Attacks on Swiss couple raise questions on Indian ethics

A Swiss couple got beaten up by a group of people at Fatehpur Sikri, Agra. This beaten, swollen, bloody bodies of two human beings do not go down well with our national image. The group of people who committed this heinous crime behaved like barbarians but India is a civilised nation. We have in the past, in moments of frenzy or because of deep-seated religious values, killed few people here and there. But these victims have mostly come from minority marginalised communities.

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What prompted a group of people to bludgeon a foreign couple can be a matter of introspection. We can trivialise it as a single episode of violence without context and feel simply sad as to how these uneducated poor Indians do not even understand the shastraic injections that ask Hindus to treat all "Atithis"i.e. guests as ‘deva’ or god. Nodding in despair, we can mutter to ourselves, this is indeed ‘incredible India’ - we want foreign investment and at the same time beat up foreigners.

Taking refuge in despair or in tradition, however, is not the answer to the situation. Actions are needed and, more importantly, introspection as to what acts as sources of these kinds of violence.

Beating up foreigners is not new to Indians. We beat up African nationals with impunity. But there a clear difference between treatment meted out to black folks and the white people visiting the Aryavarta.

Indians don’t consider themselves black. Far from it, our extensive interactions as journalists confirmed this that many Indians see Africans as monsters and cannibals. But we don’t share similar racial animosity towards the white people. With our pride in the Aryan heritage and deep fascination about white skin, we receive westerners with a bunch of contradictory feelings. They are ‘mlecchas’ or irreligious, unclean, promiscuous, are divorcing all the time, and the girls grow up with no or little values. Their mothers are not like our mothers. Their mothers smoke, drink and don’t spend their lives in the kitchen as ours do. In all these areas we feel superior. We have something to teach them.

But our fascination with the West or, more precisely, with the Whites don’t end either. They have ruled us and, hence, they had to be superior in some intrinsic way. They are rich. They speak English-the ultimate mark of education. They are confident, even their women are.

So, we can’t claim that it is jingoism that prompted this act of violence. People living in and around Agra meet and mix with foreigners on a daily basis. Millions of foreigners visit Agra every year. Both Fatehpur Sikri and Taj Mahal are global destinations for tourists.

The white couple was subjected to violence is the news but, in reality, the aggression was in the first placed directed towards the white woman. Maybe the couples were holding hands or maybe not. Maybe they were kissing or maybe not. We may indulge ourselves, just like the cop did, in all kinds of speculations to fathom what provoked the violence. But emphasising on the gesture will miss the bigger point as to the mindset that causes the action.

Even if the couple did not publicly express their affection, this violence could have taken place. My friend, another white woman from the US, during her brief research trip to Delhi, was every day subjected to sexually explicit comments, people stalked her, threw stuff in her living room etc. She almost escaped Delhi. An expert in South Asian Studies, it is sad that she is too emotionally overwhelmed to visit Delhi again.

The white people continue to be seen as the superior race; its women folks very desirable but unattainable. One doesn't need to be very smart to realise that the long history of colonial subjugation has shaped our views of the master race. But deeply entrenched within this feeling of inferiority is a perception that white women are sexually promiscuous. While Indian women are shaped by tradition to be monogamous and be under purdah, the white women, on the other hand, because of the natural ease they display in mingling with members of the opposite sex are seen as more open to sexual advances. TheSwiss guy got beaten up not because he is a white or for being a foreigner but because he stood in the way of the expression of this lewd behaviour.

The stereotypes that we nurture in our heads have taken a life of their own. We don’t exercise agencies over them. Instead, they have come to control our thoughts and actions. Historically speaking, the Western world for centuries have propagated such stereotypical views about the oriental men and women. They have portrayed us as virile, lazy, dishonest, passive, scheming, and our womenfolk, particularly, as baby churning machine with no sense of independence. An entire genre of postcolonial studies has cropped up critiquing the western approach. But the reverse stereotyping that we have given in to is making us an intolerant regressive society.

A great nation cannot be created with petty people who continue to treat women, Indian or otherwise, as objects of lust and violence.