India is facing a situation more dangerous than the spread of coronavirus -it’s Racism, and it has existed within the boundaries of India for ages.While mainland Indians cry fowl over racism faced outside India,discrimination is continuously practised against fellow Indians.(1/n)
‘Chinki’, ‘Chinese’, ‘Momo’, ‘Nepalese’ - North-east Indians who have facial features different from the rest of India, unique to their own, have been subjected to harsh prejudice by their countrymen. Ever since China-originated Coronavirus has spread over the country, (2/n)
Northeast Indians have become the target. People have started calling them “Corona”, denoting them to be Chinese.
The most recent case occurred when 21-year-old YouTuber Paras Singh racially abused former Union Minister Ninong Ering from Arunachal Pradesh. (3/n)
The gamer was apparently enraged about the Minister’s plea to the PM to ban the newly released ‘Battlegrounds’ mobile game. He said that the minister “did not look Indian” and claimed that Arunachal Pradesh was not a part of India but in China. (4/n)
The same narrative has been taken up by two other YouTubers - each abusing the Minister’s look and name with racist slurs.
In another case, comedian Kapil Sharma thought it would be funny to retort “So, am I from Nagaland?” when his fellow (5/n)
comedian said she wore Saree as a true Indian woman - implying the racist side of the show.
The grievances deepens when much severe crime like rape and molestation enter the picture. Studies suggested that North-east girls are cat-called and sexually abused by men of (6/n)
mainland India as they are assumed to be 'easy women'. The horrifying rape cases are a testament to the same. With coronavirus, people of NE have been threatened in different parts of the country - denied accommodation and harassed by locals. (7/n)
Sadly, this is not a one-time thing. The death of Nido Taniam in 2014 began the cry for change against such racist ideals. Northeasterners have been abused, spit-on, harrassed forever because of their unique features. The lack of basic knowledge about the beautiful state (8/n)
and people of Northeast India knocks home the sad reality of the “unity-in-diversity” version of India. If Indians can stand by #Blacklivematters, can they not stand by the people of Northeast in a bid to stop racism?
#Northeastlivesmatter
#India #northeast #tnec
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