oppn parties TV Actors In Trouble For Using Casteist Slurs

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  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
  • IPL: records tumble as SRH beat MI in a high-scoring match. SRH score 277/3 with 18 sixes and Mumbai score 246 with 20 sixes to fall short by 31 runs. Atotal of 38 sixes, highest in an IPL match were hit and both teams combined to score 523 runs, the highest aggregate in an IPL match
  • Amul will launch fresh milk in the US
  • IPL: RCB beat Punjab by 4 wickets as Kohli and Karthik shine with the bat
  • India strongly objected to German foreign office remarks over the arrest of delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, called it "biased assumptions"
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
TV Actors In Trouble For Using Casteist Slurs

By Linus Garg
First publised on 2021-05-26 04:56:28

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.

While it is difficult to believe that actors like Munmum Dutta (Tarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chasma) and Yuvika Chaudhary (Om Shanti Om) would knowingly use casteist slurs in any given situation, the controversy over these two letting slip words in their statements/blogs/videos that are widely perceived to be such shows how people have to be doubly sure of words they use and that old, casual and highly inappropriate meanings of words no longer hold. Twitter has exploded in a fury after they used the words and some people have even demanded their arrest. An FIR has been filed against Munmun in Indore.

There is no need to repeat the words used by the two actors. It will suffice to say that they used it in a context which lowered the esteem of some castes. City bred people often pick up these words through conversations with others who are more given to using street language. In general talk between common people, such words are commonly and casually used. But that is a graver crime as it perpetuates the slur by making it commonplace.

Hence, as in body shaming or any other thing that was acceptable, regrettably, behavior in the past, using words that demean people or professions associated with a caste is no longer acceptable. This has become so because the constant use of such words in other situations has acquired the venomous tone of abuse. Hence, calling a visually impaired person blind would not have mattered so much if the word blind was not used to abuse a normal person for making a glaring mistake.

In this age of social media, it is required that anyone, especially celebrities, putting his or her thoughts in public domain must be extra watchful in his or her choice of words, whatever the context might be.  A thousands explanations, such as language barrier or misinterpretation, later would not set things right. Hence, casual use of words that are unacceptable for having other connotations must be avoided at all costs. Socially acceptable behavior, which includes the choice of words, is a must for being a part of social media.