OFF THE RAILS

Indian Ministers Slam German Magazine’s ‘Racist’ Train Cartoon

The drawing was apparently making a joke about the country’s growing population.

Lawmakers in India have expressed fury at a cartoon in a German magazine which has been criticized as “racist.” The sketch in Der Spiegel shows a caption saying “population: India overtakes China.” Below, two trains representing the two countries run parallel. The Chinese train is depicted as a modern bullet train holding two people while the Indian train is construed as crowded and old-fashioned with people sitting and standing on top of the carriages. “Germany, this is outrageously racist,” tweeted Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser to India’s Ministry of information and Broadcasting. “Der Spiegel caricaturing India in this manner has no resemblance to reality. Purpose is to show India down and suck up to China.” Gupta said it was “as bad if not worse” than a widely condemned 2014 cartoon in the New York Times mocking India’s Mars mission. Indian Minister for Electronics, Information and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar also slammed the cartoon, saying “in a few years India’s economy will be bigger than Germany’s.”