Arshdeep Singh is not a racist. He is not a villain. Let’s say he is just a little ignorant.
Ignorant as to how the world has changed in recent years, where people can’t/shouldn’t be shamed for their skin colour, their ethnicity, their body type, etc., etc. The whole “Black Lives Matter” campaign revolves around similar issues.
Racism is a very strong word, so let’s not call him a racist. It’s not colourism either. It’s plain ignorance. There is nothing more to it.
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We have to look at Arshdeep’s background, and that’s going to explain why he called Tilak Varma a “darkie”. Rough translation, that is. Let’s make it very clear right at the outset, this article is not an attempt to totally exonerate him; for, he should know, at the mature age of 27 and having travelled all over the world and having met all kinds of people that that kind of language one should refrain from, all the more on social media where millions of people don’t take time to take you down with your one wrong step.
At least, he should have known that only a few weeks ago, former India legspinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan had complained in a heart-breaking manner that he had been subjected to unfair treatment all his life because of his skin colour.
Anyway, going back to his background, Arshdeep is a Sikh Punjabi. And being light-skinned is favoured heavily among them. It’s not that there are no Punjabis with darker skin tones.
And those who happen not to be light-skinned, that kind of banter is part of their daily lives. It’s not hate, it’s not trying to belittle one. At the same time, it can be, mind you. Just that in this case, it wasn’t.
Ishant and Sarfaraz guilty too
Ishant Sharma, a Delhi Punjabi, was also accused of calling West Indies’ Daren Sammy a darkie a few years ago at Sunrisers Hyderabad. Former Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed committed the same offence against South Africa’s Andile Phehlukwayo. He was later banned for four games.
As a footnote, by the way, it’s worse in Pakistan.
But if you look at the video without prejudice, it’s banter between friends, between India teammates. As recently as March, they won the T20 World Cup together. So, it should only be considered as banter as it’s between equals. If not between equals, it can certainly be an attempt at belittling someone. Another thing, it’s not that Tilak is upset or anything like that. He is just looking amused.
Rest assured, it was not the first time Arshdeep would have called him something like that. Since both of them spend a lot of time together in India colours, the odds are very high that he would have called him the same thing or something similar before as well. Rest assured, Tilak would have heard it many times before.
As mentioned before, it’s a commonplace discourse among Punjabis. Of course, there is also a section, made up of educated people , where such discourse is frowned upon, but the truth of the matter is that there is a large group which participates in such a silly and meaningless discourse.
Now, what needs to be done is to educate our cricketers. It’s the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s job. Cricketers often show promise in their teenage years, and their education gets compromised in the process, with them not having much time for that because of their cricket. So, it’s the BCCI’s job to groom its cricketers. Hopefully, other cricketers, especially the budding ones, will take note of this incident and understand what kind of behaviour is expected of them.