India Must Admit Its Racism Before It Can Claim Moral Leadership

India frequently positions itself as a natural ally of the oppressed. We recall our freedom struggle with pride, celebrate our rhetorical solidarity against apartheid, and often invoke the figure of Nelson Mandela as proof of our instinctive moral clarity. Yet incidents such as the racial targeting of Temba Bavuma in Kolkata reveal a truth that India has long avoided confronting. The racism that India claims to oppose abroad has been thriving within its borders, shaped not only by the long shadow of colonial rule but also by the far older and more pervasive structure of caste.

India’s public imagination remains convinced that a people who once suffered colonial racism cannot become racist themselves. This belief is historically inaccurate and morally evasive. A society that for centuries has sorted human beings through caste based hierarchy learns to classify bodies without guilt. The practice of rating people according to birth makes the judging of people according to colour appear natural. The attacks on African students in Delhi in 2016, where mobs accused them of cannibalism without the faintest evidence, are not isolated eruptions of anger. They repeat the older logic of caste in a new racial register (Hindu, 2016). When landlords in Bengaluru refuse to rent to black students while welcoming lighter skinned foreigners, they are not behaving outside Indian history. They are acting from within it.

Indian cinema and popular media have normalised these hierarchies for decades. Bollywood consistently presents fair skinned protagonists as aspirational figures, while darker skinned characters are relegated to comic subplots, servility, or criminality. The film Fashion portrayed African characters as predatory spectacles rather than people. Television serials celebrate fair brides as culturally ideal. Modern social media platforms, especially short form video apps and influencer pages, use filters that automatically lighten users’ skin because the algorithm assumes that a lighter face is more socially acceptable. This pattern is not aesthetic preference. It is structural ideology.

The result is a widespread cultural complacency that allows racial prejudice to flourish. When a young man from Manipur was assaulted in Bengaluru for speaking English with an accent, the attackers treated him as an outsider in his own country. When citizens from the North East were spat at and called “coronavirus” during the early months of the pandemic, it revealed how easily India 'racialises' bodies that do not fit a certain visual template (Al Jazeera, 2020). African women travelling on Mumbai trains continue to recount incidents of harassment that target their physical form. Influencers mock the facial features of African or East Asian looking Indians on social media, with thousands of comments treating such ridicule as humour rather than discrimination.

The institutional response to such incidents deepens the crisis. Whenever racism in India becomes international news, the goal of officialdom becomes damage control, not reform. After the violent attacks in Noida on African students in 2017, the Ministry of External Affairs expressed regret, but serious reform did not follow (Indian Express, 2017). During the Temba Bavuma episode in Kolkata, social media was flooded with denial, deflection, and comparisons to racism elsewhere, as though prejudice in other countries absolves India of its own failures. This persistent refusal to examine the problem undermines the core values of the Indian Constitution. Article Fourteen promises equality before the law. Article Fifteen prohibits discrimination based on race. Yet racial discrimination is common in public life, in classrooms, on social media, and in stadiums. The conflict between constitutional promise and social reality is too stark to ignore.

The most concerning form of racism now appears in seemingly modern workplaces. The Information Technology sector, often celebrated as India’s global interface, routinely exhibits discriminatory preferences. Lighter skinned employees are chosen for client interactions because of assumptions about what looks professional or international. African professionals recount being mistaken for security staff rather than colleagues. North Eastern employees are asked whether they can manage communication with “mainland clients,” as though their identity itself signals distance or difference (Quartz India, 2019).

The Education sector, which should ideally stand at the forefront of equality, also reflects these injustices. International schools hesitate to hire darker skinned teachers for leadership positions for fear of parental judgement. University faculty sometimes express surprise at the academic performance of students from the North East or African countries, revealing underlying racial expectations. Students from African communities or East Asian looking regions of India report being teased or excluded because teachers lack training to recognise and challenge racial bullying. These behaviours violate not only law but also the basic ethics of an academic environment.

Racism in India is structural, not accidental. It persists because institutions repeat inherited prejudices instead of correcting them. A country that aspires to lead in the twenty first century cannot afford such internal contradictions. Racial discrimination stifles creativity, pushes talented individuals to the margins, destabilises social trust, and erodes the global credibility of Indian institutions.

India’s future depends on whether it has the political courage to confront this uncomfortable truth. The Constitution has already given the nation a framework for dignity and equality. What remains is the willingness to live up to it. India cannot claim moral leadership abroad while denying racial discrimination at home. A new century demands a new honesty. And that honesty must begin with acknowledging that racism in India is real, present, and deeply damaging to any vision of a just society.

References

Al Jazeera. (2020). Racism against North East Indians worsens during COVID nineteen.

Hindu. (2016). African students attacked in Delhi.

Indian Express. (2017). Noida violence and the fear among African nationals.

Quartz India. (2019). Colour based bias in Indian corporate hiring practices.

The Print. (2025). Temba Bavuma incident and India’s racism problem.

Scroll. (2022). Racist chants in Indian football matches.

The Wire. (2017). Racialised attacks on African students in India.