Arshdeep, Tilak and the Normalisation of Racial Abuse in Indian Sport
Images ;X A couple of days ago, I came across a social media post where Arshdeep Singh made fun of Tilak Varma’s skin colour. Tilak seemed to brush it off, and it was all normalised on social media. But that is precisely the problem. We normalise such talk because we are not sensitive enough. Arshdeep perhaps does not have the understanding of what he can say and what he cannot, and this issue is not limited to him alone. It is a deeply Indian problem, and we have all come to terms with it and accepted it as “ eta ar ki emon byapar (this is no big deal).” Take the case of Dhanraj Pillay, for example. When he first burst onto the scene, he dazzled everyone with his brilliance. It was almost impossible to stop him, and the common refrain during hockey matches was “ kale ko pakad, kale ko pakad (catch the dark one)”. While narrating this to me, Pillay too did not think it was anything out of the ordinary. Rather, it was considered the norm and there was supposedly nothing wrong with i...
