Indians are hypocrites if they condemn racism in US and continue to discriminate on the basis of gender, colour and caste in their own country
On May 25, a White Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, pressed his knee into the neck of a Black man George Floyd as the latter begged that he could not breathe. The Black man ultimately died and the video of the murder by the man in uniform has gone viral on the internet, leading to widespread protests not just in the US but in Australia, Brazil and Canada, too. Indian celebrities and students too, condemned the racist US police force on social media. It is good that there is universal condemnation of this outrageous incident. But the question is what moral right do we Indians have to condemn racism or any kind of discrimination in any part of the world? Because we ourselves are racist to the core and discrimination of every kind thrives in our midst. We discriminate on the basis of colour, race, gender, religion, caste, region and even social class.
To quote from The Holy Bible: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” So how can we point at the West and shout “racism” and “discrimination” when caste discrimination and atrocities against Dalits, Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) continue unabated in India even today?
Even over seven decades after Independence, for a Dalit daring to fall in love with a non-Dalit is inviting a horrible death. Can we stop this infamy in our own country? Can we eat, play and live equally with every human we come across in India? The answer is a resounding “no.”
In America, if a Black man marries or has an affair with a White woman, it may be frowned upon by some racists but it is unlikely that the couple will be physically attacked. In India, if a Dalit boy marries or has an affair with a non-Dalit girl, the likelihood is that both will be killed by the girl’s relatives or her caste members who feel they have been “dishonoured.”
Articles 15, 16, 17, 23 and 29 of the Constitution, all of which serve as measures against both caste and racial discrimination, remain only on paper. We are still not able to abide by our Constitution which “guarantees” equality irrespective of caste, creed, colour and gender.
These racial prejudices that Indians have also take the form of colourism, which the number of “fairness” products available in the market testify to. Then we also have to contend with regionalism and gender discrimination which starts with the killing of the girl child in the womb itself.
The social stigma created in society to victimise a Dalit has never seen a full stop. The problem assumes an altogether different dimension when the institutions of law-governed societies themselves become a site of racism.
A few years ago an unelected all-male village council in India ordered a 23-year-old SC woman and her 15-year-old sister to be raped. The “sentence” was handed down as punishment after their brother eloped with a married non-SC woman. They had also ordered for the sisters to be paraded naked in the village with blackened faces. Nothing could justify this abhorrent punishment, humiliation and abuse of human rights of the innocent victims of hate.
Last year we witnessed the brutal death of 25-year-old Haresh Kumar Solanki, a SC who dared to fall in love with and marry a woman from the upper caste. Eight family members of his wife Urmila, who was two months pregnant, killed this man while a women’s helpline team was trying to negotiate with the father, Dasrath Singh Jhala, to send his daughter back to her husband’s home.
The brutal killing at Varmor village in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad district came six months after Haresh and Urmila got married against her family’s wishes. Even the police force, which is supposed to be neutral and fair to everyone, can no longer be trusted to enforce the law in a fair and just manner.
Because of this special nature of racism, which is experienced at every stage, from the initial prejudices and attacks to the police and hospital authorities, there is often no choice for the victims and their supporters but to mobilise and pressurise the authorities at every stage to come to a semblance of justice. People have to come and agitate in front of police stations, hospitals and courts.
Rohit Vemula’s death once again exposed the deep-seated caste discrimination in higher educational institutions — both among students and teachers.
Discrimination and atrocities are destroying our nation. If we cannot change the feudal mindsets of our own people, who commit such barbaric deeds against a section of our own countrymen/women, we surely have no face to protest and comment over such incidents of racism that happen globally. Attacks on Dalits are reportedly most common in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu (TN). In TN, Dalits have been attacked for not performing certain humiliating tasks in temples which they earlier traditionally performed. There are often clashes between Dalit and non-Dalit students in TN universities and colleges. Educated youth are surely expected to be more liberal minded, but it is often these who are found to be the most casteist.
If the youth of the country cannot be the change and cannot rise above this feudal mindset, then the future of the country is not very bright. We will continue to live in the dark ages till we don’t stop discriminating on the basis of colour, race, gender, religion, caste, region and social class
(Katju is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India and Kapadia is a Solicitor and Advocate-on-Record of the apex court)