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Currant mystery
15 years ago
Tuesday, September 18
Nose stud and the works
A woman employee at the Heathrow airport was recently fired for wearing a nose stud! It is said to be a case of religious discrimination. After being outside of India for more than a year now, I realize that wearing a nose stud is more a fashion among the goras than the Indian girls I see around. Not just hippie looking undergrads, but even grown up working women. If I were the woman fired in this case, I would have loved to believe that the nose stud is now more a matter of fashion, than a matter of religion. Guess Britain is still as racially discriminating as this report suggests? Wonder why?
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5 comments:
Well Manasi, I think that we have started becoming a bit 'overtly sensitive' these days! Ready to cry wolf at any and everything. I am still recovering from the damage done to Indians by Shilpa Shetty on Big Brother!
Now, since when has the nose-ring become the trademark for a 'bharatiya naari'? And a married one at that! I am not for a moment trying to defend or critisize anyone, but when you work for someone other than yourselves, you have to follow rules. Why do Sikhs not complain about not being able to carry swords (kirpans) on aircrafts? Why does a 'bharatiya naari' working in a good hotel not complain about her red/green choodies not allowed at work? If Mrs Lalji is so particular, she should have sat at home, in all her traditional, married-woman flourish!
I think it's high time we stopped being so cynical of everything we see around us as attempts to subdue our culture.
It would be interesting to see if the same ppl would ask a burqa clad woman to give up on her burqa or risk getting fired...
Damien,
I don't think I would interpret the incident as an attempt to 'subdue our culture'. Infact I think that it is stupid of anyone to react extremely. This incident just shows how intolerant the employers in question are. They are operating in a free country, and choosing how you dress up comes with it. And so long that it does not affect the efficency of the employee, no one should be allowed to dictate what a person wears. And I guess a nose stud is so small a thing, half of the people she served during her employment would have hardly even noticed it. That this incident should be interpreted as racial discrimination is obvious as Britian has shown a continued tendency to discriminate. Can we confidently say that they would have reacted the same way if it were a gori employee wearing a stud for fashion, or having a tattoo, or something else which you cannot assign to any particular religion or region, and is only fashion?
Suyog: I doubt if that burqa clad woman would be working there in the first place.
The nose stud is a small thing to fire someone over, and i wonder if that wasnt a pre-text to fire her for some other reason.
That being said, ironically britain is still more tolerant than the USA on stuff like this. They'd never let sikhs into the police or army unless they cut their hair and beard.
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