Kala, chinky: Don’t be outraged, Tarun Vijay’s ‘racist’ remarks are Indian reality

How Tarun Vijay's comment on south Indians exposes large-scale prevalence of racism across India.

New Delhi, April 8: First, let us tell you all, calm down! Don't be so angry. If you really want to express your dissent, please speak on behalf of those poor Tamil Nadu farmers, who have been protesting at Jantar Mantar in the national capital for the last three weeks now.

Nobody seems to be outraged seeing those old men and women, wearing torn clothes, sitting under the blazing sky, demanding the Centre to waive off their loans, as they have lost their crops in the drought. But, the moment a former Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament with a 'patronising attitude' told a foreign television channel that 'we Indians are not racists as we have been living with black south Indians for long', all hell broke loose.

Once the interview of Tarun Vijay with Al Jazeera was out in the open, from social media to television channels, everyone looked like menacing bulls ready to attack anyone on their way. 'Poor' Vijay was actually trying to tell the world that we Indians are not racists in the wake of recent attacks on Africans in the National Capital Region.

While Nigeria has recently summoned Indian diplomat over spate of racist mob attacks, Indian government remained in denial mode. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told Parliament that attacks on Africans was not racial in nature.

So, fine, we accept it. The attacks on Africans are random. It is so random that Africans in Indians are frequently attacked and humiliated from Delhi to Bengaluru.

Instead of addressing the issue of safety of foreigners, we like to brush the matter under the carpet. Till now, we have been maintaining a stoic silence on attack on Africans, but the moment someone called our own south Indian brothers and sisters 'black', we decided, 'enough is enough, let us all raise our voices against racism.'

You call it racism, we call it Indian reality. In India, a south Indian, no matter whether he is from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka or Kerala, rest of Indians call him/her a 'Madrasi' and a 'black'.

Similarly, let us move a little away from mainland India, anyone from Northeast India--yes, the seven sisters consisting of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Nagaland (in the recent past the Centre decided to include Sikkim in the list of Northeast India)--is a 'chinky'.

The northeasterners are called 'chinky' because of their facial features. The natives of Northeast India don't sport big eyes like the rest of Indians, but that does not mean they lack vision. The eyes of northeasterners--often levelled as 'chinky'--are as beautiful as big kohl-decorated eyes of any Indian woman.

India's aversion to colour black and small eyes is nothing new. Have we ever seen a 'black' hero or a heroine in a movie? Hardly. Only in a few arthouse movies. If the actor is 'black' then he/she is a villain/vamp. When have we seen a girl from Northeast India as a heroine of a Bollywood flick? Never. The idea itself looks 'outrageous'. Till the time, we consider all as equals, irrespective of skin complexion or facial features, racism will remain.

Actually, we should be thankful to Vijay for bringing an issue out in the open which was in the closet for long. Otherwise, hardly anyone cares about attack against Africans in India.

OneIndia News