India asked Britain on Wednesday to check whether race laws had been broken in the reported bullying of Indian film star Shilpa Shetty on a British reality TV show as her admirers burned effigies of the alleged abusers.
Almost 20,000 British viewers of "Celebrity Big Brother" have complained Shetty, 31, has been subjected to racist abuse on the show, prompting an investigation into the charges by British media watchdog Ofcom.
The A-list Bollywood actress was reduced to tears after what her Bollywood colleagues have called racist bullying in the "Big Brother" house, a complex of rooms and a garden participants are locked in for the duration of the show.
One contestant referred to Shetty as "the Indian" and asked her if she lived in a shack, while another said "You don't know where those hands have been." Two have mimicked her accent.
"The Government of India has taken up the matter with the British Government through the British High Commission in New Delhi for addressing it in accordance with British laws," said a statement from India's foreign ministry late on Wednesday.
Talk of the show has dominated India's celebrity-obsessed media, with images of a tearful Shetty featuring on television reports and the front pages of newspapers.
India's Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi told reporters Shetty should give the facts to the Indian High Commission in London, while dozens of admirers protested in the eastern Indian city of Patna, burning straw effigies of housemates they said had humiliated her.
REAL FACE OF WEST?
Britain's prime-minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown, on a visit to India, told reporters he had heard about viewers' complaints.
"I want Britain to be seen as a country of fairness and tolerance ... and anything that detracts from that, I condemn."
A spokesman for Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair said Blair had not seen the programme but the incident was regrettable. He added the response from viewers actually showed there was "no level of toleration in this country for anything that rightly or wrongly can be perceived as racism."
But some Bollywood figures said the alleged racism faced by Shetty was reflective of Western views.
"What is happening on Big Brother is just holding the mirror to the Western society," leading Bollywood film maker Mahesh Bhatt told Reuters. "This is the real, discriminating face of the West you can see on the streets of London or New York."
Shetty's mother, Sunanda, said the family did not feel good to see Shetty crying on the show but her daughter was tough and she would be able to handle what she said were probably expressions of envy from other housemates.
"But if it is about racial discrimination it should be stopped. We hope the channel will take note and control the situation," she said.
The Big Brother outburst has even spilled into the British parliament's lower house, and U.K. police are investigating two e-mails sent to the show's broadcaster, Channel 4, containing "unspecified threats against a number of the housemates".
A Channel 4 statement on Wednesday said there had been a "cultural and class clash between Shetty and three of the British women in the house but added: "To date there has been no overt racial abuse or racist behaviour directed against Shilpa Shetty within the Big Brother house."
"Unambiguous racist behaviour and language is not tolerated under any circumstances in the Big Brother house," it said.
"Celebrity Big Brother", where unpopular contestants are voted off each week by viewers until there is a winner, is not availiable to viewers in India, which has its own tamer version called "Bigg Boss".
The show's housemates are unaware of the furore outside. Filmed by hidden cameras, their antics can be watched 24 hours a day, and the highlights are played every evening.
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