- #HGCREATORS
- #HGEXPLORE
- #HGVOICES
- #HGSHOP
- CAREERS
- ABOUT US
- CONTACT US
In a recent New Yorker article, journalist Raghu Karnad showed “how the world looks from inside the silver lining.” The thing about silver linings is that there is always an ‘other side’ to it – the other side that usually forms the whole but is always darker, so morose, so much hated or hateful that we are told to “look at the silver lining only.” The belly is round and full, the underbelly – darker, deeper, hated, ailing, born and meant to be hidden.
In a bid to explain one of Thomas Piketty’s quotes from his most recent book, Capital and Ideology (2019), the London Review of Books says, “... it is proof of ‘an essential truth: defining the meaning of inequality and justifying the position of the winners is a matter of vital importance.’” When juxtaposed with the aforementioned darker ‘other’, it becomes easier to comprehend that the darker ‘other’ mostly exists in inequality and that efforts are duly made to maintain that inequality so as to keep the silver lining silver enough.
Amidst one of the most excruciating pandemics the world has ever seen, the USA erupted in protest last week. The Guardian reports, “Not for half a century has the US seen such large protests – and never with a president whose response has been so callous.” Even at the risk of contracting the deadly Coronavirus, Americans of all races came together to reinforce that ‘Black lives matter’. Social media enabled global participation, and sympathetic and empathetic netizens all over the world started coming together, posting black squares and speaking in solidarity. Racists were called out. Defunding the police was suggested. In a first, major brands and celebrities (or their PR teams) made sure they had a statement put out in solidarity. Praxis and real-life execution of ‘Black lives matter’ or ‘All lives matter’, as a lot of people were found saying, has always been, well, debatable.
But, let’s shift the focus closer home for now.
Rajmohan Gandhi, in an article where he tried to conflate and compare the American and Indian modes of dissent, drew a stark contrast between the two towards the end saying, “If US streets are filled right now by hope-filled, justice-demanding young men and women of all races, India’s streets still seem to draw fear-filled and oft-hungry migrants.”
A little while ago, Homegrown had spoken to Deeksha about being a dark-skinned Brown woman in India. She said, “I’m Deeksha, a dark-skinned Punjabi girl from Haryana. Now that we have that out of the way, my skin colour was literally my only identification when I was a little girl. I was called everything from ‘kaali billi’, ‘kaalu mausi’ to plain ol’ ‘kallu’ - in school, at family gatherings, everywhere I’d go with my ‘dusky’ face. In every family gathering, my grand-aunts would huddle around my Mom, offering condolences (first) and recipes (second) before assuring her that with enough care, I’d look less like a ‘kaali billi’ very soon and she’d definitely find a ‘nice boy’ for me.”
Something else happened last week. As we were busy registering dissent against racial supremacy and police brutality, Mohammad Israil from Mehsi, Bihar was allegedly being thrashed and threatened for life by Hindu supremacists for not chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram!’
Even as we speak, 21-weeks pregnant Jamia Milia Islamia student Safoora Zargar is behind the bars for registering her dissent against the Citizenship Amendment Act. The Wire states, “the judge held that ‘there is prima facie evidence to show that there was a conspiracy to at least block the roads (chakka jam).’” The said judge also refused her bail plea on humanitarian grounds. It’s unfortunate that those recorded on camera as inciting the crowd with slogans targeting the so-called ‘traitors’ of the country are nowhere close to even being questioned. Dissent, on the other hand, is punishable.
‘Othering’ as an epistemological concept has existed since the times of Hegel. All the biggest philosophers have at least once fallen back on the concept, only to discover how different groups in different context have been continuously otherised.
As South Asians, we move with our colonial trauma. However, what’s still amazing is how we justify every single act of ‘othering’ just the way our colonial masters had justified imperialism once.
All these people we are talking about here form the aforementioned underbelly, the darker whole of the cloud we are told so vehemently to forget. And, we do. For a lot of us, our spectrum moves from ‘fair’ to ‘wrong’. India is, thus, a strange milieu of ‘others’. For every ‘right’, there is an ‘other’ who is inextricably wrong, dirty, lower than, not worthy of trust, anti-national, and as the Great Indian Lockdown has made it visible, easily dispensable. Most of the times, the ‘other’ looks like an imagined figurine inhabiting all or more characteristics the ‘fair’ or the ‘right’ assigns them. In its otherness, it becomes hateful. It’s justified to be worthy of all that it is subjected to. And so, during these times, being of the ‘wrong’ caste, the ‘wrong’ skin colour, the ‘wrong’ religion, the ‘wrong’ name, the ‘wrong’ gender, is dangerous. Fatal.
It is noteworthy how a good percentage of Brown South Asians, themselves victims of White supremacy, are racist towards the Black community. Colourism, which is closely associated with casteism and the mapping of the ‘lower caste’ to darker colours, is a natural by-product of the same.
Admittedly, who have learnt to outgrow these usually have caste privilege. While it’s incorrect to take away from an issue by conflating or comparing it with another, we need to internalise that we cannot be fighting against anti-Blackness without critically examining who we cast as the ‘other’. Without interrogating their own networks of complicity and privilege, South Asians merely put forward lip-service towards the cause.
So, what to do, you ask?
Unlearn. Educate yourself. Have meaningful conversations with fellow South Asians, particularly your family members about ‘the other’. Call them and yourself out when you find anyone ascribing to assumptions and judgements or justification rooting out of these imaginary constructs. In an Instagram post, Rega Jha pointed out that ‘kindness’ from ‘kin’ emerges out of a feeling of being nice to people you feel a sense of kinship or a sense of sameness with. Imagine a world without the ‘other’. Imagine a whole silver cloud, and not just one with a silver lining.
Let’s begin with kindness.
Feature Image: Anirban Ghosh
.
Find Anirban on Instagram here.
If you enjoyed this article we suggest you read:
