Brown drawn into TV racism row

Gordon Brown's high-profile visit to India was yesterday overshadowed by the escalating furore over alleged racist bullying of an Indian actress on Celebrity Big Brother, the reality television show on Channel 4.

The mistreatment of Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood star, has prompted a flood of official protests in India and effigies of the show's producers were burnt in the streets.

The issue was raised by Kamal Nath, India's trade minister, in a meeting with the chancellor, who was forced to denounce the programme as "offensive". Mr Brown told Indian reporters: "I want Britain to be seen as a country of fairness and tolerance and anything that detracts from that I condemn."

British officials in Delhi last night said they did not exclude the possibility of Mr Brown being questioned about the incident when he meets ministers in the Indian capital today. But one official said: "My guess is that the anger over the incident has probably peaked."

In the UK, the issue was raised at prime minister's questions in the Commons. Tony Blair told MPs he had not seen the show, but added: "We should oppose racism in all its forms."

Ed Balls, Treasury minister and close ally of Mr Brown, said the programme projected an "appalling" image of Britain overseas: "The thing which I think we should stand back and think about, in the last couple of days, is this has been a major national news story in India, with people talking about Britain with words like racist, and the kind of image it projects of Britain around the world is appalling. I feel ashamed of it."

Late yesterday afternoon, more than 20,000 complaints had reached Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, and Channel 4. The broadcaster has been criticised by some UK newspapers for not intervening to influence the onscreen treatment of Ms Shetty.

The issue is also being played out in cyberspace. As of yesterday afternoon, 130 clips from the show had been posted on YouTube, the video-sharing website drawing thousands of viewers and a heavy flow of comments.

Carphone Warehouse, the mobile phone retailer, yesterday said it could review its sponsorship of Celebrity Big Brother, which is produced by Endemol, as the row over allegations of racism on the show escalated. The retail chain is aware of the damage the programme could inflict on its standing with consumers as it tries to roll out new services.

The retailer, which has sponsored the main Big Brother summer series and its celebrity variant since 2004, said it had written to Channel 4.

Carphone Warehouse said: "We are against racism in any shape or form. As sponsor we have no involvement in the content of the programme, but we're in constant contact with Channel 4 who are giving us all the facts as we require them. We have full faith that Channel 4 will deal with these serious allegations in the appropriate manner."

The row comes at a sensitive time for the publicly owned channel as its future funding is under review. However,the furore has increased its audience.

Additional reporting by Ben Hall and Emiko Terazono