'Broad strokes of racist judgment at work': Sona Mohapatra and others pan Guardian piece on coronavirus lockdown in India

'Broad strokes of racist judgment at work': Sona Mohapatra and others pan Guardian piece on coronavirus lockdown in India

FPJ Web DeskUpdated: Wednesday, April 01, 2020, 11:23 AM IST
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Migrant workers leave for their hometown | ANI

"Sauvignon blanc or viognier”? As the words left my mouth, my son and I locked eyes, our expressions flashing from shame-faced to half laughing at the irony. My live-in maid Ranjita had just laid out dinner and, since the fish and lyonnaise potatoes looked appetising, I thought it deserved a bottle of wine."

It is quite possible that reading these lines probably gave you a cringe or even an urge to pull your hair out. Well, these lines are excerpts from a piece by Amrit Dhillon in The Guardian. Dhillon is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi.

The author, in the article - As the wealthy quaff wine in comfort, India’s poor are thrown to the wolves - writes (at least tries to) about the migrant workers and other businesses hit by the coronavirus pandemic which clearly did not go quite well.

The coronavirus-enforced lockdown has triggered a mass exodus of migrant workers hailing from different states. The migrant labourers embarked journey to their native villages on foot.

"If, like me, you have a live-in maid who happens to have picked up some beautician skills, you are “condemned” to confinement in a spa. Shall I have a facial today? Or a pedicure? No, let’s settle for a massage. It will relieve my lockdown tension."

Well, the above excerpt from the piece makes a complete mockery of the plight of the migrant workers who have suffered the most amid the lockdown.

Now, the author's references brings us to the question: Did the editor even bother to edit the article or even proofread it before it was published? Well, we don't think so.

Dhillon's piece seems to have angered Twitterati and the experts in the industry. "Dhillon probably is out of touch with reality," says a Twitter user adding that "it’s almost tone deaf to say the Indian middle classes are sitting and enjoying their wines."

Well, the experts in the industry went on to criticize the author and here's what they said;

Well, this is not only article by the author that has the potential to give someone a cringe. Her another piece in The Guardian will probably make you say "What did I just read?".

To give you a glimpse of what her article is like, here we have an excerpt from her piece - Books, Bollywood and barbs: the magic of the Jaipur literature festival - "Where else, in between absorbing such literary joys, could you eat a masala dosa in the dappled sunlight under an old banyan tree watching a soft breeze make the coloured bunting dance over the lawns of the Diggi Palace?"

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