Chapter (11) - Racism is not just the Discrimination based on Skin Color
Some of us think that Racism is just the discrimination based on skin color. They are mistaken. Although discrimination based on skin color is one of the types of racism, it is not limited to that. We find racism done on other parameters too like racism based on religion, social status, bank balance, property like lands and buildings, number of highly luxurious vehicles owned by the person, residence in a particular prime and posh locality of a city, residing in a developed country, ancestral history, superior and inferior castes, intelligence levels, physical strength and so many more.
For some, Racism actually starts from a very early age as small as 4 years old. Suppose a kid gets admitted in a kindergarten school. He loves every thing there - his colleagues, his books, the playground and the teachers as well. But there is one teacher, who does not like him because he is of a different religion than most other kids. He/she starts discriminating with him from day one. The kid feels embarrassed but the little fellow just does not know why he is being treated so bad, by that teacher. He is too small to think and analyse. He keeps feeling very bad all the time, when that teacher conducts the class as the latter would give a preferential treatment to all the other students except him. If he is found talking, immediately he will get punished in spite of the fact that even others are talking and yes, even more than him. Suppose there is the birthday of some boy, then the teacher asks him to distribute the chocolate cookies in the entire class (which he has brought from home) but makes it a point that this particular boy does not get it. During the period also, the teacher would ask the toughest question to this kid, which obviously would be out of his mental reach for this child. He would not be able to answer it and the result is that he would again get punished. It would become a routine for this kid to get punished in that teacher's class. He would get habituated for getting continuously embarrassed by that teacher. Finally, one day when the teacher would beat him up very badly in front of others, he would go and tell this to his parents of the entire episode right from the beginning. His parents would get infuriated by this type of unjust treatment given to their innocent kid. They would complain the matter to the school principal but by then the kid will have gone through a hellish time. Did he deserve all the humiliation, all the suffering that he was subjected to by that racist monster? Not at all. But he did suffer; and so do millions of children around the world. This means that not just adults, but racism does not spare even innocent kids. It is that dark an evil.
Now let us know about the different types of racism stated above and how each one of them affects so many of us in our daily lives:-
(1) Racism based on Skin color:-
We have seen about this type of racism in almost all chapters of this book. It is the most widespread kind of racism seen in the world today and in that of the past. The black community, viz the negros from Africa, who migrated to the United States of America and to different European countries have suffered the most in this regard. However, other sufferers are the Hispanics, the asians like the chinese, the indians too. White supremacists have inflicted so much pain on them. Groups like Klu Klax Klan etc. have spared not a single point in misbehaving with them. The racism in the US against the blacks, hispanics and the asians is one of the worst examples of racism due to skin color. The american white supremacists are the most racists among them all. In the last 5 decades, hundreds of black, hispanics and asians have died due to this type of racism going on inside the US. In Europe too, this type of racism is seen but it is not as widespread, as it is in the US. This type of racism is not seen in Asia, Africa, Australasia and South America. However still, it is responsible for the loss of highest number of human lives in the world among all types of racism, in the recent times. Historically it ranks 2nd in terms of "Total lives lost", after Racism due to difference in Social Status, which comes at the first spot in that regard.
(2) Racism due to difference in Social Status:-
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If we look at the social history of the world over the last 200 years and even beyond that, this is the type of racism which has killed millions of humans all around the globe. Hitler was responsible for a systematic genocide of more than 6 million jews. Mussolini was responsible for the deaths of a 100,000 jews inside Italy and Libya. Jews are a community, which were and still are hated by so many christians worldwide due to several reasons, one of them being their lower social status. Most of the beggars and low-wage workers in Germany, during the times on Nazis were jews. Hitler hated them due to several reasons, one of them being that they were widely held responsible for Germany's loss during the 1st World War. Hitler considered all of them as "traitors" and hence mercilessly killed them, not just inside German borders but even those countries which he conquered during the 2nd World War. He also asked Mussolini to hate, insult, injure and kill the jews inside Italy and the latter did exactly that. Apart from the above two, racism due to difference in social status has been observed in almost every country in the world, where the poor and wretched get ill-treated by the rich and mighty.
A poor guy has to bear all kinds of insults, hardships and humiliations wherever he goes at the hands of the rich and even those of the middle class. They are called by names which they do not like. For example, a poor worker, who is dark by complexion may be called in the most disgusting way, "Kalia" or "Kallu" (the black one) inside India. He does not like that name, but he does not protest about it. The reason is that he knows that if he protests against such name-calling, then the result would be adverse of what he would want. Instead of stopping to call him by such a name, people would call him more by that name. So he does not protest and keeps his mouth shut about it. The result is that a day comes, when most of the people knowing him, would be calling him by Kalia (the black guy) and not his real name. The moment he opens his eyes in the morning, the first thing he would listen is somebody addressing him by that ugly name. Slowly he starts forgetting his real name and a day comes soon, when he really feels that his life is a living hell.
If we compare the number of insults that a poor guy suffers during a single day, it might surpass that suffered by any other person suffering from inequality, in the world. He is treated like a piece of garbage, during his whole day. 8 out of 10 rich people would prefer to treat him badly, making him feel that money is the most important thing in the world, which in fact is not.
There is a saying that "If you want to determine, how a person is from his nature, then observe how he treats the guy of a status lower to him. If he treats the poor fellow badly, then he is a bad guy. If he treats the poor fellow nicely and cordially, he is a good guy." The above saying not only helps us judge a guy whom we want to know more about, but also lets us know how we all should behave while dealing with a guy with a lower social status. A higher social status does not give any individual that extra privilege to misbehave or to humiliate somebody of a social status lower than himself. If he attempts to do that he is a social stigma, as he is seen perpetrating the most evil of all evils viz. racism.
Racism due to difference in social status is seen not just because of the difference in the amount of wealth, but also due to accomplishment of certain goals in one's life in the fields of education, professional jobs, sports, entertainment etc. Those who achieve higher goals than most others and become famous due to that are termed as "Celebrities" in the social circles. These celebrities enjoy all things far superiod than the common people viz. lavish looking bungalows, extraordinary lifestyles, ownership of highly luxurious cars, very costly jwellery for their women, education in highly reputed universities like Cambridge and Howard for their children, etc. A human being born in a celebrity family may naturally inherit a psychology right from an infant age which is full of wrong concepts and theories like "being a person from a rich celebrity, you can easily insult your servant or your car driver or the subordinate in your office and they won't feel bad about it, as you are their boss and you have every right to insult and humiliate them whenever you feel so" or "you can demean/defame/humiliate or insult the colleague in your class in your school and there is nothing bad about it, as you are from a rich celebrity family" or "you can misbehave with a girl, which attracts you a lot and pass remarks about her, which pleases you (so what if others consider them as vulgar or perverted)". The possibility that a celebrity kid inherits such incorrect, racist and rather filthy ideology all depend on the type of input, the type of education, he gets at an early age from his parents as well as his teachers. If he gets the right kind of input, education and guidance from his parents and teachers then I am sure he will never develop such a wrong psychology/mindset. But if by chance and unfortunately, even if one of his parents or teachers or some guardian happens to provide him with such highly misconceived and incorrect concepts about their aristrocracy and superiority compared to others, then God save him.. he will turn into a huge racist himself when he becomes an adult.
I have myself met quite a few celebrities in my life so far - film stars, hi-fi politicians, super famous sportsmen, etc. But I would like to mention Madam Kiran Bedi over here. She is the best example of how a person should be, despite of being a high profile celebrity. As we all indians know, Ms. Kiran Bedi was the first lady IPS police officer of India. She was very well-known for her courage and her discipline during her days as a police woman. She occupied the position of Police Commissioner of various cities of North India during her tenure. She is also a winner of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for Governance in 1994. After my 1st book "How to succeed like Sachin Tendulkar" got published in 2017, it received a very good response from the readers, especially those living inside India. After gifting a copy to the local officials of my city Rajkot, like the Commissioner of Rajkot Municipal Corporation Mr.BanchhaNidhi Pani, the Collector of Rajkot city as well as the Police commissioner of Rajkot, I decided to gift it to some high profile people nationwide. I tried to take the appointments of the Prime Minister of India Mr.Narendra Modi as well as the then Home Minister Mr. Rajnath Singh but could not as they were out of India during those days. So I decided to contact a celebrity which I admired so much during my childhood days, especially owing to my mother, who always praised her so much. Yes, I am talking about Madam Kiran Bedi. I googled and found that she was still very active and working as the Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory of Pondichery, located very close to the city of Chennai in the southern part of India. I found her numbers and called her office. Her Assistant asked me why you meet Mam Bedi. I explained the reason. I was surpised to get an early appointment (on 14th August, 2018) at 4 pm as I was supposing that the legendary lady would be very busy in her work, observing very tight work schedules and not giving appointment to any one except for extremely important governmental reasons. To my pleasant surprise, that was not the case. She was meeting her visitors, coming from all over the world, between 4 and 6:30 pm daily! This shows her modesty and her humane, friendly nature. Once I had fixed my appointment with her, I embarked on my journey from Rajkot to Pondichery, which is distance of more than 1500 kilometres. I reached Pondichery on 13th morning, spent a leisurely day there and by 14th I was ready to meet Kiran Bedi.
