Shobhaa’s Take: Non Resident Racist Indians

Perhaps my strong emotional response to the Ferguson case in distant St. Louis, Missouri, has a lot to do with the fact I spent a fortnight in America recently and came back with thousands of images exploding in my head.

Most were pleasant very pleasant. Some, not so. I was back on the West Coast after a fairly long break. The flight to Los Angeles seemed never-ending well, over 16 hours cooped up inside an airplane is almost as bad as being strapped into an MRI machine for 16 minutes, and equally claustrophobic.

The LAX airport looked most third-world (to be fair, massive construction is on to convert it into a swanky new terminal), and I smirked superciliously, remembering Mumbai’s glittering T2 and several other equally attractive, modern terminals across India.

The entire experience on arrival in the land of milk and honey was disheartening and gloomy (no porters, no trolleys, poor signage, total chaos), and the long drive to the hotel over shabby flyovers and dirty streets didn’t help the mood.

Later, much later, walking around the impossibly spread out city and talking to locals, it was pretty obvious that the great “Melting Pot” of the world was showing signs of strain and was in danger of boiling over.

As it happened when Michael Brown, an 18 year old unarmed African American teenager was shot dead by Darren Wilson, a white cop, who was later exonerated by a grand jury.

“I just did my job. I did what I was paid to do,” Wilson blandly told his interviewer on ABC News, further fuelling the wrath of protesters across the country.

At the time of writing, several cities across America are burning, in what threatens to be a major polarising moment in race relations uneasy and troubling at the best of times.

Flashpoints like the Ferguson case take place when society refuses to address ghastly truths about itself and pretends “all is well” when it damn well isn’t.

We, in India, are in exactly the same situation, and for the same reasons. We refuse to give our demon a name. In place of race we have religion.

Most Americans by and large remain indifferent to what’s going on in India. And I am talking about desi Americans, too.

Most are so frighteningly insular in their outlook, one wonders whether they have any other real interests and objectives beyond making money (the primary reason most of them immigrated to America more than 30 years ago).

Yes, they are vaguely curious about Narendra Modi and his government. But if you think the Madison Square Garden extravaganza impressed these folks, forget it.

They took pains to point out it was precision staged by well-heeled BJP supporters in America, who efficiently managed the gushy Indian media coverage of the hoopla.

According to the people I met, the average Joe didn’t know (nor care) that a Very Important Man from India had come to America and met President Obama.

What was a momentous, historic event for us back home, was apparently nothing more significant than a four-line reference in mainstream newspapers there.

In fact, the “Indian” person who is occupying the mind space of our deshbhais and behens far more is the Republican governor of Louisiana, Piyush Bobby Jindal (he also holds the post of vice-chairman of the Republican Governors’ Association), who is being described as the ultimate “dark horse” with a pretty good chance of clinching the presidential nomination, beating Hillary Clinton and the rest in the race to the White House. Eat that!

How does race touch “our” people in America? It is funny they remain suspended somewhere in between, neither idhar nor udhar.

I didn’t see any real intermingling whether with the whites or African Americans. If anything, Indians stick to other Indians, and largely mind their own business.

Their prosperity is evident and visible, more on the West Coast than elsewhere. These are the wealthy techies who have done spectacularly well in Silicon Valley and beyond.

They work hard, educate their kids at top schools, invest in decent homes… travel… and stay out of trouble. Like the other Asians. Perhaps, that’s the best way to survive and thrive.

Their kids feel American, eat American, live American, think American, dream American. Their idea of India is nebulous at best. And the only connect is via grandparents they may meet once in two years. Are they friends with white kids? Frankly, I can’t comment. I didn’t see much of it during my short stay.

How do the several Indian communities living in America respond to the Ferguson saga? Do they experience the same level of outrage as African Americans demonstrating on the streets? Clearly not.

But try asking them where their sympathies lie, and don’t be surprised if they defend the white cop, Darren Wilson. The thing is, we are as racist (if not more so) than anybody else.

Educated, successful, overseas Indians actually think they are white, not coloured even though that is the category they technically fit into, and that is how they are seen.

Personally speaking, going through the rather demeaning line of questioning by immigration officials, I wasn’t all that surprised to be asked a few really intrusive/offensive questions in tones that dripped sarcasm. Nor was I shocked to be searched and checked for “gunpowder and explosives”.

This is how it goes. Michael Brown paid for it with his life. Prejudice wears blinkers and sees what it wishes to.

Often, your only crime is the colour of your skin. Whether in America or India.

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