It’s been an adjustment, to experience this website’s growth and witness our readership change. People leave, others join, many lurk. While I miss some of our now-absent personalities who were prolific with their pondering (Punjabi Boy, Jai Singh, DesiDancer and Espressa come to mind), I’m thrilled about our new commenters, who are expanding our discussion and bringing their unique points of view to our cacophonous, rowdy, online adda. I’m especially looking at our first-gen contributors, like Runa and Malathi, because for stories like the one I’m trying to blog, I think their perspective is invaluable, for helping us find nuance and context. What I’m trying to say is, HELP.
Al Mujahid for Debauchery left this on our news tab:
Unbelievable. Pakistani actor Moin Akhtar (a muhajir/Indian origin himself) plays Hyderabadis from India in blackface in this ‘comedy’ show.
Wait, WHAT? And here is where the DBDs come in, because I don’t understand the clip below or know who these actors are, and as I’ve stated before, I like to get as much information as possible before I get my outrage on– and believe me, I could rage about actors in blackface.
What on earth is going on? And would someone who watches desi tv please tell me that this an uncommon practice? I fast forwarded through the clip, but I don’t get the greasy, huge-black-glasses-equipped, buck-toothed character, and by “don’t get”, I mean my spider sense is tingling. What, if anything, do all of you know?
who wants to watch average looking people doing average looking things…i do that every day…
muahaha! leaves more rice for me! i mean, rice with more. more sadu
Yes, they are South Indian in real life, but that’s not what I meant– I’m pointing out that in the movies I’ve seen with these beautiful women, their characters are North Indian, not gorgeous, cute-faced Tamil ladies who just happened to marry Amitabh (or his son). They can convincingly play a Punjabi Hindu housewife, or whatever. That’s what I meant by “passing”.
thats cause an inter racial couple would involve a screaming 3 hour sub-plot with 6 song and dance numbers.
I absolutely won’t compare the situation of African-Americans to that of South Indians..we are ridiculed but never lynched.
Umm…maybe because in the South we created our own opportunities to make up for our lack of Delhi/Mumbai clout ?
Racism is an apt word because we are seen as a different race by the people who abuse us. We aren’t talking about dress, food customers etc…the “humor” is based on our phsyical traits. And I also take issue with people who pretend there are no differences in the genetic history of desis from different caste/linguistic background, this has been proven by science. We are all a mix, with the composition varying by locale. The issue is not whether desis have mixed, diverse origins but what people make of that genetic diversity
The south shall rise again.
I never really thought of this; if I’m around anyone who is pointing out a nose, it’s because the proboscis we are discussing is big and the person to whom it belongs is usually of Northern extraction. I never stopped to think of if that meant South Indians had the opposite, i.e. “small noses”. The only trait I really associate with a “South Indian” face is big, round eyes.
South Indians have been a part of Delhi Bombay society for as far as I can remember. Matunga, Chembur are two of the Bombay neighborhoods that immediately come to mind. A lot of big business in Delhi and Bombay are headed by South Indians, specifically Larsen and Toubro, Tata Consultancy, and I can look up more but I am a little busy. I am not sure if all that is being said here is the American experience or just hearsay.
thats cause an inter racial couple would involve a screaming 3 hour sub-plot with 6 song and dance numbers.
That’s interesting…so you would consider a Tamil person marrying a UP person an interracial marriage? How about if the Tamil person is very light-skinned and the UP person is very dark?
Yes, they are South Indian in real life, but that’s not what I meant– I’m pointing out that in the movies I’ve seen with these beautiful women, their characters are North Indian, not gorgeous, cute-faced Tamil ladies who just happened to marry Amitabh
Yes, it doesn’t seem so hard to make Hema M. a Tamilian or whatever she is who is living in.. delhi or wherever the plot takes her. But I would think since Hindi cinema is Hindi, than it’s going to be set in Hindi-speaking states or Hindi-speaking urban areas and the question to ask is: is it regional or some people are calling it racial prejudice that the South Indian actresses characters are not shown as a Malyalee living in Rajasthan (oh that would be cool) or is it just convenience to get to the heart of the story?