I was a bit nervous on the outset, I was about to meet a person of legendary stature. I reached "Raj Niwas" the office-cum-residence of the most powerful person of the Union Territory of Pondichery at 3:45 pm. After all the formalities I was allowed an entry into the huge complex, which had a grand looking white building, as her main office. My anxiety grew manifold, as at about 4:15 pm, they announced my name to go and occupy a chair, outside the huge room, inside which Ms.Bedi was present. I sat on the chair and felt my heartbeat go faster and faster. I took a deep breath and tried to relax. The nervousness was yet, increasing. I knew it was a very small task - just to go there and give my book to her as a gift; but I still do not know why I was getting so nervous. I finally told myself strongly, "Man, don't be nervous... ok? After all she is not going to cause any harm to you whatsoever.... " Then I became silent and was able to control myself. I thanked God for that. I was just looking around the huge crowd that was eager to meet her one after the other, when a man clad in police uniform, came outside the huge wooden door of her chamber and called my name, looking at me. He looked to be a well-designated police staff of high rank. He directed me towards her chamber. As the door opened, I could see Madam Kiran Bedi standing, along with a couple of her other subordinates. She welcomed me very warmly - "Yes, please come in, Mr.Bhatt... " I walked in. She knew the reason why I had come to meet her. Without wasting time, she asked for the book. I gave her the book, which I had written. Then she went through it, in detail, reading small portions of the book, where it mattered the most, from first page to the last. It took her about 1 and half minute for that. Then she took a breath and asked, "So nice to meet you, Mr.Kamlesh Bhatt... what do you do by the way.. in Rajkot...??" I told her confidently that I am a teacher/professor and I teach subjects like Physics, Mathematics and English to students of Class 8 to 12 as well as to Engineering students also. "Ohh..that is very good. I admire teachers." Then I explained her the reason of writing that book and its popularity in India. Again she complimented me. We talked for not less than 7 to 8 minutes!!! Then I understood that it was my time to leave. Before leaving I asked for a Photograph with her. Mobile phones are not allowed in Kiran Bedi's office so I was thinking to take her permission so that I can go and take my mobile phone from the clerical staff, who had taken the mobile phones of all visitors. But again, to my surprise, she said, "Here we have a special photographer... to take our photos...." In no time, a photographer was called into the chamber by her assistant. He took a gorgeous photo which showed myself gifting my book to her, both smiling. Then, I thanked her and exited her chamber. I collected my mobile phone and in no time, I was outside Raj Niwas.
This entire episode of meeting Madam Kiran Bedi, was quite a revelation to me. I was assuming a rather cold treatment to me from her as I thought that being such a huge celebrity, she would be filled with attitude and posture. But what I found was a down-to-earth, very cordial and friendly human being, who liked meeting common people, much lower in social status than hers. The manner in which welcomed me when I entered her chamber, was so nice, I don't have words for that. Then her discussion with me about my profession, my mother and all about my book - for not less than 7 to 8 minutes, was so very heart-warming. There was a vast difference between her social status and mine - but she mingled in our talk as if no such thing exists. Those 9 to 10 minutes that I spent with Ms. Bedi are one of the most precious moments of my life, undoubtedly. She inspired me a lot and made me feel so good about myself. I remain indebted to her for a lifetime, for allowing me this visit and then converting it into one of my most memorable experiences.
The reason why I described this entire episode of meeting Mam Kiran Bedi, is to highlight my point that even an extremely high profile celebrity personality like hers can be so down-to-earth and so good to such people who are far lower in social status than hers. She is a role model for each and every celebrity worldwide, especially for those racist ones, who consider common men and women as peanuts, once they attain a celebrity status. All humans are created as equals and celebrities are human beings only. They can behave a bit on the higher side, but exaggerating their importance, their presence and their might to weirdly high levels is definitely uncalled for. They should take particular care that in their intoxication of being a famous celebrity, having a lot of money and power, they never cross the limits of decency and start behaving in a racist, unscrupulous manner with the common public.
Apart from the racial behavior shown by some celebrities, Racism due to higher social status is being also seen among some businessmen worldwide. The strange thing is that the more successful a businessman is, the lesser racist he is!!! Here is why. A guy who becomes successful in aggregating huge sums of money in his life, becomes calculative and hence wise. He develops control over his emotions - good as well as bad. If he feels that a certain guy is repulsive or his work is not good, he will not present an argument that that guy would totally hate neither would he become racist by going against his religion or caste or skin color. Whereas the businessman who has not seen so much of money in his life, who is still struggling to earn more, does not value the importance of relationships in life. He thinks that this subordinates will never be able to make substantial progress in their lives and hence whenever such an occassion would arise, he would become highly aggressive in his approach towards them, by insulting them based on their low social status, religion, caste, etc.
Talking about India, here too Racism due to differences based on Social Status does exist. It is not widespread but it is there. Here, the modern day status symbols are luxurious cars, residences in posh localities of metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai etc. Apart from that jobs giving an annual salary of Rs.1 crore (10 million rupees) are too considered a mark of high status. Among these who have attained this so called "high social status", those who are wise do not exhibit racist attitudes towards those with lower social status. But some of them are not prudent at all and take full advantage of their higher social status to bully, insult and humiliate those with lower status. Some people who are living in the extremely posh localities of Mumbai like Cuff Parade, Bandra West, Malabar Hill, etc. treat people living in slums like Dharavi in a very bad manner, as if they are treating some animal. I have witnessed that once in my life, when I was on a 3 day visit to Mumbai.
Those who become highly successful in their professional lives become less racist and less divisive by their nature gradually. The reasons are very similar to that of highly successful businessmen's attitudes towards life and work, as explained in one of the paragraphs above.
To conclude, Racism due to differences in social status is seen worldwide and is the largest killer of humans due to this evil, in the entire world over the last 200 years. Efforts should be made to minimize the deaths, the damage and the sufferings caused by this type of racism, to those living in lower social status, worldwide.
(3) Racism due to difference in Mental aptitude (intelligence):-
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This is largely witnessed in schools and colleges. A group of students form a syndicate sort of to prevent other students to get higher or better marks then any other member of that syndicate. This syndicate or lobby if you might call, resorts to tactics like mental torture, ridicule, brazen jokes, etc. to humiliate or frustrate or demotivate their targets. They keep trying and trying until their target falls prey to one of their dirty tricks and finally succumbs. This is one of the worst type of racism in that it mentally tortures the targeted person to the extent of making him think about suicide. So many students have committed suicide because they were subjected to such a type of discrimination.
I have been a victim of this type of severe discrimination during my school days, when I was in Class 11th. On 16th June, 1984 I passed my Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams with flying colors getting a distinction score of 77%. I was studying in LalBahadur Shastri High School at that time, which was of course a good school but not considered the best in the city. The best english medium school in my city was Saint Mary's School, a catholic school run by christian catholics from the southern state of Kerala, who had shifted to the western indian city of Rajkot. Earlier my mother had tried very hard to admit me to Saint Mary's when I was in 8th grade, but our attempts had failed. So after finishing my education of grade 8, 9 and 10 in LBS and having got a distinction in the Board exams of grade 10th, here I was; in with a golden chance of getting admitted to the school which was the dream of my mother, the Saint Mary's School. My mother always had this desire that I should study in Saint Mary's right from my grade 1. Somehow, it was not getting possible. But as said above, after the wonderful results in the Board Exams of grade 10, I was in with a big opportunity.
We applied for admission. In no time, I got admitted in the school. I was filled with so much joy that day!! As a teenager, I would think, "Ah, Here I am.. in the best school of my city... the dream of my mom is getting fulfilled now..." The news about my admission to St. Mary's School spread like wild fire in the street, where I used to live. I got congratulated by all my kith and keen. Was I very happy and very excited during those days?? Yes indeed... I was. But I did not know what was coming.
My schooling of Grade 11 started at the end of June 1984 in St.Mary's. The uniform was like a white shirt and light chocolate colored trousers. The school with all its infrastructure was gorgeous, much better compared to LalBahadur Shastri High School from where I had passed my grade 10th. It had an astronomically large playground, must be about 20 times larger than the playground of LBS. The school building was even bigger and looked so peaceful and attractive, when watched from the street, passing close to the school. There were so many small plants and herbs planted in a certain section of the school, wherein birds of different variety used to visit on a daily basis. The school library was much bigger too. It contained books of various great authors and poets as well as Encyclopedia which had mammoth information on each and every subject. The school building had two floors and it contained about 14 rooms which were used as classrooms for students of various grades. At the center of the school building, there were two chambers, one of which was converted into the Principal's office, whilst the other was used as the School Office for activities related to school administration. The staff in that Office was filled with Catholics from Kerala, apart from a couple of local hindus from my native city. Over all, I was fascinated to study in this wonderful looking new school, the Saint Mary's School of Rajkot, in the first few weeks of my presence there.
But then the bitter reality got disclosed onto me, in a very slow vicious manner. There were 45 students of grade 11th, Science stream, wherein I too was admitted. 20 of them were those who had passed the 10th grade from the same school and had continued to study there itself. 25 were like me - those students who had come from other schools, having obtained a new admission in this school. 10 among these 25 were girls. It was co-education in St.Mary's for class 11 and 12. 15 among that group of 25 new entrants, were boys. I was one among them. Now those 20 boys who were already with the school earlier from grade 1 to 10, started behaving with our new batch of 15 boys in the most racist manner possible. They spared no opportunity to humiliate or insult or demean any of us.
