Are Indians Offenders Or Victims Of Racism?

NEW DELHI – Most Indians believe in the myth about the presence of racism only in foreign countries and see themselve sas a victim of it.

On researching about the social attitudes of Indians towards being racist, it was found that the country has the least tolerant population towards people from other nations and their ethnicity. Another racist country like India is Jordan, situated in the Middle East where there is racist manifestation.

Even though the global survey says that India is a racist country,it might be slightly hard to believe as western countries are said to have racism issues with people of different skin tones.

The study says that the United States,Britain, Canada and South America are among the least racist, reports Rediff.

Interestingly, the survey claims that most racially intolerant population sexist in the developing world. According to the Washington Post, the data for the survey came from the World Value Survey, which calculated the social attitudes of people across countries.

The survey asked individuals about the type of people that they would refuse to live next to.Racially intolerant respondents answered back saying ‘people of a different race’ which was counted as a major percentage for each country.

People of 80 different countries were surveyed to know about their preferences of people whom they would want as neighbors. About 40+ percent of Indians and Jordanians are among the least racially tolerant people, and in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Vietnam, Indonesia,South Korea nearly 30 – 39.9 percent people are racists. Countries like France, Turkey, Bulgaria, Algeria, Morocco, Mali, Zambia,Thailand, Malaysia, The Philippines, Bangladesh and Hong Kong have 20 – 39.9 percent racist crowd.

On the other hand, United States,Canada, Brazil, Argentina,Colombia, Guatemala, Britain,Sweden, Norway, Latvia,Australia and New Zealand are some countries that are tolerant towards people from other races.

Only a small percentage of people are racists in these nations.The World Values Survey reveals that Chile, Peru, Mexico, Spain,Germany, Belgium, Belarus,Croatia, Japan, Pakistan, South Africa have 5 – 9.9 percent racists.Furthermore, the World Values Survey says that Finland, Poland,Ukraine, Italy, Greece, Czech Republic and Slovakia also fall under the category of the most tolerant nations towards people of diverse races, having a racist population of about 10 – 14.9percent.

On comparing the percentage,Venezuela, Hungary,Serbia, Romania, Macedonia,Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Russia and China have a racist crowd but fall under the category of racial intolerance as there are 15 – 19.9 percent racists in each of the countries.51.4 percent of Jordanians said that they would not prefer to have neighbors who are of a different race, whereas it was 43.5percent of Indians who said the same.

The survey also established the fact that racial tolerance was low in Asian countries. But the case was different in the for Pakistan. Only 6.5 percent of Pakistanis had an objection with neighbors of different race, despite its location in the least tolerant region of the world.

The survey says that racist views are stunningly rare in the U.S. It is only 3.8 percent of residents who are hesitant of having a neighbor from a different race. The data shows that Anglo and Latin countries are the friendliest ones when it comes to welcoming people of different race.

The Washington Post reported that people from the United Kingdom and its Anglo former colonies (the United States,Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and in Latin America were the ones who are most likely to embrace racially diverse neighbors. Also, in the Middle East, where immigration is a big issue, people are not very tolerant towards races apart from their own.

However, in India, there is no escaping from racism. Indians have treated their fellow Indians as outsiders because of their appearance. The problem is that people from the North East constantly have to battle to be recognized as Indians in India.

Various groups of people, particularly the north-east Indians have experienced forms of racial discrimination and highlighted the practice of racism in India. It maybe hard to digest the fact that’ racially aggravated’ crimes have been committed against the north-east community people by their own country people.

The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs asked all states and union territories to file case against anyone who addresses a person from North East India with offensive words. The punishment is up to five years imprisonment and denial of anticipatory bail.

The north eastern side of the country has been isolated from all other Indian states and hence these states do not get equal importance like other parts of the country.

Not just this side of the country, but people from the southern states face discrimination based on their dark skin. With such less unity in the country, the slogan of’ unity in diversity’ sounds so hollow.