After sparking an international spat — the Big Brother row figured during the visit to India of Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, who is aiming to be Tony Blair’s successor — Friday’s eviction night vote was seen to represent a wider issue.

Brown, who also waded into the issue along with the Indian PM Manmohan Singh, urged the British public to use this as an opportunity to take a stand for “tolerance and fairness”.

Even without political intervention, the swing of public opinion had already indicated that Channel 4, in its bid to push up ratings and, therefore, benefit financially from the furore, had gone too far. Said Channel 4’s chief executive Andy Duncan: “It is unquestionably a good thing that the programme has raised these issues.” He then urged people to watch it and make up their own minds.

But the tide of viewer protest forced Channel 4 to bow to public pressure. After originally claiming that they would donate 10 pence from every 50 pence charged for the eviction vote to charity, they were compelled to backtrack and announce that the entire revenue from the Shilpa v Jade vote would be donated.

Now, however, as pictures of Indian demonstrators in faraway Patna burning effigies of Big Brother’s executives have been shown in Britain and threats have emerged against Goody, questions are being raised about whether Indians are showing the same tolerance that they demanded be shown to Shetty. Controversial writer and author Julie Burchill, writing in the London Evening Standard: “I love the sight of Indians, in a country with a huge class of Untouchables, prancing around burning effigies and telling us not to discriminate!”

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