Africans staying in and around India's commercial capital, Mumbai (Bombay), complain of indiscriminate racism and constant police harassment, reports the BBC's Zubair Ahmed.
Nigerian Sambo Davis is married to an Indian woman and lives in Mumbai.
All his documents are valid, but he was arrested by the police recently on suspicion of being a drug dealer.
He and 30 other black Africans were detained for hours before they were let off with an apology.
But the following day, Mr Davis said that he was shocked to read in local newspapers that they were "arrested for drug peddling".
"The police treat us Africans like dogs," he says.
Mr Davis claims he often faces discrimination when he goes to restaurants or when he tries to rent an apartment in gated middle-class communities.
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If Africans don't have papers, then deport them, don't put them in jail”
Ikeorah Junior
Nigerian cafe owner in Mumbai
But he is nevertheless one of the lucky ones. He found a decent flat to rent, thanks to his Indian wife.
But his fellow countrymen, he says, still face discrimination: "When they go to rent flats in a normal building they are told - 'you are a black man, you are Nigerian, and you are not wanted'. This is racism."
'Hide and seek'
There is no official data on how many Africans live in Mumbai, but since India's economic progress gathered momentum in recent years, many have come to work in and around the city. Unofficial estimates put their numbers at more than 5,000.
Most of them are engaged in exporting garments to Nigeria and other African countries....
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Against such a backdrop of pronounced prejudice, Sheeba Rani married Sambo Davis four years ago and the couple have two children.
Mrs Davis says her parents are enlightened Christians and they blessed them because they thought the marriage was God's wish.
But, she says, she has been ostracised by many friends, relatives and society since her marriage.
Mrs Davis is "embarrassed and ashamed" by the behaviour of the Indian people towards black Africans.
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"When I used to go to a mall or if I walked with him, I always wanted him to hold my hand. But when people saw me with him, they thought I was from a bad family or even a prostitute."
Earlier, she did not understand why black people were being looked down upon, but now she says she does.
"Because our society is obsessed with white skin. If I had married a white man, I would have gained more friends and society's approval too."
Mr Davis believes that the discrimination is solely "because I am a black man".
"It's because I am from Africa, I am a Nigerian. I think Indians see us as inferior."
Yet despite the discrimination they face, nearly all Africans the BBC interviewed said they had a soft spot for their adopted country.
They say the relations between India and Africa are "rock solid". Many argued that Indians and Africans are brothers.
"We look after Indians in our countries. They have become rich there. All we want here is for Indians to understand we are not drug dealers. We are not violent. We are just like them."
BBC News - Africans complain of discrimination in Mumbai, India
Said Hindu nationalists are small % of pop. Statistically dalits/ lower castes etc. will outweigh them 20 times, so in a truly representative survey, your nationalists will not have a big say anyway.
It's not just the Hindu Nationalists who are racists. Even Mohandas K. Gandhi, Mahatma or the Great Soul, was not immune to Indians' racist tendencies. In 1908, recording his first experience in a South African prison, Gandhi referred to black South Africans as "kaffirs". According Joseph Lelyveld, the author of "Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India", Gandhi wrote: "We were then marched off to prison intended for kaffirs. ..we could understand not being classed with the whites, but to be placed with the Natives seemed too much to put up with. It is indubitably right that Indians should have separate cells."
http://www.riazhaq.com/2013/05/world-values-survey-finds-indians-most.html
racisim and religious sentiments are two different things .anyway surely if that survey was done we will debate that viz a viz India and Pakistan. But for the time being its racisim question
