How to check whether a society is welcoming or not? One metric I found useful is the ease of renting a place. Let’s call it renting score. Race, religion, class, food habits etc., may contribute to this renting score. This score also gives an estimate of how privileged are you, in a particular society. Renting is unique since you are accessing the personal property of the owner. You don’t need to bother much about society when you move to a new city except for renting. It is a rare scenario where people can act on their racial bias without being judged. If you deny the service due to racial preference (say in a restaurant or clinic) the consequence can be big in many countries. But this is not true when you rent out your home, especially if you get more applications you can choose your tenants based on race, caste or religion. Moreover, if it is not for renting a place, we wouldn’t need to disclose our full identity to another person.
Sir, aap to mazaak kar raha hei
We had a professor who came from a Tamil Brahmin family. Why invoke the caste? You may ask. Because the caste has a lot to do with this story. His second name was “Rangarajan”. For a north-Indian person, it is hard to guess the caste just by this name. He approached a home agent to get a new place in the city of Ahmedabad. After asking about his profession and status, the agent asked
“ Sir, Rangarajan, kon sa cast ca sir name hota hei? (Simply asking the cast)“
He replied. “ It is my father’s name. As such I am coming from a Brahmin cast, but why should it matter? ”
“Ha sir, but we need to make sure that you are not from SC/ST” For those who don’t know, SC/ST refers to scheduled cast and scheduled tribe. These casts are considered untouchable by most of the Indian society. Professor then asked
“That is absurd. What if I have a Muslim name?”
The agent replied with a laugh
“Sir, aap to mazaak kar raha hei, (surely you are kidding, sir)”
Irrespective of your profession or economic background, caste and religion decide your odds of renting a place in most parts of India. When talking about caste, many people used to say it is only in villages now. They argue that cities don’t care about your caste. Well, try getting a house for rent with a “lower” caste or Muslim name.
Only for strict vegetarians
For the last 10 years of my life, I am living in rented places. It all started in Ahmedabad where I was a doctoral student. Our institute had quarters for employees and students. Social norms do not decide the entry to these quarters. It is a combined waiting list. I had to wait for more than a year to get the quarter. Until then, I needed to find a place outside the campus. I got a place near our institute for 8500 rupees per month.
The landlady asked us “are you Bengalis? “
“ No, but why ?”
“ Bengalis cook non-veg in-house. We cannot allow that”
We were desperate to get a place.
“No, we will not cook non-veg in the house”
“Are you really from Kerala? I have a bad experience with the last tenants. After they left, I came to know they were from Pakistan”
That sounded impossible. But I did not debate with her. I just wanted the place. We avoided cooking meat during that tendency. Occasionally, I used to make some eggs. Eggs are generally “accepted” by most Indian vegetarians. Moreover, it does not smell like meat and they will never know, I thought. But we got caught red-handed! they were checking the trash bin for egg shells or bones.
Asking whether you are vegetarian or not is not a direct question in India. Your food habits are dictated by your cast. So it is the best indicator of your social position. You can see many property advertisements specifying “strictly for vegetarians”. More than the food choice, they care about the caste. The younger generation is not that “strict vegetarians”. They can eat at Burger King or KFC. But they will not eat at home. But when comes to renting, food choice is used to eliminate people from some castes and communities.
Closed rental chambers
On a fine morning, the director of our institute decided that the new post-doctoral fellows would not be provided with institute accommodation. As we were already living in institute-provided quarters, this did not affect us. But many students who finished PhD had to move out of the hostel. According to many faculty members, it is a fair decision. You will get 30% extra for the house rent allowance which can comfortably be used to rent a place. However, what they did not consider is the social aspects of renting. Everyone doesn’t have an equal chance of getting a good rented apartment. This issue struck me when my colleague tried to get a place outside.
My colleague is from the Muslim community. Even though he is highly educated, working in a central government institute guarded by CISF, he was unable to secure an apartment nearby. His postdoc supervisor, who is from an “acceptable” Hindu community, personally went to the landlord to help him. But they did not change their mind. Finally, he had to move to a Mulsim-owned flat far away from the institute. Naturally, the flat is populated by people from the Muslim community.
The polarization begins with a segregated upbringing. Creating the unknown, dangerous others. It may be challenging to convince your kids that your neighbour is a terrorist due to his religion. But when all people from that religion live separately and thereby reduce social interaction, segregation or “othering” comes out naturally.
Singapore’s Social engineering
Singapore was my second city. Finding an apartment was pretty straightforward and hassle-free. You can go to the website and book a viewing. But the interesting thing was the quota system they have for the even distribution of races. The state controls the ratio of different races in every housing and developing board (HDB) flat. There are 3 official races in Singapore: Chinese, Malaysian and Indian. However, I belong to the 4th category of foreigners as I am not a citizen of the country. So, every time someone rents out their flat, they need to get permission from the HDB which looks into the racial distribution of the flat that month.
This may sound too much like a controlling, nanny-state. However, if the society is inherently racial, such top-down control will work in favour of the marginalised. But partly this is due to the fact that people are not really the owner of the flats. They are instead leasing them for 99 years or so. The government controls the land and has the power to demolish the flat if they need the area to be developed for something else.
Fear of racial bias in UK (for whom?)
Privilege for a person is like water for a fish. They will never discover it exists. Many human curtsies in India are unfortunately privileges that some cast people receive. “Not being discriminated against '' is a privilege in India. However you try to understand it logically, you never get to internalise the social privileges and its boundaries. Privileged people discussing privilege reminds me of the Loki meme saying "very sad, anyway.." . But you will start to notice how it feels like to be at the receiving end when you move to a different country. A country where the dominant cultural power is different from yours. Or even worse : one that has inherent racial biases towards people with your ethnicity.
Regular readers of my newsletter (if you are not, what are you waiting for !) may be familiar with my recent relocation situation (suggested reading https://chithrabhanu.substack.com/p/07-uprooting-yourself?r=jmgf2&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=direct). I moved to Cambridge, UK last year and I had a tough time securing a place to stay. We visited 8 houses, and made offers to 6 of the houses. But none of them agreed to rent the place to us. Once I had even given the deposit and yet I got rejected. Later I got acceptance from two landlords. But the strange thing is that both of them were of Indian ethnicity. I find it hard to believe it as mere coincidence.
A friend of mine from India recently visited me and was discussing his plan to migrate to UK. I mentioned my story and the fear of biased treatment. He said
“This is nothing. In India people had told to my face that I wont get the apartment since I am a Muslim ! Feeling of being a second citizen in my own country is really a bad one”
I was speechless. It makes sense. Even if he might be subjected to racial bias, it will be as same as towards people form Indian subcontinent. And he will never get a good apartment in the location he want if he is in Ahmedabad (and most of the cities in India) . Here, even though there will be some bias, you can find a place with bit more effort.
Folks, thanks for hanging around. Please consider sharing this post such that more people will be mindful about the issues and perhaps, they may change their biases. You never know, I can always hope..