Opinion | The Northeasterner: Indian, Until Someone Needs A Punchline - By Vir Sanghvi

The worrying thing is that nobody is surprised by the racism any longer. A 27-year-old flight attendant recently posted about being subjected to racial slurs twice in one hour in New Delhi. The flight attendant is from the North East, from the Garo Hills. So, you can easily imagine the kinds of slurs she was subjected to by groups of unruly men. She is only the latest victim of sick and racist attitudes that bedevil the lives of people from her region. We all know that. And so, we are not as shocked as we should be.

Ask anybody from the North East who has moved to the Indian mainland - especially North India - from their home states and you will hear similar stories. The women have it much worse. Because they are perceived as being weaker and less capable of fighting back, they bear the brunt of the abuse. Moreover, there is frequently a sexual component to the harassment. When they protest, they are subjected to the caricatures that North Indian men enjoy tossing around: women from Eastern India are 'fast' or have loose morals.

After the flight attendant posted, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju came forward to say that this kind of harassment is unacceptable. Of course, he is right. But equally, we all know that his words will make no difference. The harassment of people from the North East will continue.

Emerging From History, Finally

This is particularly sad because of the background: the history of the North East's emotional integration with the Union of India. Because so many people in the North East look different from people in other parts of India and have a distinct culture, it took them time to accept that they were as Indian as the rest of us. In both Nagaland and Mizoram, violent secessionist movements created instability, which was followed by their unnecessarily brutal suppression by the Central government. Mizoram remains perhaps the only state where the Indian Air Force was used against our own people.

After the accords of the 1980s, peace began returning to the region. In this century, young people from the North East who have no personal experience of the conflicts their parents lived through have begun flowing into the rest of India in search of employment. They have no doubts about their Indian identities and no time for the secessionist sentiment of old. Their presence in India's big cities has helped normalise the relationship between mainstream India and its North Eastern states. But let's not kid ourselves: few of them have it easy. They are always reminded that they look different. And racist attitudes are everywhere. We should be relieved that they are so proudly Indian. Instead, we waste no opportunity to tell them that they are not like us.

The Thing About Prejudice...

I doubt if the men who harassed the flight attendant have any knowledge of the history of the region, just as I doubt if any of them would be able to find Meghalaya on a map of India.

That's the thing about prejudice. It always emerges out of ignorance. The danger with today's India is that the prejudices of the ignorant are spreading faster than we might have expected even a decade ago. There is no real difference between the people who harass North Easterners and those who believe that all Muslims are Pakistanis - or those who dismiss Christians as "rice-bag converts". All of these views emerge from the same source: a place of profound ignorance, where anybody who is even a little different from the majority must be treated as an object of contempt and derision.

Look Within, Perhaps?

It is not so different from the racism that Indians face in the West: just look at social media posts from the American right wing about Indians to see how contemptuous they are of Indians in the US.

When we hear about this kind of racism we condemn it unequivocally and say that it reflects badly on America as a nation. Do we, I wonder, ever look inwards and see how racist we can be ourselves towards other Indians who look different; how contemptuously we treat those who follow different faiths?

Perhaps it is time to do some introspection.There is nothing brave, nationalistic or even funny about harassing young girls from the North East who ventured out of their states believing that as Indians, they would be treated with respect and dignity by other Indians.

Each time we harass them, we let India down.

(Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author