Aren’t there a lot of other North Indian actors who’s first language who aren’t Hindus but have to portray one in the movie? ARen’t there many North Indian actors who play a bombayite or Rajasthani or Kashmiri who actually aren’t from that place? these aren’t rhetorical questions b/c I just don’t watch a lot of bollywood (but I so love the songs) but I would think (from the little I’ve watched) is that the answer is yes, to the above questions.
Not really, but even if I was, it wouldn’t have changed my response. I have a pet peeve with HindiSnobs.
Here’s the article that Ramachandra Guha wrote as an Outlook india cover story in July I think. I don’t have a login for Outlook so the link is from another site that I just found online. Ramachandra Guha is a respected historian – take what you will of his take on this North-South divide. The article is called – ‘The Better Half’ — in general I am very uncomfortable with blatant comparisons and the ‘who’s better’ game regardless of who’s playing it – I think they only hurt dialogue….but he also has some insights into history etc….
http://www.sangam.org/2007/07/Better_Half.php?uid=2458
Hyderabadi, thanks for mentioning this! Yes, the whole issue of outlookindia.com dated July 16 2007 is called Dakshin Rising and is about this issue. (you may need to log on, but it’s free to get a login, unlike NYT etc). Guha’s essay is called The Better Half.
I apologize, L&T CEO is maharashtrian, some more prominent CEOs of South Indian origin
Akhila Srinivasan, Managing Director, Shriram Investments Ltd Rajshree Pathy, Chairman, Rajshree Sugars and Chemicals Ltd Renuka Ramnath, CEO, ICICI Ventures Vineet Nayyar, Tech Mahindra S Ramodorai, Tata Consultancy
Chachaji – I found the article elsewhere where I didn’t need to login. Sorry – I forgot to link to the article in my previous post — here’s the linked article:
The Better Half – Ramachandra Guha
That’s like saying person X didn’t experience poor treatment in NYC or SF. What about outside of those major cities?
I really don’t think my Mother has any reason to lie about daily harassment in Nagpur; she is rather blunt, but honest, to a fault. Maybe Puli’s dad and my Mom are the only two South Indians who got treated like crap…and they’re both in America now, so you’re right, it’s the American experience.
Awww A N N A, you are a wicked charmer. I bet you sensed my need to keep a low profile and write fewer lines here, so you decided to go ahead and appeal to my big, personal ego.
Well, sorry molle, I am the wrong person to help you out here because I don’t know much HIndi (only enough to bargain in Palika Bazaar and not enough to pick up on accents). Also, like your parents, my parents too denied me the pleasures on Indian cinema until I was old enough (and then it became too late for me to succumb to its charms without questioning a million things).
Whether or not Northerners are routinely made fun of in S. Indian movies, I cannot tell you, but I can tell you that in general the level/type of comedy that is in Tamil movies do not appeeal to me. It is a very slap stick or physical type of comedy; never subtle; always too loud and too obvious and too obnoxious for my taste. And there was a period when dwarfs (or people with physical disabilities) were routinely used/abused for the comedy effects. (or maybe it wasn’t exactly a long period of time; it was perhaps just my uncomfortable impression based on one or two movies?) So, in general, my opinion on comedy in Tamil movies is not a favorable one. I usually feel uncomfortable whatever group or individual is targeted.
And having gone to an all-girls, Protestant school (which interestingly stressed and appreciated Sanskrit and ‘Indian’ values and art) that in some ways was constructed along the lines of a finishing school (I am embarrassed to say this) my English was never allowed to be Tamil-accented (at least, that is what I thought/think). So I sometimes found it puzzling (and sort of funny) when an occassional Mumbaikar with a distinct Mumbai lilt/accent or a Delhite with a Punjabi-accented English made the standard references to Tamil/Chennai/South accent and laughed generously and unself-consciously since the opportunity was there anyway in the form of me. I am still confused about whether they actually heard the accent in my voice or not.
