Are Indian fans guilty of racism?
Posted on Oct 19, 2007 at 15:47 | Updated Oct 19, 2007 at 17:45
7 Comments
The final One-Day International between India and Australia at Mumbai has thrown up a new controversy. Were Indian fans being racists? Four of them were detained after an Australian photographer took their pictures that showed them making monkey gestures towards Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has an Anti-Racism Code that specifies the following: Spectators are reminded that racially abusive comments and actions will result in ejection from the ground and possible further action such as criminal prosecution, identification by way of photographing and/or capturing by video camera of the images of such persons and life bans being imposed on such persons.
The Mumbai Police is going to use CCTV cameras for the India-Australia Twenty20 match on Saturday to keep track of fans indulging in racist behaviour.
So are Indian fans guilty of racism?
CNN-IBN’s Vidya Shankar Aiyar directed this question on Face The Nation to Peter Lalor, sports journalist of the Australian and well know TV commentator Charu Sharma.
“It is not a yes-no answer. I am sorry. I cannot answer it like that. Some are,” Peter Lalor said.
“I will take a little more time on this. For starters are Indians racists? Cricket fans are a microcosm of their own society because they haven’t come from Mars. In India we are very race, caste, creed and community aware and I guess cricket fans are similar. They are equally guilty as the rest of the nation,” Charu Sharma said.
When asked if the incidents witnessed at Mumbai were racist or not, Lalor said, “They are racist to Andrew Symonds and that makes them racist.”
However, Charu was quick to counter Lalor’s views.
“Definitely not. The majority of the Indian crowd has been supportive of the Australian team although in Mumbai they were hostile, extremely hostile. I think the Mumbai crowd has a reputation for behaving like that. I have heard from the West Indies players and they say they have been racially abused in Mumbai,” Charu replied when asked if all the fans were racist or if it was just an exception.
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Total Comments: 7
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Posted By Sid
as usual u r also one of them who has shown lack of common sense and general knowledge, where u
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Posted By Akshar
I think it was not racial comments but as usual we Indians have displayed our total lack of sense of
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Posted By dinya
I live in England. Any sane person in the UK would regard that as racisit.
For those of you who may
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Posted By Sriram
We are ashamed of the behaviour of a \''section\'' of the crowd and there is no place for it any
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Posted By ravi
This is first time we have done that ,when we indian loose we burn the stadiams are did very nagitive
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