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

April 26, 2001

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.

Rajiv Malhotra writes:

>Someone mentioned ferangi as being a racist remark. However, a search

>on firangi in the Indian Express on-line site yielded several articles

>on the subject, and some are copied below.

Several of the examples you give seem pretty racist to me (and one of them

manages to be sexist too):

>Mating habits. However many firangi girlfriends the Indianus fossilis may

>aspire

> to, or actually have, when it's time to nest, he will seek a bird of his own

Newspapers aren't necessarily repositories of wholesome attitudes or good

linguistic usage!

Dr Valerie J Roebuck

Manchester, UK

April 27, 2001

The Portuguese brought their 'ferangi' meaning gun or cannon to Ceylon and

the local - Tamils called these 'ferangi' 'pIrangki' as Tamil has no 'f'

sound. The Portuguese and the Dutch who followed were called 'paRangki' and

their descendants were thereafter called 'paRangki.' They are not Anglo

Ceylonese like the Anglo Indians, who by D. F. Karakka's definition, : "They

are disowned by the West, discarded by the East, are the living monuments of

British adultery in India." The Ceylonese counter-parts of the Indians are

not separately identified but there are many among the elites particularly

among the Kandyans who , if an unbiased family tree is searched, will then

qualify as "Anglo-Ceylonese" and not 'paRangki'. As in many cases unsavory

facts about the Tamils in particular are drowned in the rivers of history