From skin colour to toilets: Racism never dies

Designer: Monika Pobog-Malinowska
Pic courtesy: Stepinsidedesign.com

All of us have been victims of racism, at least once in our lives. Those who believe racism is all about skin colour, caste, creed or country need to rethink.

I recently came across something I would describe as ‘toilet racism.’ I was told by an office manager not to use a particular wash room as it an exclusive toilet for the company’s directors. General staff and visitors must use the other one. I didn’t, but I wanted to ask ‘why’. Why should there be a different and an unclean toilet for the staff? I find this approach awfully cheap. It is probably just another gift of colonialism.

These precedents are plentiful in India. Though I have never been to the US, I believe these prejudices are less there. US companies operating in India testify my idea. One should go and check out AOL’s (America Online) Bangalore office. From the company’s top management to junior-most staff - all are treated in the same manner. They eat together in the same canteen, drink coffee from the same machine, travel in the same office bus and of course, use the same toilet.

We Indians take excessive pride in shallow things like job designation. We don’t envy or get inspired by each others skills; we envy our colleague’s designation. The more I try to keep myself away from corporate grading system, the more it follows me. My issue with grading system is that it brings disparity.

Will Wikileaks do any good to India?

Simply put, Indian politicians are shameless. We have had many such expose in the past, Tehelka being the foremost. But nothing has changed. Our political leaders suffer from 'denial syndrome' and will continue to do so.

Wikileaks' latest revelation that the Congress lined up money to bribe MPs to win the 2008 parliamentary trust vote has been outrightly denied by none other than the Prime Minister himself. A US diplomatic cable has claimed that an aide of Congress leader Satish Sharma showed a US Embassy employee "two chests containing cash" and said Rs 50-60 crore is ready for use as "pay-offs" to win the support of some MPs ahead of crucial vote of confidence in UPA government over the Indo-US nuke deal.

"I wish to make it clear that no one from the Congress party or the government indulged in any unlawful act during the trust vote in July 2008," the Prime Minister said. Now defending the Congress party is fine, but claiming that no body from the UPA government indulged in any unlawful act would draw criticism. When Mr Singh was not aware of what was cooking in the 2G scam, how could he be so sure about his allies in this case.

The Prime Minister has denied that bribe was paid while the Kishore Chandra Deo committee, which probed the cash- for- votes issue, had insisted that there was exchange of money.

Soon after this, a Wikileaks report accused the BJP leaders for adopting different stands in their public declarations and private conversations on the India-US nuclear deal. According to the cable, the BJP leadership had told US diplomats that its criticism of the US in public was to score 'easy political points' against the ruling UPA. As expected, the BJP straightway denied the allegation and demanded the cables to be probed. It is the same BJP that had previously demanded the Prime Minister's resignation on WikiLeaks revelation that the Congress bribed MPs to win the 2008 parliamentary trust vote.

Our politicians strongly believe in the logical fallacy 'two wrongs make a right'. In the next few days, we will continue to see spokespersons from both the Congress and the BJP, accusing each other of being guilty and questioning the evidential value of Wikileaks.