Shouldn’t it be Chennai-an instead of Madrasi now? I protest!! 😉
Include me (a Northie) in that group of ‘crude’ people. Anyone who looks down on eating rajma-chawal (or rice with daal) with fingers doesn’t know what s/he is missing. Admittedly, I won’t do it in a restaurant in the US, but at home, hell yeah!! When my family went on a tour of South India in the 80’s (I was in my teens), one of the things I enjoyed most was eating food on a banana leaf with my fingers. So much fun – not to mention more environmentally friendly and using considerably less resources than disposable and non-biodegradable containers used now-a-days.
Anna#115,
I think the tone your response is uncalled for, I was respectfully stating facts in response to earlier assertions that South Indians have been discrimnated and they have to create their own opportunities, I was responding to generalizations and my intent probably was not clear. The actresses you and other posters mention all live in big cities that is why my response, Aishwarya Rai is born and raised in Bombay hence the comparison is not fair. I am not sure if mocking in movies equates mocking everyone in daily life. All I was trying to highlight was that the mockery in real life is nowhere near as grave as the some make it out to be. The purpose of the dialogue for me is to present a balanced picture of both sides, generalizations at either end don’t serve the dialogue any good. Nowhere in my posts I implied that your mom’s or Puliogre’s parents’ experiences are not accurate. I just asked a simple question if the discrimination being spoken about was faced by the posters in America or they have heard (hearsay) about it from others.
To clarify (I hope) no one is denying the following (the italicized part; i have experienced it myself): If the term is used here to mean perpetuation of unkind and unflattering stereotypes and hence social distance, then its fine.
oh, you people – how crude that you eat rice with your fingers rather than a spoon’ Include me (a Northie) in that group of ‘crude’ people.
I had a North Indian say something about South Indians eating with their hands and I was kindof at a loss for words b/c I thought North Indians also ate with their hands. They eat more bread, like chapathi and such and isn’t all that eaten with their hands?
It’s so easy to clean-up after a banana meal feast – love eating that way!
I find it helps if you live in a community where there are not enough browns for there to be tension over what “kind” of brown you are 🙂
Yes.
Amit, that’s what chapatis are for. (eating your rajma chawal). I keed.
This happens in Hindi film as well. There is a song from the movie “Naksha” features a song and dance number with a group of small people dressed up in “tribal” gear. The film was supposed to be some sort of Indiana Jones inspired deal.
Oh, and sigh!, I was going to agree with you. If there isn’t the dynamic of social hierarchies/power dynamics, then I’m not sure I would term this racism per se, but certainly racist/regionalist/classist humor.
PS,
Its the rice-eating with one’s hands that some folks from the north have a problem with – not the other stuff like rotis etc. I’ve had friends from Delhi imitate slurping noises that South Indians supposedly make while eating rice and rasam….
I see everyone mentioned most stuff I wanted to anyway, but being a hyderabadi , I thought I might add this Khushwant Singh joke I read long long ago, reproduced as I remember (obviously, not word-to-word) ..
Passenger to a taxi driver: Why do Hyderabadi ppl say ‘Hau’ instead of ‘Haan’ , to convey their agreement in Hindi?
TD: No saar, that’s not true. Educated and decent people use ‘Haan’ or ‘Haan ji’to convey agreement. Others just give a bad impression about our accent and Hindi speaking skills.
Passenger: Oh,you use ‘Haan’ and ‘Haan ji’, you must be then properly educated and well bred.
TD: Hau.
