This is a post that I would rather not have written. It is one of those that is deeply uncomfortable and yet it must be written. Especially after the minor meltdown I had last week. Diepriye Kuku, an African American Phd Student at the Delhi School ofEconomics gives a searing and first hand account of the racism he faces daily in India in a piece entitled wincingly enough ” India is Racist, And Happy about it ” published in Outlook India. (link

Read it. Its horrifying.

Of course- as in any article on the racism of Indians- he mentions the fairness creams that are regularly advertised in India and the classified advertisements for the “gori” bride. There was a time when I would have treated those ads with the nudge-nudge- wink approach that I take to the all things connected with the desi mania for marriage. But lately I am horrified to think that this madness for fair skin, this equation of a light complexion with beauty is just a small symptom of the vast pool of roiling racism that exists everywhere in India and also in Indians.See this for example : there’s not much to choose between casteism and racism – two sides of the same coin.

Sadly, its not just faraway in the dusty lanes of Delhi that one can see this. It happens in our living rooms right here in the US. I have had desis tell me to my face that they would never ever agree to their sons marrying black women – but white Americans are ok. I have had to ask guests to not use the n-word because I don’t allow its use in my home. And every Hindu – centricdinner party invariably ends badly when in the course of some political discussion omeone says that Muslims are the cause of all the trouble in the world.

I despair of humankind. We are hurtling towards an inevitable annihilation that is going to start with small cracks and fissures based on our differences. Liberals vs democrats, browns vs blacks, blacks vs whites, feminists vs conservatives, upper castes vs lower castes, Hindus va Muslims, Immigrants vs Citizens . Sometimes I think that civilization is a thin veneer over what is ultimately savagery. We are tribal and cling to our tribes and exclude and spit on all others. The latest and sickening example of this tribalism was the defense of an admitted child rapist by the so-called liberal Hollywood elite ( link 1, link 2 )

In this rush to identify with our own and demonize the other, we are lurching towards a bitter end. I started feeling that way last year when I wrote this .Almost a year later , things are worse, infinitely worse.

Robert Frost knew this and that’s why he wrote:
“Some say the world will end in fire/Some say in ice/From what I’ve tasted of desire/I hold with those who favor fire/But if it had to perish twice/I think I know enough of hate/To know that for destruction ice /Is also great/And would suffice.”

There is no hope for us – absolutely no hope.

TAGS: None