Accidental Blogger

A recent chance conversation with an Indian friend and Dean's comment on class and meritocracy, reminded me that although I have discussed racism in America and Europe on several occasions, I have probably never addressed the same issue vis-a-vis India in particular and Asia in general. Rampant racism, casteism, privilege by virtue of *high birth* and family connection is an unsavory fact of life in many parts of the world. In south Asia skin color plays a major role in determining social status, at least superficially.

It is not very well known that amidst the widely heterogeneous racial admixture that makes up the population of the Indian subcontinent, a tiny minority is of African descent. A couple of years ago, on his blog Amardeep Singh had written briefly about the Afro-Pakistani poet Noon Meem Danish. Amardeep's post contains a  link to an interesting account of the contrast between the modern Pakistani intelligentsia's political solidarity  with the distant continent of Africa and the sad plight of Pakistani citizens whose ancestors had been brought to the region as slaves from Africa centuries ago (scroll down to the last three paragraphs). The derogatory word for blacks in northern India and Pakistan is "Habshi." It packs a punch not quite as vicious as the N-word in the US, but the disdain built into the pejorative is unmistakable.

Faiz Muhammed Sheeddi and his organization have been in the forefront of advocating this community's causes. Indeed, the treatment of the sheeddis in Pakistan — an example of which is the murder in police custody of the Afro-Sindhi youth, Mashooq Sheeddi, in 1994 at the hands of the Hyderabad police — is reminiscent of racist police brutality against black youth in the US.

These communities closely follow events in Africa, and an example of both the interest and the identification is the fact that Faiz Muhammed Sheeddi and his fellow sheeddi tribesmen proudly say that Nelson Mandela has the same origins as themselves.

These currents of influence — sometimes paradoxical, even contradictory — between the continent of Africa and the region that is now Pakistan give the lie to the self-contained vision of the nation projected by the state. Instead, they bear witness to the histories of the wretched of the earth, and their struggles for solidarity. It is high time that the third world state began to reflect these histories and these realities of power, and took on again, with more seriousness than the last time, the project of solidarity.

I had left the following comment on Amardeep's post – a litany of casual observations describing what I had encountered as a young person growing up in a multi-ethnic society where color consciousness and judging people by physical attributes are ingrained.  Africans were not the only targets of derison.  

Two Indians of African descent that I was familiar with in childhood (although I only realized that fact when I was a bit older) was Siddhi, as he was commonly known, and Prakash. Siddhi was my father's favorite fishmonger who came to our home early every morning during the first ten years of my life bearing the *best catch of the day* for my father. He belonged to the Siddhi community of coastal Gujarat whose members trace their ancestry to Africa. Siddhi was dark skinned but looked not much different from many other Indians. Prakash, my uncle's motorcycle mechanic who too came to our home to do the repairs on the Royal Enfield, was a true blue African. A Kenyan by birth, he had been adopted in his infancy by a Punjabi couple in Nairobi who later moved to India when Prakash was a toddler. Well over 6' 3", he was an extremely handsome, gentle giant who spoke fluent Hindi and Punjabi. Given Prakash's size and build, I doubt that anyone called him a Habshi …. at least surely not to his face.

Habshi doesn't mean "slave" technically. It is derived from the word Abyssinian but does have a derogatory connotation in India and Pakistan. In my native language Bengali, I don't recall an equivalent word. But among my Hindi and Punjabi speaking friends, the word was common parlance. Some of my Punjabi friends' mothers would gently chide their fair complected daughters to stay out of the sun lest they start looking like "Habshis." And that extremely kinky hair that Narayan refers to, I have seen that trait mostly among dark complexioned Keralites and fair skinned Punjabis. 

By the time I was in college, (late sixties – early seventies) there were quite a few students from Africa in Delhi university. The way some students behaved with them was deplorable. They also found more difficulty in renting rooms around the university campus than other foreign students did. But then most foreign students (Thai, Arab, Indonesian, European) faced insulting conduct frequently. Even diasporic Indians from Fiji, east Africa, Mauritius etc. and genuine Indians from the northeast (Assam, Nagaland, Manipur), as also Tibetan and Sikkimese students faced rude behavior at the hands of local toughs. Most groups swallowed the insults and went about their business, sharing their discomfort with their more sympathetic Indian friends. Except the well built and fleet of foot, soccer & hockey playing Tibetan boys. I witnessed some truly blood curdling retributive justice meted out to those who made the mistake of calling them "Chinks."

The question of race is muddled and external appearances misleading but we just can't let go of it. South Asians are as obsessed with it as anyone else. Race being such an inexact category it is best not to make too much of it as James Watson has probably realized now.

Amardeep, please forgive me for two rapid links to self promotion. We have discussed the race / IQ / genetic trait controversy extensively at our blog. Please see what my co-blogger Anna wrote regarding something else Malcom Gladwell has said about IQ, this time Jewish IQ specifically.