Nirpal Dhaliwal: The liberal left enjoys a wog joke along with the best of them

The staggering clumsiness with which Patrick Mercer MP got himself sacked from the Conservative front benches last week, and the punching of a black police suspect in Sheffield, has once again raised the issue of race in Britain. The Conservative former homeland security spokes-man glibly stated that racial slurs were an ordinary part of army life, and implied that calling a black soldier a "black bastard" should not be regarded as any more offensive than a white recruit being taunted for having red hair. But it's not only high-handed Tories who casually make such offensive comments. I've witnessed equally distasteful behaviour among paragons of the liberal left.

Recently I was in Mumbai with some prominent names from the British media. We spent the evening at a swanky party arranged by a literary festival we were attending.

We chatted about Pablo, the dynamic young Indian whose zeal and networking chutzpah had brought together disparate names from the Indian and British arts and media to stage the event. Thinking she was safe in the company of fellow Brits, a female writer began bitching about him, questioning whether he was 23 years old, as we'd been told. She repeated a rumour that he was actually 33, and had lied about his age to present himself as a super-talented prodigy.

Sitting near her was a leading left-wing journalist. She asked him what he thought. He commented that Pablo's father was very youthful looking. To which she replied: "Well, over here, they have their children when they're 10 years old." The journalist had a good chortle at this. Despite his leftie credentials and public sympathy with the impoverished, he enjoyed a wog joke as much as anyone.

I was struck dumb with disgust not only at this apparent insensitivity to India's poor - who slept beside dogs on the pavements we drove past - but also their graceless attitude to the Indians who had flown us to Mumbai and so generously hosted us. That particular journalist was pampering himself, at their expense, in one of the most prestigious hotels in India.

If I'd heard that remark in London, I might have dismissed it as just a clumsy joke. But being in India (the country my parents left seeking a better life), and seeing the enormous problems its ordinary people contend with each day, and the dignity with which they face them, my blood boiled.

Children do have babies in India. I vividly remember the pregnant 12-year-old who hustled me for money when I was last in Mumbai, two years ago. She broke my heart. That anyone could laugh in the context of this misery was unbearable.

Over 2.5 million children live in the slums and on the streets of Mumbai. Often malnourished, unable to attend school and forced into work, they are exposed to a myriad of dangers, including sexual abuse, drug addiction and crime. They are no laughing matter.

I shouldn't have been surprised by her words and his response. The public empathy of some lefties is often questionable. Some may use it to carve themselves a career, and it is not necessarily a reflection of their private sentiments. In January, the New Statesman printed an article by Kira Cochrane, the editor of The Guardian's women's pages, ridiculing my dress sense during an appearance on Newsnight Review. I've never been on the show in my life. She had seen another Asian on TV and had mistaken him for me. We do all look the same, after all. Cochrane seems to dislike me, maybe for my outspoken opinions on sex; but at least I have the integrity to wear my heart on my sleeve.

I remained in Mumbai after the festival, and later in the week I visited an organisation called Magic Bus. Established by Britons, but staffed by Indians, it gives the poor kids of the city an opportunity to play and be children for an afternoon each week. The slums of Mumbai are squalid, congested warrens, often built beside busy roads, open sewers and other hazards. Living in such atrocious conditions, the children have no safe and inviting areas to play in.

Magic Bus ferries them to parks or to its activity centre, where they play games and revel in the open space. It is a rare and transformative experience for these children, improving their social skills and self-confidence.

I played football with them. An Indian football match is a microcosm of India itself. Loud and good-natured, it is an energetic, barefooted melee that somehow manages not to descend into complete anarchy.

I got to know Saddam, Ibrahim and Mangesh, a sassy, wisecracking trio of street kids who lamented my poor performance, saying I'd drunk too many bhang lassies (a milk drink laced with cannabis). Their faces held a painful combination of innocence and worldliness, and filled me with humility and awe.

If only those journalists I encountered had gotten to know children like them. They would feel ashamed, and never dare mock them again.

To contribute to Magic Bus, or to find out more, visit magicbusindia.org

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