Delhi and Racism

Delhi and racism don’t seem to be immediately connected. At least, I never really saw the connection until I encountered Diepiriye’s fascinating youtube videos (look them up, if you like). I can’t say I took his videos too seriously at first but they did lead me to observe things.
The first observation was not one I made in Delhi. It was a little incident that happened back at college. I was coming back to my dorm from the lounge I study in around 4 am, around finals time. The (African-American) guard at the entrance desk looked really tired, so I just decided to say hello and engage in conversation. After a while, he asked me if I were Sri Lankan. I replied, no, I am Indian. To which he said that he was surprised because Indians were usually not friendly at all. Now I don’t if that reflects on our race consciousness or on our class consciousness, but whatever it is, does not reflect well on our society.
The next was on the very first day after coming back to Delhi. My grandparents wanted to talk to me about America and they were eager to share their experiences from the early nineties as well. They asked me if I had encountered any racism and I said, no, not really (because they obviously expected me to encounter obvious racism?) Then talk somehow turned to crime in DC and how New York City is so unsafe and my grandmother said something about all the Negroes cause all the trouble there. That’s probably not a very different attitude than that of several Americans but it’s still disturbing to hear something of the sort coming from a family member I had always thought was very intelligent and open-minded. I think I must have made one of my usual justifications and got that out of the way somehow. Then, yesterday, again, my grandmother asked me if I had any black sahelis (Hindi equivalent of amigas/amies/friend(f)). Now, I don’t think I actually have any female friends of African origin but I do have male ones so I nodded anyway. Then she had the gall to ask me, “So what is their IQ like? Can they do well in their classes?” Oh my gosh! This was just unbelievable. Thankfully my grandfather quickly jumped in and asked her to not generalize in such a manner.
So, there end the actual observed events. Now for some commentary.
Indians have a definite post-colonial hang-up and that is something most Indians would admit, some readily, some with more shame. We, as a people (though really, I think I mean North Indians, rather than Indians in general), are obsessed with white skin (and as a corollary, fairness) and consider white skinned Caucasians superior to all others (don’t believe me? Come watch Indians fawning over any, and I mean any, fair-skinned person). This could be explained as a remnant of our colonial past, when Indians were made to feel strongly inferior to their British administrators, but I somehow doubt that theory. Anyhow, I am not a sociologist so I don’t have an explanation for our worship of white skin.
Not unrelatedly, Indians can be the most virulently racist of any other people towards people of African origin. A close friend’s father, who was a post-doctoral fellow at Duke University in the 90s, spoke of how his Indian colleagues refused to sit next to or even speak to African-Americans. It is easy to imagine how alienated and unwelcome any person of African origin (no matter what country s/he is a citizen of) would feel in this city.
A group that frequently encounters rampant racism in this city are the people from the North-East of the country. The fact that their racial and ethnic heritage differs from that of the North Indians (most of whom would not hesitate to tell you that they are Aryans) apparently makes them fair game for racial slurs of all sorts. Insults like “chinky” are liberally thrown around in every direction.
Another unfortunate aspect of this is that North Indian men (who are really not well known for their woman-respecting ways) tend to view white women and Northeastern women as “easy”. This, of course, means that these women have to suffer even more sexual harassment than your average Delhi girl (exceeding which, in itself, is a considerable feat).
Now, most Indians will not be willing to acknowledge that they are racist. They will however be willing to say stuff like my grandmother did and think that it is the gospel truth. Indians certainly have strong regionalist tendencies (Punjabi vs. Mallu vs. “Madrasi” vs. Marathi), and I think everybody that knows anything about India knows about casteism. To this delightful mix, I think we can safely add racism as well.
Naturally, different forms of exclusion and discrimination are not unique to North Indian society, but where we take everything several steps ahead is in our hypocrisy when it comes to facing the truth (seriously, go read the comments on Diepiriye’s videos). Oh well. I’ll write on Delhi-ites and their great powers of self-delusion later.