North-East India and Racism
by  Zhoniu Pfozhe
 
In a Survey released last year by The Washington Post, India was ranked among one of the most racist country in the world today. With this fact on the backdrop, we take a quick visit to the“Land Of The Big Hearted” or “Dilli Dilwalon Ki”. New Delhi, the capital of India where arguably people from the North-East India faced the worst case of racism and stereotyping within their own country by their own countryman because of the way they look, dress, work and their eating habits.

However I must add that I hate fact when people takes on to the streets protesting about certain injustice but having no clue what the best possible solution could be. Somehow I wonder if that’s what I see every day. That’s how a useless and desperate soul does who wants themselves heard or wants an instant fame out of a situation or with a covet personal gain or whatever b**lshit, but has no intention in solving the actual problem. So we will meet “World Comics India” and what they are doing to address the above mentioned issues using their “Grassroots Comic Movement”.

Let’s imagine it this way; you walk down the road and someone calls you a foreigner. You walk into a store, the clerk mocks at you with an ugly racial remarks and the store manager does nothing instead he joins in the party. You go out in short skirts on weekend and they raped you with their lecherous eyes. You work at a spa or a beauty parlor and the aunties think you are cheap oravailable or hopefully a prostitute. You went out searching for an apartment; you couldn’t get one because you are a non-vegetarian. You throw a party last night because it was your birthday, the next day you get a warning from your landlord to vacate. You walk into a police station to lodge a formal complaint (or an FIR); the constable makes sure you are being humiliated and violated. You are being specially targeted to rape or beaten to death because of your different racial feature and the cops generalize you for either a prostitute or drunkard instead of lodging a formal complaint. You are being kick out of your job without paying because your boss thinks you are an outsider with no backup to come back and protest…

Now my question is; where are all the big hearted now? Or is this big hearted only applicable towards the white tourists? Steps in “World Comics India”, a non-funded organization founded by Sharad Sharma, one of the most prominent faces in the world of Indian Comics and a Delhite, travels India and abroad conducting seminars and teaching the importance and the untapped power of using basic comics as a medium to express.

Using just four frames on an A4 size paper, some basic comic characters and a story; World Comics India tells stories of people by locals in local dialects. And very recently I had a great opportunity be become a part of one such seminar cum sensitization program against racism and stereotyping faced by the people from the North East India in New Delhi. With students from both North East, local Delhites and other parts of the country under one roof discussing, exchanging culture and personal experiences, clearing perceptions and finally working together in creating a series of comic strips addressing the issue of such inhuman and shameful act met towards fellow Northeasterners, which later was displayed to other students and general public through seminar and open conversation.

The initiative became a very effective platform for open discussions and educating locals why it was unacceptable and inhuman acttowards the people from NE who traveled far away from home because of the prevailing inhuman military dictatorship rule impose in their regions by the world largest Democratic Indian Government, for better higher education and for better job opportunities Delhi provides. Soon it gained momentum and slowly with the acceptance from the locals who after realizing what they did, were willing to open up and join in the movement. That’s how you raise your voice in a creative way and not just staging on the streets and shouting slogans.

Lastly, it will be very unfair on the part of people from North East if we are not willing to adjust and live in harmony with this people around us by accepting and respecting their cultural and traditional values. It will also be very unfair on our part if we do not allow ourselves to become a part of this culture because one way or the other, it’s our home far away from home. And it will very unfair on our part if we do not take up the initiative of teaching and educating ignorant people about our own culture, traditions and our ways of life.

I am not a very active social activist but I am from North-East India, so I have had my own share of firsthand experience on how we are being discriminated here in the national capital. Of course during the recent times, many unrelated situations have been blown out of proportions by the media, NGO’s and Student's Organizations from the North East itself with their own coveted intentions. For example, incidences where criminal cases being put to spotlight as racial attacks which eventually attracts more hatred and communalism. This must stop and we as a civilized citizen should start realizing the negative impact of suchactions. Some few years ago, the whole of India and Indians around the world join hands in protest against the Australian government because of unprecedented racial attack met towards fellow Indians in Australia. However the real question that remains un-answered is; what about those racial attacks happening everyday within the country by their own countryman against their own fellow countryman? If Narendra Modi wants to clean India, he should also better start working on this situation and not preach India as a Hindu country. In fact Hindi is not even our national language.