Shilpa Shetty may have won the hearts of 63 per cent viewers as well as 100,000 pounds in prize money, but many continue not only to dismiss her experience in Celebrity Big Brother as trivial and contrived but also to suggest strong reactions to it will deflect attention from ‘real’ incidents of racism. Yet to underplay the incident by arguing that the racism directed at her was fabricated to boost TRP ratings, or that she was shrewdly playing the racism card to garner public sympathy, is to miss the point and gloss over the gravity of racism in an increasingly intolerant West. For many people of Indian origin, Shilpa in Big Brother served as a mirror-image of their own experiences.While the show was on, some suggested that Shilpa should leave the Big Brother house if she “cannot take the heat”. It was evidently their way of pointing out that Shilpa was just not tough enough to cope with the petty cat fights that she as a Hindi film actor ought to be well-versed in, if not smart enough to have anticipated it, given the sensationalistic nature of Big Brother. Frankly, their stance was as patronising to the Hindi film industry as it was towards every polite Indian who is raised to display a generosity of manners in tough situations. For many people the Big Brother house had become a metonym for the UK. The matter thus was not only about Shilpa but also about the people she represents. The real questions are these: is coping with racial hate strictly a matter of individual ability/responsibility? Should Shilpa have had faeces thrown at her, or got physically assaulted before she became worthy of support? Was she weak because she cried when verbally attacked? Was not the articulation of racism an act of discrimination in itself? The real issue is this: exactly what definition of racism do the unsympathetic adopt in order to distinguish ‘real’ racism from the ‘faux’? In Britain, the Metropolitan Police and the Ealing borough recommended in the Lawrence Report: a racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person. To pooh-pooh people’s personal experience of racism — subtle or explicit, or to tell them what they think of as racism is really not racism, then, is to underplay the crime. To contend, on the other hand, that Indians do not have the right to react to racism in other countries, considering the class/caste discriminations practised in their own land is an utter logical fallacy!That Shilpa has revised her statement is a blow to those working for racial justice, because that shifts the blame from the bullies to the victim. The point is not about an individual’s capacity to take the heat but about a civilisation’s collective will to uphold basic human values and rights.
