Are Indians racist?

As proof of India8217;s obsession with colour, most people point to the preference in the marriage market for brides with a fair complexion. Indeed, the complexion of even the new-born girl child is scrutinised carefully by elders to see if the redness associated with birthwill give way to the fair complexion so beloved of most Indians. Woe betide any child who, in addition to having been born into the wrong gender, has committed the additional sin of being dark-complexioned.

It is perfectly true that the marriage market places a high premium on a fair complexion. Most advertisements insist on it and much more in terms of dowry and settlements are likely to be asked of a dark bride. Yet, does this fact, by itself, establish a racist bias in Indian society? Racism implies not merely a preference for, but a distinct bias and discrimination against a particular colour. It implies that a person of the less favoured colour is clearly inferior. The demand for a fair bride in a matrimonial advertisement does not meet the second test.

True, a fair bride will be preferred but this is only a reflection of the Indian idea of beauty. A fair complexion and not a White one is preferred to a dark complexion because for most Indians fair is beautiful. When one goes in for an arrangedmarriage and most marriages in India are still arranged, a fair bride is usually preferred only because few people will deliberately choose someone who does not conform to their idea of beauty as a life partner.

Besides, a fair complexion is not the only preference expressed in matrimonial advertisements. Some ask for educated partners, others for professionals, either settled abroad or likely to be posted there. Still others insist on a convent education. Yet one never heard anyone complain that the demand for an educated partner amounts to discrimination against the less educated or that an insistence on a certain domicile shows a bias against those with a different domicile. At a more trivial level, will the preference for a tall bride amount to discrimination against a short bride or the preference shown for a particular profession doctor, lawyer, engineer be construed as a vote of no confidence in other professions?

Thus, the matrimonial columns of most newspapers do not prove the existence ofracism in India. They only tell you what most Indians consider to be beautiful. So also when the birth of a fair girl child is met with rejoicing while her darker sister is the subject of adverse comment, the critics only echo the prevailing notions of good looks. Girls are asked to avoid playing in the sun, and creams that promise a fair complexion are likely to command a premium on the market. This has nothing to do with our perceptions of the intrinsic worth of the child. A dark child, for example, may be recognised as being more intelligent or talented than her fair sister and, in most families, would be given ample opportunities to develop her talents.

True racism would have meant that, regardless of their intrinsic worth, dark people would not be given their due in the market place. But no Indian employer will brush off a really talented person simply because he or she is dark. Whether at the time of recruitment or at the time of promotion, the bottom line in any well-managed concern is likely to beefficiency and not colour. It might help if you are closely related to the boss, or know his secrets, but you are unlikely to be recruited or promoted simply because you are fair and your competitor is dark.

What of the discrimination that Black African students face in Indian universities? It has been a long time since I left college so I find it difficult to speak with authority of what takes place now, but I do not remember discrimination against Black students being an issue in my day. There were quite a number of such students and, as in any group, some were popular and others were not. One of the popular ones even won an election in the student body.

I can8217;t recall any of them having an Indian girlfriend but, in those days, such a few of even Indian students had girlfriends that the indifferent performance of foreign students of any colour in that field was hardly noteworthy. Conservative parents and a traditional background inhibited the development of close relations between students of oppositesexes, but this problem was faced as much by Indian as by Africanstudents.

Yet, having argued that none of these things indicates that ours is a racist society, I am troubled about the existence of other things that do. There is little doubt that most Indians hold White persons in awe and tend to place them on a pedestal. About a Black, on the other hand, we tend to be a bit contemptuous and more than a bit patronising. Every time an Indian tells other Indians of his experience with robbing, mugging or pickpocketing, in the West, his listeners invariably presume that the culprit was a Black. Horror stories of how dangerous it is to go out at night in certain places because of the Black population are eagerly repeated by Indians who seem unaware, or unwilling to admit, that societal deprivation rather than racial predisposition causes certain areas to be more crime-prone than others.

The behaviour of British and German football fans in the recently concluded World Cup matches should have taught usdifferently, but most Indians would think of the Blacks as more criminally violent. Quite conceivably, this belief, rooted deeply in our racial psyche, can convince the management of a cafe that no good would come of allowing entry to Blacks. There is, however, no question that a British football hooligan would probably have been freely admitted to the same place simply because of the colour of his skin. Here is where one sees the disquieting and repulsive face of Indian racism.

The writer is chairman, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Mumbai