Sinlung /
20 March 2011

India Ethnic Northeast Minorities Suffering Severe Racial Discrimination

protest in delhiIndia Ethnic Northeast Minorities Suffering Severe Racial Discrimination Because of Their Chinese (Mongolian) Looks.

Often in overseas Indians were discriminated. In their own country there are also widespread caste discrimination, religious discrimination and racial discrimination. The most common discrimination is against the minorities, especially toward the northeast people who are like Chinese (read Mongoloid looks). They can easily become the discriminated objects.

The northeast India ethnic minorities' color, figure, facial features are related to East Asia and Southeast Asia in terms of their ethnic similarity. Their local folk dressing and traditional dancing are more like Taiwan "Gao shan" people. According to experts, India's northeast people's ancestors are directly related to ancient China's "Bai Yue" ethnic groups, Dai in China's Yunnan province and Shan in Myanmar.

Although the Indian capital of Delhi is the leading city in India, but it is the most serious racial discrimination city. According to the CNA interview with many Delhi volunteer organizations, the discrimination and attacks against northeast minorities have become quite frequent, especially the sexual assault towards the Northeast women, and it cannot be ignored.

Almost every Northeast fellow living in Mainland India has the same experience. For example, not long ago, a family from northeast India living in Delhi went to visit relatives living in Delhi. A group of local men verbally abused them, and the husband reproached them. After their visit, they found their car had been open to vandalism.NE_Protest in delhi

Every now and then there is news of Northeast Girls and students from the Northeast India being molested, raped.

Currently in Delhi region, there are 90 to 100 thousand northeastern ethnic residences. Except part of them came here to work as cookers or waiters in the restaurants because of the poverty, most of them are the university students studying in the capital. Compared with common Indians, those students are from high class families in terms of family wealth and status, but they are still being discriminated because of their appearance.

According to Delhi University Student Union of Northeast, northeast students have their own clothing, but even wearing a traditional Indian shawl-ridden big "sari" dress, it is very easy to recognize their northeast nationalities because of their fair skin color that is quite different from the Indian with black coarse skin. The urban taxi groom always ask them for the fares comparable with foreigners.

A college girl, named Marngam of the Jawaharlal Nehru National University, who came from Arunachal province, said, she heard indecent obscene language from time to time when walking on the streets in Delhi, they called her "Chinese Whore (Chin*ki)", "Thai Bar (Thapa )" and other vulgar calls, or even being physically touched, and it has almost become part of daily life, she could only try to be patient to accept these.racial

Mana Mu said that many female students from the Northeast have the same experience. She will not feel safe as long as she left the room or school, whether it is in residential areas, stores or shopping mails. She said that when female students visit friends, in order to avoid danger they will be asked by their friends to live to the next morning if they are unable to reach home before dark.

The 18-year-old female students Yeshley and Karma of University of Delhi are all from the northern Indian province of Sikkim, also shed that, whether it is to go to school, come back to home, visit friends or even just a few minutes walking for shopping, they are always together, so as to avoid being isolated and helpless when encountered assault. They never go out during night.

Even if the boys in Delhi are also not safe. According to the Jawaharlal Nehru University boy, Mongve said, who from Assam province, he had been blocked by a group of men on the road and they tried to hit him. Fortunately, he escaped in time to avoid attack. He said that he heard indecent obscene comments quite often when sometimes accompanied female students to go out.

Northeast writer Ningreichon said that in Australia, Germany and other countries where racial discrimination exists, at least the government officials and police officers will pay attentions to these issues. But in India, racial discrimination is considered normal, officials are get use to it already. When the Police were dealing with the complaints, they accused the victims themselves for their different dress or accent reasons that caused the insults for the victims.

A 21-year-old female student Chanchan, who is from northeast, said the school professors often humiliated her, and asked her to quit school and go home to learn Hindi before she can come back to school. They blamed her as a "foreigner" who should not be treated equally in the Hindi speaking areas, so that she has been very depressed during the study.

Northeast Indians are generally subject to the discrimination that others don't have in the Delhi. The northeast national associations, recently launched protest in Delhi. The 72-year-old woman Chief Minister of Delhi Government Shella Dikshit went out and interviewed, but she just casually said that these incidents of racial discrimination cases are just individual behaviors due to mental disorders or behavioral deviation of some people.

Northeast India volunteer organizations in Delhi say that '”Racial discrimination resulting from such long-term trauma, cannot be diluted by so-called deviant behavior of some individuals. They also said that this violates human rights and culture of the Northeast ethnic minorities.

Although the Indian Constitution and statutes said to protect the rights of ethnic minorities, but because the northeast Indian societies generally considered to be the silent minority ethnic groups, so the Indians themselves who were often discriminated against by foreigners, had found the ethnic northeast minorities as their easy target for retaliation.

When Indian students in Australia, New Zealand and the UK were frequently attacked by the local people, and the news were constantly passed back to India, which triggered strong criticism of the foreign racism by Indian officials and private media. But "Times of India" columnist Jug Suraiya has written that the Indians themselves have a more serious racism and racial discrimination.

Jug Suraiya said, this may be subject to effect of the British 250 years of colonial ruling, and the traditional caste system in the Indian society, had made the racism more severe.

Whatever different social classes, ethnic groups or religion and culture tribes, are often to be of discriminatory, and this resulted in the Indian society is full of conflicts factors.

China should do more to help the Northeast Ethnic people from this sort of discrimination and injustice.

Source : China Central News Agency

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

well i love my northeast people, they are as indian as me we indian have only one race thats inadian.

Anonymous said...

It is a pathetic thing that such discrimination is happening in a country which has seen some very rich cultures and high tolerance. I wish this stops as soon as possible and people realize that we are one as a nation.

Post a Comment