Bram Krikke is under fire because the radio DJ and influencer calls India a ‘dirty country’ in his podcast. “He has never been there, but he does share it with thousands of followers. That makes it extra hurtful.”
It is a short passage in Bram Krikke’s podcast, but one that offends many people. The radio maker and influencer, who is blessed with the place where he was born, laughingly calls India a ‘filthy country’, insulting not only the one billion inhabitants of India, but also the Indian community in our country.
Very last place
Bram is scathing about the Asian country. “India… sorry to say, that is the very, very last place in the world I want to go to,” he says in The Number 1 Podcast. “Would you ever want to go there?”
His co-host Stijn van Vliet then: “Well, I don’t want to lose sight of India, but it’s not on my list. And if there was a list, it would be fairly low.”
Gross country
Bram is disappointed in India. “I always had an image of India: picturesque, fairytale-like, beautiful nature, good food, colorful, beautiful.”
Stijn: “Well?!”
Bram then: “But through social media I discovered that it is actually a very nasty country.”
Laughing, he adds: “It’s a really dirty country. And a lot of rapists. They’re number one on all kinds of lists. It’s gross!”
Stigmatization
The Hindustani news site Hindustanis Be Like thinks it’s insane. “Reducing a country with 1.4 billion people to ‘gross’ and ‘rapists’ is no longer an opinion. That is collective stigmatization. On the basis of what? Not on research. Not on experience. But – as Bram himself says – on images on social media. And that is exactly where the problem lies.”
Should his podcast platform Podimo intervene? Yes, according to the news site. “You can make jokes. You can be sharp. But you cannot portray entire population groups as inferior — and then wave that away as humor.”
Chai
People are also angry on social media. Sunita thinks Bram is a hypocrite. “Meanwhile, half of the Netherlands is drinking chai, they are suddenly all using turmeric and saying Namastééé after their weekly yoga session, but India where it all comes from is gross🤣🤣🤣,” she writes. Facebook.
And Aman: “Bram Krikke did not get further than the campsite on Texel. Let us not take his opinion too seriously. People who do have too little substance to do their own research.”