Racial discrimination and structured bias
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, January 16 2015 : Discrimination springs forth from a layered and dynamic combination of dominance and subservience starkly prevalent in a society.

Its manifestation spills out in the form of an open bias many of us often encounter in our everyday life.

The assurance given by Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju during his recent visit to Nagaland that the Government of India will not tolerate "any discrimination based on race, caste or religion," has to be critically examined.

Though there are many perspectives on the theories and practice of discrimination, it is worth noting that � the discrimination members of communities from Northeast India face in mainland India has been out-rightly racial in nature.

One should also note that it took over half a century for India to take cognisance of the fact that there have been incidents of discrimination based on physical or phenotypic and genotypic difference.

The failure of the State to recognize the existence of racial discrimination is not new in India.

In fact, for a long time, the State refused to accept the fact that such type of discrimination exists.

India's acceptance of caste-based discrimination in India evidently also explains the amnesia over discrimination based on race.

The protective rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the country have been tailored to deal with caste or economic based discriminations only.

These provisions have failed to prevent racial discrimination.

Hence, there is need for enacting a law against racial discrimination.

Another issue that merits attention is the fact that most of the cases related to racial discrimination have been converted to just "geographical issue" based on whether or not the victim of discrimination hails from the Northeast region.

There have been futile attempts by the State to deal with the issue through existing protective measures originally envisaged for caste discrimination.

Here, it is worth mentioning that the debate on racism at least at the academic level began with Dalit discourse as Dalits fall outside the four-fold basic caste structure.

One does not need to be told and retold how the Dalits have been brutalised in the country.

It is ironic that even the widely prevalent phenomena of discrimination against the Dalits has been projected as a practice of flouting Article 17 of the Constitution and a violation of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 without rethinking on how they have been excluded even from the caste structure.

With such skewed tradition of understanding discrimination, Government of India needs to rethink on the whole conception of discrimination besides exploring ways to deal with increasing cases of hate violence and racial discrimination with structured bias.

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