(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[new delhi, india] Two Indians have been in the news scene lately. One, Ratan Tata, is the director of the XNUMX-year-old steel mill Tata Steel and has just acquired the British-Dutch steelmaker Corus with a higher bid than the Brazilian CSN. Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty is the other.
The country welcomes Tata's latest acquisition and the fact that a British newspaper topped the case with the headline "India on Song, Takes Corus Along". The fact that Corus is a British-Dutch company is an added bonus. And the fact that India's colonial rulers once made fun of the steel dreams of Jamsetji, the founder of the Tata empire, is reproduced by another newspaper.
The cheer factor plays an important role here. Although no one else but Tata Steel will benefit from this, the middle class here is banging on its chest as if it were a personal victory and India's pride was at stake. Tata is one of India's oldest companies and is associated with values such as honesty and integrity, and it also plays a role when people are so positive about the acquisition of Corus. The well-spoken Ratan Tata is also a highly respected man in the country.
When it comes to Shilpa Shetty, however, the opinions are shared in India. She is not one of the greatest Bollywood heroines. In fact, she has not played in a single major success in cinema since 2000. The fact that she chose to fly to London to attend celebrity Big Brother proves that there has been a lean labor market in Bollywood. No busy actor would cancel a recording to participate in a program no one in India is watching. In fact, the film makers believe that the victory in the reality show will have nothing to say for her further Bollywood career.
Shetty should bow and thank the foolish and insensitive Jane Goody and the rest of the Big Brother contestants for making her a famous name in both India and the United Kingdom.
In India, where Shetty would not normally care, talk shows and newspaper columns began to take up the racist scandals thrown at her. Without these poisons, she would never become a topic of conversation.
First, the authorities hesitated to comment on the matter, except for the Deputy Foreign Minister, who emphasized that India is against racism. Many thought that if the actress felt humiliated, she could only withdraw from the program. She was left because she wanted to win a bigger sum. But as the news channels continued to send reports on Shetty, the government finally chose to discuss the matter with the United Kingdom. Actually, no one feared any diplomatic dispute over Shetty.
All the fuss about the actor stood for British Indians, and they wallow in everything that has to do with Bollywood. For them, Shilpa Shetty is a big draw and it was she who was the main reason most Indian families in the UK watched Big Brother. They were the first to react to the racist remarks and overloaded Channel Four with protest text messages and phones.
Ten years ago, the same group of Indians would discuss racism against Shetty in between. They would whisper quietly about it during their small gatherings and then leave the matter. But India is constantly renewed, and this is fueling nationalism among British Indians. They will no longer leave racist remarks unmistakably. n
Seema Guha is a political journalist in the Mumbai-based newspaper Daily News and Analysis
(DNA). She writes exclusively for Ny Tid.
