What Indian people think about the tourists?

blackbird

Yes mary10, you are right to say that caste issues go beyond family and marriage, and impact on the whole of society.

A big problem with getting rid of the caste system (or any system of inequality) is that nobody in the world wants to give up their privileges. So while it's possible for a few Dalits to achieve positions of power, on the other hand you won't get Brahmins queueing up to become itinerant roadbuilders. Therefore the majority of Dalits must remain oppressed to prevent those near the top of the system from the threat of downward mobility.

However for reasons of political correctness people will say that there is greater equality these days, because if they tell the truth that it's hardly changed, they may find that their children are no longer guaranteed a high status job and good salary......

I find Indians to be a lot more racist than British people are nowadays. This may partly be because Brits are less honest about their racism than they were, due to political correctness, but the kind of racism I've come across in India is everyday judgements and prejudgements, based on the idea that someone is intrinsically different according to how they look.

For example, an Indian friend said to me that he didn't want to go to England because everyone would call him a monkey, and was amazed when I told him that nobody would. Why did he think he would be called that? Because (a) that's what he was called at school because of his black skin and (b) that's just what he thought people are like -- having never left India he has clearly based this opinion on Indians.

The reason Indians are more racist is simply that the vast majority have no friends or acquaintances from other racial groups. A generation or two ago British people were the same -- so we are less racist not because we are essentially better people than anyone else, but because our circumstances have taught us not to be, especially for the millions who are familiar with multiracial schools and workplaces.

capt_mahajan

A small incident: In Southampton last year, I knocked down a Britisher in a group of 3 for a comment (made in passing to me on a pavement at around 6pm) which I won't repeat here...

Whether I was justified or not can be determined by the fact that the police asked me if I wanted to press charges.

Was this an isolated incident? Ask around.

__________________
When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don't see heaven, or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and human tragedy. -Heller, Catch-22

blackbird

Captain, nowhere did I say that racism does not exist in Britain any more. I know a great deal about it as a matter of fact. But based on my own experiences and what I have learnt from Indian friends, it is still far worse in India*.

For example, I know you don't, but the vast majority of young Indian men believe that all white women are up for sex the whole time. I have been told that most Indians believe that westerners don't wash. I could go on. This is all stuff I've learnt from Indians themselves. Even most British racists don't make such absurd generalisations about foreigners anymore.

* When I say "worse", I mean the racism in itself: the consequences may not be worse, because as rich westerners we are reasonably powerful and protected in India, compared to a poor immigrant just arrived in Britain.

Nick-H

I come accross a lot of prejudice against "Nigerians" --- that means blacks to a lot of people here in Chennai. On the other hand, my genuinely Nigerian friend had a great time here.

Krishna was dark (blue), Ram was dark... the gods came in all sorts of assorted colours. I don't know where you get this idea about pale-skinned gods as an archetype. Its wrong. But the is an obsession with fair skin, as any matrimonial column, and even the TV adds will show.

"They" love to converse with foreign women. A little too enthusiastically sometimes. But it is not seen as seemly or polite. There is no easy man-woman chatting in many parts of India.


Beach is Indian. Now, which part of India have you been to?


Just the kind of arrogance that gets us disliked.
Or maybe it's just the Western way with words --- or lack of it.

After a mere five weeks in India I returned to London to find myself wondering where all the beautiful women had gone! Surely they couldn't have turned into these pasty-pale creatures?

indiadreamer

I returned home wondering where in the world was everyone. The streets were empty, everyone was in their car or home with doors closed, behind gates. Everyone in boring colors. My own closet full of boring neutrals. Yet another time I returned home thinking how peaceful it was.

As far as racism goes, I have thought there was progress in the states in my lifetime only to find backward mobility as the positive changes that were fought for became devalued within 25 years. Change is not easy to bring about and holding onto it may be even more difficult. Racism is definitely alive and well everywhere I have traveled. Goodness and kindness is also alive and well everywhere I have traveled.

__________________
drmr

capt_mahajan

Err, kind of what I was trying to say, admittedly in a more convoluted way

Sama

exactly.

say what you will about "india is this way....", "america [or the west] is that way....", in my travels, whether in india or all across the united states (from ocean to ocean and from canada to mexico) people are basically the same all over, good and bad.

there are good and kind people everywhere, and idiots and morons everywhere. I grew up with white people who threw bricks at Martin Luther King when he marched through my neighborhood for open housing for blacks; I experienced racism myself when mexicans questioned my mexican husband as to why he married a white woman.

so discussions about which culture is more "racist" or not are pretty meaningless to me, because people are people in my book. My country has its history of slavery in the South, but at the same time that was going on, there were white people helping blacks escape to the North via the Underground Railroad. good is good, no matter the time or the place.

as for a caste system, EVERY culture and society from the beginning of time has had the "big people" and the "small people", as my rickshaw driver in Chennai referred to the haves and the have-nots. Unless this world evolves into a totally egalatarian Utopia, I doubt that it will change in the future.

__________________
MY INDIA, 2005-2010
"Once you have felt the Indian dust, you will never be free of it." (Rumer Godden, 1975)

blackbird

Everything you say there is true Yogagal, but on the other hand I see no harm in making comparisons between the way prejudice and discrimination works in different countries, and suggesting possible reasons for it.

Of course there are many different Indias... perhaps over a billion of them... and as we know different people have different experiences.

I'm happy to be corrected on this, but I don't know of any country in the world that has a more rigid and defined system of oppression and discrimination than the caste system, and I also believe it may be easier for British people to relate to the caste system because of our class system, which is something that all foreigners notice and remark on if they come to live in our country (in my experience).

capt_mahajan

Neither do I.

It was not intended to be oppressive initially, which doesnt help the folks it is oppressing today.

The British class system also got imported into India, making the caste/class combination here more deadly, since most of the benefits were/are with the 'higher' castes.

In any event, in terms of oppression, there is no comparison.. the Indian system is worse.

Are we too far offtopic?

blackbird

I don't know, but perhaps inevitably this discussion has become mainly "What do the tourists think of Indian people?"

indiadreamer

Sama

hmmmm....."caste", "color", and race were raised in post #2....THREE YEARS AGO!

tonylittle

For me they are the best in the world


Tony Little

capt_mahajan

Is that so? wow.

Well, at least we are consistent on indiamike

blackbird

Out of the countries I've visited, I would agree with you, no contest. But I expect some people who've been to southeast Asian countries might disagree.