Do black lives matter in India?

The brutal murder of an African American man, George Floyd, by Officer Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis police department of the United States of America (USA), has led to a recent spate of protests across the country. The way the USA police state has retaliated to these protests has exposed the violence of its regime. The centrality of the USA that is thrust upon every discourse of this world has lead to an unintended positive result. The whole world is now concerned about #blacklivesmatter whereas it had failed to notice similar incidents in the past from Brazil, Colombia, Uganda, and other parts of the world forced to play second fiddle to the USA. We take this opportunity to examine the situation in our own backyard, India.

Fairness cream advertisement

In India we grow up with fairness cream advertisements in leading newspapers and on television. Usually these centre around a dark-skinned woman who makes herself fairer and thereby more "attractive" by applying the fairness cream. Often these advertisements portray a gradual paling of the woman's complexion to emphasise the effectiveness of the cream. The fair skinned woman or man is coveted in India, as most matrimonial advertisements reveal. How does such a colourism riddled society see and interact with the African diaspora? 

Matrimonial ads asking for fair-skinned spouses

Let us recall the conduct of the "father" of the Indian nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Educated in the English system of education, Gandhi inherited two traditions of racism. The first being the Indian tradition of racism manifested through the caste system. The colonial education imbibed in him the second, the European tradition of racism, which is more relevant here. As a practitioner of law in the racist heartlands of Rhodesian South Africa, Gandhi mimicked the English in identifying the native South African as dirty, repeatedly calling them kaffirs. Nevertheless Gandhi was seen as the poster-child of the voiceless all over the world with black emancipators like Dr. King and Nelson Mandela generously invoking Gandhi. Whether they were unaware of his innate racism or turned a blind eye in the name of praxis is a different discussion. However, things have changed since then. Voices across Africa have raised concerns about his racist remarks and refused the erection of his statues in university spaces. 

The attitudes of a vast majority of contemporary Indians towards African nationals mirror that of Gandhi. Africans nationals (mostly students) residing in India are often dehumanized as cannibals, and stereotyped as drug peddlers, pimps, or criminals. They are often at the receiving end of racial slurs like "kalu", "kala" (referring to the colour black), or "habshi" (a reference to the Ethiopian slaves of the Indo-Persian nobility). 

To be fair, this behaviour is so ingrained in us because of the environment around us that most of the time we don't notice everyday racism. For example in 2013, Mumbai FC’s Ghanaian forward Yusif Yakubu accused Mohunbagan fans of making monkey calls at him. This was particularly strange because the Bagan captain at that time was also a black man, Odafa Okolie, who the same fans have proudly carried on their shoulders. The football field is not unfamiliar to passionate abusive fans but these fans unknowingly went too far. The point is that we need learn what constitutes racism and then unlearn those tendencies latent in us.

Violence isn't only restricted to racial profiling. In 2014, the then law minister of Delhi, Somnath Bharti, led a vigilante raid in a South Delhi locality where he alleged that Africans were running a "drug and prostitution racket". During the raid, the minister forced an African woman to give urine sample in public. A Tanzanian woman was beaten, stripped, and her car set ablaze by a mob in Bangalore in 2016. In 2017, mobs in Greater Noida attacked several African students under the suspicion of cannibalism. Multiple students were wounded and had to be hospitalised.  

Former Law Minister of Delhi, Somnath Bharathi.
He launched a vigilante-styled raid on African students
and an African woman was forced to give a urine sample publicly.

As in other aspects so in racism, art imitates life: Bollywood has long history of blackface with Indian actors wearing blackface, sporting afros and exaggerated lips, acting beastly the whole nine yards. Another trope is fair-skinned actors who have had their skin darkened in order to play a particular role, especially when they are portraying characters from disadvantaged backgrounds. Recent films like Bala and Super 30 feature actors who have had their skin darkened in order to play a particular role. Even the Indian contemporary art scene isn't bereft of racist gazes directed towards the African diaspora in India.

Hrithik Roshan sported a Brownface in his Super 30 movie

The diaspora Indian community is equally invested in similar racist tendencies. Although they are themselves sometimes misidentified as Arab or black, they tend to assume a superiority over their black and Hispanic brothers. In 2018, noted Indian American computer scientist Rohit Parikh received flak for echoing Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and claiming that Hispanic immigrants are insufficiently educated compared to Indian immigrants. 

Such vitriolic racial profiling is commonplace
in diaspora message boards.

As the world mourns George Floyd, let us take this opportunity to introspect our own society's shortcomings with respect to racism.