Aditya Sinha: Shades of black, white and Tarun Vijay

Former MP Tarun Vijay made offensive remarks about South Indians upon being asked about racism in India on a news channel on Friday He later apologised for them on Twitter terming them as a badly framed sentence PicAFPA great thing about the BJP being in power is that it sends its best and brightest to defend India at international fora and this includes Tarun Vijay a man who takes the think out of thinktank We met more than 25 years ago when we had the good fortune of bunking together while in Gujarat to report on former party president LK Advanis visit to the Somnath templeI woke up one night to find Tarun Vijay sitting around with the lights on he claimed he did not sleep much I did not investigate his insomniac eccentricities and went back to sleep One afternoon while we were driven through Gujarat he listened to a cassetteplaying walkman and when I put on the headphones I could not figure out what was playing What kind of person are you he chided me You dont recognise Tulsidass Ramayana Ah yes Silly meLater in the 1990s a Chinese dignitary visited India during IK Gujrals prime ministership and during the press conference Tarun Vijay the eminent editor of the RSS journal Panchajanya asked a question I wondered Would it be about the boundary dispute Would it be about the Dalai Lama Would it be about Pakistan When will you allow Indian pilgrims at the Mansarovar Lake the eminent editor asked The Chinese curtly replied that Mansarovar was already open for pilgrimage Indias External Affairs spokesperson rolled his eyes Till recently the same Tarun Vijay was a member of the Parliaments Consultative Committee on External AffairsIn the Al Jazeera TV clip where Tarun Vijay was asked about racism in India he first got aggressive with the host in a bullying tactic typical of BJPs geniuses Are you Indian Are you American Wheres your culture he shrieked The host magically produced his Indian passport from his jacket to my abiding awe And then he said essentially some of my best friends are black Good show Besides showing up the false equivalences and the whataboutery of BJP debaters he also once again revealed the deep racism of Indians as if attacks on northeasterners and Africans werent enough And before South Indians get puffed up or act victimised the fact is that they are equally racistFormer Tamil Nadu chief minister MG Ramachandran had a skin condition and hence benefited from his voters lightskinned preferences I benefited from others racism during my four years in Chennai Many people throughout my life including close friends have told me that I dont look like a Bihari What a compliment I have seen a Hyderabadi make a face while talking about Chennaiites Indians love a hierarchy and they love it so much they have institutionalised it in the form of caste Race is just an aspect of thatIt is thus refreshing to hear Tarun Vijays candour about the greatness of Indians At least he did not speak about Kashmir where his party is doing its best to defeat a fairskinned man named Farooq Abdullah in the Srinagar parliamentary bypoll Dr Farooq is so fairskinned he makes the BJP thinskinned He is one Muslim they dont want in Parliament an experienced politician who has seen a lot of Indian history and may raise one uncomfortable question after another of our Great Leader Kim Jong ModiDr Farooq has no choice given the Congress leaderships dereliction of duty Fortunately for the ruling PDPBJP state government three youngsters were shot dead in Chadoora ten days ago and this will drive down voter turnout in the bypoll Then Modi and company can stick to not talking to Pakistan or the separatists and Tarun Vijay can keep pontificating about how Kashmir is a land dispute and not a peoples grievance I hope Dr Farooq wins Now more than ever India needs himI was sorry however to not hear Tarun Vijay talk about Syria Since he was on the parliamentary committee for external affairs I wonder what his position is on Indias position on the situation in Syria Obviously he will blindly support his partys confusion do we support the Russians who support Bashar alAssad even though he occasionally uses nerve gas to kill rebels and their children or do we support the American fight against the Islamic State which is not only against Assad but also against the Free Syria Army and other rebelsGiven his question 20 years ago to the Chinese about Mansarovar Lake I dont have much expectation that he will formulate a halfintelligible probe After all since Assads violent repression of the peaceful 2011 Arab Spring protests in Damascus the situation has gotten murkier and murkierWhy should an intellectual like Tarun Vijay and his fellow travellers exercise their grey matter over an issue with so many shades of grey when they are more comfortable seeing the world in black and whiteAditya Sinhas crime novel The CEO Who Lost His Head is available now He tweets autumnshadeSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom