It’s as if a new story about Indians behaving badly abroad is primed to appear every 24 hours or so, given the consistency with which they appear and go viral. When I say ‘behave badly’, I would like to point out that these aren’t my words; it’s what a whole lot of people sharing these videos tend to use as a preamble to the act of sharing. ‘Look at these brown immigrants,’ they say with barely disguised anger, ‘why can’t they do this in their home country instead of ruining things for us here?’

Among the many videos that have been attracting this sort of negativity lately are ones involving women who have been arrested for shoplifting in the West. The videos depict them trying their best to get out of these unfortunate situations, in ways every Indian has attempted when trying to circumvent authority. We see them weep copiously, claim ignorance of the law, offer to pay for everything stolen, struggle with basic questions about their identity, and eventually beg for forgiveness in the hope that the police will abandon the effort and move on to more serious crimes. It’s because those efforts don’t work that their acts attract a great deal of vitriol from Indians everywhere. The comments online are aways about wanting foreigners to stop painting us with the same brush.