Ms.
Shilpa Shetty And Her Sisters
Of A Lesser God
By Ramesh Kamble
14 March, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The
issue racism in the Celebrity Big Brother show on Channel Four created
uproar in media world over. The insulting and racist treatment given
to Indian film actress Shilpa Shetty by her co celebrities on the show
once again raised the concern over racism in the western world. Some
members of British Parliament, even Prime Minister Tony Blair, viewed
the events with serious concern. The organisers of the show received
thousands of letters by the British people that condemned the growing
intolerance in what is essentially multicultural Britain. Back home
in India Ms. Shetty’s experiences of harassment--fellow celebrities
calling her as “the Paki”, raising questions about her language
competence, and suggesting that she should “go back to the slums”—were
seen very seriously. Both the vocal Indians and important people in
the government felt angry and insulted. Minister of State for Foreign
Affairs and the Commerce Minister took serious note of the incidence
and promised to take appropriate measures. This was perhaps understandable.
When India is emerging as a growing world power in knowledge economy,
when India is shining with ever-rising growth rates, how can Indians
be treated in this manner? Thus, with massive publicity through electronic
and print media, Ms. Shetty became a symbol of wounded Indian pride.
Of course, at the end of
the day everything came to be alright. Ms. Shetty turned out to be the
winner of the much-hyped show. With million pounds, and many more to
come in terms of future contracts, she occupied prominent position among
the rich and famous in the world. And so was the recognition in otherwise
serious business of politics too. Members of the British parliament,
including the Prime Minister Tony Blair, received her with honour in
the corridors of power. Back home the BJP, the right wing nationalist
party, was quick to invite the celebrity to its band of stars. On her
part, Ms. Shetty had forgiven her colleagues for racist remarks, rather
had declared that, no, she was not subjected any racist discrimination.
And so, everything was alright at the end of day, much like the fairy
tale of the wronged Cinderella turning out to be the winning princess.
Indeed with Shetty’s
harassed face, her appealing, pleading gestures to be treated respectfully,
and eventual smile after winning of the show title with the usual—Oh,
I cannot believe this—expression of frenzied emotions, made us
Indians feel both disturbed and proud. And yet amidst this ‘reality
show’ drama, and the frenzied celebrations that followed, we the
fellow humans blissfully ignored the real reality of the oppression
and discrimination millions of Ms. Shetty’s sisters (one does
not know whether she considers them as her sisters, or is even bothered
about them) who are discriminated, harassed, insulted, cheated, being
robbed of dignity by being stripped and paraded naked through the village
streets, gang raped and many a times killed as matter of everyday life
reality in India.
Indeed we are the nation
of contradictions. Some might like to call it ‘diversity’.
Yes we celebrate success of Indian women or women of Indian origin abroad
both in the world of glamour and in the hard world of business and science.
And yet we are the society that kills its women even before they are
born. The Nobel Prize winner in economics Professor Amartya Sen (of
whom we are so proud too) has brought to fore the disturbing issue of
what he referred to as ‘missing’ women in India. The practice
of female infanticide has become a common reality, more so in the developed
regions of India. Thus India’s image as growing world power co-exists,
conveniently, with its ever-growing record of murder of girl children
before they are even born. Not to mention the female child mortality
and subsequent neglect of girl child, which kill them if they ‘miss’
the killers nets.
A large number of women in
India are toiling for bare minimum survival. They do not have ‘luxury’
to be subjugated, subordinated only by the patriarchal home. They experience
discrimination and oppression both inside the private domain of home
and in the outside world dominated by ideologies of patriarchy, caste
and class. They are discriminated, wounded and harassed when they work
as rag pickers in ever expanding cities, as maid servants in households
of “respectable” men, as migrant construction workers who
contribute to making of evermore glittering happening cities, and as
agricultural labourers in farms of dominant landowning masters. These
locations are structures of crude exploitation and of multiple violence—insult,
physical and sexual abuse and harassment. Yet they do not become ‘global’
face of our wounded nationhood. Nor do they become centre of discussions
on discrimination and harassment at work places, which being discussed
and debated in many seminars and workshops frequently organized by the
concerned activists, academics and policy formulators.
It is the lower caste women in India, the Dalit women, who have been
and are victims of worst forms of insults and discrimination, have been
subjected to most inhuman forms of torture and oppression and exploitation.
