It has been a couple of weeks since northeast students Loitam Richard and Dana Sangma lost their lives due to alleged cases of racial discrimination. These deaths have sparked off major debates regarding the step-motherly attitude that Northeasterners have to face when they leave their region for other parts of their own country in search of better opportunities in education and work as well as a more peaceful and opulent environment to live in.
Facebook, that ever-handy tool of the social vigilante, provided the base for a massive movement. A group “Justice for Loitam Richard”, already has more than 2 lakh members. Petitions have been signed in large numbers demanding unbiased investigations in the two cases. Protests have taken place in various cities of India and the world. The Indian media, forever shy of covering events relating to the northeast has pitched in too.
The broad debates that these issues have flared up has exposed the misunderstanding and ignorance that most Indians breed towards those hailing from the Northeast. Just a year back, a project report on ‘North East Migration and Challenges in National Capital: City’s silent Racial attack on its own countrymen’ released by the North East Support Centre and Helpline (NESCH) revealed that 78 per cent of the North-East population in Delhi, numbering nearly two lakh, is subject to several kinds of humiliation because of their appearance. The situation isn’t drastically different in other parts of the country. So it was not surprising when the allegations of racial discrimination towards Richard and Dana were immediately brushed aside by college authorities and police as a result of persecution complex. It is indeed time for the nation to wake up to the presence of people from the northeast in “mainland India” and to make concerted efforts towards overcoming the racial and cultural divide that leads to prejudiced ideas regarding people from the region. Continue reading