Brown@108 abd 118, I personally have experienced the mocking of being a S. Indian. My ex’s family was Punjabi, and they constantly mocked my s. indianness (though I am of s. indian origin and never actually lived in India.) From the way I ate rice, to my “accent” (mid-atlantic?), to my trying to speak to them in Hindi/Punjabi. At least I tried. In many years of marriage, my ex never learned how to say anything in my native language.
I think growing up in the US makes me (an others like me, if I may be so bold) more sensitive to racist/culturist overtones, because we were (are?) subject to them so frequently. I notice that people in Desh, just let it slide, and retort with another joke.
We ABD’s, OTOH, are a little more sensitive and have our spider-sense on all the time.
Anna/PindaUS, 🙂 Thank you for opening my eyes to the fact that I have been in an interracial marriage all these years and did not even know it! ( This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine thinks she is dating an African American and so is in an interracial relationship while the guy thinks the same coz he thinks she is Hispanic !)
Since we have got onto the topic of South Indian heroines making it big in Hindi cinema , what say you all about the reverse trend: Khushboo – one of the biggest stars in Tamil cinema is Punjabi!
Malathi, Hear you on the accent. Every time someone says “Oh you are South Indian but you dont look South indian or have a ‘south Indian ‘ accent” – I want to scream!!
PS,
Its the rice-eating with one’s hands that some folks from the north have a problem with – not the other stuff like rotis etc. I’ve had friends from Delhi imitate slurping noises that South Indians supposedly make while eating rice and rasam….i>
I thought North Indians also ate rice with their hands. I had to go to a gurudwara in DC for about a year b/c of work I was doing and I’m pretty sure, during the meal that they served most people ate with their hands.
Lifelong, Your response is much appreciated, I am not trying to slight anyone’s experiences but am trying to understand where everyone is coming from. I have an issue with generalization which is most here seem to indulge in.
Sidhu, I’ve heard the same joke, but the difference was “Haan ji” versus “Aho” (I am a fan of the “aho”, personally, although it merits me a thappar upside the head with a rolled newspaper when I use it at my Nanas in front of company.)
“So we’re just a couple of white people”
“Guess so. What do you wanna do?”
“Wanna go to the gap?”
“Yeah that sounds good”
PS, I can’t speak for all Punjabis, but in my family and among most of my relatives who live in the North, it was fine to eat rice + daal/rajma with fingers. Yes, we also ate roti using hands/fingers. Though when I think of one rich relative, they definitely disapproved of it – they were just a bit “proper” and “modern” 🙂 – drinking tea that was brewed/steeped the British way rather than boiled in a pot; preferring bottled drinks like thums-up instead of freshly-squeezed lemon juice/rooh-afza etc. etc. I think in this particular case, it had more to do with status rather than looking down on south indians.
I have been mocked at for this
Of all places in Coimbatore, by a bunch of kids from North India who were settled there.
And do not get me started on times when I used to take curd rice for lunch in Bombay. Curd rice and pickle? How could you eat that?
No, it wasn’t, not to me, and that is why I fired back the way I did– I apologize for my tone. You sounded like you were skeptical and I wasn’t sure how I (or Puli for that matter) could respond to your statement, short of considering our parents liars. In my late teens, my mom was so haunted by what she went through, she couldn’t handle my dating an ABD North Indian boy, even though I told her repeatedly that I couldn’t relate to her perception of difference between us, because everyone in America who is desi is just…brown. We fought over this many times and it’s one of the only instances I can recall where a disagreement between us inspired HER to cry. Now I look back and regret that I was such a dick, but hey, I was young and stupid.
My larger point is, these experiences are obviously real, and not baseless rumors, and using words like “hearsay” are hurtful. While I appreciate the attempt to clarify what certain words mean, I don’t want to get bogged down in semantics; is there a better word than racism, for what my Mother experienced?
Hell, I experienced a little bit of whatever it is in grad school, which was the first time I had the opportunity to really mingle with DBDs. One of them– who was a Punjabi from Delhi– had an utterly charming bit of sign language he liked to use in order to refer to me; he’d lick his elbow and then everyone would laugh uproariously, as if it were the most clever thing in the world. What an asshole.
