India Outraged
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Indians claim Western cartoon depicting Indians on a overcrowded rickety colonial era train going past a sleek Chinese bullet train as racist
A cartoon in the German magazine Der Spiegel laughing at India as it becomes more populous than China has been described as “racist” by Indian ministers.
The cartoon depicts a rickety old Indian train packed with people and swarms of passengers atop it. On a parallel track, a sleek Chinese bullet train is seen with just two drivers, looking surprised at the sight of the Indian train.
According to United Nations projections published on Monday, India has a population of 1,425,775,850, surpassing China for the first time.
Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, tweeted: “Hi Germany, this is outrageously racist. Der Spiegel caricaturing India in this manner has no resemblance to reality. Purpose is to show India down and suck up to China.”
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the minister for electronics and information technology, also reacted angrily, tweeting: “Dear Cartoonist at @derspiegel… Notwithstanding your attempt at mocking India … it’s not smart to bet against India under PM @narendramodi ji…. In a few years India’s economy will be bigger than Germany’s.”
Western criticism of India makes Indians resentful. The BBC documentary, The Modi Question on the Indian PM Narendra Modi’s actions in the 2002 anti Muslim riots is seen as a malicious conspiracy.
Last week, Baijayant Panda, an MP and spokesperson for the ruling Bharatiya Janata party, wrote a column in the Hindustan Times accusing the western media of outright prejudice against India.
Panda accused the media of ignoring India’s progress and, without naming it, singled out the New York Times for what he called its bias and routine India-bashing. He added: “What is peculiar is the abandonment of objectivity in the single-minded pursuit of a predetermined narrative.”
In 2014, the New York Times published a cartoon mocking India’s feat in putting a robotic probe into orbit around Mars. It showed an Indian farmer with a cow knocking at the door of a room marked Elite Space Club. After protests, the newspaper published an apology.
Source UK Guardian
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