The brutal killing of 19-year-old Nido Taniam, a young man from Arunachal Pradesh, in a south Delhi marketplace in broad daylight, has sparked off a huge protest and has once again, underlined the racism and xenophobia that is rife in the national capital, and in the whole country. The incident was followed by an incident where two Manipuri women were molested by cops: a reminder of how women from the North East are routinely subjected to sexual violence and attacks in Delhi.
The murder of Nido Taniam is the latest in a long line of racist prejudices and attacks against people from the North East in Delhi. The young man was taunted for his features and dyed hair, and when he protested, he was brutally beaten up by shopkeepers with iron rods. The conduct of the police in the matter is equally condemnable. Not only did they fail to ensure medical care for the injured youth, they imposed a ‘fine’ on him for a broken window glass, and allowed the assaulters to go without even registering an FIR!
The prejudices of the Delhi Police towards people from the North East are nothing new. The Police had failed to respond to an SOS in the Dhaula Kuan rape case, claiming that they did not follow the language or accent of the woman who complained of her friend’s abduction! The Delhi Police had issued a booklet to people from the NE states, advising them to stay safe by avoiding wearing ‘revealing’ clothes and offending people with the smell of their food. In a recent murder of a woman from the North East in South Delhi, the police did not register an FIR against the accused until a prolonged protest. And a media sting operation on senior policemen in the Delhi-NCR region revealed that they automatically held rape complaints by women from the North East, Darjeeling or Nepal to be false since they assumed these women to be prostitutes.
It cannot be forgotten that the Indian State’s own discriminatory policy towards the North East, fosters bias and violence against people from the region. The draconian AFSPA continues to shield murder and rape of people from the North East by the Indian Army – marking off people from the North East as second class citizens. Rahul Gandhi addressed a protest dharna against the murder of Nido Taniam in Delhi, saying “There is only one India. And that India belongs to all of us. We are going to ensure you get respect in this country.” He should tell us how come murder and rape are protected by ‘Special Powers’ in some parts of India, if indeed all citizens enjoy the same rights?
Bias and police harassment of Kashmiris and people from African countries have also been common in Delhi. Kashmiris are branded as ‘anti-national’, and the BJP has been known to fan up xenophobia against Bengali speaking labourers (branded as ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’). Recently the AAP’s newspaper Aap ki Kranti also disturbingly mentioned a witch-hunt of ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’ as one of the key achievements of the AAP’s Delhi Government.
The Delhi Government’s defence of the Law Minister’s illegal and racially motivated ‘raid’ of African women in Khirki recently has further signalled support for racist policy – veiled as action against ‘drug and prostitution mafia’. The AAP Government has cited recent complaints of trafficking by Ugandan women, as ‘vindication’ of the raid by its Law Minister. This defence only further underlines their racist mindset – since they suggest that complaints of some African women vindicate the violation of rights of other African women! After all, many Indian men are rapists, but would that justify racist violence on Indian men in Australia?! The existence of drug and trafficking trade (in which Indians are just as complicit as people of other nationalities) cannot justify racist, sexist of homophobic politics – such as the leaflet by the Residents’ Welfare Association of Khirki that called for ‘eradication of Nigerians and eunuchs’ by denying them homes on rent.
The BJP calls the AAP’s Delhi Government ‘racist’, while its Goa Government has actually perfected the practice of witch-hunting Africans in the name of cracking down on drug mafia. The BJP in Goa ran a campaign with the slogan “We want peace in Goa. Say no to Nigerians. Say no to drugs.” The Goa CM called for the eviction of all Nigerians from Goa, asserting that most of them are involved in drug trade. A BJP Minister in Goa equated Nigerians with cancer.
It is hardly surprising, then, that the RSS leader Sheshadri Chari, speaking on a news channel, denied that the murder of the boy from Arunachal Pradesh was an act of racism. He tried to rationalise racism as a mere ‘perception of difference.’
Denial of racism is perhaps the most subtle and commonplace form of racism in India. It is high time that India faced up to the widespread racism and xenophobia – in social prejudices, but even more so in State policy and politics. The killers of Nido Taniam must be punished, as must be the police officials responsible for trying to suppress the case. Racist propaganda by political leaders must be sternly punished. Governments at the Centre and State must frame and adopt a policy to actively counter racist biases through widespread public education campaigns. And the discriminatory and draconian AFSPA must go!
