In the past week, there has been a little drama unfolding across the pond, in Britain, involving an Indian movie star and a British reality show. Perhaps it is not such a small drama after all – it was covered by most major media outlets in the US (see here, here and here, among others). The media in India and Britain are all agog. The gist of the story is that Shilpa Shetty, a fairly well known Bollywood star became a participant in a TV show called Big Brother in the UK. The premise of the silly show is that participants are confined within a house, living cheek by jowl with total strangers. A camera records their every move round the clock and viewers get their jollies by watching how they get along with each other. The brouhaha involving Shetty and her British roommates erupted when some of the women in the house, led by a young woman called Jade Goody ganged up on the Indian movie star with what many viewers have characterized as racial animosity.
The matter gathered a national and international flavor when thousands of viewers in Britain complained to the TV station about the bullying and the visiting British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown was questioned by his Indian hosts. The content of the TV show came up for criticism in the British parliament and Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a statement condemning racial prejudice. Those who are not aware of this story, please check out the wall to wall report here and for added action, the video here. You can decide for yourself if Shilpa Shetty was the target of an out and out racist attack or just plain bitchiness by a nasty clique of women who in their resentment of a classier and a somewhat uppity woman, picked on her race as a convenient excuse. On second thoughts, that IS "out and out" racism. The important question is not what these particular women were caught doing on camera but whether that indeed is the pervasive mindset towards non-whites in Britain.
I was not aware of Shilpa Shetty until now. I have never seen her movies just as I had no knowledge of the English game show Big Brother. I had no intention of writing about this quite unsurprising, tasteless and rather trivial matter until Saturday morning, when I came across an article in the Guardian which examines British racism and which as an Indian born person, I am thoroughly educated about. Author Martin Jacques makes some pointed observations and I mostly agree. Among them, the following:
"The test of our behaviour, of how racist we are, is no longer what the white British think. That started to change with the self-awareness and growing confidence of our own ethnic minorities. But the matter does not end there. The test now, in this instance, is what Indians in India think, how they perceive us.
As Goody raged and railed against Shetty on Wednesday night’s TV broadcast, she was like a cornered animal, lashing out in every direction against something she clearly detested but also feared and felt threatened by. She was confronted not only with the Other, but a hugely self-confident Other. What could be worse? It was a metaphor for the world that is now rapidly taking shape before our very eyes."
However it isn’t so much Jacques’ above analysis of racism which intriqued me – all this makes common enough sense. Rather, the following two paragraphs caught my attention.
"Almost from the outset, Big Brother’s racism has had a new and novel dimension. Because Gordon Brown was in India at the time, and was asked about it during his trip, the issue immediately acquired an international dimension. In an earlier era, of course, this would have been dismissed as of no consequence: the natives could safely be ignored. But no longer. We saw this just a year ago in relation to the Danish cartoons and their ridicule of Islam. Europe used to ignore what the former colonial world felt. There was no feedback loop. But such was the reaction in the Islamic world that it could not be ignored. That, though, was in the context of the Muslim world which, in global terms, remains weak and marginalised.
Racial abuse of Indians is a very different matter. India is a rising giant; we can no longer afford to ignore, as we once did with impunity, the views and feelings of a country that represents one-fifth of humanity. We live in what increasingly looks like a global goldfish bowl where what we do at home will be seen by the rest of the world – and duly reacted to, in a way that cannot be ignored."
So, what is Jacques saying? That because of India’s increasing power in the global theater, it is no longer "prudent" to insult and abuse Indians? Is it okay to abuse Ethiopians, Hondurans or Kazakhs (and Muslims, even though some Muslims are Indians)? Is the rejection of racism a matter of global economy then … and not common decency? Funny. I would think that tailoring one’s behavior upon the awareness of the victim’s economic / political power (or the lack of it) is in itself a form of racism, albeit a "safer" one. And what about the caste/ regionalism based racism of Indians themselves? How much hue and cry is there against that in India or among Indians abroad? Not that one execrable behavior justifies another. But all similarly reprehensible social attitudes ought to be examined and condemned in the same breath.
Also, what is Shilpa Shetty, a good looking babe with star power at home doing in this unappetizing, third rate English TV show? Was this her idea of slumming? Or free publicity? Well, she fulfilled both dreams.
Accidental Blogger 
10 responses to “As Big Brother and Others See Us”
Interesting viewpoint of a Brit of Indian
origin
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And an interesting viewpoint from India.
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I just can’t watch television anymore. It’s too depressing. When I catch glimpses of shows like this I just feel like an anthropologist observing crazy people on another planet.Humans are confusing.