Once our Physics teacher, Late father George Jose, asked me a certain question during a class on the subject of Electronics. While I was answering some boy threw a piece of rubber (pencil eraser) on my left ear. I got a bit hurt and it was my reflex action to put my hand on the ear. My neck tilted a bit towards the left side, when I did that. Father Jose noticed all this. He shouted, "What is wrong with you? Why have you tilted your neck towards the left side and put your hand on your ear?" I told the honorable teacher that someone had played a prank on me by throwing a piece of something like an eraser, when I was answering the question. Before Father Jose would say any thing one boy, Manish raised his finger as if he wanted to say some thing. Father looked at him and allowed to say whatever he wanted. Manish stood up and said that Kamlesh is lieing. Nobody has thrown any thing on him. He also asked the teacher to ask other students on my left to verify upon this thing. Manish, apart from this accused me of wrongly "taking names" of those students, who were sitting on my left.
Father Jose was a prudent man. He would not believe any thing that was said by any one without due verification. Manish had already made this small matter look quite big and serious. Looking at its gravity, Father Jose decided to verify the matter. So he came forward to the bench where I used to sit. Then, asked all the students on my left about who had thrown that piece of eraser on me, one by one. There were a total of 9 students sitting there. All of them said by taking the name of God, that none of them had thrown that piece on me. Father then asked me, if I was ready to swear by God, if I was really hit by a piece of rubber by some student from my left. I stood firm. I swore on the name of God Almighty, that some student had definitely thrown that piece on me and that came from my left side. Father got confused. He asked all of us to come to his chamber, the Vice-Principal's chamber during the recess hours. Once that period was over, those 9 boy to my left came forward on me and openly threatened and bullied upon me. They asked me to surrender and tell Father Jose that it was my mistake, no body had thrown any thing on me and that I was just lieing or if I did not surrender then I would face very grave consequences for that. They threatened me that once the school hours were over, they will destroy my bike and hit me so badly that I won't be able to reach back to my home. I got scared.
When Father Jose called us in his chamber during recess hours, I lied. I told him that nobody had thrown any thing on me and I was just making up things. I had no option but to do this. In the period that followed, Father Jose came to our classroom, though it was not the period of the subject which he taught. He punished me very badly in front of entire classroom. He asked me to stand up on the bench and then hit me hard with a stick. Those boys were laughing when this was happening to me. They enjoyed it fully. Father Jose called me a liar and warned me of getting rusticated from the school if I ever accused others in a wrong manner again. He hit me so hard on my left hand with that stick that I could not do any thing with it for the next few days.
When I reached home, I was down and depressed. I was a grown up boy of 15 and chose not to tell any thing about this to my mom. I thought that after this episode, those nasty 9 boys would calm down as I had already surrendered to their wrong demands. But instead, matters went from bad to worse in the following months.
After a few days, quarterly exams began. I could not concentrate in my studies in the school or at home, as these boys constantly kept on passing weird remarks on my caste and on me. I knew I should focus on my work, but as I was unexperienced and very new to all these bizarre things, I failed to do so. As a result my performance in those exams came down considerably from what I was able to perform at the finals of the Board exams of Grade 10 earlier. I was reduced to a mere 54% marks from the 77% which I had received in the exam before that. My mother got highly disappointed because of my result. I promised myself that I shall try my best in the 2nd quarterly exams which were scheduled in January of 1985.
As said earlier it was getting harder for me to focus on my studies in the school. Those senior boys of my class, who belonged to St.Mary's since 10 years had been trying their level best to make the lives of all newcomers difficult as far as they could. It was just not me who was the target of their racism. Many others were suffering too. One of them was Vivek. He told me that due to the constant distraction created by those boys, he could not focus either. There was yet another called Joshi, who gave me the idea of forming a reverse syndicate against them full of newcomers. The idea was very good to fight them tit for tat. Joshi and I tried for that. We gathered a group of 7 newcomers, who were a frequent target of raging by those old ones. We tried our best to act in the same manner and defeat them by satire, by direct remarks and all but we failed as 4 of us left our group. As the coup failed, the 3 who were left in this newcomers' group, became a heavy target of racism from those senior boys. One of them was me. The worst phase of my student life was about to begin.
Rahul Sedani was the head of that notorious gang of senior students of my class, who were engaged in this raging and harassment of the newcomers. He decided to target me fully for 1 week. He was a guy with no morals whatsoever in his life. He could stoop to any level for achieving what he intended to. I discovered this in a bad way. He resorted to all sorts of tactics, all kinds of monkey business. A lot of my personal belongings started disappearing from my school bag like my compass box, my journals of subjects like Physics and Chemistry, my lunch box which was full with delicious snacks made by my mom, etc. This started becoming more and more frequent. Then he targeted by bicycle. Often I would find no air in its tyres when the school time was over at about 12:30 pm, although I would have filled them when I left home for school in the morning itself (around 6:30 am). I complained this to my Class Teacher, accusing Rahul as the prime suspect but unless there was no evidence, he could not be punished. I was a very introvert person and it was not personal character to investigate such things. So I decided to let it go. Rahul stopped for a few days of my complaint to the Class Teacher but later restarted all his pranks again.
The Diwali vacations of 1984 were approaching in a fortnight. I was weary of all the daily problems created by Rahul and his gang. One day I got appreciated for my good performance in a surprize Test of Chemistry. Rahul got jealous. He told me that I was not supposed to get good marks, at least not better than any of those in his gang. We had a bad argument. The third period on that day was of English, I remember. Mrs. Sood was our english Teacher. We all were busy in her wonderful lecture. Suddenly Rahul got up and asked Mrs. Sood if he could go to drink water outside. She allowed. He went and came back unnoticed, as all were busy looking inside our english textbooks and listening to the marvelous explanations of Mrs. Sood. As that period came to an end, Mrs. Sood put her copy of the english textbook of grade 11 in her bag and then suddenly said, "Hey, my purse is missing!!" She looked here and there around her desk, inside her bag 3 to 4 times, but could not find her purse. She said there were something like 800 rupees in that purse, which was a big amount indeed, at that time. Gradually she became very angry and shouted, "How can this happen??? One of you has stolen my purse. Just check your bags and give it back to me. Else later, if we find it from your bag, you will be facing a lot of trouble and I can guarantee you that."
As per her order each one of us started checking our school bags, including me. I was shocked to find that her purse was lying in my bag, right there on the top. Immediately I handed it over to her. She snatched it from my hand and counted the money inside. It was okay, as per what she had assumed. She put that purse inside her bag and then requested Mr.Goswami, the chemistry teacher who was having the next period, to wait for 10 minutes before starting his lecture. He agreed.
Mrs. Sood then came to my bench. I was sitting in the very first row on the left side of the class, next to the huge windows. She asked me to explain how her purse would reach my bag. I said confidently to her that I had no idea how it happened. The only thing I knew was that my bag was lying open while I was concentrating hard inside the English Textbook. I also told her that Rahul had gone out for drinking water and swiftly came back unnoticed by almost the entire class. Mrs. Sood did not believe much in my defense. She asked me to get up and follow her to the Principal's chamber. Before that she accused me of being a thief and that I should be heavily punished for trying to steal her pocket. I argued with her a bit but she was very stubborn. She took me to the Principal's chamber and described the incident. I presented my defense there too. The Principal of the school asked me to leave the premises of the school for one day with immediate effect. I followed his orders. As I went back to my classroom it was recess time. All those seniors called me "a thief" one by one. Everyone who were sitting in the class having their snacks, looked at me in thorough dismay, as if I was really a thief, who tried to steal away the purse of our english teacher. I was feeling sad but collected my strength and left the school that day.
The next day when I went to school, the Principal asked me to meet him inside his chamber during recess hours. I agreed. During the 1st period, the boy sitting next to me in my bench, Joshi, told me a secret. He said that he had noticed Rahul swiftly taking the purse of Mrs. Sood and placing it inside your bag, when he came back after drinking water. I asked him why he did not become a witness to that crime, as he had seen Rahul doing that. He said he was too afraid to speak against Rahul, as he a dangerous guy. I made him collect his courage and asked him to help me by becoming a witness in my case. Initially he denied but after repeated requests from my side, he finally agreed.
After the 1st period was over, I took Joshi to the Principal's chamber. The Principal was shocked to listen to what Joshi said. He called for Rahul and for Mrs. Sood. After a stern warning of bitter consequences, Rahul confessed his heinous act of crime. The Principal led all 4 of us to our class and then asked him to say Sorry to me in front of the entire class. Facing utter humiliation, he was forced to say sorry to me. Then he got suspended from the school for 1 week.
A week passed and he came back. After the school time was over, I went to the parking place, where I had parked my bicycle. As usual, I took it out and started paddling back to my home. I had already left the school premises and in about 5 to 6 minutes, was passing from a rather lonely place, with almost no human being in sight. Suddenly 3 people appeared in front of me, one of them being Rahul Sedani. They attacked me. One of them threw my bike away. Rahul hit me very badly with bicycle chain on my hands, my stomach and my chest. The other 2 people were in their twenties, unlike Rahul who was 16 at that time. They took supported Rahul in hitting me, by holding my hands from behind my back. I was punched very badly in my stomach by Rahul. After this attack all 3 ran away, leaving me lying on the road, bleeding heavily and almost unconscious.
