the big story

Indian cricket bats off racism allegations

The TLDR: Former West Indies skipper Darren Sammy says that his IPL teammates at Sunrisers Hyderabad often called him ‘kalu’—which he now realises is a racist slur. And Sammy wants them to explain themselves to him. The resulting controversy reveals just how tone-deaf Indian cricket is on skin colour—which in India is about a lot more than race.

What did Darren Sammy say?

On Monday, Sammy posted an Instagram video where he took his former Sunriser colleagues to task. He said that they “repeatedly called” him ‘kalu’, but Sammy did not realise the word was a slur in Hindi until he watched an episode of Hasan Minhaj’s Netflix series. (Watch the clip here)

"But, every time I was called it—it was me and [Sri Lankan cricketer] Thisara Perera—there was always laughter in the moment. Me being a team man, I thought, hey, team-mates are happy, it must be something funny. You can understand my frustration and my anger when it was pointed out to me that it wasn't funny at all, it was degrading.”

Sammy ended his video demanding an explanation and apology from his former mates:

“Because, if it was in any way, shape or form what Minhaj said it meant, I'm very disappointed, and I'll still be angry, and deserve an apology from you guys, because I saw all of you guys as my brothers. So, talk to me, reach out to me, please clear the air."

Have they responded?

• Senior (and anonymous) members of the Sunrisers management claimed it was “probably the fans.” 
• Former Sunriser player T Suman said: “If at all (this has happened), it must have been said in jest.” 
• The BCCI Treasurer said, “It's something that has happened long back and we don't know who is responsible. But BCCI always educates its players not to indulge in any racist exchanges.”
• His former teammate Pervez Rasool said he never noticed any such thing, and Sammy seemed jovial during their time together.

That’s it?

The only person to respond at length was Irfan Pathan. He told Indian Express:

“If something like that would have happened then it would have come to notice or a team discussion would have happened on the topic. I am not aware of any such incident and he (Sammy) has to take responsibility for his comments.”

Pathan then turned the conversation to similar slurs hurled by North Indian fans at South Indian cricketers—and Indian racism against our own.

“We still haven’t talked much about racism in India. Sometimes we even call names to our brothers and sisters from the northeast. This problem is deep-rooted and will only go away when we start educating our sons and daughters and that needs to start with proper schooling and parenting.”

And in his most recent tweet, he pivoted to anti-Muslim bias: “Racism is not restricted to the colour of the skin.Not allowing to buy a home in a society just because u have a different faith is a part of racism too... #convenient #racism”

Wait, so Sammy is making stuff up?

No. And there’s evidence in the form of an old Insta post shared by Ishant Sharma. He shared the photo below with the caption: "Me, bhuvi, kaluu and gun sunrisers."

It confirms the fact that ‘kalu’ had, in fact, become a team nickname for Sammy—who used it himself. Back in 2014, Sammy tweeted: “Happy birthday @VVSLaxman281 May God continue to bless you. #bestdresser oh remember dark kalu.” 

All this confirms what Sammy said in his video that his teammates “repeatedly called me that word over and over again to the point that I was even saying that's my name.”

Why would he do that?!

Because he didn’t know what the word meant. He thought it meant “strong stallion or whatever it is”—and no prizes for guessing who kept him in the dark.

Ugh, that sounds very wrong…

It is. And it underlines what Pathan tacitly acknowledged: "When they [Indians] pass such remarks, they are not even aware that they are doing the wrong thing. They think they are being funny.”

Have cricketers spoken up on BLM?

A number of black cricketers have issued statements. The strongest words came from West Indies opener Chris Gayle, who said: 

“Black lives matter just like any other life. Black people matter, p***k all racist people, stop taking black people for fools, even our own black people wise the p***k up and stop bringing down your own!”

Also ICC put out this clip on Twitter.

What about the Indians?

In stark contrast to Bollywood, there has been deafening silence on the part of India’s biggest stars, including Virat Kohli etc. Harbhajan Singh came closest to a comment, retweeting actor Abhay Deol who called out Indian celebs for virtue-signalling on Black Lives Matter while ignoring those suffering in their own backyard.

The bottomline: During an Insta conversation with Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh decided to take aim at Yuzvendra Chahal’s Tik Tok videos. He said: "Ye bhangi logon ko koi kaam nahi hai Yuzi ko... Yuzi ko dekha kaisa video daala” (these bhangis don’t have anything else to do...did you see what kind of video Yuzi shared).

Our racism isn’t separate from our casteism. One is inextricably rooted in the other. In our culture, dark skin is a signaller of low caste and class status—so ‘kalu’ is just another word for ‘bhangi’. Until we acknowledge that fact, changing the conversation to other kinds of discrimination sounds suspiciously like ‘All Lives Matter’.

Editor’s note: We decided to spell out the offensive words because it is important to know what these words are AND that they are appalling slurs—especially in a culture where we casually use them in everyday language.

The reading list

• ICYMI, watch Darren Sammy’s clip here.
• The BLM debate spurred Dodda Ganesh and Abhinav Mukund to speak up about the bigotry they’ve faced as South Indians. India Today has that story.
• Of course, for Indians the shoe is often on the other foot. For example, the shocking racist remarks aimed at our under-19 players—by Australian cricketers (nope, not fans). 
• Huffington Post has an excellent read on why Indians need to face up to their own racism.
• In racism-related news: Bon Appetit editor has stepped down for both dressing up in ‘brownface’ and wage discrimination against his black employees.
• In cricket-related news: The ICC has banned the use of saliva on balls—and allowed teams to substitute players during a test match if they display symptoms of Covid.