Hate

Words are incredibly powerful, and they can produce so much emotion, and even move people to action. When one speaks words of hate, they have the power to inflict great pain or to degrade or marginalize an entire group of people.
During this assignment I was surprised to hear that C.P has been a victim of hate speech; I myself have also endured hate. We spoke about our experiences to each other for a moment and continued with the assignment.
In the Punjabi culture there is a great deal of resentment towards the British. C.P explained that Punjabis feel that when the British occupied the county, they were subjugated- they felt degraded, and in addition to losing their wealth (the British redistributed land and allocated it to soldiers- it was never returned to the originally owning families), the British caused a chiasm which resulted in the fragmentation of the country. The Panjabi’s were mostly land owner’s- but due to their large physical size, were also always enlisted as warriors or soldiers. Many Punjabis experienced deaths of young men belonging to their families in conflict with the British.
Thus, hate speech is mostly focused toward people that are half Punjabi and half English. They are seen as betrayers; their mothers had illicit affairs with English men stationed in India, or married English men who decided to settle in India. Whoever married or had a child with an English person was seen as siding with the enemy and betraying his people.
Status plays a big role in Punjabi culture; people are viewed differently depending on their class in the society- this is the case throughout all of India and Pakistan. One is categorized and placed in a caste system. The lower class of the caste system are viewed as lower in status based loosely on skin color and other stereotypical traits. There is some discriminatory speech against other ethnic cultures such as Indians from the South of the country (of Dravidian descent), Bengalis, people from Bombay or other large cities, or any other ethnic cultures different from their own. Hate speech is not common, but does occur.
The statements made are very similar to hate speech in America. Also, hate speech is almost always about the same things: in both cultures, most hate speech is aimed towards individuals with a different skin color, gender, sexual orientation, and even SES.
However, in the Panjabi culture, there is a target for hate speech that American culture does not have. Actually, the most common basis on which such inflammatory and degrading speech is made is a particular individual’s place in the caste system. The differences between hate in America and Punjab is the enforcement of hate speech laws. In Punjab there are laws against the use of hate speech; however they are never enforced.
C.P. says that the acceptability of hate speech is higher among in groups when referencing those that are not there. However, it is not used more frequently than it is in America to degrade a member of an out-group. Hate speech is most frequently directed at someone by the same groups (the majority ethnicity) and in similar situations as in America.