By Shyam Pandharipande, IANS
Nagpur : More than two months after winning a racial discrimination case against a British telecom firm, an Indian management student in the University of Northampton is still waiting for a formal apology from the company.
Talk Talk Direct Ltd., the call centre arm of leading landline service provider Carphone Warehouse Group, had called back Chetankumar Meshram in the middle of a training assignment in Delhi because his accent was not ‘English enough’.
Meshram, who hails from a socially backward caste in Maharashtra, moved the authorities and the Bedford Employment Tribunal forced the telecom firm to compensate him for “racial harassment” in November 2007.
But Talk Talk Direct Ltd, which the 26-year-old Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) pass-out was serving part-time for 15 months, is yet to say sorry, Meshram told IANS on phone from Northampton.
“I am happy about my legal victory and thankful to the (Northamptonshire-based) Racial Equality Council for fighting my case; but I can’t help feeling that my employers have no remorse for the insult they have inflicted on me,” Meshram said.
The young man who belongs to the Vidarbha region’s Yavatmal district in Maharashtra resumed both his part-time job as Talk Talk customer advisor and the management course in Northamptom, but kept smarting under what he considered an embarrassing humiliation.
“They had no problem with my accent in the 15 months that I served them in the UK before they sent me to New Delhi on an eight-week assignment; they have no problem with the accent of people from other countries either…I don’t know what went wrong in Delhi,” Meshram wondered.
Christopher Fray of the Racial Equality Council, who represented Meshram, was quoted as saying by BBC News after the verdict: “This case delivers a clear message to the community that preconceived ideas about a person’s intelligence or ability should not be judged by their accent.
“It is sad that he (Meshram) has had to endure embarrassment and humiliation purely because he has an Indian accent”, Fray said. “Mr Meshram is an extremely friendly, intelligent efficient worker,” he added.
Meshram belongs to an educated family – his father Namdeo Meshram is a retired Maharashtra secretariat officer and mother Rakhee is an officer with Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. Sister Leena is a lecturer in a college in Mumbai.
However, the young man belongs to a socially backward community that suffered untold discrimination in India for centuries and was considered “untouchable”.