AsianInk

Devotees dip in Hoogly, Kolkata

Ink over India

InnocentInk is not averse to picking fights. And “picking” is the operative word here. I only pick those fights I’m pretty sure of winning; or if not winning outright, then at least of getting enough supporters on my side to enforce a draw.

India’s doing pretty well for itself by all accounts. They don’t need me to make it look any better back home. Neither do they need me to do India down – we do that all by ourselves wherever we are. In fact, it would appear that India doesn’t need InnocentInk at all, given how much malicious ink is spilt over it. Nevertheless, this page will consider all things Indian as they appear to a non-resident Indian sitting i nsub-Saharan Africa.

The one thing I certianly aim to do – and try to do every day- is make India and Indians look more decent and more human than are usually thought to be on the African continent. A history of abuse of local people by the more mercantile sections of our country has led to a near-unanimous antagonism towards Indians in East Africa. It is most acute in “welcome-to-xenophobic” Tanzania, and almost absent in “we-were-never-colonised” Ethiopia. Indians really don’t do themselves any favours by behaving the way they do in East Africa and do a great disservice to the mother country whose government, frankly, is doing rather a lot for this continent. These posts will try and set the record straight. If you don’t like what I say -and this is aimed at all, with malice towards none- you can go live in Gujarat.