How to Be a North-Eastern ?

Natalidita Ningthoukhongjam *

Jamia Students protesting against discrimination towards NE students on 28 October 2009 :: Pix - Ibomacha oinam

"I've never been part of the minority before; never have had to struggle to belong, so I figured I'd milk the experience for all it was worth."
- Apol Lejano-Massebieau

After having left Delhi permanently six months ago, I'm back for a few days. Not much has changed, predictably. Earlier today, while enjoying an auto-rickshaw ride from Gandhi Vihar to Kamla Nagar Market, I was struck by how naturally I'd fallen into the old mindset.

I was more alert, more sensitive to and perceptive of the people in my path. Like Spiderman, I too have a sense that tingles at the presence of crime and danger; the only difference is that I'm not a superhero hunting down supercriminals. I'm an individual who belongs to an ethnic minority in one of the biggest cultural melting pots of India. The type of crime I have to fight is that of racism.

A former settler of seven years, racism towards the people of the North-East is an experience that I've been intimately acquainted with, may it be the occasional greeting in the form of the notorious slur "chinky", the collective prejudice against the people of our communities (North-Eastern girls are promiscuous by virtue of their ethnicity!) that manifests itself in interrogations conducted by paying guest owners, the condescending smile that accompanies the lips of those who force themselves to speak in English no matter how well we reply in Hindi - you name it, I've suffered it.

It's easy to get hurt by comments and actions that make you feel like an unwanted stranger in your own country. I still remember my first sting, because I had a lot of expectations before coming to Delhi in 2005, but being asked if Manipur, the "capital of Mizoram", had engineers and doctors, was certainly not one of them.

The taunts got progressively worse with the passage of time, but I shall not waste any more space enumerating them. Instead, I want to focus on the coping mechanisms. How can we react? How should we?

Anger and resentment are the first emotions that will sweep over us. However, a well-aimed slap or kick is not always the best retort. Ignorance can be highly amusing, and pretension of ignorance simply asks to be treated similarly. If someone asks you, whether out of curiosity or malice, if there are doctors or engineers in Manipur, say no, since we have witch doctors and ninjas. In either case, sarcasm is the most appropriate option. Then again, certain incidents call for an honest, logical reply.

If someone wants to know why they see only North-Eastern girls in bars, they have obviously never been to a bar in the first place. Criticisms such as this also come flavoured with sexism, and are associated with the general assumption of North-Eastern females being "loose", so they demand a more practical and serious response.

And what if someone calls you "chinky"? The Indian Government has decreed that any person being caught using this racist term in a derogatory context can be jailed. No one has been apprehended by the police yet, though, which only proves how useless the proposal was.

What needs to be understood about the term is that some use it with intent to hurt, while others do without being conscious of its racist implications. I've even met students from the North-Eastern state who have embraced it. This is devastating because "chinky" isn't a term that we can reclaim. We aren't Chinese. Being called "chinky" is shouldn't be taken as a compliment or adopted as a means of identification; it displaces us as the "other".

In the case of taunts such as "chinky", there isn't much one can do, apart from educating the users. I have personally fought back, often in the middle of a crowded street, and found that to be of no consequence, except for the relief I felt at not backing down. By education, I don't mean we should stop those who tease us and dive into a lecture, but we can certainly speak to others who will listen, who use it as a blanket term for the people of our communities.

That is the second time I have used the phrase "the people of our communities" and twitched with discomfort. Even the use of the title "North-Eastern" to denote all citizens of the region is in itself problematic. (I often find that the Assamese are usually excluded from identification with the title, although geographically their state is the largest in this area of the nation.)

"North-Eastern" is generally employed to refer to the Mongoloid population of the north-eastern states. Being categorised in such a manner is condemnable because it reduces us to a cultural lump, when we are in fact composed of vastly different minor groups. Perhaps, the time has come to dissolve this category and promote our unique identities, but until we succeed at that, "North-Eastern" will remain our only resort.

In conclusion, I'd like to mention that racism works both ways. It's tempting to view every non-North-Eastern Indian as hateful. In my case, the opposite has been true. For every racist idiot, I've met ten sensible persons to counterbalance. I'll never forget the lady who, on my behalf, yelled at that one guy in the metro who asked me if I was Chinese to please his girlfriend (as he told her).

Nothing is black and white, unless we paint it so. Our own insecurities and bias must be questioned and subsequently removed, but throwing the same stone back will only fuel the mutual distrust and hatred that already exist.

So, how does one go about being a "North-Eastern"? The answer probably is to not be one.