LONDON, Jan 18: Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty's treatment by a handful of other contestants on a British reality television show sparked a wider debate on Thursday about the extent of racism and xenophobia in Britain.

The apparent racist bullying of the 31-year-old actress on Channel 4's ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ may have been roundly condemned. The show has attracted 30,000 complaints to the broadcaster and British TV regulator.

But while some commentators see race as playing no part, others fear that despite efforts to promote greater racial awareness, it shows intolerance and ignorance persist.

Certainly, Shetty herself has wondered how representative the behaviour was of Britain, which is home to about 4.6 million people from ethnic minorities out of a total population of 58 million.

“Is this what today's UK is? Scary. It's quite a shame actually,” she said after a foul-mouthed tirade from fellow contestant Jade Goody on Wednesday. “Am I not human? What about me is so different?”

Although one housemate tried to reason that her treatment had nothing to do with racism, Shetty — whose popularity has pushed her into pole position to win the contest — disagreed.

In an editorial, The Independent viewed the number of complaints as proof of how much attitudes towards race had changed in Britain in recent years.

But it considered the sniping about Indian hygiene, housing and culture showed that “barely submerged xenophobia in Britain is a significant phenomenon in our society still”.—AFP