And Just Like That, Indians outrage over white woman calling lehenga a sari — after years of stereotyping her onscreen

Devil’s Advocate is a rolling column that sees the world differently and argues for unpopular opinions of the day. This column, the writer acknowledges, can also be viewed as a race to get yourself cancelled. But like pineapple on pizza, he is willing to see the lighter side of it.*Here we go again. Someone in a far-off culture has half-arsed their momentary idea of something Indian, and we have, as is native tradition, decided to take offence as a matter of some intimate pride. An episode of Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That apparently aired a scene where Sarah Jessica Parker mistakenly refers to the lehanga as a sari, sports a floral Mohawk, and just maybe does not know what Diwali is.How dare she, is obviously the gist of the outrage on our shores where people, even liberals, perhaps have declared anyone’s fragmented knowledge of India and its myriad, exhaustingly diverse palette, a crime. Get your PhDs first, and then talk about us you white-skinned maggots. But really, on a serious note about a show that is largely supposed to light and comic, why are we so weak-kneed about the portrayal of our culture, when equally hazardous and potentially offensive things have been done to white-skinned people in our films and entertainment as well?The argument I am trying to make is not about the lack of reciprocation, but having a fragile belly for the way you are referenced, framed or seen. Sure, we can argue that we self-identify ourselves through our ritualistic passions and heritage, a little too delicately. But to be so infirm as to decry the many, half-hearted portrayals of our culture feels like an act of undermining our own perceived strengths. Because culture should travel of its own volition, and not through some licensed authenticity. This complex of wanting to be both present and precise in the white-man’s thoughts kind of undercuts our own claim of having global ambitions and an equally vibrant voice.Beyond that internal conflict, however, we might also do well to do a little contemplation of our own. For decades now, the token white guy has done oddball things in our films and entertainment without any agency whatsoever. Gavin Packard, an India-born foreigner, spent his career playing the bare chested villain only to be smashed by Indian heroes half his size. Tom Alter, an Indian citizen of British heritage, was typecast till the end of his days as either the British saahib, or the token fair-skinned guy, there for a purposeless, floral presence.White-skinned women have had it even worse, cast as titillating props that either clung to our heroes for dear life or danced alongside them – mostly with Akshay Kumar – semi-nude. To dance with white women, commanding their desire, at least in a visual sense, translated to both appeal and heroism of sorts. It is still the same today, when men returning from foreign countries regal their friends with vulgar stories of how they managed to, finally, do to a white girl that which they have always fantasised about. Inducting them into our home, culture, and life is of course another story.It is obviously easier to launch expectations at people who do not claim any desire to authority. Sex and the City’s portrayal of Indian culture may be misinformed and half-baked but it surely does not deserve the banishment of India’s outrage machinery.

I have seen Halloween and Christmas put through far worse ringers of cultural brutality, and am yet to come across similar criticism being levelled at us.

At this point, I am not doting over the white man’s wherewithal or even their ability to either not care, or not care enough. I am not even trying to say let us learn from them. This capacity to absorb, and not rage about how they are, is established. Sure, there is a post-colonial hangover at play here where we simply cannot help but trade backhands with a people we have shared histories, and may well, share our futures with. But let us maybe not stress the importance of approval when we fail on the very scale we are trying to measure Western culture against.To be honest, using white-skinned women as half-naked dolls in some terribly scored item song is perhaps a graver crime then admitting to not knowing what Diwali is. We probably do not know half of the many cultural antiquities hidden in our own country because honestly, who has the time or maybe, even the will. It is obviously satisfying to arbitrarily declare our diversity as some sort of qualifier for integrity or our soil-rich bodily existence, but to expect, everyone under the sun to both study and acknowledge it sounds like a blinded view of the world.Moreover, if we ourselves have not atoned for the sins of so many years – one role for the white guy in Aarya will not do it – let us introspect instead about getting better at what we also believe should be an acceptable standard. Or instead, maybe, just maybe, grow a stronger stomach that does not automatically belch and bloat at the sign of the slightest incongruence in our idea of the world, and how we believe it should treat us.Manik Sharma writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between.