Racism is Rampant, I Was Just Lucky
by Shiralie Chaturvedi
I lived in New York for two years, and while one might say that I was still adequately cocooned, I was never subjected to even an iota of racism. I acknowledged the ignorance sometimes around me, but it never came with negative undertones. I realized soon enough that this was probably not the case for everyone, or for most.
Racism is rampant, I was just lucky.
As we recently saw what happened at the Emirates flight — a flight from Trivandrum to Dubai crash-landed, and in a moment of chaos during necessary evacuation people began lunging for their belongingness, thereby risking their and their co-passengers’ lives — and the racist tweets that followed — a mixture of angry flight attendants calling Indians a disgusting race, calling us rats, describing the plight they suffer when serving a bunch of Indians — I am not as enraged as I should have been.
Racism by extension is an intolerant behaviour we exhibit. We usually do so in moments of rage, panic, annoyance, or otherwise. Travelling in a congested metro, stuck in traffic for hours, encountering hostile people on a daily basis — so many of us mutter under our breaths words that are dismissive, disgusting, and rude.
On the other side, as Indians, we are terribly attached to belongings and material possession, because sadly, the amassed wealth is how we gauge anybody’s progression, success, and power.
Another point to note is the group involved and the country that they are visiting: Dubai is essentially Gurgaon (Gurugram), but for a far richer crowd. It is built for the nouveau riche, by the nouveau riche. Easy money, multinational corporations, a kind of spending culture that is opulent, ostentatious and truthfully obnoxious. People who throng Dubai from India are mostly from Kerala (these don’t include the ones who go there for a luxurious holiday). Nurses, labourers, etc. — a lot of them with their passports withheld by their Emirati bosses, some who might not go back home for years together. Of course they would panic about their bags, their laptops, their possessions. These are perhaps their only salvation. Should they have put their life in danger for this? No. But would they? Of course. And why are we surprised?
An analogy: when a young cuffed collar-spiked hair-brand whore-man whore man drives recklessly to show off his new shiny sports car, he is endangering his and his co-passengers’ lives, but he doesn’t care. Because we have forever been taught that a life without possessions is a worthless life.
Being called “rats” is reminiscent of the Holocaust. It is shameful and hurtful. But it is so deeply indoctrinated in our systems to lose our cool over the smallest things.
Instead, what we need to understand is how and why Indians behave how we do, and in turn how the world perceives us. Attributing this case to simply racism, and drawing full-fledged arcs to other anecdotes is pointless because it isn’t that streamlined.
Let’s ask this to ourselves: had we been the ones wanting to rush out of a burning plane, and there were people scrambling over their luggage, what would we be thinking or saying?
Shiralie Chaturvedi is most essentially a journalist, and most subtely a writer. She is currently involved with digital media for the channel NDTV Goodtimes
