Race to bottom

There8217;s no need for concerted national outrage over what undoubtedly seem to be racist jibes against an Indian actor participating in a British reality TV programme. Of course, the comments attributed to Shilpa Shetty8217;s fellow participants are distastefully crude. But if for a moment one set aside the prism of race, it would be clear that the TV programme in question is designed to bring out the worst in participants. It can be race, it can be class, it can be gender, it can be any marker, real or perceived, that excites the kind of human interaction that forms the basis of such television entertainment. That Ms Shetty happens to be Indian, that she happens to be a celebrity should not therefore automatically engender a pan-national narrative. Which is to say just as one doesn8217;t need to be an Indian to find the comments against Ms Shetty obnoxious, being an Indian doesn8217;t call for indulging in reflexive, overarching condemnation either.

It is also necessary to remember, since calls for strong censure have been heard, that such prejudiced drivel is best ignored rather than responded to in an official or officious manner. Free societies, like those in Britain and India, need to have a mature response towards unattractive public comments. Unless they are designed to incite direct physical harm, the more charmless of our fellow citizens should not be made grander by paying them undue attention.

Indian responses should also factor in our own record on prejudice. As our oped columnist notes, Indian middle and upper middle classes 8212; Ms Shetty8217;s foul-mouthed interlocutors seem to be working class Britons 8212; carry with them a bagful of social/ethnic/religious prejudices. If racism is a fact in many interactions in British society, prejudice is a quotidian reality of Indian social life. It is possible to argue, in fact, that Western societies have a better institutional mechanism to deal with prejudice, that the public space is more alert to bad behaviour and that one of the unfinished tasks of Indian institution building is to develop similar sensitivities. The Indian elite has to do some introspection about this every time it accuses 8212; no matter how strong the provocation 8212; the West of racist bias.