See? There’s a reason for a lot of this sensitivity, on the part of my Lemurian peers.
i have already commented on this site a few times about various types of insults i have received from north indians (in america only), always from people close to my age. a memorable insult came at dinner at a north indian restaurant — 4 white people, one north indian, and me. northie says to the group, “thank god you didn’t let milli choose the restaurant; i couldn’t have stomached eating south indian food … it’s like one big mushy mess, like vomit or something.” most recently, a north indian told me he felt a greater kinship with other north indians because “even [your] gods at the temple look weird.” hmm, how insightful. i have always grown up with the sense that north indians think south indians are uncultured savages.
i also find it extremely annoying when people assume i speak hindi. i usually have to repeat “no, i really don’t speak hindi” 5 or 6 times before strangers stop trying to converse with me in hindi and reply in horror, “so. you. don’t. speak. HINDI???” that is usually quickly followed up with, “tah-meel? what is that?” i have met so many older north indians in the states who seemingly have never heard of tamil, let alone even know where madras is.
@Camille
Can’t figure out if I’ve heard aho in hyderabad before (unless the English spelling is the closest to the sound we are trying to convey :)), anyways ur Nanas wanted u to be known as well bred :), no fault theirs. Hau ya no? 🙂
Amit – I agree that in some cases its got more to do with how one westernized one wants to come across rather than the South/North issue. PS – I think what you saw in the gurudwara is probably true i.e. people from the north eating rice with their fingers – its probably the more urbanized folks that have a real issue with this one rather than the older generation or more traditional folks. Anyways – my point in bringing up this example was just to illustrate how these stereotypes exist – doesn’t mean that all of it is true – stereotypes are after all broad generalizations. ..and therefore not necessarily true in all cases – but are annoying all the same…
In my late teens, my mom was so haunted by what she went through, she couldn’t handle my dating a North Indian boy, even though I told her repeatedly that I couldn’t relate to her perception of difference between us, because everyone in America who is desi is just…brown. We fought over this many times and it’s one of the only instances I can recall where a disagreement between us inspired HER to cry.
Oh, that is sad…wow it must have made quite an impact on her. I’m sorry she went through this.
PS, I can’t speak for all Punjabis, but in my family and among most of my relatives who live in the North, it was fine to eat rice + daal/rajma with fingers. Yes, we also ate roti using hands/fingers. Though when I think of one rich relative, they definitely disapproved of it – they were just a bit “proper” and “modern” 🙂
I don’t eat rice with my hands either having grown up in the US and everyone is so nice to me when I visit india for making sure I’ve got a spoon or fork available. Anyways, Amit, that’s my experience with N. Indians – that they also eat with their hands.
One thing that I’ve heard my parents say is that certain Christian groups in Kerala think they are better than others and one of my Christian Malyalee friends said her parents would really have a problem if she married a Hindu and would much rather have her marry a North Indian who was Chrisitan or even a Westerner who was Christian.
Hi folks,
We seem to be caught up in specific slights that each party feels have been hurled by the other in this north-south issue. I think stereotyping of either side is pretty egregious. Also, there have been some comments here about how these may just be perceived slights here in America and therefore not real – which really invalidates and riles people who have several personal incidents to back their views – so it may help to read this article that I had linked to earlier by Ramachandra Guha in one of the most well read and mainstream magazines in India – Outlook – only a month ago about the North-South issue and his take on it….again – I am including the article here in its entirety because I am hoping that it will put to rest some questions about whether such a divide even exists – if a respected historian based in India is saying it did – it probably did – wouldnt you say?
Read on and make what you want out of it….
The Better Half
by Ramachandra Guha, Outlook India, July 16, 2007
According to one study published in 2005, the per capita income of the southern states, taken together, was 50 per cent higher than the states of the north…The south’s superiority might be demonstrated in qualitative ways as well: in the relative absence of communal violence, for example, or the greater emancipation of women.