The next thing I noticed was that I was on a hospital bed, with a fracture on my left hand. My mother and my cousin were sitting next to me. It took me 1 month to recover fully from my wounds and get back to normalcy. Once I became okay, I took my mother to the school. We filed a severe complaint against Rahul. The Principal suspended him from the school for 2 months, once my case was proved. After 2 months when he came back, he started harassing me again, as it was impossible for him to improve upon his nasty behavior. But meanwhile, my mother had taught me how to keep ignoring such racist, discriminating people. I started doing that.
To my surprise I discovered that my school life became happier than before due to that. Rahul and his evil gang started giving lesser attention towards me and started focusing on other students so as to harass them. Gradually I got liberated from this evil of raging and racism going on inside my school. But by then I had suffered a lot due to this evil, in a very small age. It was the Racism caused to the prejudice of a certain section of the students that they were intellectually superior to the newcomers in the class. Some may argue that it was raging and not Racism. But I object to that. For me any kind of discrimination inflicted upon one human being by the other human being is Racism only and hence this one was no exception.
(4) Racism caused due to the difference in Language:-
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This type of Racism is seen everywhere too. Some People differentiate among each other on the basis of the language spoken and they are racists too. For example, among the marathi people living in Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra, some of them are excessively proud of their Marathi language. They look at the migrants from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and such other states as being inferior to themselves in all aspects only because they can not speak good marathi!! Do you feel that this is ridiculous? Well, I sure do. Such discrimination can be seen in the local trains of Mumbai, especially when, say 3 or 4 marathi guys are discussing something in their own language and suddenly a guy from other state tries to focus on their discussion. This guy does not good Marathi and yet he tries to focus on their talk because he is interested in the subject of their discussion, say for example football. A person witnessing their discussion from outside gets a very clear idea as to how those marathis are making this guy struggle hard to follow them. They deliberately try and keep him away as soon as they come to know that he is not a maratha, by ridiculing whatever he says and demeaning him constantly. In stead of including him in the discussion, they exclude him. As such these 4 maratha people are also strangers to one another. But they have formed a group in no time at all, as they found each other being a maratha. So being a stranger to each other is not an issue at all, over here but language is. After facing quite a bit of insults, that other guy, who is not a maratha, finally lets it go and shifts away his focus from them. I have been a witness to so many such incidences of racial discrimination based on language in the local trains of Mumbai. The marathis are otherwise very good-hearted people but when it comes to language, they just become highly discriminatory towards people speaking other languages. In fact, language is the main reason why regional parties in Maharashtra like ShivSena and Maharashtra Navnirmaan Sena have gained importance over the years. The founding father of Shiv Sena Late Mr.Bal Thackerey was indeed a great leader but he gave too much importance to marathi language every where. He became unpopular among the non-marathas but at the same time extremely popular among the marathas of the state. His son, Uddhav Thackerey also gives more than necessary importance to the marathi language. In fact, he goes a step ahead and does not hesitate in insulting the non-marathas by some or the other means. His cousin, the founder of MNS, Mr. Raj Thackerey, goes one step further. He not just insults but intimidates all the non-marathas living in the state as well as living in other parts of the country, when delivering a fiery emotional speech. I have noticed that in each of his speeches of this kind, he does not miss to insult the non-marathas, by mentioning that the marathas are a very brave race and when they come into a fighting mode, no other people of India, speaking any other language can defeat them!! Every time, I listen to such foolish words from him, on one hand I feel like laughing aloud and on the other hand, I feel a sense of shame for the kind of mindset he possesses. After all, what is the relationship but a certain language and courage?? I am not able to understand this thing till now. Any body can be brave, not just a maratha - it can be a Sikh from Punjab, or a Kathiawadi guy from Gujarat or a black guy living in the United States... I mean it can be any human living in any part of this world. Courage is not a quality limited to just the marathas, it is a universal quality, seen everywhere in the world. It is those with the racist mindsets, that think courage is limited to just a few group of people speaking a certain language.
Discrimination based on language spoken can also be seen inside Pakistan. (As such Pakistan is a country where we find racism of almost of all sorts - based on skin color, language, religion, caste, social status and several other parameters.) In this country, not just politicians but film stars, other celebrities and a lot other people consider those speaking the punjabi language (mixed with urdu words) as the most prominent language. It was okay if they considered that but they do not stop at that. They consider people speaking pakhtuni, baluchi, sindhi, hindi and other languages as very inferior to themselves in all ways!!! For a major proportion of pakistanis, those speaking punjabi language are like dominant kings and queens. They believe that they are born to rule the land and all the rest are their subordinates!!! A similar mentality exists amongst the chinese too. For them, the chinese language is the best and the most clever language in the world. Hence, all those who speak chinese are the cleverest and the most superior humans in the whole world!! In one of his speeches the current President of China, Xi Jin Ping said that as the chinese are superior in this aspect, they can easily and with no thought of guilt, go for the expansion of their lands in all 4 directions!! This has led to all the expansion activities that China has been doing in the last few years by trying to confiscate - Laddakh and parts of Arunachal Pradesh from India, parts of northern rural areas of Nepal, the entire country of Taiwan and the entire region of South China Sea. Just imagine how badly the mentality of a person can be spoiled, if he has racist ideas present in him before. He can turn into an expansionist ruler/dictator having no mercy for the people of other races or those living in other countries and can go ahead with killing them ruthlessly just for satisfying his expansionist, racist desires. (5) Racism based on possession of property:- =============================== This type of racism is seen amongst rural areas of different countries including India. The landlords behave as if they are the Gods, the final authorities on each and every matter inside a village. Why? Because they are in possession of thousands of acres of land in the village. They do not hesitate to harass the laborers and their families when asking for repaying the debts. They rape and kill the girls of those laborers but the poor man does not say a word against them, on many occassions. Such cases should be registered with the local police but the laborer opts not to register any complaint whatsoever against the landlord. Thus the landlord exploits all the families of laborers. This is one of the worst kinds of racism, the one based on the difference in possession of lands. A similar type is seen based on the difference in possession of money i.e. bank balance. Two best friends witness their age-old friendship gradually getting broken into pieces because of the racist attitude of one of them who has gone rich all of a sudden. He treats the same guy whom he considered his best friend, his most loved person, in a rubbish insulting manner after he has become rich. That additional sum of money which he has earned hovers over his mind all the time and he starts thinking of his friend as someone inferior, some sort of a loser, while considering himself as a superior guy who won the race of life!! Why? Only because he acquired wealth and became rich. Does that give him the right to insult his best friend? No way. But he thinks that it does. This is the racism which creeps out of the difference in bank balance. A very similar type of racism is the one seen among women when they compare each other based on the number of ornaments they are wearing in a function. Women wearing more ornaments form a cohesive group and start making fun of those women who are not wearing so many ornaments or jewellery. This is a particularly feminine type of racism as it is mostly seen among women and not among men. (6) Racism based on Religion:- ===================== This one of the worst kind of racism ever. People discriminating between each other based on the difference in their individual religious faiths is rather awful. It is tragic that even in the 21st century this kind of racism prevails. In Pakistan, hindu temples existed in thousands when partition happened i.e when India got divided into 2 nations - India and Pakistan in the year 1947. As on today, hardly a few dozens remain throughout Pakistan. This is a country which comprises of a demography that has a muslim majority. These muslims have demolished most of the hindu temples there. Not just that, they have so many strange and weird rules imposed upon the hindu population there that any hindu who wants to continue with his faith would find it very difficult to do so. He will ultimately lose courage and convert to Islam (muslim religion). The atrocities on the hindus and the sikhs inside Pakistan since 1947 are extremely huge in number. When Pakistan became an independent nation on August 14, 1947 the number of hindus there, counted in hundreds of thousands. As of now hardly about 10 thousand of them remain in Pakistan. They have been tortured and harassed in all possible ways so that they get converted to Islam - by giving money, by advice, by punishment and by discrimination. This is an example of racism based on religion. A similar kind of racism based on religion is seen inside China these days where the central government in Beijing is harassing and torturing the Uighar muslims of the Xinjiang province in a very ugly manner. The chinese government led by Xi Jin Ping has put millions of such muslims in a captive condition inside different concentration camps there. The living facilities are extremely poor and these muslims need help. A similar case is that of the persecution of Rohingya muslims in the country called Myanmar. These muslims have been forced to either leave the country or face death by its military leaders under the orders of its supreme leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Around a 1.5 million rohingyas have ran away from Myanmar and thousands have been killed in a clamp down on them by the military of Myanmar. The local buddhist population and regime of that country believe that all these rohingya muslims are either terrorists or connected to some kind of terror network!! Just imagine, can a million people be connected to terrorism? No way. But that is the kind of mentality that racist people develop over the years. This persecution of the local Rohingya muslims is one more example of racism based on religion, undoubtedly one of the most dreaded and the most brutal kinds of racism in the history of mankind. During the late 1930s and early 1940s in the period of World War 2, the persecution of the jewish community by Adolf Hitler inside Germany, Poland, Austria and other parts of Europe as well as the persecution of jews by Benito Mussolini inside Italy and African countries is yet another example of racism based on religion. However, these topics have been discussed earlier in this book. So they won't be discussed here. ********************************************
For some, Racism actually starts from a very early age as small as 4 years old. Suppose a kid gets admitted in a kindergarten school. He loves every thing there - his colleagues, his books, the playground and the teachers as well. But there is one teacher, who does not like him because he is of a different religion than most other kids. He/she starts discriminating with him from day one. The kid feels embarrassed but the little fellow just does not know why he is being treated so bad, by that teacher. He is too small to think and analyse. He keeps feeling very bad all the time, when that teacher conducts the class as the latter would give a preferential treatment to all the other students except him. If he is found talking, immediately he will get punished in spite of the fact that even others are talking and yes, even more than him. Suppose there is the birthday of some boy, then the teacher asks him to distribute the chocolate cookies in the entire class (which he has brought from home) but makes it a point that this particular boy does not get it. During the period also, the teacher would ask the toughest question to this kid, which obviously would be out of his mental reach for this child. He would not be able to answer it and the result is that he would again get punished. It would become a routine for this kid to get punished in that teacher's class. He would get habituated for getting continuously embarrassed by that teacher. Finally, one day when the teacher would beat him up very badly in front of others, he would go and tell this to his parents of the entire episode right from the beginning. His parents would get infuriated by this type of unjust treatment given to their innocent kid. They would complain the matter to the school principal but by then the kid will have gone through a hellish time. Did he deserve all the humiliation, all the suffering that he was subjected to by that racist monster? Not at all. But he did suffer; and so do millions of children around the world. This means that not just adults, but racism does not spare even innocent kids. It is that dark an evil.
