|
Race….Not a Movie…. Harish Shah confronts the subject ethnic segregation and discrimination.
Usne Jo Kahaan, woh sabne sunaa, jo humne kahaan, woh kisne sunaa? These are words from the lyrics of a popular song recorded by Pakistani band Junoon. Similarly, many contemporary Desi artistes have expressed their angst against various injustices in our contemporary world through their art.
And in a divided race, sometimes by religion, sometimes by “caste” or sometimes by regional dialect, it is one common injustice that amazingly unites all Indians the world over; the injustice of ethnic discrimination.
Irregardless the discrimination amongst ourselves, to lesser or greater extent, wherever in the world outside the Indian Sub-continent where we subsist or call home, we do find the deck stacked against us, even this day and age.
Remember what happened to Mahendra Chaudhry’s administration at the hands of George Speight and his fellow terrorists? Have you seen the news about what is going on with the Indians in Malaysia lately? The neglect of ethnic Indians in Guyana, a country lead by an ethnically Indian dominated government?
The plight may not be as severe everywhere, bit you will find it anywhere. I went to a Primary school in Singapore that had an ethnic Indian Principal. I was seven years old and a teacher is asking me, of what race am I. When I tell her that I am an Indian, she asks me how come I don’t go to an Indian school. The year then was 1988. I hope things are different for the Indian kids in Singapore in the year 2008.
The question of my race has never left me though. It follows me everywhere I go in whatever I do. And no matter how far I come, as does the world around me, somewhere or another, someone or another, will ask; are you Indian?
I automatically earn myself a red flag, a demerit or a disqualifier when I apply for a job, go to a client for business on behalf of my company, attend a class or a workshop or a seminar. I go to a conference or convention, I am greeted differently, looked at differently, sometimes kept at a different distance. Why?
For the sake of my community and the larger humanity, I would like to think that the problem is me. It is just me and not a matter of my skin colour or race. And then I get one other person, two other persons, three other persons and more other persons reflecting the exact same experiences and expressing the exact same feelings. Guess what we all have in common? It’s the race. And I wonder.
Lakshmi Mittal has earned himself the recognition as the 2006 Person of the Year from The Financial Times, become the fifth richest man in the world building the largest steel empire. Kalpana Chawla has died for science in a space mission, attaining a sort of martyrdom for humanity as a whole to some degree. Amitabh Bachan was chosen by the people the world over as the greatest screen and stage artiste of the last millennium. So many of the world’s most successful corporations are headed today by ethnic Indians as CEOs. Sabeer Bhatia gave to the world the floating email. Our ancestors gave to the world the present form of numeric system and invented the zero which has brought the world to where it is today. And yet it matters and counts against us, that we are Indians. Why?
My best friends in my country are ethnic Chinese. Some of the people whom I respect the most are ethnic Chinese. I have a bond with my neighbours from childhood who were like second family to me and they are ethnic Malays. I am a HR Consultant by profession, by day (Journalism is something I do only by night) and my boss and owner of the company is Caucasian. I got my degree from an Australian University where I learnt from Academics of various ethnic roots traceable to all over the world and built friendships to live and die for with persons of every colour and creed. Ask my best friend Rob Appel from Netherlands. Point; Not everyone is racist. I am not a racist. There are racists however and I am a target, why?
Many of us live in denial. Some of us are just dismissive, that we should not care about those who think that way. It is a problem though, one that doesn’t seem to go away. One way or another, we’ve all lived through it and are living through it. Question; when does it stop? |