Darren Sammy has recently made a statement that while playing for SRH, he was called `Kalu'. If it is true, it must be an Indian Cricketer. We have a massive obsession for the fair skin and genetical avarice towards dark skin. I will dwell later on how fair skin after caste leads to apotheosis in Indian society.
If unification was a religion, sports is the high priest of it. If sports is the high priest of unification, cricket in India is `God's favourite priest'. Racial abuse in such a sport, that too in a society which proudly believes in `Vasudeva Kutumbam' is iniquity. The players who indulged in this are the truest anti-nationals. If found guilty they should be banned from the sport, their records erased, they should be jailed and declared as person non grata.
IPL has been the hell house of controversies since its inception. Allegations of match-fixing, seedy night parties, tales of sexual abuse, and not to mention mediocre cricket have blemished the reputation of cricket's showbiz event.
Racism has no place in sports. The IPL governing board should immediately order an enquiry into this issue. It should be conducted through video conferencing mode, and telecast online. Let the truth come out. Let those who have to be shamed, be shamed.
There is an Instagram post going around of a particular Indian player calling Darren Sammy as Kalu. These are the days of fake news and photoshopping; hence I refuse to believe this post until it is conclusively proved as accurate. In one of his twitter posts, he talks of an Indian gentleman legend and associates him with this term `Kalu'. It would be bilious if this legend too had called him `Kalu'. Investigate everyone associated with SRH during this period. Government of India should crack the whip, if the IPL governing board does not order an inquiry by the end of this week, i.e. second week of June 2020.
Caste defines an individual in India, and next comes skin colour. An individual coming from a low caste with dark skin is considered unintelligent, perfidious, and generally heathen. Being born in an upper-caste makes one priggish, and a coruscating skin colour ennobles its bearer. Cracking jokes or abusing an individual about his/her skin colour or caste is considered Dionysus.
Our Bollywood dumb asses went ballistic with `black lives matter' when the George Floyd issue broke out. These are the shenanigans who do not mind endorsing fairness creams for a few dollars more. One would be curious to see which hypocrite Bollywood star tweet on this issue, especially if it is proved correct. Will they dare to take on the might of IPL and call the bluff on racism, I doubt. Everyone is eagerly awaiting that great man from Bollywood whose blood boils when commentators question the indifferent performance of BCCI XI, and he expresses it on his Twitter account.
There is an air of expectancy how one or two most followed twitter accounts that react on every other injustice happening around the globe, react on this issue. The account did not condemn George Floyd issue itself for apparent reason.
It is pertinent to recall what happened during the match-fixing scandal at the beginning of the century. The South African cricketers, including Hansie Cronje, fixed matches, but they admitted to their role when confronted with facts. Their teammates also named and shamed them during the enquiry. Neither the believed to be guilty Indian cricketers gave themselves up nor their teammates named and shamed them. `The Monkey Gate' scandal involving Andrew Symonds witnessed a re-run of this bonhomie. We all know what will happen to the Darren Sammy issue; it will die a slow death. The only doubt in one's mind is, will SRH go one step ahead, and file a multi-million dollar defamation case against Sammy.
I think it is inherently true that we all are racists in some way. It is how we stop ourselves from hurting people and keeping the mouth shut, that matters. Unfortunately not many know this simple technique.
ReplyDeleteA very well written piece!
ReplyDelete