Historically open to the outsider, and inclusive within, the south’s emerged denominator on top
A Harvard historian once wrote a book explaining how the northern parts of a country always developed first and fastest. He based his thesis, as Harvard historians tend to do, on the nations of the Atlantic world. He went over the list one by one: Italy, Germany, England, and the United States. In these (and other) countries, the north had led the way in technical innovation, economic growth, political emancipation, and social reform. The differences between north and south were so extreme that sometimes—as in the United States—they even led to civil war.
I think it unlikely that the scholar had much acquaintance with the Republic of India, a land that has a long-standing—and well deserved—reputation for upturning the hypotheses of academic social science.
For it now appears that by most indicators of development, the south of India is comfortably ahead of the north. According to one study published in 2005, the per capita income of the southern states, taken together, was 50 per cent higher than the states of the north. At 74 percent, the literacy rate in the south was well in excess of the north’s 59 per cent. As many as 74 per cent of southern households had electricity, compared to a mere 49 per cent in the north. The south’s superiority might be demonstrated in qualitative ways as well: in the relative absence of communal violence, for example, or the greater emancipation of women.
That the south of India is more advanced than the north is now part of the conventional wisdom. As it happens, I am just about old enough to recall a time when the terms ‘Madrasi’ and ‘South of the Vindhyas’ denoted derision and scorn.
The typical North Indian regarded the typical South Indian as short, squat, black, effete—and vegetarian. But now, those once proud people are voting with their feet to move south. They come to write code in Bangalore’s software companies, to labour on construction sites in Hyderabad, to work in coffee plantations in Coorg, or to do odds and ends in Chennai’s film industry. Now, the stereotype of the South Indian among Punjabis and Biharis is that he is intelligent, hardworking, entrepreneurial, and open-minded. And that he can very often be a she. And, most importantly, that if you study well and behave yourself, she or he can give you a job.
Why is the south ‘superior’? Why, when compared to other parts of India, does it attract more investment and appear to be more socially benign? To answer this question one needs to invoke both history and geography, sometimes acting singly, at other times in combination.
One striking difference between north and south India relates to how they have viewed people from far away. The foreigner came to the north as a marauder and conqueror; to the south, as a traveller and trader. This is as much true of ‘foreign’ religions as it is of foreign individuals. There were Christians in Kerala several centuries before there were Christians in Europe. Unlike their northern counterparts, the Moplah Muslims of Malabar speak Malayalam, not Urdu—besides, no one can accuse them of an identification with invaders or interlopers.
That the region has such an active coastline has of course contributed to this openness. Human communities who live along the sea are generally more curious and less insular than the inhabitants of deserts and mountains. People have come and gone down the centuries to and from the ports along the southern coasts, bringing or receiving new ideas, goods, and technologies.
The south enjoys geographical advantages in the hinterland as well. The topography and climate of the Deccan Plateau are congenial to human settlement and transportation. There is no Himalaya, and no Thar Desert either. In what are now the contiguous states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, individuals and communities could very easily shift from one village or town to another, hundreds of miles distant.
This process of movement and migration led to a deep intermingling of castes, religions and—not least—linguistic groups.
Indeed, one reason for the south’s current superiority, such as it is, has to do with the fact that it has historically been multilingual. Because the region has a long coast, and because its terrain is so easy to walk across, the towns of south India have for a very long while had speakers of many languages dwelling within them. Bangalore, for example, is the only city in the world that has daily film shows in as many as six languages (the four southern tongues, as well as English and Hindi).
Chennai has a million or more Telugu speakers. This linguistic pluralism is also manifest in the smaller towns of the region; so, whereas in Ludhiana you will hear only Punjabi and Hindi, in Coimbatore you will hear the six languages spoken in Bangalore, and Marathi as well.
