PRIDE and PREJUDICE By: Khuswant Singh Panorama-Sunday NT- 2 Oct, 2005 WHAT DIS DISTRESSING IS THAT OUR PEOPLE CARRY THE LOAD OF PREJUDICES EVEN WHEN THEY LEAVE INDIA FOR GOOD AND SETTLE ABROAD. THEY STICK TO THEIR OWN RELIGIONS AND LINGUISTIC GROUPS, AND APART FROM PEOPLE OF THEIR HOST COUNTRY THEY MEET AT WORK, MAKE LITTLE EFFORT TO INTEGRATE WITH THEM.
There are no people in the world who harbour as much colour, race, religious and caste prejudices as we Indians. You have only to glance at matrimonial columns of our newspapers to see how they are divided into different religions, their sub-divisions, castes and sub-castes and how important a role they play in the choice of one's life partners. You will then understand why despite the teachings of our religious reformers from the time of Gautam Budha to Kabir, Nanak and Mahatma Gandhi, the over castes, particularly Dalits, continue to be subjected to discrimination and humiliation at the hands of people of upper castes. Much of the legislation we have enacted and reservations provided in the legislatures and services have made marginal differences because we as a whole have failed to purge ourselves of the toxin of urban prejudices. We saw an ugly manifestation of this phenomenon in the widespread violence that erupted in Haryana and Punjab. What is more distressing is that our people carry the load of prejudices even when they leave India for good and settle abroad. They stick to their own religions and linguistic groups, and apart from people of their host country they meet at work, make little effort to integrate with them. Though settled abroad, they arrange marriages for their boys and girls within their caste groupings - even their illicit liaisons are carried on with their own people whose nationality their readily accept. At the same time they are the loudest in protesting t hey are at the receiving end of racial discrimination. They are a lot of humbugs. I have met scores of English, American and Canadian friends who complained that they did their best to befriend Indian emigrants by inviting them home and taking them out for sightseeing. Their extended hand of friendship was rarely grasped. I also know scores of Indians who have become British, Canadian or American citizens who never bothered to befriend people amongst whom they have chosen to live. They were there PEYT KAY VAASTE - to fill their bellies, and get all the benefits the state provided. I remember running into a Sikh Jat woman employed as a cleaner of women's lavatories in London's Heath Row airport - a job she would never have done in Punjab. She had been living in England for over five years but could speak only a few sentences in English. She was homesick; so in her rest periods she sought out passengers she could converse with. We got talking. After she had spun out her tale of woe and slapping er forehead to emphasize her 'badkismat' - misfortune - having to do a dirty job, I asked her, "Mai, why don't you return home?" She was taken aback and replied : "BHAI SAHIB, ITTHEY VERY GOODAA LIBBING - here living is very good. COMMENTS: I remember reading in the newspapers about a trial case in a Court in England some years ago, where an elderly Indian gentleman was on trial. He couldn't speak a word of English. And the Judge being surprised, had asked him how he had managed this feat after having lived in the U.K. for as long as 20 years. No doubt, hate organizations have cropped up in the western countries against Indians, i.e DOT BUSTERS in New York, etc. It is a sad thing that Khuswant Singh has to write about this in these times. Perhaps the 200 year long British rule in India was not enough to make Indians integratable. And perhaps another 200 years or more of British rule was required in India to accomplish this feat, just like Goa did with the Portuguese for 450 years. Has anyone complaint about a Goan, whether he is a Hindu, Christian or a Muslim not being integratable?? Perhaps Goans are first Goans and then Indians. Perhaps they are Indians second - under compulsion? Perhaps Goans will call themselves 'Indian' first and then 'Goan' if the Indian Navy returned Dabolim Airport back in the hands of the Civilian Authority, to which it is clinging like a prize of the 1961 WAR, in which case it does not make Goa Liberated but Invaded? And perhaps, it was a bit premature for Bapuji, (Mahatma Gandhi) whose 136th birth anniversary we are celebrating today, to have acted in a bit of a haste sending the British packing and then wanting the British to accommodate Indians in Britain sans complaints. And perhaps, if he had to give another 250 years more time for the British in India, the integration would have been perfectly executed. Cheers Floriano, goasuraj
