India “can never ever turn our eyes away from racism”, Foreign Minister Dr. S Jaishankar said in parliament on Monday after a BJP leader raised the topic of Rashmi Samant, the Indian student who resigned as the president of the Oxford University’s student union last month. There had been controversy over some of her past remarks and references which were branded as “racist” and “insensitive”. The minister said India will raise such matters with Britain “when required”.
Ashwini Vaishnav, a BJP Rajya Sabha member from Odisha, told the Foreign Minister in the upper house, “I want to bring the attention of the House to a shared global concern about racism. There appears to be a continuation of attitudes and prejudices from the colonial era especially in UK.”
On February 11, 2021, she was elected as the first Indian woman president of the Oxford University Students Union. However, the 22-yr-old MSc student of energy systems at the Oxford University was forced to resign within five days, following outrage over some of her past social media posts that were perceived as anti-Semitic and racist.
The social media posts in question referred to a picture of Samant in front of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial with a caption “The memorial casts a hollow dream of the past atrocities and deeds” and another photo from Malaysia captioned as “Ching Chang”. Some of her comments associated with the LGBT community, where it was alleged that she had used terms such as trans women rather than just women, were also objected to.
The social media posts in question referred to a picture of Samant in front of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial with a caption “The memorial casts a hollow dream of the past atrocities and deeds” and another photo from Malaysia captioned as “Ching Chang”. Some of her comments associated with the LGBT community, where it was alleged that she had used terms such as trans women rather than just women, were also objected to.
Responding to the Rajya Sabha member, Mr Jaishankar said, “As land of Mahatma Gandhi, we can never ever turn our eyes away from racism. Particularly so when it is in a country where we have such a large diaspora. We’ve strong ties with the UK. We’ll take up such matters with great candour when required.
“We will monitor these developments very very closely. We will raise it when required and we will always champion the fight against racism and other forms of intolerance.”
Samant, a graduate student reading for an MSc in energy systems at Linacre College at Oxford University, scored a landslide win in the Oxford student union election. She left for India amid the escalating row.