That the residents of the four southern states are, on the whole, less bigoted and more forward-looking is a product not of their genes but of their environment. Over hundreds of years, they have learnt to live with people speaking different tongues or professing a different faith. At the same time, they have also learnt to be less discriminatory among themselves. Women in the south are less likely to be manhandled in a bus or train; they are also more likely to practise law or medicine, or run a business. This too has something to do with history and geography. Women’s work is more crucial to (and hence more greatly valued in) rice as compared to wheat cultivation. Among some communities in south India, property was inherited through the female line. And, with no Rajputs or Mughals around as role models, there was little pressure to put women in purdah.
The comparative social egalitarianism of the south has other reasons and manifestations. Historically, there were fewer large zamindars than in the north and east; thus, many more peasants owned the land they tilled. The challenge to the caste system is more ancient and more robust than in the north. Medieval poets and reformers attacked the hegemony of the Brahmins; as, in the colonial period, did such men as Iyothee Thass and E.V. Ramaswami.
Since they have historically been more open to outsiders, as well as more inclusive within, the south has taken full advantage of the new global economy. Bangalore and Chennai have recently welcomed Frenchmen and Koreans as they once opened their gates to, respectively, Tamils and Andhras. In this part of India, history and mythology do not demand of Hindu youths that they set off, trishul in hand, in search of Christian priests or Muslim rickshaw-pullers. Those of different religions and none, men as well as women, high caste and low caste and obc, are all more intent on making a living than on fighting along the lines of identity. With a generally tolerant and peacable citizenry, investors need not fear that their factories will go up in flames. With a workforce that is disciplined as well as efficient, they can sit back, relax, and watch the numbers stack up.
To my knowledge, the first writer to see the southern surge coming was the Australian diplomat Walter Crocker. In his biography of Jawaharlal Nehru, published in 1966, Crocker observed that “south India has counted for too little in the Indian Republic. This is a waste for India as well as an unfairness to south India, because the south has a superiority in certain important things—its relative lack of violence, its lack of anti-Muslim intolerance, its lack of indiscipline and delinquency in the universities; in its better educational standards, its better government, and its cleanliness; in its far lesser practice of corruption and its little taste for Hindu revivalism. If the English language is to be saved to India as a living language it is the south that will save it”.
Crocker’s verdict is now widely endorsed. As an Indian of Tamil extraction who counts Bangalore as his hometown, I suppose I should take some pride in this. But as a historian I know only too well that in the history of humankind there are no permanent winners and losers. As I write, Hindu revivalists are, for the first time, in power in Karnataka. Successive governments in Tamil Nadu have been as corrupt as any in Uttar Pradesh or Haryana. Violence is endemic in Andhra Pradesh; practised with varying degrees of brutality by upper-caste landlords, mining magnates, religious fanatics, and Naxalites. The indiscipline and delinquency of the Malayalees has scared away investors both Indian and foreign. And there are deep divisions between town and country. There is a fabulous amount of wealth being generated in Bangalore and Hyderabad; travel an hour out of either city, and the faces one sees speak of a quiet desperation.
Southern complacency would be out of place, if only because nations once led by their northern halves have more recently witnessed a reversal of fortunes. It is the south of England that is rich and resurgent; the old northern towns of Manchester and Sheffield have become industrial graveyards. In the United States, the dash and elan of Atlanta and Dallas are in striking contrast to the demoralisation of Detroit and Pittsburgh. Who knows: a few decades down the line, perhaps historians will be asked to explain why Bihar is so much more prosperous and peaceful than Tamil Nadu.
(Ramachandra Guha is the author of India After Gandhi.)
milli, I’m sorry about your experience, and it’s unfortunate when people carry their Indian prejudices even in the US – I would think that living in this country at least would make it easier to put our regional identities on the back stove (not the same as dumping regional identity and everything that goes with it) in favor of being desis, but seems like that’s not always the case. I think it’s their loss if they do not take advantage of this opportunity (which may not have been available back in India) and learn not only about different cultures and regions from India, but also from different countries by interacting with others.
