Colour and prejudice

The Shilpa Shetty affair ought not to have become the cause celebre that it did. Indeed, she has retracted her charges of racism on the kind of television show that no one should watch but many do. This has made everyone look silly, not least the Government of India, which took up cudgels on her behalf. Fortunately, it had the good sense to let the minister for information and broadcasting do the posturing, rather than a minister from external affairs. That would have been truly foolish. The electronic media, of course, went ape but it can be excused because it is interested in ratings more than the news. What was odd, though, was the British prime minister-in-waiting, Gordon Brown, offering explanations to a news channel and saying that in Britain there were laws against racism. He should have focused on what he came to India for. The print media was not far behind. Three newspapers wrote lofty editorials about racism. In Patna some people burnt effigies of the woman who Shetty accused. Will they burn her effigy, now that she has said there was no racism? Some others took the logically untenable position that because some Indians were also racists, therefore no other Indian had any business to make a charge of racism against someone else.

Everyone missed the real issue, which is the quiet but pervasive racism that governments practise even as they preach the opposite. After all, people will be people and will have their prejudices "" class, race, sexual orientation, whatever category you can think of. An opinion poll in the UK found that 44 per cent of those surveyed said immigration had damaged Britain. But when the majority does not share that view, and something unacceptable happens, there is a cost "" as Channel Four found out when the sponsor of its TV show pulled out. The problem that the governments of other countries should pay attention to, therefore, lies not so much with individuals but with governments that play the prejudice game. The British government, for example, has a device called the Direct Airside Transit Visa. This visa is required if you are merely passing through any British port or airport. It is as obvious an instrument of discrimination as can be found, for a simple reason "" it applies overwhelmingly to coloured people, or 47 countries. Of course there are the exceptions that the British government can cite "" Macedonia, Moldova, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania. Its stated purpose is to ensure that undeserving people don't seek asylum and refuse to leave the UK. How it serves this purpose is far from clear. After all, even after obtaining this transit visa, a person can seek asylum. Amazingly, the visa requirement applies to those who hold a valid Schengen visa that is recognised in most of Europe, but not to those who hold a US, Australian, Canadian or New Zealand visa.

The British government is not alone in practising selective discrimination. Indian diplomats will tell you that in France, you are more likely to be stopped by policemen if you are coloured. In Germany, the police keep a more vigilant eye on coloured people. In Russia, there have been complaints of coloured students being harassed by the authorities, usually for a tip. In the US, a brown skin ensures special treatment at airports by the agencies of the state. But we have not seen the Government of India protest against the transit visa required by Britain. The point is that while it is futile to complain about individual prejudices, surely the government has a duty to protest against foreign governments' policies?