Now let us know about the different types of racism stated above and how each one of them affects so many of us in our daily lives:-
(1) Racism based on Skin color:-
We have seen about this type of racism in almost all chapters of this book. It is the most widespread kind of racism seen in the world today and in that of the past. The black community, viz the negros from Africa, who migrated to the United States of America and to different European countries have suffered the most in this regard. However, other sufferers are the Hispanics, the asians like the chinese, the indians too. White supremacists have inflicted so much pain on them. Groups like Klu Klax Klan etc. have spared not a single point in misbehaving with them. The racism in the US against the blacks, hispanics and the asians is one of the worst examples of racism due to skin color. The american white supremacists are the most racists among them all. In the last 5 decades, hundreds of black, hispanics and asians have died due to this type of racism going on inside the US. In Europe too, this type of racism is seen but it is not as widespread, as it is in the US. This type of racism is not seen in Asia, Africa, Australasia and South America. However still, it is responsible for the loss of highest number of human lives in the world among all types of racism, in the recent times. Historically it ranks 2nd in terms of "Total lives lost", after Racism due to difference in Social Status, which comes at the first spot in that regard.
(2) Racism due to difference in Social Status:-
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If we look at the social history of the world over the last 200 years and even beyond that, this is the type of racism which has killed millions of humans all around the globe. Hitler was responsible for a systematic genocide of more than 6 million jews. Mussolini was responsible for the deaths of a 100,000 jews inside Italy and Libya. Jews are a community, which were and still are hated by so many christians worldwide due to several reasons, one of them being their lower social status. Most of the beggars and low-wage workers in Germany, during the times on Nazis were jews. Hitler hated them due to several reasons, one of them being that they were widely held responsible for Germany's loss during the 1st World War. Hitler considered all of them as "traitors" and hence mercilessly killed them, not just inside German borders but even those countries which he conquered during the 2nd World War. He also asked Mussolini to hate, insult, injure and kill the jews inside Italy and the latter did exactly that. Apart from the above two, racism due to difference in social status has been observed in almost every country in the world, where the poor and wretched get ill-treated by the rich and mighty.
A poor guy has to bear all kinds of insults, hardships and humiliations wherever he goes at the hands of the rich and even those of the middle class. They are called by names which they do not like. For example, a poor worker, who is dark by complexion may be called in the most disgusting way, "Kalia" or "Kallu" (the black one) inside India. He does not like that name, but he does not protest about it. The reason is that he knows that if he protests against such name-calling, then the result would be adverse of what he would want. Instead of stopping to call him by such a name, people would call him more by that name. So he does not protest and keeps his mouth shut about it. The result is that a day comes, when most of the people knowing him, would be calling him by Kalia (the black guy) and not his real name. The moment he opens his eyes in the morning, the first thing he would listen is somebody addressing him by that ugly name. Slowly he starts forgetting his real name and a day comes soon, when he really feels that his life is a living hell.
If we compare the number of insults that a poor guy suffers during a single day, it might surpass that suffered by any other person suffering from inequality, in the world. He is treated like a piece of garbage, during his whole day. 8 out of 10 rich people would prefer to treat him badly, making him feel that money is the most important thing in the world, which in fact is not.
There is a saying that "If you want to determine, how a person is from his nature, then observe how he treats the guy of a status lower to him. If he treats the poor fellow badly, then he is a bad guy. If he treats the poor fellow nicely and cordially, he is a good guy." The above saying not only helps us judge a guy whom we want to know more about, but also lets us know how we all should behave while dealing with a guy with a lower social status. A higher social status does not give any individual that extra privilege to misbehave or to humiliate somebody of a social status lower than himself. If he attempts to do that he is a social stigma, as he is seen perpetrating the most evil of all evils viz. racism.
Racism due to difference in social status is seen not just because of the difference in the amount of wealth, but also due to accomplishment of certain goals in one's life in the fields of education, professional jobs, sports, entertainment etc. Those who achieve higher goals than most others and become famous due to that are termed as "Celebrities" in the social circles. These celebrities enjoy all things far superiod than the common people viz. lavish looking bungalows, extraordinary lifestyles, ownership of highly luxurious cars, very costly jwellery for their women, education in highly reputed universities like Cambridge and Howard for their children, etc. A human being born in a celebrity family may naturally inherit a psychology right from an infant age which is full of wrong concepts and theories like "being a person from a rich celebrity, you can easily insult your servant or your car driver or the subordinate in your office and they won't feel bad about it, as you are their boss and you have every right to insult and humiliate them whenever you feel so" or "you can demean/defame/humiliate or insult the colleague in your class in your school and there is nothing bad about it, as you are from a rich celebrity family" or "you can misbehave with a girl, which attracts you a lot and pass remarks about her, which pleases you (so what if others consider them as vulgar or perverted)". The possibility that a celebrity kid inherits such incorrect, racist and rather filthy ideology all depend on the type of input, the type of education, he gets at an early age from his parents as well as his teachers. If he gets the right kind of input, education and guidance from his parents and teachers then I am sure he will never develop such a wrong psychology/mindset. But if by chance and unfortunately, even if one of his parents or teachers or some guardian happens to provide him with such highly misconceived and incorrect concepts about their aristrocracy and superiority compared to others, then God save him.. he will turn into a huge racist himself when he becomes an adult.
I have myself met quite a few celebrities in my life so far - film stars, hi-fi politicians, super famous sportsmen, etc. But I would like to mention Madam Kiran Bedi over here. She is the best example of how a person should be, despite of being a high profile celebrity. As we all indians know, Ms. Kiran Bedi was the first lady IPS police officer of India. She was very well-known for her courage and her discipline during her days as a police woman. She occupied the position of Police Commissioner of various cities of North India during her tenure. She is also a winner of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for Governance in 1994. After my 1st book "How to succeed like Sachin Tendulkar" got published in 2017, it received a very good response from the readers, especially those living inside India. After gifting a copy to the local officials of my city Rajkot, like the Commissioner of Rajkot Municipal Corporation Mr.BanchhaNidhi Pani, the Collector of Rajkot city as well as the Police commissioner of Rajkot, I decided to gift it to some high profile people nationwide. I tried to take the appointments of the Prime Minister of India Mr.Narendra Modi as well as the then Home Minister Mr. Rajnath Singh but could not as they were out of India during those days. So I decided to contact a celebrity which I admired so much during my childhood days, especially owing to my mother, who always praised her so much. Yes, I am talking about Madam Kiran Bedi. I googled and found that she was still very active and working as the Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory of Pondichery, located very close to the city of Chennai in the southern part of India. I found her numbers and called her office. Her Assistant asked me why you meet Mam Bedi. I explained the reason. I was surpised to get an early appointment (on 14th August, 2018) at 4 pm as I was supposing that the legendary lady would be very busy in her work, observing very tight work schedules and not giving appointment to any one except for extremely important governmental reasons. To my pleasant surprise, that was not the case. She was meeting her visitors, coming from all over the world, between 4 and 6:30 pm daily! This shows her modesty and her humane, friendly nature. Once I had fixed my appointment with her, I embarked on my journey from Rajkot to Pondichery, which is distance of more than 1500 kilometres. I reached Pondichery on 13th morning, spent a leisurely day there and by 14th I was ready to meet Kiran Bedi.
