Commerce Minister Kamal Nath. These abuses were given pet name “racism”. Millions of Indian working abroad and I bet each of the Indians in one way or the other faced these kinds of racist remarks from their employers. Did our government was not aware of this? Did our government at any time protest against these racist remarks? If every vote valuable to a politicians to come to power, they are supposed to look into this and accept this as a general problem of Indians as a whole and not a problem faced by a celebrity actress alone. Her tears had a mass appeal than the tears of millions of Indians working abroad and who were being taunted by citizens of other countries on daily basis. Earlier I had worked under one British boss in one of the Middle East countries. He had taunted me and insulted me on different occasions. He shouted me “you bloody Indian, you Indians are dogs, you are good for nothing but snake charming etc” I accepted all the abuses in grace because I went there for a living. Most of the Indians used to these kinds of taunting everyday. But for Shilpa Shetty this had become a very big issue and a government level protest was lodged at no given time. But the irony is that still the Indian government is not aware of the millions of Indians who are facing these kinds of insults every day. I don’t think the insults to Shilpa Shetty deserve more attention than millions of common citizens. Would our government do something towards this end? Shilpa Shetty thought of it, the show would give her substantial monetary benefits and fame and that’s why she had signed for the show. She would not have signed the contract at first if she was not aware of the clauses in the contract. If she got insults from other house mates, these insults were to be treated as personal directed to her alone and not to the country. She is an individual and a citizen of India and not Mother India. So I don’t think this was a racist remark at all. If you think these were racist remarks, then you should consider your other countrymen also who’s working abroad for monetary gain like Shilpa Shetty did. All these taunting and insults are not confined to only the British or Americans. Nearer home, it’s the order of the day. Many times my Maharashtrian friends taunted me “Madrassi” though I am an Indian like him; I came here in Mumbai for a living, so I accepted their taunting in grace. This is not a phenomenon in Maharashtra alone, wherever we go; the locals will leave no stone unturned to taunt you whenever they get an opportunity. When a Keralite goes to Tamil Nadu he will be called “Malabari”. If a Tamizhan goes to Kerala, he will be taunted as “Pandi”. If you think these insults are chauvinistic, then everybody is a racist and chauvinist. There’s no point in boiling your blood over a petty non issues. Just laugh it off, when some foreigner made comment against you. That will be best answer for him instead of going government level protest.
Published: January 18, 2007
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