The (un)intentionally offensive Indian?
Raju Narisetti -
Thursday, December 04, 2008 1:19 PM
There has been a lot of renewed debate in India this past week about Muslims, Hindus, Pakistanis, “true” Muslims, Jews, Americans and Islamists, as India and Indians come to terms with the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. It is only natural that issues of race, religion, ethnicity and skin-color, all of which are deeply rooted in the Indian psyche, bubble up to the surface at difficult and emotional times like this.
But two disparate “conversations” this past week also brought home to the Romantic Realist how even the most well meaning--and often highly educated--people speak and act, out of maybe ignorance or sheer hubris, in ways that are troubling, to say the least.
Specimen 1: Just days after the terrorists struck and fingers started pointing to Pakistan’s involvement, a childhood friend from Chennai, prone to sending group emails about jokes or very weighty issues such as national security, sent a missive that was essentially a thought provoking article written by Mohsin Hamid, the Pakistani British author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which had appeared in the UK's Guardian and carried by several other papers including the Dawn. Hamid’s piece was an eloquent appeal to not look at each other in “divisive anger” but realize that India and Pakistan are actually united in a “shared sorrow” and their efforts to fight extremism will "founder if fought alone." (Read Hamid's essay here)
There was just one problem with the email. This friend, an IIM Bangalore alumna who is in the people business, having run a very successful Chennai-based recruiting firm, and has among the sweetest dispositions of any of my small circle of friends, titled the email: “India and Pakistan are bound by sorrows - A Paki view” And she lost me. Rather than ruminate over Hamid’s intelligent essay, my troubled mind went off on a tangent, pondering issues that have now culminated in this blog post. For those of you—like my friend, I suspect there will be a few if not a lot of you—wondering what the fuss is all about, here is what the style book of SAJA (the New York-based South Asian Journalists Association) says about “Paki” in what is an attempt by the largely Indian group to educate the West about what not to call the people of Pakistan: “Paki-- A derogatory slang word for people of Pakistani origin. Is the South Asian equivalent of "Jap" or the "N word." Do not use under any circumstances. If you are quoting someone saying this, be sure to treat the word with the same caution you would treat "Jap." Used often in England as a racial epithet against South Asians in general (especially by skinheads). From LondonSlang.com: "paki - a derogatory term used to describe anyone who looks vaguely Asian even though it is an abbreviation for Pakistani." Some people mistakenly use it as a shorthand way of saying "Pakistani." Egregious Examples: A headline in the New York Post (June 17, 1999): "India: Pakis Killed POWs." President George W. Bush at a press conference (Jan. 7, 2002): "And we are working hard to convince both the Indians and the Pakis there's a way to deal with their problems without going to war." The official White House reaction within hours: "The president has great respect for Pakistan, the Pakistani people, and the Pakistani culture. Pakistan has been a strong member of the international coalition in the war against terrorism and that he meant no disrespect with the word."
You can also read the Wiki entry on “Paki” here.
Specimen 2: A senior executive of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, the large Indian drug company that is now majority owned by Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo Co, is introduced to me at the Clinton Global Initiative’s Asia meeting this past week. He is someone I have exchanged emails with in my nearly three years in India but had never met. As we exchange business cards, I make small talk noting that I am surprised even the card hasn’t changed since the November completion of the $4.3 billion acquisition by Daiichi. His response: “Raju, you know the Japs. The Japs don’t do anything quickly.” Then he went on to explain it is mostly business as usual at Ranbaxy anyway under the new owners.
The rest of the conversation, him nursing a whisky and soda, and me sipping a glass of bubbly, is a bit of a blur because I kept thinking that while Daiichi may own Ranbaxy, it has a long, long, long way to go to before changing hearts, and thoughts and stereotypes at its Indian entity. By the way, “practice dignity” is still one of Ranbaxy’s 7 core corporate Values.
Again, for those of you wondering what the fuss is all about, here is what Wikipedia has to say about the use of Jap(s):
“Jap is an English abbreviation of the word Japanese. Today it is regarded as an ethnic slur, though English-speaking countries differ in the degree they consider the term offensive… In the past, Jap was not considered primarily offensive; however, after the events of World War II, the term became derogatory.”
(Read the fully Wikipedia entry here or the other problematic use of the word, this time involving Jewish-American women here)
In India, it is somewhat fashionable, at least among intellectuals, to quickly agree that Indians are racists and but then go to explain at great length why certain acts that seem overtly racist to non-Indians are really, really not so. Such conversations happen frequently for this Romantic Realist, who can claim some personal experience with matters involving race, about small and big acts of racism in India, often as attempts at explaining away this behavior as anything but racist. One only has to read Vir Sanghvi’s argument along these lines, made in his Pursuits column for Mint’s weekend magazine Lounge, following the Australia-India cricket controversy involving Harbajan Singh and Andrew Symonds about the use of monkey and monkey man, to realize how widespread this view is.(Read that particular column here)
I am not saying India is either more or less racist than many countries, including the two I have lived in for many years. That some Blacks feel free to use nigger for one another or that second or third-generation British Pakistanis have reclaimed Paki doesn't make such words acceptable for others to use them so blithely.
So, this week’s two “conversations” remind me why those in Indian glass houses ought not to throw stones with the practiced ease with which they often do when it comes to race, ethnicity and religion. And, when it comes to racism and ethnic slurs, ignorance isn’t a convenient back door to this house they choose to live in.
Ps: By way of full disclosure, I am a life member of SAJA.