I was a bit nervous on the outset, I was about to meet a person of legendary stature. I reached "Raj Niwas" the office-cum-residence of the most powerful person of the Union Territory of Pondichery at 3:45 pm. After all the formalities I was allowed an entry into the huge complex, which had a grand looking white building, as her main office. My anxiety grew manifold, as at about 4:15 pm, they announced my name to go and occupy a chair, outside the huge room, inside which Ms.Bedi was present. I sat on the chair and felt my heartbeat go faster and faster. I took a deep breath and tried to relax. The nervousness was yet, increasing. I knew it was a very small task - just to go there and give my book to her as a gift; but I still do not know why I was getting so nervous. I finally told myself strongly, "Man, don't be nervous... ok? After all she is not going to cause any harm to you whatsoever.... " Then I became silent and was able to control myself. I thanked God for that. I was just looking around the huge crowd that was eager to meet her one after the other, when a man clad in police uniform, came outside the huge wooden door of her chamber and called my name, looking at me. He looked to be a well-designated police staff of high rank. He directed me towards her chamber. As the door opened, I could see Madam Kiran Bedi standing, along with a couple of her other subordinates. She welcomed me very warmly - "Yes, please come in, Mr.Bhatt... " I walked in. She knew the reason why I had come to meet her. Without wasting time, she asked for the book. I gave her the book, which I had written. Then she went through it, in detail, reading small portions of the book, where it mattered the most, from first page to the last. It took her about 1 and half minute for that. Then she took a breath and asked, "So nice to meet you, Mr.Kamlesh Bhatt... what do you do by the way.. in Rajkot...??" I told her confidently that I am a teacher/professor and I teach subjects like Physics, Mathematics and English to students of Class 8 to 12 as well as to Engineering students also. "Ohh..that is very good. I admire teachers." Then I explained her the reason of writing that book and its popularity in India. Again she complimented me. We talked for not less than 7 to 8 minutes!!! Then I understood that it was my time to leave. Before leaving I asked for a Photograph with her. Mobile phones are not allowed in Kiran Bedi's office so I was thinking to take her permission so that I can go and take my mobile phone from the clerical staff, who had taken the mobile phones of all visitors. But again, to my surprise, she said, "Here we have a special photographer... to take our photos...." In no time, a photographer was called into the chamber by her assistant. He took a gorgeous photo which showed myself gifting my book to her, both smiling. Then, I thanked her and exited her chamber. I collected my mobile phone and in no time, I was outside Raj Niwas.
This entire episode of meeting Madam Kiran Bedi, was quite a revelation to me. I was assuming a rather cold treatment to me from her as I thought that being such a huge celebrity, she would be filled with attitude and posture. But what I found was a down-to-earth, very cordial and friendly human being, who liked meeting common people, much lower in social status than hers. The manner in which welcomed me when I entered her chamber, was so nice, I don't have words for that. Then her discussion with me about my profession, my mother and all about my book - for not less than 7 to 8 minutes, was so very heart-warming. There was a vast difference between her social status and mine - but she mingled in our talk as if no such thing exists. Those 9 to 10 minutes that I spent with Ms. Bedi are one of the most precious moments of my life, undoubtedly. She inspired me a lot and made me feel so good about myself. I remain indebted to her for a lifetime, for allowing me this visit and then converting it into one of my most memorable experiences.
The reason why I described this entire episode of meeting Mam Kiran Bedi, is to highlight my point that even an extremely high profile celebrity personality like hers can be so down-to-earth and so good to such people who are far lower in social status than hers. She is a role model for each and every celebrity worldwide, especially for those racist ones, who consider common men and women as peanuts, once they attain a celebrity status. All humans are created as equals and celebrities are human beings only. They can behave a bit on the higher side, but exaggerating their importance, their presence and their might to weirdly high levels is definitely uncalled for. They should take particular care that in their intoxication of being a famous celebrity, having a lot of money and power, they never cross the limits of decency and start behaving in a racist, unscrupulous manner with the common public.
Apart from the racial behavior shown by some celebrities, Racism due to higher social status is being also seen among some businessmen worldwide. The strange thing is that the more successful a businessman is, the lesser racist he is!!! Here is why. A guy who becomes successful in aggregating huge sums of money in his life, becomes calculative and hence wise. He develops control over his emotions - good as well as bad. If he feels that a certain guy is repulsive or his work is not good, he will not present an argument that that guy would totally hate neither would he become racist by going against his religion or caste or skin color. Whereas the businessman who has not seen so much of money in his life, who is still struggling to earn more, does not value the importance of relationships in life. He thinks that this subordinates will never be able to make substantial progress in their lives and hence whenever such an occassion would arise, he would become highly aggressive in his approach towards them, by insulting them based on their low social status, religion, caste, etc.
Talking about India, here too Racism due to differences based on Social Status does exist. It is not widespread but it is there. Here, the modern day status symbols are luxurious cars, residences in posh localities of metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai etc. Apart from that jobs giving an annual salary of Rs.1 crore (10 million rupees) are too considered a mark of high status. Among these who have attained this so called "high social status", those who are wise do not exhibit racist attitudes towards those with lower social status. But some of them are not prudent at all and take full advantage of their higher social status to bully, insult and humiliate those with lower status. Some people who are living in the extremely posh localities of Mumbai like Cuff Parade, Bandra West, Malabar Hill, etc. treat people living in slums like Dharavi in a very bad manner, as if they are treating some animal. I have witnessed that once in my life, when I was on a 3 day visit to Mumbai.
Those who become highly successful in their professional lives become less racist and less divisive by their nature gradually. The reasons are very similar to that of highly successful businessmen's attitudes towards life and work, as explained in one of the paragraphs above.
To conclude, Racism due to differences in social status is seen worldwide and is the largest killer of humans due to this evil, in the entire world over the last 200 years. Efforts should be made to minimize the deaths, the damage and the sufferings caused by this type of racism, to those living in lower social status, worldwide.
(3) Racism due to difference in Mental aptitude (intelligence):-
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This is largely witnessed in schools and colleges. A group of students form a syndicate sort of to prevent other students to get higher or better marks then any other member of that syndicate. This syndicate or lobby if you might call, resorts to tactics like mental torture, ridicule, brazen jokes, etc. to humiliate or frustrate or demotivate their targets. They keep trying and trying until their target falls prey to one of their dirty tricks and finally succumbs. This is one of the worst type of racism in that it mentally tortures the targeted person to the extent of making him think about suicide. So many students have committed suicide because they were subjected to such a type of discrimination.
I have been a victim of this type of severe discrimination during my school days, when I was in Class 11th. On 16th June, 1984 I passed my Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams with flying colors getting a distinction score of 77%. I was studying in LalBahadur Shastri High School at that time, which was of course a good school but not considered the best in the city. The best english medium school in my city was Saint Mary's School, a catholic school run by christian catholics from the southern state of Kerala, who had shifted to the western indian city of Rajkot. Earlier my mother had tried very hard to admit me to Saint Mary's when I was in 8th grade, but our attempts had failed. So after finishing my education of grade 8, 9 and 10 in LBS and having got a distinction in the Board exams of grade 10th, here I was; in with a golden chance of getting admitted to the school which was the dream of my mother, the Saint Mary's School. My mother always had this desire that I should study in Saint Mary's right from my grade 1. Somehow, it was not getting possible. But as said above, after the wonderful results in the Board Exams of grade 10, I was in with a big opportunity.
We applied for admission. In no time, I got admitted in the school. I was filled with so much joy that day!! As a teenager, I would think, "Ah, Here I am.. in the best school of my city... the dream of my mom is getting fulfilled now..." The news about my admission to St. Mary's School spread like wild fire in the street, where I used to live. I got congratulated by all my kith and keen. Was I very happy and very excited during those days?? Yes indeed... I was. But I did not know what was coming.
My schooling of Grade 11 started at the end of June 1984 in St.Mary's. The uniform was like a white shirt and light chocolate colored trousers. The school with all its infrastructure was gorgeous, much better compared to LalBahadur Shastri High School from where I had passed my grade 10th. It had an astronomically large playground, must be about 20 times larger than the playground of LBS. The school building was even bigger and looked so peaceful and attractive, when watched from the street, passing close to the school. There were so many small plants and herbs planted in a certain section of the school, wherein birds of different variety used to visit on a daily basis. The school library was much bigger too. It contained books of various great authors and poets as well as Encyclopedia which had mammoth information on each and every subject. The school building had two floors and it contained about 14 rooms which were used as classrooms for students of various grades. At the center of the school building, there were two chambers, one of which was converted into the Principal's office, whilst the other was used as the School Office for activities related to school administration. The staff in that Office was filled with Catholics from Kerala, apart from a couple of local hindus from my native city. Over all, I was fascinated to study in this wonderful looking new school, the Saint Mary's School of Rajkot, in the first few weeks of my presence there.
But then the bitter reality got disclosed onto me, in a very slow vicious manner. There were 45 students of grade 11th, Science stream, wherein I too was admitted. 20 of them were those who had passed the 10th grade from the same school and had continued to study there itself. 25 were like me - those students who had come from other schools, having obtained a new admission in this school. 10 among these 25 were girls. It was co-education in St.Mary's for class 11 and 12. 15 among that group of 25 new entrants, were boys. I was one among them. Now those 20 boys who were already with the school earlier from grade 1 to 10, started behaving with our new batch of 15 boys in the most racist manner possible. They spared no opportunity to humiliate or insult or demean any of us.