Their lives are marred by multiple structures of oppression emanating
from caste, class and gender. Just to site the government’s sources,
in the year 2005 Dalit women suffered 1172 cases of rape at the hands
of dominant castes. There were 3847 cases of hurt and 669 cases of murder
(National Crime Record Bureau, Ministry of Home, Page-297). Of course,
despite the most stringent laws very few cases of atrocities get registered.
The structures of power and dominance work in many ways. Either police
do not register the cases or under the influence of the dominant groups
reduce the severity of the crimes, leading to easy acquittal of the
culprits. Hence, many cases do not actually come to fore. Or even if
they get registered and were to see the courts, the acquittal rates,
because of the lack of ‘adequate evidence’, are very high.
What is more, these women live are under the perennial fear of violence
and torture, and they are always at risk if they try to assert their
humanity and dignity. The insults, discrimination, harassment they suffer
are matters of everyday life. This harassment is not only overlooked
but also taken for granted by respected Indians who get agitated over
Shetty’s pained face or feel elated when she bags riches and fame.
Thus, the uproar about Shetty’s case does not help in making these
women’s lives, violence and discrimination they suffer in their
lives, visible to both vocal Indians and those in the government. Let
me illustrate this with a recent case of gruesome murders of a Dalit
woman and her three children by mob of caste Hindus.
On 29th September 2006, in
village Khairlanji, district Bhandara of the Maharashtra State of India,
Surekha Bhotmange, along with her teenage daughter Priyanka and sons,
Sudhir and Roshan were brutally murdered by the caste Hindus in the
village. Surekha and her daughter were parading naked throughout the
village and gang raped before being killed in broad daylight. This incidence
came to light only after a month, when Dalit (lower castes) organizations
protested about the apathy and serious intentional neglect of the local
administration. Even the media, which has proliferated in India with
globalisation and market, took note of the incident only after Dalit
protested against the state administration. But despite Dalit protests,
both the state and civil society actors viewed this brutal atrocity
as Dalits’ problem. Though both the electronic and print media
subsequently repeatedly discussed the case (and now it has disappeared
from media), it was growing Dalit dissent and not the gross violation
of right to live and life with dignity suffered by the most vulnerable
sections of Indian women, that was the central moving cause behind this
visibility. What is more, the evermore concerned opinion makers, and
through them more vocal Indian ‘people’, have accorded more
visibility to Shetty’s experiences of discrimination rather than
the brutal atrocity suffered by the lower caste woman and her children
at the hands of the caste Hindus. Often repeated familiar ‘reality’
is orchestrated here too: the State machinery showed usual callous attitude,
attempted to destroy the evidence, and the culprits were not booked
until pressure exerted by people’s movement.
Hence the question is, when
we Indians feel our pride is trampled upon, feel wounded, whose pride
and harassment are we concerned with? Of Shetty’s who, after that
pained face, has been successful in bagging both quick publicity and
huge financial booty? Or are we concerned with, and wish to show to
the world that yes, we are pained at millions of Dalit and marginalized
women’s subjugation and oppression, denial of their right to exist
with dignity? The pride of India rests on making these million women
lives, who toil day and night to somehow make life possible, free from
subjugation and harassment. It is only when these common toiling women
share fruits of empowerment, have a share in ever growing India, that
we can rightfully assume our claim to feel concerned about treatment
meted out to Indians by the world community.
Thus the entire episode,
of pain and forgiveness and eventual smiles of winning, has been, as
suggested earlier, hugely beneficial to both Ms. Shetty and organizers
of the Celebrity Big Brother show. Ms. Shetty achieved both quick publicity
and huge money. But, the marginalized women India, for that matter in
the world, neither seek publicity nor they seek money. They just seek
recognition and action, from both Indian and world community, against
violence, harassment and discrimination they suffer in their every day
really ‘real’ lives. It is only when we recognize and feel
concerned about this violence encountered by these sisters of a lesser
God, that one can legitimately feel concerned about harassment Indians
encounter globally. What is more, India’s global face is not only
reflected in women of Indian origin achieving heights in the fields
of science and technology or for that matter in the world of glamour,
it is also reflected in Surekha Bhotmange and many of her sisters who
are humiliated, tortured, raped and brutally killed for asserting their
rights to live with dignity. Thus, the process of globalisation should
not be seen merely as harbinger of growth and prosperity but also concern
for justice, dignity and respect to the other.
Ramesh Kamble
Senior Lecturer
Department of Sociology
University of Mumbai
Mumbai-4000098. INDIA
Email: [email protected]