I do that always. When ever those northies try to mock us southies, try this Add ‘i’ or ‘e’ before any word starting with ‘s’ for example… street – estreet style – istyle and do not forget to LOL after using those words
John Hope Franklin, the African American historian, said (in his autobiography) that when he visited India he felt there was a vague, undefined prejudice between north and south indians — just thought it was interesting getting the viewpoint of someone not desi.
PS, yes, I agree. 🙂
Traditionally, rice was eaten very rarely in northern India prior to mass agriculture (which was post-1947). Even now, outside urban areas, it’s not that common. Especially Punjab (despite some specialties like Rajma Chawal and rice kheer), Haryana, and western U.P. Somewhere in central U.P. there’s an invisible line where people start eating more rice (while still eating mainly roti)…in Bihar they eat a lot of rice AND a lot of roti…it’s not until you get to Bengal that you find people eating much more rice than roti.
Strangely enough though, Kashmiri cuisine always featured rice as a main staple. I guess they could grow it more easily in their valleys.
I’ve never encountered serious North-South conflict among ABD’s. Most have a pretty strong sense of a brown identity beyond ethnicity/nationality/religion, the idea that “we are all in this together.” This is especially true after 9/11… Yet such unity is a rather mixed blessing for someone like me. In some respects it relies on the presence of a common enemy. Being half Tamil has never gotten me into trouble. Being half white, and obviously so, however…
PS- About the Jolie comments from earlier… if I was an actor, what roles would I be able to play with a clear conscience? In the unlikely event that I became famous, what type of actor would be entitled to portray me?
Interesting to see this discussion three days after Chak De India! opened.
There’s one scene early on where SRK has each of the members of the newly formed Indian women’s hockey team, just arrived from all over the country, line up and sound off their names.
The first few start of with “Firstname Lastname, Punjab”, “Firstname Lastname, Andra Pradesh”, etc, to which SRK says “No. Out.”
It’s only about 5 or 6 women down the line that someone says “Firstname Lastname, India.”
I didn’t notice anyone pointing this out, so.
Manisha Koirala is originally Nepali. I don’t know what her nationality status is right now.
All sources I’ve come accross state that she was born in Mangalore. She may have been raised in Bombay though, I don’t know.
And though it doesn’t diminish from the list of Punjabis, the Arora and Priyanka Chopra sisters are half Malayalee.
Amitabh, that agrees with my experience. We used to have rice 2-4 times a week, not counting kheer. I’d imagine that it is more frequent than that in the South.
I’ve always observed that south Indian ABDs (who want to be part of the ‘desi’ crowd that is), face enormous pressure to conform to northern Indian culture and norms (as mutated through the american collegiate experience). That means they have to feign interest in Bollywood, try to pick up some Hindi, enjoy naan and tandoori chicken, dance to bhangra, and keep the more obvious southern Indian aspects of their heritage down (although Bharatnatyam seems to be an exception, it’s widely respected by north Indians too, and maybe because there were few kathak teachers available, most girls who learned classical dance learned bharatnatyam). It was kind of sad for me to observe, people forced into these norms just to fit in. Some things like drinking hard and partying hard might have been reinforced byt the mainstream american culture too, but I think a lot of that was also northern values imposed on southerners (not that many didn’t WANT to party, but there was peer pressure). Some one should study these Indian cliques in american colleges…there’s a lot there to comment on.
Why would he lick his elbow? (I’m clearly not getting it) He sounds awful, though 🙁
Man, I am glad I didn’t grow up with these kinds of Northies. I had no idea that people could be so willingly vicious, and that their friendship/kinship with others wouldn’t get them to “come around” and drop their crappy and demeaning stereotypes. milli, I’m especially sorry that that guy was such a jackass.