Once our Physics teacher, Late father George Jose, asked me a certain question during a class on the subject of Electronics. While I was answering some boy threw a piece of rubber (pencil eraser) on my left ear. I got a bit hurt and it was my reflex action to put my hand on the ear. My neck tilted a bit towards the left side, when I did that. Father Jose noticed all this. He shouted, "What is wrong with you? Why have you tilted your neck towards the left side and put your hand on your ear?" I told the honorable teacher that someone had played a prank on me by throwing a piece of something like an eraser, when I was answering the question. Before Father Jose would say any thing one boy, Manish raised his finger as if he wanted to say some thing. Father looked at him and allowed to say whatever he wanted. Manish stood up and said that Kamlesh is lieing. Nobody has thrown any thing on him. He also asked the teacher to ask other students on my left to verify upon this thing. Manish, apart from this accused me of wrongly "taking names" of those students, who were sitting on my left.
Father Jose was a prudent man. He would not believe any thing that was said by any one without due verification. Manish had already made this small matter look quite big and serious. Looking at its gravity, Father Jose decided to verify the matter. So he came forward to the bench where I used to sit. Then, asked all the students on my left about who had thrown that piece of eraser on me, one by one. There were a total of 9 students sitting there. All of them said by taking the name of God, that none of them had thrown that piece on me. Father then asked me, if I was ready to swear by God, if I was really hit by a piece of rubber by some student from my left. I stood firm. I swore on the name of God Almighty, that some student had definitely thrown that piece on me and that came from my left side. Father got confused. He asked all of us to come to his chamber, the Vice-Principal's chamber during the recess hours. Once that period was over, those 9 boy to my left came forward on me and openly threatened and bullied upon me. They asked me to surrender and tell Father Jose that it was my mistake, no body had thrown any thing on me and that I was just lieing or if I did not surrender then I would face very grave consequences for that. They threatened me that once the school hours were over, they will destroy my bike and hit me so badly that I won't be able to reach back to my home. I got scared.
When Father Jose called us in his chamber during recess hours, I lied. I told him that nobody had thrown any thing on me and I was just making up things. I had no option but to do this. In the period that followed, Father Jose came to our classroom, though it was not the period of the subject which he taught. He punished me very badly in front of entire classroom. He asked me to stand up on the bench and then hit me hard with a stick. Those boys were laughing when this was happening to me. They enjoyed it fully. Father Jose called me a liar and warned me of getting rusticated from the school if I ever accused others in a wrong manner again. He hit me so hard on my left hand with that stick that I could not do any thing with it for the next few days.
When I reached home, I was down and depressed. I was a grown up boy of 15 and chose not to tell any thing about this to my mom. I thought that after this episode, those nasty 9 boys would calm down as I had already surrendered to their wrong demands. But instead, matters went from bad to worse in the following months.
After a few days, quarterly exams began. I could not concentrate in my studies in the school or at home, as these boys constantly kept on passing weird remarks on my caste and on me. I knew I should focus on my work, but as I was unexperienced and very new to all these bizarre things, I failed to do so. As a result my performance in those exams came down considerably from what I was able to perform at the finals of the Board exams of Grade 10 earlier. I was reduced to a mere 54% marks from the 77% which I had received in the exam before that. My mother got highly disappointed because of my result. I promised myself that I shall try my best in the 2nd quarterly exams which were scheduled in January of 1985.
As said earlier it was getting harder for me to focus on my studies in the school. Those senior boys of my class, who belonged to St.Mary's since 10 years had been trying their level best to make the lives of all newcomers difficult as far as they could. It was just not me who was the target of their racism. Many others were suffering too. One of them was Vivek. He told me that due to the constant distraction created by those boys, he could not focus either. There was yet another called Joshi, who gave me the idea of forming a reverse syndicate against them full of newcomers. The idea was very good to fight them tit for tat. Joshi and I tried for that. We gathered a group of 7 newcomers, who were a frequent target of raging by those old ones. We tried our best to act in the same manner and defeat them by satire, by direct remarks and all but we failed as 4 of us left our group. As the coup failed, the 3 who were left in this newcomers' group, became a heavy target of racism from those senior boys. One of them was me. The worst phase of my student life was about to begin.
Rahul Sedani was the head of that notorious gang of senior students of my class, who were engaged in this raging and harassment of the newcomers. He decided to target me fully for 1 week. He was a guy with no morals whatsoever in his life. He could stoop to any level for achieving what he intended to. I discovered this in a bad way. He resorted to all sorts of tactics, all kinds of monkey business. A lot of my personal belongings started disappearing from my school bag like my compass box, my journals of subjects like Physics and Chemistry, my lunch box which was full with delicious snacks made by my mom, etc. This started becoming more and more frequent. Then he targeted by bicycle. Often I would find no air in its tyres when the school time was over at about 12:30 pm, although I would have filled them when I left home for school in the morning itself (around 6:30 am). I complained this to my Class Teacher, accusing Rahul as the prime suspect but unless there was no evidence, he could not be punished. I was a very introvert person and it was not personal character to investigate such things. So I decided to let it go. Rahul stopped for a few days of my complaint to the Class Teacher but later restarted all his pranks again.
The Diwali vacations of 1984 were approaching in a fortnight. I was weary of all the daily problems created by Rahul and his gang. One day I got appreciated for my good performance in a surprize Test of Chemistry. Rahul got jealous. He told me that I was not supposed to get good marks, at least not better than any of those in his gang. We had a bad argument. The third period on that day was of English, I remember. Mrs. Sood was our english Teacher. We all were busy in her wonderful lecture. Suddenly Rahul got up and asked Mrs. Sood if he could go to drink water outside. She allowed. He went and came back unnoticed, as all were busy looking inside our english textbooks and listening to the marvelous explanations of Mrs. Sood. As that period came to an end, Mrs. Sood put her copy of the english textbook of grade 11 in her bag and then suddenly said, "Hey, my purse is missing!!" She looked here and there around her desk, inside her bag 3 to 4 times, but could not find her purse. She said there were something like 800 rupees in that purse, which was a big amount indeed, at that time. Gradually she became very angry and shouted, "How can this happen??? One of you has stolen my purse. Just check your bags and give it back to me. Else later, if we find it from your bag, you will be facing a lot of trouble and I can guarantee you that."
As per her order each one of us started checking our school bags, including me. I was shocked to find that her purse was lying in my bag, right there on the top. Immediately I handed it over to her. She snatched it from my hand and counted the money inside. It was okay, as per what she had assumed. She put that purse inside her bag and then requested Mr.Goswami, the chemistry teacher who was having the next period, to wait for 10 minutes before starting his lecture. He agreed.
Mrs. Sood then came to my bench. I was sitting in the very first row on the left side of the class, next to the huge windows. She asked me to explain how her purse would reach my bag. I said confidently to her that I had no idea how it happened. The only thing I knew was that my bag was lying open while I was concentrating hard inside the English Textbook. I also told her that Rahul had gone out for drinking water and swiftly came back unnoticed by almost the entire class. Mrs. Sood did not believe much in my defense. She asked me to get up and follow her to the Principal's chamber. Before that she accused me of being a thief and that I should be heavily punished for trying to steal her pocket. I argued with her a bit but she was very stubborn. She took me to the Principal's chamber and described the incident. I presented my defense there too. The Principal of the school asked me to leave the premises of the school for one day with immediate effect. I followed his orders. As I went back to my classroom it was recess time. All those seniors called me "a thief" one by one. Everyone who were sitting in the class having their snacks, looked at me in thorough dismay, as if I was really a thief, who tried to steal away the purse of our english teacher. I was feeling sad but collected my strength and left the school that day.
The next day when I went to school, the Principal asked me to meet him inside his chamber during recess hours. I agreed. During the 1st period, the boy sitting next to me in my bench, Joshi, told me a secret. He said that he had noticed Rahul swiftly taking the purse of Mrs. Sood and placing it inside your bag, when he came back after drinking water. I asked him why he did not become a witness to that crime, as he had seen Rahul doing that. He said he was too afraid to speak against Rahul, as he a dangerous guy. I made him collect his courage and asked him to help me by becoming a witness in my case. Initially he denied but after repeated requests from my side, he finally agreed.
After the 1st period was over, I took Joshi to the Principal's chamber. The Principal was shocked to listen to what Joshi said. He called for Rahul and for Mrs. Sood. After a stern warning of bitter consequences, Rahul confessed his heinous act of crime. The Principal led all 4 of us to our class and then asked him to say Sorry to me in front of the entire class. Facing utter humiliation, he was forced to say sorry to me. Then he got suspended from the school for 1 week.
A week passed and he came back. After the school time was over, I went to the parking place, where I had parked my bicycle. As usual, I took it out and started paddling back to my home. I had already left the school premises and in about 5 to 6 minutes, was passing from a rather lonely place, with almost no human being in sight. Suddenly 3 people appeared in front of me, one of them being Rahul Sedani. They attacked me. One of them threw my bike away. Rahul hit me very badly with bicycle chain on my hands, my stomach and my chest. The other 2 people were in their twenties, unlike Rahul who was 16 at that time. They took supported Rahul in hitting me, by holding my hands from behind my back. I was punched very badly in my stomach by Rahul. After this attack all 3 ran away, leaving me lying on the road, bleeding heavily and almost unconscious.
