Sign o' the Times
On 23rd September, 1932, Pritilata Waddedar led a bomb attack with 10 men on the Pahartali European Club in Chittagong, Bengal. The raid was successful but she was unable to escape and was trapped by the police. She consumed potassium cyanide as her next best option. The target, the European Pahartali Club, was chosen because it bore this offensive sign at its entrance:
"Dogs and Indians not allowed"
Seventy six years later, I was in Pune for some work this week and I came across this sign outside a posh residential complex:
The British Raj has thankfully ended, but bigotry and stupid messages can still be found littered all around our free land. I did not get a chance to ask the management of the residential complex why such a sign was put up by them but the friends I was with tried to explain the possible reasoning behind such messages. The foreigners really implies Iranians or Middle-Easterners who have questionable character and money to burn. This apparently is some local hushed up secret which is never stated but understood in the undertones of an unspoken language. And students, well, they are just a noisy bunch of idiots who throw parties, do drugs and disturb residents.
If that is the case, it is logical to deduce that the upper-middle-class residents of this posh complex must be law-abiding citizens with unquestionable character. You know, the good Indian, the kind we like to show as the new face of India Shining. Fair (and sometimes lovely), hyperconfident, nationalist, visionary, shopping-mall addict, genetically IT enabled and looking west.
Related: Skeletons in the Racist Closet
3 responses
Have your say
This is a new board. The earlier board read 'Foreigners and Students not allowed on RENT', which by no means is less discriminatory. Nevertheless, it wasn't as rude and probably less Xenophobic.
ALK, I'm sure there are better ways of setting policy guidelines for noise or drug-use than resort to this.
That sign outside Brahma Majestic was put there because of Iranian (and other) "students", who are just rich kids come to India to party. They are loud, obnoxious, they do drugs and drink alcohol and have nothing to do all day except create a nuisance.
The sign is not xenophobic. You are taking things out of context and misusing it to promote your own agenda.
The fact is 99% of foreigners in Pune are so-called students, who are just children of rich people in the Middle East and Africa, who come to Pune to have a good time.
These are not good people.