I’m looking forward to the presidents state of the union address, though. He always begins by saying, “The state of the union is strong”. I’m wondering if mocking laughter will be audible.
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Television is awful alright … but then I was never a fan. More specifically I just don’t see the huge appeal of this voyeuristic obsession with real life shows about other people as entertainment. Or for that matter, shows like Oprah where people come and spill their guts about their “inner lives”.
I am looking forward to Bush’s speech too. Let us see what other evil trick he has up his sleeve to scare us with. Here is an editorial cartoon which pretty much encapsulates what most people are feeling about the State of the Union under Bush. Also interesting will be Jim Webb’s rebuttal. Even though the party will rein him in, he is not a shrinking violet.
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“Was this her idea of slumming? Or free publicity?”
Well, I would say free publicity. I would also like to propose a hypothesis: Free publicity and viewer ship promotion were the motivation factors for the Big Brother show to put the ladies together, trigger an event and further, gain tremendous publicity.
Having said that, I am yet supportive in condemning the racial discrimination faced by Shilpa Shetty on the show. (That it made the show popular, is altogether immaterial). It brought to light the subtle prejudices that exist and cannot be denied. But we all know they exist. Is it right to not condone then, of course not. That would be meek surrender.
However, I was really glad to read the authors viewpoint about Indians as a force to reckon with. This is not to say we can racially abuse any other race or religion. But we also cannot deny the power of economy, public opinions and the press. Do not forget the press…. That is so worthy of creating news. (Not to be read as reporting)
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What a bizarre world! So many Indians and their free press/media have taken this as a personal affront, this stupidity of some uncouth British women against a “cultural ambassador” of India — a rich, middling Bollywood starlet with not enough brains to stay away from this trashy show. I wanna puke. If only these same Indians were a tenth as worked up by the debilitating prejudices and injustices in their own society! Reminds me of the Muslim protests against the Muhammad cartoon row in Denmark. That too nearly made me puke. Hey Scottie, where are you?
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Arbit:
You and I clearly see things a bit differently here.
The Shilpa Shetty incident was no doubt a racist one – I point out why. But it is really a matter for British Indians to get riled up about. And they did. They phoned, emailed their anger and displeasure to the TV station. What is important here is the power of the “British Indians” and they proved it. I would compare this to the George Allen / Macaca moment in the US when US Indians rightly felt outraged and expressed their anger (myself included) by writing to the Allen campaign and opening up our wallets for Webb. I was very glad to see the active response. Yes, the media helped but they could hardly help it, with the You Tube video playing over and over on the blogs. Also, George Allen was a US lawmaker in a position of power, not a contestant in a game show.
My irritation in the Shetty case is with the Indian government and Indians outside Britain getting so personally invested in such a ludicrous discussion, as if it is a personal affront to them. Shilpa’s life was not in danger. If it was, it would have been appropriate for the govt. of India to come to her rescue. It was rather moronic to ask Gordon Brown why Ms Jade Goody was being a nasty piece of work on a mindless game show.
That is why I brought up the Indian racism angle here because it felt so patently hypocritical to get one’s knickers in knots over this trivial issue.
Do you know where I would like the GOI to get involved? First in its own backyard regarding homegrown racism and oppression and then on the diplomatic front, in lodging official protests with the governments of UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait where hundreds of thousands of Indian migrant workers (both men of women) are routinely abused, their lives endangered and their human rights thoroughly violated. India knows this and keeps its mouth shut and eyes averted because of the remunerations these workers earn and send back home.
Yet there were no qualms about jumping into this debate involving a game show, a publicity seeking Bollywood actress and her tawdry housemates.
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Thanks, Shunya. Our comments must have crossed.
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For all the arguments and blogging done by us, the apologies rendered through the media by many, Shilpa Shetty as changed her stance. She now feels she is happy and that she takes back her argument of two days ago that the comments made by Jade against her were racial. It’s just that she dosen’t like the way Jade speaks !!!!
It’s unbelievable what all the bimbettes can do for free publicity ! Is there something like taking a stance. I was always of the opinion that this whole controversy was just an attempt to attract viewership for the TV show; that we all got sucked up by the sensitivity of the topic, was our problem. The lady in question is all happy again and back to applying bleach on her face !
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Thought u’d enjoy this one “being brown is being racist!” :)
http://content.msn.co.in/Contribute/Others/UCStory724.htm
I don’t think economic clout stops racism…it might result in jealousy which in turn leads to more racism?
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