A cartoon published in a leading Australian daily on Monday depicted Indians as starving and eating solar panels, drawing rebuke with many condemning it as “racist”. The cartoon appeared in the Rupert Murdoch-owned The Australian in response to the Paris climate conference. The cartoon shows an emaciated Indian family breaking up solar panels and one person trying to eat them with ‘mango chutney’. The climate deal was clinched with the approval of India, China and the US, after days of tough negotiations with the pact seeking to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and committing $100 billion a year from 2020 to help developing nations. India had bargained hard on behalf of developing countries and demanded that developed countries take on more responsibility and provide financial support to developing nations so that they could make a switch to green technology. India also mooted the International Solar Alliance initiative which was launched during the Paris conference.
The cartoon sparked furore in the social media and academic circles with many slamming it as racist. Amanda Wise, an associate professor of sociology at Macquarie University, said in her view the cartoon was shocking and unacceptable in the UK. “This cartoon is unequivocally racist and draws on very base stereotypes of third world, underdeveloped people who don’t know what to do with technology,” Wise said. “India is the technology centre of the world and has some of the most high-tech industries. The underlying message is that people in developing countries don’t need all these technologies to do with climate change —they need food,” she said.