Private prejudice and public veneer

Yippee! For once, I actually agreed with what Trevor Phillips, the Chair of the Commission of Racial Equality in UK had to say.

Speaking about the Shilpa Shetty row on Celebrity Big Brother, he said, “The programme had laid bare the dark heart of private prejudice that too often sits behind the public veneer of tolerance.”

And – er – some of us may ask: what exactly does that mean in plain English?

Basically, the CRE Chair was alluding to what I have heard many (and I mean many) ‘wise’ and experienced Indians in the UK often say: “The main problem is that most English people are polite and respectful while speaking to you on your face. They don’t display any signs of intolerance. But as soon as your back is turned, and they are amongst themselves, they do talk ill of us and make comments that could be considered racist.”

I had never actually been fully convinced of such allegations and always let such comments go. After all, how much can one build one’s relationships with people based on conjecture?

But hold on – reality TV actually proved some of these wise and experienced Indians right. And that is what Trevor Phillips was referring to in ‘posher’ English: that people could hold racial prejudices in private conversations amongst themselves, but in the public domain they always maintain a politically correct and disguised version of themselves that appears tolerant and respectful.

Anybody who saw Danielle and Jo, the two cohorts and partners-in-war of the loud-mouthed and foul Jade Goody, the main persecutor of Shilpa Shetty, would have seen this in action.

I was amazed at one point when I saw Jo (or was it Danielle? I could never tell who was who) speak to Shilpa in a conciliatory tone. She sympathised with Shilpa, and was almost apologetic. But as soon as Shilpa’s back was turned, she ran back to Jade Goody, repeated every word that Shilpa had said, and sniggered away nineteen-to-the-dozen, while taking great pleasure in dissecting the Bollywood actress to pieces.

This happened on more than one occasion. I noticed that two-faced private conversations of the three ‘witches’ of CBB were much more virulent and insulting, and often laid bare the prejudices they held in private.

Could their behaviour have been simple envy and plain bullying or what the media referred to as ‘bitching’? Or could it have been exactly what Trevor Phillips referred to as the thin veneer of public tolerance hiding the private prejudices that people often hold?

Personally, I had never been a fan of Big Brother, and until the Shilpa Shetty row, I had no idea who the residents of the Big Brother House actually were. As soon as the media started calling me for my comments, everything changed. I had to actually rush to see a few episodes, read a bit on the net and familiarise myself with the ‘house politics’.

At one point, after I finished an interview for BBC Radio Five Live, I got a call from the Hindu Forum of Britain’s office, and the female staff cooed, “Ramesh, we just heard you on Radio, and cor blimey (sic), we never knew you watched Big Brother. I could never have imagined you talking about Jade Goody in public.”

Uhm ah – could this also be some sort of prejudice happening in reverse?