The next thing I noticed was that I was on a hospital bed, with a fracture on my left hand. My mother and my cousin were sitting next to me. It took me 1 month to recover fully from my wounds and get back to normalcy. Once I became okay, I took my mother to the school. We filed a severe complaint against Rahul. The Principal suspended him from the school for 2 months, once my case was proved. After 2 months when he came back, he started harassing me again, as it was impossible for him to improve upon his nasty behavior. But meanwhile, my mother had taught me how to keep ignoring such racist, discriminating people. I started doing that.
To my surprise I discovered that my school life became happier than before due to that. Rahul and his evil gang started giving lesser attention towards me and started focusing on other students so as to harass them. Gradually I got liberated from this evil of raging and racism going on inside my school. But by then I had suffered a lot due to this evil, in a very small age. It was the Racism caused to the prejudice of a certain section of the students that they were intellectually superior to the newcomers in the class. Some may argue that it was raging and not Racism. But I object to that. For me any kind of discrimination inflicted upon one human being by the other human being is Racism only and hence this one was no exception.
(4) Racism caused due to the difference in Language:-
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This type of Racism is seen everywhere too. Some People differentiate among each other on the basis of the language spoken and they are racists too. For example, among the marathi people living in Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra, some of them are excessively proud of their Marathi language. They look at the migrants from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and such other states as being inferior to themselves in all aspects only because they can not speak good marathi!! Do you feel that this is ridiculous? Well, I sure do. Such discrimination can be seen in the local trains of Mumbai, especially when, say 3 or 4 marathi guys are discussing something in their own language and suddenly a guy from other state tries to focus on their discussion. This guy does not good Marathi and yet he tries to focus on their talk because he is interested in the subject of their discussion, say for example football. A person witnessing their discussion from outside gets a very clear idea as to how those marathis are making this guy struggle hard to follow them. They deliberately try and keep him away as soon as they come to know that he is not a maratha, by ridiculing whatever he says and demeaning him constantly. In stead of including him in the discussion, they exclude him. As such these 4 maratha people are also strangers to one another. But they have formed a group in no time at all, as they found each other being a maratha. So being a stranger to each other is not an issue at all, over here but language is. After facing quite a bit of insults, that other guy, who is not a maratha, finally lets it go and shifts away his focus from them. I have been a witness to so many such incidences of racial discrimination based on language in the local trains of Mumbai. The marathis are otherwise very good-hearted people but when it comes to language, they just become highly discriminatory towards people speaking other languages. In fact, language is the main reason why regional parties in Maharashtra like ShivSena and Maharashtra Navnirmaan Sena have gained importance over the years. The founding father of Shiv Sena Late Mr.Bal Thackerey was indeed a great leader but he gave too much importance to marathi language every where. He became unpopular among the non-marathas but at the same time extremely popular among the marathas of the state. His son, Uddhav Thackerey also gives more than necessary importance to the marathi language. In fact, he goes a step ahead and does not hesitate in insulting the non-marathas by some or the other means. His cousin, the founder of MNS, Mr. Raj Thackerey, goes one step further. He not just insults but intimidates all the non-marathas living in the state as well as living in other parts of the country, when delivering a fiery emotional speech. I have noticed that in each of his speeches of this kind, he does not miss to insult the non-marathas, by mentioning that the marathas are a very brave race and when they come into a fighting mode, no other people of India, speaking any other language can defeat them!! Every time, I listen to such foolish words from him, on one hand I feel like laughing aloud and on the other hand, I feel a sense of shame for the kind of mindset he possesses. After all, what is the relationship but a certain language and courage?? I am not able to understand this thing till now. Any body can be brave, not just a maratha - it can be a Sikh from Punjab, or a Kathiawadi guy from Gujarat or a black guy living in the United States... I mean it can be any human living in any part of this world. Courage is not a quality limited to just the marathas, it is a universal quality, seen everywhere in the world. It is those with the racist mindsets, that think courage is limited to just a few group of people speaking a certain language.
Discrimination based on language spoken can also be seen inside Pakistan. (As such Pakistan is a country where we find racism of almost of all sorts - based on skin color, language, religion, caste, social status and several other parameters.) In this country, not just politicians but film stars, other celebrities and a lot other people consider those speaking the punjabi language (mixed with urdu words) as the most prominent language. It was okay if they considered that but they do not stop at that. They consider people speaking pakhtuni, baluchi, sindhi, hindi and other languages as very inferior to themselves in all ways!!! For a major proportion of pakistanis, those speaking punjabi language are like dominant kings and queens. They believe that they are born to rule the land and all the rest are their subordinates!!! A similar mentality exists amongst the chinese too. For them, the chinese language is the best and the most clever language in the world. Hence, all those who speak chinese are the cleverest and the most superior humans in the whole world!! In one of his speeches the current President of China, Xi Jin Ping said that as the chinese are superior in this aspect, they can easily and with no thought of guilt, go for the expansion of their lands in all 4 directions!! This has led to all the expansion activities that China has been doing in the last few years by trying to confiscate - Laddakh and parts of Arunachal Pradesh from India, parts of northern rural areas of Nepal, the entire country of Taiwan and the entire region of South China Sea. Just imagine how badly the mentality of a person can be spoiled, if he has racist ideas present in him before. He can turn into an expansionist ruler/dictator having no mercy for the people of other races or those living in other countries and can go ahead with killing them ruthlessly just for satisfying his expansionist, racist desires. (5) Racism based on possession of property:- =============================== This type of racism is seen amongst rural areas of different countries including India. The landlords behave as if they are the Gods, the final authorities on each and every matter inside a village. Why? Because they are in possession of thousands of acres of land in the village. They do not hesitate to harass the laborers and their families when asking for repaying the debts. They rape and kill the girls of those laborers but the poor man does not say a word against them, on many occassions. Such cases should be registered with the local police but the laborer opts not to register any complaint whatsoever against the landlord. Thus the landlord exploits all the families of laborers. This is one of the worst kinds of racism, the one based on the difference in possession of lands. A similar type is seen based on the difference in possession of money i.e. bank balance. Two best friends witness their age-old friendship gradually getting broken into pieces because of the racist attitude of one of them who has gone rich all of a sudden. He treats the same guy whom he considered his best friend, his most loved person, in a rubbish insulting manner after he has become rich. That additional sum of money which he has earned hovers over his mind all the time and he starts thinking of his friend as someone inferior, some sort of a loser, while considering himself as a superior guy who won the race of life!! Why? Only because he acquired wealth and became rich. Does that give him the right to insult his best friend? No way. But he thinks that it does. This is the racism which creeps out of the difference in bank balance. A very similar type of racism is the one seen among women when they compare each other based on the number of ornaments they are wearing in a function. Women wearing more ornaments form a cohesive group and start making fun of those women who are not wearing so many ornaments or jewellery. This is a particularly feminine type of racism as it is mostly seen among women and not among men. (6) Racism based on Religion:- ===================== This one of the worst kind of racism ever. People discriminating between each other based on the difference in their individual religious faiths is rather awful. It is tragic that even in the 21st century this kind of racism prevails. In Pakistan, hindu temples existed in thousands when partition happened i.e when India got divided into 2 nations - India and Pakistan in the year 1947. As on today, hardly a few dozens remain throughout Pakistan. This is a country which comprises of a demography that has a muslim majority. These muslims have demolished most of the hindu temples there. Not just that, they have so many strange and weird rules imposed upon the hindu population there that any hindu who wants to continue with his faith would find it very difficult to do so. He will ultimately lose courage and convert to Islam (muslim religion). The atrocities on the hindus and the sikhs inside Pakistan since 1947 are extremely huge in number. When Pakistan became an independent nation on August 14, 1947 the number of hindus there, counted in hundreds of thousands. As of now hardly about 10 thousand of them remain in Pakistan. They have been tortured and harassed in all possible ways so that they get converted to Islam - by giving money, by advice, by punishment and by discrimination. This is an example of racism based on religion. A similar kind of racism based on religion is seen inside China these days where the central government in Beijing is harassing and torturing the Uighar muslims of the Xinjiang province in a very ugly manner. The chinese government led by Xi Jin Ping has put millions of such muslims in a captive condition inside different concentration camps there. The living facilities are extremely poor and these muslims need help. A similar case is that of the persecution of Rohingya muslims in the country called Myanmar. These muslims have been forced to either leave the country or face death by its military leaders under the orders of its supreme leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Around a 1.5 million rohingyas have ran away from Myanmar and thousands have been killed in a clamp down on them by the military of Myanmar. The local buddhist population and regime of that country believe that all these rohingya muslims are either terrorists or connected to some kind of terror network!! Just imagine, can a million people be connected to terrorism? No way. But that is the kind of mentality that racist people develop over the years. This persecution of the local Rohingya muslims is one more example of racism based on religion, undoubtedly one of the most dreaded and the most brutal kinds of racism in the history of mankind. During the late 1930s and early 1940s in the period of World War 2, the persecution of the jewish community by Adolf Hitler inside Germany, Poland, Austria and other parts of Europe as well as the persecution of jews by Benito Mussolini inside Italy and African countries is yet another example of racism based on religion. However, these topics have been discussed earlier in this book. So they won't be discussed here. ********************************************
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