What is racism and is it prevalent in India? We can say racism is a system that discriminates people based on their so called ‘race’. Some say that dominant groups in the society are racist, coz it is that group which has the influence and means to oppress others. Racism is a plague in today’s world, a lot of nations which were racist have reformed themselves, and leading example would be Australia with ‘all whites policy’ till 1972, today it is multi cultural and multi ethnic. These developed nations were and some are still racist but at least they have not discriminated their own people. In India we would not hear this term explicitly, but its definition is very well practiced all al over. In India racism is spelt casteism. I will come back to this shortly. Other than that there has always been ethnic tension between the Tamil people and Hindi majority. I grew up in Delhi and till my 10 I was there. Though I have been there for so long and I have been one amongst them, I have never been able to appreciate their thoughts for south Indians. Note: Not everyone is like that. Still some north Indians think that below madya Pradesh everything is called madras and they call everyone ‘madrasi’. Hey guys you cant be so ignorant. I remember when I came to Chennai from Delhi for good after my 10th; my chemistry staff asked me “do you people in madras have worthy colleges?” now that’s ridiculous and not expected from a educated person like her. I never bore the brunt of my co –students coz no one could differentiate me from others by my Hindi accent as it was as good as a delhite, but some new comers from south were always made fun of. Which means that even students had a bad conception of people from south? What is the reason behind this? Is it the complexion that gives them that superiority complex?? You guys would have noticed that in many Hindi movies and in many Hindi serials, an actor portraying south Indian role would speak worst possible English. You can’t mock all the while. Even the auto drivers here speak good English. Wake up guys I think we guys are not that bad and may be we are better than you. It’s high time you realize that. For some reason I have had a strong feeling that even the central govt. has not been fair to these four states, the best example would be the kaveri issue. Why no stern action has been taken? On the other hand the international river treaty between India and Pakistan was enforced immediately. Indian tourism is on the ‘athithi devo bhava’ drive and Chennai is not included in the list of heritage cities! That’s not fair. This kind of pervasive attitude has a decisive hold on individual’s behavior and relationships. This is changing and will take long to completely change. People are realizing now that these four states can’t be taken for granted. The silver lining is that we stood united for good on a 15th august. The feeling of being one should be there for everyone. Its high time south is taken seriously. The next evil is casteism, a theory that some are born superior and some are born inferior. This theory ensures power to the dominant group through oppression of the inferior, this is prevalent throughout India. Untouchability is still prevalent in some villages in India, and these things make casteism even more dehumanising than racism. Would people believe that these sects have separate burial grounds??? Indian government swears by an egalitarian constitution that prohibits any form of discrimination, the fact remains that it is prevalent everywhere. This is deep rooted and will take a long to get out of the society. This is a poison that we have lived with for more than 1000 years. We have just started to uproot it. P.S. Not all the people are like the way I mentioned.