Of chinkis, chichi chu chu and other terms : Discriminating the NE people
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: January 05, 2015 -
It says something very disturbing. More than 50 years after independence and the idea of India as a Nation is yet to be all inclusive.
This is the reason why the Bezbaruah committee has recommended a prison term of five years or so for anyone using terms such as chinkis, momos, chinese, chichi chu chu etc while referring to anyone from the North East region.
That it took the death of a young student from Arunachal Pradesh to jolt the senses of the Government of India only last year and constitute the Bezbaruah committee and judiciously study the discrimination faced by the people of North East region in other parts of the country says something significant.
To be sure the Bezbaruah committee was not shooting in the dark when it came out with its suggestions and the fact that the Government has taken cognizance of it should be more than clear that there is a distorted understanding of the people of the North East in other parts of the country.
In as much as the people of the North East are discriminated against, it is also a reflection of the fact that numerous people in other parts of India are uneducated or only half literate.
Education here not only means the degree that one earns from a university or the ability to read or write but about the overall mental development.
When someone is judged or discriminated on the basis of one’s look then it says something loud about the mentality of the person who is passing the judgement.
It is also a reflection of where India stands as a Nation. An incomplete idea of a Nation rings out loud and clear here.
Nido Tania was not the first student from the North East to have been killed in other parts of India nor was he the last.
Murder or assault may be seen as the manifestation of the discrimination faced by the people of the North East in other parts of the country and it is here that policy makers need to sit down and seriously deliberate why this is so.
It is not only about ignorance of the people and the North East region but a pre-conceived notion that needs to be dealt with on a priority basis.
Chinky is not just a term to refer to the people from the North East for it carries a whole lot of social and cultural innuendoes.
Perhaps it is in recognition of this point that Delhi seems to have woken up to the fact that there is the need to introduce the history of the North East region among the students in other parts of the country.
For too long, the idea of India as a Nation has unfailingly stopped to the west of the Brahmaputra and this is why the chicken neck term which actually refers to the strip of land connecting the region with the rest of the country has taken such a meaning with deep social ramifications.
Time for Delhi to act and speedily adopt the recommendations given by the Bezbaruah committee for it says something important about the mindset that makes up India as a country.
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