Confronting racism within: The ongoing marginalisation of NE Indians

It is racism of a different, though not less virulent, kind! Throughout the nation, but particularly in North India, people from the Northeast have been at the receiving end of vicious attacks of varying kinds for years. Most such assaults go unreported because an indifferent media considers them not to be newsworthy enough, but some, such as the recent case in Vijay Nagar in Delhi, where a shop named the 'Northeast Shop', was vandalized and its owner, who was from the Northeast, was beaten by a group of people for allegedly selling beef, have hit the headlines.

It is typical of the mindset of Delhi Police that, rather than taking action against the assaulters of the shop-owner and arresting them, they have instead seized a sample of the meat and sent it for forensic analysis to determine whether it was cow meat! Such an oft-repeated incident illustrates how differences between communities in India are often used by a dominant community to assert their so-called sociocultural 'superiority'.

At the root of the issue, of course, is the reality that most individuals from the Northeast are of Mongoloid origins and therefore have features more akin to races from eastern and southeast parts of Asia. In many parts of India, the facial differences rouse suspicion which extends to cultural practices too.

One recalls with trepidation the circumstance which led to large-scale attacks on Northeast Indians in many parts of the country over a decade ago giving rise to their mass exodus. On that occasion, it was rumour-mongering and hate-spewing that had created the imbroglio from which the nation took a long while to recover.

But though increased familiarity with the people from this region has reduced racism to an extent, it has not been eliminated altogether, as revealed by the infamous case of Nido Tania, a young boy from Arunachal Pradesh who was brutally murdered by some thugs in Delhi's Lajpat Nagar in 2024 just because they considered him to be a Chinese!

People from the Northeast, even today, are viewed with suspicion and find it difficult to find accommodation elsewhere in the country, with many communities disliking their 'habits', no matter that habits of our tribal communities are some of the cleanest in India. The sole recourse to end the marginalization of people from the Northeast is through educating the rest of the nation about the 'unity in diversity' of the country,

Conversely, visitors from other regions, who thankfully nowadays are coming in increasing numbers to the Northeast and being mesmerized by its beauty, the cultured hospitality of its people and its cuisine, must be encouraged to communicate their experiences to the outside world, so that inbuilt prejudices can be eradicated.