Though the whole country is suffering from the pain of Corona and following the lockdown but there are some people in our country who stay far from the mainland but still are treated like Corona affected. These are people who hail from the North East India and are following all the instructions given by the Indian Government related to lockdown. Northeastern students come to mainland for education and job opportunities. But they face racism and other related issues and have to fight to maintain their identity of being INDIAN.

By Umang Gupta

Jaipur April 21, 2020

Though the whole country is suffering from the pain of Corona and following the lockdown but there are some people in our country who stay far from the mainland but still are treated like Corona affected. These are people who hail from the North East India and are following all the instructions given by the Indian Government related to lockdown. Northeastern come to mainland for education and job opportunities. But they face racism and other related issues and have to fight to maintain their identity of being INDIAN.

Cases have been reported against racial discrimination where people have turned biased against natives of North-East Indian states, passing racial slurs, violence over their looks and harassing them, as per media reports. These issues are majorly faced by girls in the National Capital Delhi and other regions of the country. According to a report in India Today, “The woman, who is in her early 20s, alleged that she was on her way to buy groceries when a man came on a two-wheeler and spat on her”. 

Oh Nagaland? You eat dog meat? That’s the question someone asked Rachel at the beginning of Fellowship Orientation, when she told the group that she was from Nagaland. It was not the first time that she heard the question like this. This actually speaks about the stereotypes that are unfortunately prevalent in India about people from North East. (Rachel Aier, Clinton Fellowship).

The North East India commonly known as “Land of Seven Sisters” due to the interdependency on each other. All the seven states are isolated from the mainland of the country and the only way to reach there is through the Silliguri Corridor which is popularly known as Chicken’s Neck in Assam.

Every year thousands of north eastern people travel from their states to the National Capital, Delhi for education and job purpose. But undoubtedly they all face a lot of problem on daily basis. Delhi being the National Capital welcomes migrants from all states open heartedly so why there is a difficulty in accepting people from North East India? They are also as Indian as we are.

Let’s take a look what problems are actually faced by the North Eastern people:

1. About their looks: The people who hail from North East are treated differently and are called by different names in the society like ‘Chinese’, ‘Chinki’, ‘Hakka Noodle’ and many other derogatory words. North eastern people have different facial features that from the mainland people due to which most of the time they have been the victim of such racism. Just because they have small eyes and their features matches with Chinese people we don’t get a right to laugh or mock on them or make them feel like a foreigner in their own country.
2. Different Dialect: India is a land of different languages where Hindi and English are the National languages while 22 other languages are categorized under official languages. (Travel Dudes) North Eastern people are from the different part of the country, they are not that perfect in speaking Hindi as other people in Delhi. Just take an instance how much our English version differs from American English. And how will we feel if they comment on our accent. Same find of inferiority is faced and felt by the North eastern people living in Delhi.
3. Eating Habits: India has a very rich cuisine. Indians have very different eating habits. Every state in India is rich in their food habits. But North Eastern people are always targeted on their food habits. Several times North Eastern people have been targeted by saying ‘Momo’. People from Delhi treat them as if ‘Momos’ is the only dish that North Eastern people eat in whole day. Also, very few people enter their other eating habits and present a mockery of their insect and dog eating. But actually ‘Land of Seven Sisters’ is very rich in their cuisine.
4. Westernized Culture: Most of the North Eastern Indians are open-minded and liberal. The way they think and the way they carry themselves all this reflects the touch of western culture. Majorly the North Eastern girls who come to Delhi for job opportunities and education are mostly offended for their attire. India is a democratic country and everyone is free to choose what they want to wear so, no one can decide for others what they should wear and not.

Pushpendra Singh, who hails from Uttar Pradesh have been to Northeast in the year 2016 during his summer internship in NIT Mehghalaya. He lived in Shillong for approximately three months where he learned about the culture of seven sisters. According to him, he was shocked about the culture as it was almost western, but slowly he got acclimatized to it. He also added that, he felt that the people there are more sensible than people from other regions in India. They respect everyone with same passion as they love localities. People there are very calm, helpful and open-minded.

The female prominence was admiring for him. There is no discrimination between boys and girls. Girls are not a horror to talk to, as it is in North region. People from northeast take more pride of being an Indian than us. (Quora)

         5.) Harassment: Sexual and mental harassment is a common issue which is faced by Indians in every part of the country. But the North Eastern people are humiliated and harassed verbally as well as physically. Delhi has gaining rate of crime in sexual and physical assault and this number is increasing day by day. Crime in India has increased by 1.3% in 2018 compared to 2017 with the registration of over 50 lakh cognizable crimes, reveals 2018 edition of 'Crime in India'. With 2,37,660 cognizable cases registered in 2018, Delhi leads over 18 other metro cities in terms of crimes, as per the 2018 edition of the Crime in India report released by the by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). In that also, North eastern girls are suffering much from such cases of eve teasing. People actually have stereotypical mentality against them and have given them a tag of ‘easily available’ because of their westernized attitude.

       6. Not taken Seriously: This issue is faced by many people in our country, they are taken from granted. But this is one of the serious issues faced by the Northeastern people that they are not taken seriously. Not only by the society, but also by the law enforcing bodies. ‘These people are from the farthest part of India and are not born in the mainland so we need not to listens them carefully’ remains the attitude of law enforcing people against them.

We, who call themselves the mainland Indian hardly know the names of the states that fall under the ‘Land of Seven Sisters’ so we treat them as the people from some other country. Just because these states are geographically located far from the mainland and they have a different culture as compared to other regions we don’t have any authority to boycott them. They are the part of the big family “INDIA” as much as we are. (Travel Dudes)

Image Courtesy: File Photo from Binalakshmi Nepram’s Twitter handle - @BinaNepram (On Cheiraoba, sharing memory with students #Manipur at Indraprastha College in Delhi University) / Google /  Facebook

(Author Umang Gupta is Assistant Professor in department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan, India. Email - umang15151@gmail.com)

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