From atop his ivory tower in a tony quarter of America’s “first city”, Sam Pitroda has made it a habit of commenting on all things Indian. This time in a video interview to an iconic, but now down on its luck, Indian newspaper, Pitroda thought it necessary to elaborate on his idea of India. He broke out into a rapturous ode to India’s diverse cultures that have defied the odds and miraculously melted into one another to create a nation.
To be sure, there’s nothing original about these emotional peans to India’s “unity in diversity”. These homilies are done to death and are the usual recourse of self-proclaimed mealy-mouthed liberals who want to contrast so-called Nehruvian inclusivity with the Modi establishment’s alleged saffron exceptionalism.
And this interview by Pitroda would have also gone unnoticed but for his use of racist analogies to characterise the diversity in India.
Pitroda gushed to his interviewer, “We have survived 75 years in a very happy environment where people could live together, leaving aside a few fights here and there. We could hold a country together as diverse as India, where people on the east look like Chinese, people on the West look like Arab, people on the North look like white and maybe people on the South look like Africans.”
It is obvious that the analogy is an odious nod to racism. Only the worst chauvinists in history have relied on skin colour, the shape of an ethnic grouping’s eyes, or the broadness of noses and other physical markers to classify citizens of any nation-state. And in a country like India, which is a microcosm of the world, this insidious racial profiling is nothing short of an abject attempt at sowing the seeds of otherness.
Following his remarks, Pitroda resigned from his position as the Congress Overseas President. His words reopen the fault lines that Indians are now increasingly looking to paper over. As miscegenation, music, films, food, movies, jobs and tourism are enjoining our disparate selves to embrace each other’s ways, a new cosmopolitan Indian is being birthed.
Pitroda’s opinions are inflammatory and prejudicial, carrying the weight of his past authority within the Congress party, particularly his proximity to the Gandhi family and his leadership of the Overseas Congress. While his resignation may be seen as a step towards damage control, it does little to address the underlying concerns about the party’s commitment to inclusivity and its understanding of India’s diverse population.
The Congress party now faces a critical juncture. It must go beyond distancing itself from Pitroda’s bigoted theory and actively demonstrate a commitment to representing the aspirations of a new generation of cosmopolitan Indians, both within the country and across the global diaspora. Failure to do so could further alienate potential supporters and hinder the party’s efforts to regain relevance on the national and international stage.
Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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