Racism

Did Harbhajan Singh call Andrew Symonds a monkey or no??? The billion $$$ question may never be answered. We will never know whether he actually called him a 'monkey' or as he said said ' tere maa ki' which can well be (mis)heard as monkey, especially by other cultures that are not well versed with hindi words. That is not the point here though...the point is for far too long we have pretended that we are not racists...and sorry to say but I have to disagree. I think most Indians dont understand what race means and what racism is. We are far too enamoured by 'white' colour and so often unrealizingly we pass comments about people of other races which can be interpreted as being racist.

We make a big noise when our players get pulled up for things they said or did not say. What about telling our players to get their act straight when they are at fault. After the Sydney test marred with so much controversy, majority of the Australian public were of the opinion that the home team was at fault, that they did not play the game in the true spirit and that they had to take at least partial responsibility for the events that occured there. How many Indian people would have done the same had the Indian team done something similar?

It is pretty clear that there are a few characters in this Indian team that Symonds does not like. Sreesanth and harbhajan probably head that list. And Symonds I think was partly at fault for provoking Harbhajan and abusing him when all that Bhajji did was pat Symonds' team-mate on his back for bowling a good ball. Symonds' claim that a test match is not the place to be friends with opponents is clearly his own view and hopefully not all test cricketers believe that. But what followed is now history...I still maintain that Bhajji was wrong in getting Symmo's mother involved in their argument! I mean the poor lady was probably sitting home watching the game and wondering what did she do to get involved in this!

We have to admit, we are racists...it's a fact and the sooner we get rid of this the better it is. Ask any African students moving around the city and they will vouch for this fact. The problem lies in our thinking. We are so fascinated by the colour white that anything other than that becomes a joke for us. "Kallu/Kala/Bandar" may just be words to us but to other cultures they mean a lot more. These are serious racist remarks. The argument that we all originated from monkeys is really stupid. I mean fine we did, but seriously when you are calling someone a monkey it is said b'coz you want that person to feel bad. Clearly you are not thinking about human evolution when you are making a statement like that! Sure in a court of law that cant be proven but then how many guilty parties actually get punished in a court of law?

I will be the first one to say I had been one of the many people in India who was racist. Very often without thinking I had called many Sri Lankan cricketers "Ravan" or "Nariyal Pani wala"...and those comments were not made just for no reason. They were made in a derogatory manner. But since I have thankfully grown up and matured and hopefully wont pass any such comments in the future!

It's time to wake up and accept we are wrong....it's okay to be wrong, so long as you know how to correct those mistakes. Rarely is there a mistake that cannot be corrected. But for it to be corrected you first have to realize it's a mistake!