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Billionaire heiress Vasundhara Oswal faces racism in Switzerland; neighbour tells her ‘You’re not in India’. Watch
Indian-origin heiress Vasundhara Oswal, the elder daughter of billionaire Pankaj Oswal, has shared an instance of racism she faced in Switzerland.
Indian-origin heiress Vasundhara Oswal, the elder daughter of billionaire Pankaj Oswal, has shared an instance of racism she faced in Switzerland. In a video shared on Instagram, Vasundhara captured her encounter with a Swiss neighbour who demanded that her family switch off their lawn mower, telling them, "You are not in India."
The Oswal family has lived in Switzerland for nearly a decade. A few years ago, they purchased Villa Vari— one of the country's largest and most expensive private residences — for a reported ₹1,649 crore.
Vasundhra Oswal alleges racism
In her Instagram post, Vasundhara Oswal recounted an incident in which, she said, a man came to the gate of her family's home and demanded that they stop using a lawn mower on a Thursday afternoon.
"When you receive a random man at your house gate demanding that you turn your lawn mower off on a Thursday afternoon as 'you are not in India' you would think this incident is happening in the USA or the UK but actually this is happening in Switzerland," she wrote.
The Instagram video shows the man arguing with Vasundhara, who politely pointed out that there is no law against using a lawn mower on a Thursday afternoon.
Questioning the classification of Switzerland as a developed country, Vasundhra Oswal argued that economic development does not necessarily reflect people's attitude.
“You would expect a ‘developed’ country to have more ‘developed’ people but actually it’s the opposite,” she wrote. “Does development of a nation depend on infrastructure of a country or thought process of their people? What makes western civilisation so much “greater” than Asian in terms of development when their own citizens act like people who have never been exposed to different cultures,” she further questioned.
(Also read: Billionaire heiress Vasundhara Oswal 'forced' to live in filthy prison, bathe in cold water, claims family)
Repeated racism in Switzerland
Saying her family had lived in Switzerland for the past eight years and built "one of the largest houses in the country", Vasundhara Oswal claimed they had experienced repeated discrimination.
The billionaire heiress further claimed that her Indian family had been targeted for doing better than the Swiss population.
“As Indians who have lived in Switzerland for the past 8 years and built one of the largest houses in the country we are sad to say that racism and xenophobia in Switzerland is at large and is unspoken of. Targeted specifically towards different skin tones that are doing better than the average local population,” she wrote.
According to her, Switzerland might just be worse off than the US or the UK in terms of racism.
She claimed that 17% of people living in Switzerland had reported facing racial discrimination, compared with 21% in the UK, but added that the UK's more centralised system for recording hate crimes results in higher official figures. She further claimed that human rights experts believe official Swiss data represents only a fraction of actual incidents.
“We always hear news about the UK or the USA but Switzerland is actually far worse. 17% of those living in Switzerland have reported facing racial discrimination that is only 4% less than the UK and no it does not make Switzerland any better,” she claimed.
