Are We a Bunch of Hypocrites

“CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER “Shilpa Shetty’s Biggest Hit till Date
Her agent says She is being considered for the Academy Award (I added that)

While the furore over the racist comments against Shilpa Shetty dies, amidst the so-called great victory of hers in the Celebrity Big Brother, we must pause and analyse the Indian Governments response. Rarely have we seen such swift action by India in taking up a important issue. Well Shilpa Shetty was racially abused .Fine!!! But what about the lakhs and millions of migrant laborers an skilled workers alike who bear the brunt of much worse racial and even physical abuse than Miss Shetty. The Indian Government tried to talk about the controversy with Mr. Gordon Brown, who was on an official visit to India. It is a pity that instead of discussing issues such as the Iraq fiasco, the nuclear supplier’s group problems and how to deal with Iran, we ended up discussing the sex appeal of Miss Shetty. History does provide us with great examples of the hypocrisy of our Government, our political class and indeed our people.

For that matter we take great pride in our Indian culture and Indian ethos and talking about women being a source of worship and reverence and give women the status of mother while on the other hand there is a case of molestation and sexual harassment in our capital , every two weeks. Most shocking of all, a girl is molested by 70 people on New Years Eve at the gateway of India and ironically, the girl gets the blame for wearing an alluring dress and tempting the men folks. To speak of statistics according to National Crime Reports Bureau, 154333 crimes against women were registered in 2004.Of these 18233 are rape, 58121 molestation and 10001 sexual harassment.

On one hand, we rejoice the elections of Mr. Jindal as a representative of the people of Louisiana and support his candidature for the gubernatorial post and hailed the rise of new India when Mahendra Choudhary is elected PM of FIJI, these very own people protest and called for nationwide strikes when Sonia Gandhi, was poised to become the Prime Minister of India. She being an Indian Citizen and also the undisputed leader of the single largest party in the elections had every right to stake her claim. But no!!!First she has to prove her Indian ness, said the Shiv Sena's and the BJPs and other so-called swadeshi and purely Indian groups. The BJP had accused Sonia of being a foreigner and therefore not fit to lead the country and, as the election campaign gathered momentum, the accusations deteriorated.

It was said that, even though she took Indian citizenship 21 years ago, Sonia did not see herself as Indian because:
(a) She continued to hold the deed (or at least part share) to her ancestral home in Italy – wasn’t that a terrible thing to do for someone who saw herself as Indian?
(b) Her favourite dish was pasta and her children spoke fluent Italian – weren’t these signs that she did not see herself as Indian?
Where is the patriotic and nationalistic feeling gone when a government allows systematic and state sponsored slaughter of hundreds an hundreds of Muslims and still has the guts to talk that the ruling party is dividing the country on communal lines.
The odd thing is that India has always prided itself on being an open and tolerant society. For years, it has opened itself up to the ‘foreigner’ and has welcomed and assimilated all kinds of ideas and change. Indian history is replete with foreigners who have made this country their home. Among the examples are Mother Teresa (no Indian held her to account for being a ‘foreigner’) and Annie Besant, who was, like Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Congress Party, and who well and truly dirtied her hands in the murky world of Indian politics.

Then, if we flip the picture and look at it differently, there are other realities. If we have not hesitated to claim foreigners as our own, we also have not quibbled much about ‘Indians’ who become foreigners. VS Naipaul is still seen as Indian, as is Amartya Sen – or are they exceptions because they won the Nobel Prize? Don’t we go Gung Ho over a certain Sunita Williams going to space and so on, when that person has not, in her entire life, been to India? She was an American until she went aboard the space shuttle and suddenly became The Favourite Daughter of India. So much so for Dual Citizenship.

Indians are in every single country in the world today. They are making their fortunes, fighting for their rights, and they want to be seen as citizens of the country they have made their home. There is a large number of middle class Indians whose life dream it is to acquire a Green Card and become American. How then can we castigate anyone who makes our country his or her home? We expect people to accept Indians to accept us as a integral and natural part of their society, while we ourselves refuse to do so. Now!!Aren't those glaring double standards.