I am not a racist but...

Lucky Sapam *

Protest in Delhi against killing of Nido Taniam on 01 Feb 2014 :: Pix - Debanish Achom

The past few weeks have been a critical and emotional one for all the North-Easterners residing outside of their hometown. A small spark always leads to a bigger flame, a flame of anxiety, tension, revenge and also helplessness.

But this time the flame is bigger and even more intense. It all begins with the brutal murder of Nido Tania in the capital city of Delhi and subsequent event of other incidents like raping a 14 year old girl, assaulting two boys to the extent of them admitting to a hospital, and the latest incident of a guy getting stabbed in his stomach.

All these above events occurred in a short span of 15 days altogether and the uncanny thing about it is that all the victims hailed from the North-East part of India! So can we call this as some stray incidents that could have occurred to anyone? Or is this a hate crime?

You decide for yourself.

India is a large country with huge population. The population of all the North-East states(including Sikkim) put together is around 45 million which is just 3.7 percent of the total population of India, so that leaves the north-east people in a minority and vulnerable group.

I am not a racist but I do want to put forward some of my thoughts on it. Our mind-set and 'Mainland' Indian's mind-set are quite different in many ways which includes to the fact that we still feel as an 'outsider' in our own country. This feeling still persists on till date.

To be frank and honest I don't really know what yardstick is used to measure racism. Is it measured by some silly chants of name? Or is it the way people think about us? I really don't know how but the fact remains is that we are the victim of it. People might say we should adapt to survive but how can we adapt ourselves if there is no place for it. We are not racist but we are more of a victim of racism in this regard.

Whenever we changed our schools or step into a new college, we take the task of educating at least a dozen friends to let them know about the North-East parts of India and other cultural stuffs. We even have to explain to them the fact that we were not some 'immigrants' from other country.

I don't blame them for what they don't know about us since they are innocent in many ways to a greater extent. I don't blame the Mess workers, the security guards, the plumbers, the carpenters, the garden workers since they are just the way they are.

But I blame the policy makers of our country, the leaders who shaped this country up, the teachers, the well-off people for their ignorance and lack of interest. I can educate my group of friends to a certain extend but that is not good enough.

Racism is not a new thing in India; Indians were the victims of racism and casteism in their own country when British were ruling India.

Jawaharlal Nehru the first prime minister of India once wrote:
"We in India have known racialism in all its forms ever since the commencement of British rules. The idea of a master race is inherent in imperialism ... India as a nation and Indians as individuals were subjected to insult, humiliation and contemptuous treatment. The English were an imperial race, we were told, with the God-given right to govern us and keep us in subjection; if we protested we were reminded of the 'tiger qualities of an imperial race' "

Racism is a serious issue not only in India but all around the world. When we talk about it, we are reminded about the racism in USA, how serious it is and how they are dealing with it. It took one man to at-least address the issue of racism and African-American rights to the people of USA and his name was Martin Luther King who famously gave the “I have a dream” speech. They have come a long way since then and now they have an African-American President.

Racism in South Africa is also a contentious one with the enactment of apartheid laws. And it took one man to end it and his name was "Nelson Mandela". Hence my point here is that one man with the support of 45 million people of north-east is good enough to change and address the issue of racism in India.

But the real question is:
Who this one man is? Who is this powerful orator from the north-east who can deliver the aspirations of 45 million people of north-east?....and the sad/ugly part is that we don't have one. We don't have one true leader (be it political, sports, cultural etc) who is strong enough to take up the issue of racism to the people of India.

We all know that ours (North-East) is a region of different mixture of people living together and it is indeed a volatile zone. We see different communities clash with one another frequently and also we see the agenda of each state is different from the agenda of the other state.

We see Chief Minister of one state calling the chief minister of another state as their biggest enemy. We also see insurgency clashes everywhere. In spite of all this, we now need to leave aside our region problems and look at the bigger picture of us (north easterners) representing ourselves in pride to the people of India and also fighting for our rights, self-esteem and identity. It's time we unite ourselves together as one.

Whenever our identity is threatened and we feel suppressed, we group ourselves together as one in-order to send out the message that "We are here to stay". We are not going to become a 'Dodo'. It’s better late than never that we start our own awareness programs to at-least educate the people to be aware of it. This is not an easy job but at the same time it is not impossible. War is not an option.

Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim,Tripura+20 other states+7 Union territories should unite together to fight off Racism.