Analysis Of Racial And Gender Equality: The Face Of Modern India

India is a plural nation, where multiplicity is as natural as sunshine and there is no substitute to democratic coexistence. In this democratic coexistence, racism and sexism are not simply biological or genetic classifications but social and political processes which still reflect on the face of Modern India. Recognizing its existence, which is so deep rooted in the social fabric of India, is the initial remedy. Nevertheless, law framers need to realize that complete minoritarianism on arbitrary grounds would only lead to ‘reverse discrimination’ which would never bring a solution to the disquiet because the term ‘equality’ needs to be appropriately justified.

Racial and Gender Equality: The Face of Modern India?
By Shreyans Chopra

“…..Out
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise…”

These lines by the revolutionary poet ‘Maya Angelou’ addressing two kinds of oppression–both racial oppression, and sexism; truly depict the long lasting struggle by ‘humanity’ against ‘humanity’ to defeat the vices of racial and gender discrimination prevalent worldwide. Even in this contemporary era, racism and gender discrimination in India is not mere malevolence which can be ousted in a jiffy; rather it is a social stigma which still reflects on its ‘Modern Face’. India being an assortment of variety of races has been a haven to varied people alienated in terms of religion, caste, creed, language, attire, food habits and skin colour. We find crystal apparent traces of racism in the colonial era when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (better known as ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ today) and Nelson Mandela put up a fight against apartheid in their own ways. After more than half a century, the face of India changed with technological, scientific, economic, political and industrial advancements. Amidst this modernization, it
Discrimination in India subsists where people have been victimizing each other on racist lines ubiquitously. People hailing from north eastern India face a huge difficulty in gaining acceptability amongst ‘Indians’ as ‘Indians’, humorously addressed as ‘Chinkis’. Even today for a mass of people, anyone hailing from south is a ‘Madrasi’, all Sikhs are ‘foolish’ at 12-o-clock and all Kashmiris are ‘terrorists’. This is so inherent in the mindset of the ‘Modern Indian’ that he/she finds nothing racist in