What the Deuce! | Miss India just not Indian Enough

Jacinta Lal won the Miss India NZ hands down, but the predominantly Indian-origin gawkers in the audience in Wellington saw red: they booed her and whinged to the organisers that the 21-year-old just doesn’t have enough Indian blood, or Indian looks, to qualify. Jacinta, daughter of an Indo-Fijian and a New Zealander, is blonde and has blue eyes. She looks hybrid, but that didn’t mollify the Indians in the hall—or outside it. A commenter wrote in that “anyone from any race can qualify for being a Miss Any Country if they have a drop of blood from there: a blonde hair, blue eyes girl can also be a Miss Africa.” In a world increasingly populated by uncertain and shifting racial identities, the abreaction of the Indian New Zealanders hasn’t gone down well.