I need to get this off my chest.
Every time someone brings up Indian hate online, the comments fill up with the same predictable excuses: Well, Indians brought this on themselves. Casteism. Rape capital. Corruption. Scam calls. You know.
And I’m sitting here like, what are you even talking about? You’re a white man in middle America. How exactly does casteism affect you? Are you born into a caste? Do you live under caste hierarchies? No. You don’t. So why are you suddenly an expert? Why are you invoking caste not to fight it but to excuse your own prejudice? That’s not allyship. That’s just using the suffering of marginalized Indians as a shield so you can say racist garbage without feeling bad about it.
Then there’s the “rape capital” talking point. Let’s be serious, do you actually care about women in India? Or is that line just a quick and easy way for you to reduce an entire country to one statistic and pat yourself on the back for hating them? Because gender-based violence is global. It exists in the Usa, in Europe, in Japan, in Korea. But when it happens in those places, suddenly people have nuance. They’ll say “this is a societal issue,” or “we need reform.” Nobody turns around and says “all American men are rapists” or “all Japanese people are defined by this crime.”
But when it comes to India, it’s instantly: “See? That’s why I don’t like Indians.” Like clockwork. That’s not critique, that’s scapegoating. That’s using a very real problem as an excuse to dehumanize a whole community that you were already looking down on anyway.
And let’s be clear, these same people never bring up casteism or gender violence out of genuine concern. You don’t see them advocating for Dalit rights. You don’t see them supporting Indian feminists, or amplifying the voices of people actually fighting these issues on the ground. You don’t see them doing the work. What you do see is a lazy, smug excuse to validate the racism they already had locked and loaded.
Every country has deep, systemic problems. But when those problems happen in white-majority societies or more developed ones, the blame goes to individuals or to “the system.” When those problems happen in non-white societies, the blame gets put on the people themselves. That double standard is racism. Full stop.
So no, you don’t get to weaponize casteism or rape statistics as a free pass to hate Indians. You don’t get to cherry-pick the struggles of a community you don’t belong to, and you definitely don’t get to pretend that makes you morally superior. If you’re not fighting those issues with solidarity, if you’re just using them as ammunition to spit on people—you’re not an ally. You’re just a racist hiding behind a screen.
amandla
