CBB - the Indian View

Where has the month gone? Is it now definitely too late to wish everyone happy new year?… Anyway, I'm writing from a somewhat topical business trip…hot on the heels of Gordon Brown, I'm finding myself in Mumbai and planted a question in last night's groups on - what else, Big Brother, Shilpa and Jade. The mood amongst our (very) middle class respondents was one of dignified but somehow also resigned distaste for Jade (who seems to be becoming a household name here for all the wrong reasons) but perhaps surprisingly only muted sympathy for Shilpa. "As an Indian I feel I have to support her" was one view but whilst this seemed to be a common background feeling, our group participants also thought that 'she should have been better prepared…she should have been more thick skinned and should have known that they are like that." "Britishers are known for being racist". Britains' colonial history in India as (or so I hear) taught in school has left an image of the nation as racist towards Indians which is reinforced by negative experiences reported back by compatriots living in the UK. Respondents were talking about friends in London having had their houses searched and being suspected of terrorism 'without reason'. Whilst our consumers were quite media savvy and also thought the CBB clashes were hyped by the media - both in the UK and in India - and set up by the programme makers to bump up ratings, the whole episode has definitely not won Britain any favours in the old colony. When I spoke to my colleague after the groups I found it interesting that she assumed that the British were very aware of being seen as racists by Indians. Well, not quite, is my view. Surely, well educated Brits are very much aware of the negative excesses of the colonial presence in India but wouldn't they also see their modern nation as standing for tolerance and inclusiveness? Wouldn't Brits be surprised to be brandished a racist nation today? (What do others think?) The whole distasteful CBB episode may have sparked an interesting domestic debate on what constitutes racism in the UK but as we know well from researching creative across countries, some of the subtlety does get lost when you go abroad…