RE: [INDOLOGY @ ] Is 'firangi/ferangi' a racist term?

[Guest guest]

SOMEONE WROTE: "Ferangi comes from the word for Franks, the Crusaders whom

the Muslim armies met. From the Turkish, it has spread all the way to the

east i.e. the Indian sub-continent. Ferangi was/is the muslim word for

Europeans. In a sense , it was racist since it referred to Franks. But I

doubt it is meant to be used pejoratively if that is what the term racist

means."

 

 

COMMENT:

Given that today's popular media in India/Pakistan uses firangi several

times a day, should they be chided for racism? When one visits India, it is

common to be called a firangi even for wearing foreign brands, and people

refer to Scotch as firangi whiskey, there are firangi jobs, in other words a

whole outlook of firangi. I picked up the term while at St. Stephen's

College, where it was/is the way the young 'intellectuals' (as the leftists

call themselves) refer to what is not desi. Whatever its origins, the term

has a rich meaning today in the living languages and deserves a thick

description before being suppressed. If firangi were racist, then so would

be desi, as the two terms are mutually defined. Might one equally point out

that to denounce an indigenous people's (desi) idiom has traditionally been

linked to racism?

 

ANOTHER PERSON WROTE: "The way it was used in the posting (coupled with

"pathology", if I may remind you) was certainly racist. It was designed to

lump a group of people together without regard for their individuality. And

it certainly didn't refer to "foreigners" in general, but to white Europeans

and Americans."

 

COMMENT:

Firangi is an adjective. It describes a kind of 'meme-plex' (as postulated

by Richard Dawkins and Susan Blackmore), or what the desi hermeneutics might

call a bundle of sanskaras playing out as the attitude of the privileged

foreign. Gandhi returned to India a firangi, but after his discover India

journey became a desi, whereas Nehru never really made that transformation.

On the other hand, I personally know many white desis. There are more brown

skin firangis in India that white ones, and also several ethnic Indian

firangis in western academics and English language media.

 

The pathological dissection would be an analysis of this meme-plex or bundle

of sanskaras. While post-colonial theory has been very effective in

uncovering Euro-chauvinism, what would be fascinating would be to better

understand the ethnic Indian firangi. (Amitav Ghosh's book, 'The Glass

Palace', emphasizes how it was Indians servile to the British who did most

of the treacherous dirty work for the Empire under British command.)

 

We need the field of Westology precisely because the non-western has become

so subverted that to raise his voice he runs the risk of being demonized. In

this endeavor, there appears to be broad based support from left and right

within India, if early indicators mean anything. This also resonates with

the Green movement, the Gandhians, the Subalternists, and with many African,

Latin American and Japanese thinkers. Reverse anthropology on the west will

not always be popular, as it will threaten the logos of the west coming

across as mythos instead.

 

RM