I wonder if Harbhajan Singh knows the English proverb ‘a case of the pot calling the kettle black’. I ask because that’s the first thought that occurred to me when I read his tweets and heard his interviews criticising a Jet Airways pilot Bernd Hoesslin for allegedly calling an Indian passenger “you bloody Indian” and, reportedly, physically assaulting a lady and a disabled man.
The English aphorism raises the question, what gives you the right to criticise someone when you’ve been guilty of something similar? By equating the critic with the person being criticised, it suggests he’s no better. It also alludes to a certain hypocrisy or double standard.
The Monkeygate saga
In 2008, during a cricket tour of Australia, Harbhajan Singh was accused of calling Andrew Symonds a “monkey”. Even if not in Indian eyes, in Australian this is undoubtedly racist abuse. After a gap of several days, the Indian side claimed Singh had used a similar-sounding Punjabi swear word. The International Cricket Council (ICC) accepted this.
At the time, Sharad Pawar, who was president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, was quoted to have said that “if the charges are not dropped, the team would come back to India”. Many saw this as an attempt to blackmail the ICC into dropping charges. Mr. Pawar also said the Indian side would not accept new evidence against Singh.
Not only was Mr. Pawar roundly criticised for these two statements, it also led some to believe India was using its cricketing muscle and, perhaps, throwing its financial weight to rescue the player.
Justice John Hansen, who wrote the report that settled the matter, said that this had done “serious disservice to the game”. As The Hindu bluntly put it, Indian cricket “lost goodwill”.
That the Indian establishment would defend an erring cricket player is, I suppose, not surprising even if it’s regrettable. When cricketers are considered national ambassadors, this is bound to happen. But what was truly surprising, utterly wrong, and certainly inexplicable was Mr. Pawar’s insistence that “generally Hindustani racist kabhi nahin ho sakta (Indians can’t be racist).”
I’m sorry, but that’s simply not true. We are, sadly, amongst the most racist people in the world.
Living in denial
As a society we simply don’t understand how despicable racism is. Colour consciousness pervades our attitudes, determines our behaviour and has, possibly, become part of our tradition. We see nothing wrong in advertising for fair brides, calling our own citizens from the Northeast and south India names. When challenged, we claim we do not mean to be offensive, that it’s only light-hearted banter!
This, no doubt, is why our government refuses to recognise the repeated attacks on Africans as racism. Whilst the African Heads of Mission called the recent episode in Greater Noida “xenophobic and racial”, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson insisted it was “a criminal act triggered following the untimely death of a young student under suspicious circumstances”. Not only was the government in denial but, worse, it tried to create a link and, therefore, an explanation between the mysterious death of an Indian student and the appalling attack on innocent Africans.
Recently, when Indians in the U.S. were victims of racial assaults, we angrily questioned President Donald Trump’s silence whilst deprecating the rise of racist sentiment in that country. Shortly thereafter, when Africans were attacked in India, we refused to accept it was racism and few complained about the Prime Minister’s silence.
How conveniently we forget our own behaviour when we become victims of racism. Not for a moment am I defending the Jet Airways pilot. His alleged behaviour was indefensible and, if proven, must be strongly punished. But this is also a moment to raise questions about ourselves. Can we really complain about other people’s racism while continuing to be racist ourselves?
At the least it’s moral hypocrisy to complain about the mote in another’s eyes while blithely ignoring the beam in your own. This, in a nutshell, is my comment on Harbhajan Singh. Of course, he has the right to draw the Prime Minister’s attention to Bernd Hoesslin’s alleged behaviour. In fact, we all do. But does he have the moral standing to do so?
Karan Thapar is a veteran broadcast journalist.
