Putting the mirror to ourselves

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Northeast booklet: Putting the mirror to ourselves

By:- Thangkhanlal Ngaihte *

Enough has been said on the Delhi Police’s advisory booklet for students from India’s Northeast. It is the first time a book of this nature, meant for — or rather targeting — a particular section of the country’s population, was published.

At the debating level at least, it sounds like we are winning and the Delhi Police are losing. I didn’t come across even a single piece in support of the Police’s clumsy attempt to play jealous stewards to us and the deep-seated prejudice implicit in it.

I had also read the book. And I, perhaps unusually, didn’t feel like fuming. I actually feel like laughing!!

What struck me the first time was the poor, broken language in which it was written, starting right from Robin Hibu’s introductory message. If you read through the 24-paged glossy, it becomes clear that not much thought or care was given while preparing the booklet.

The first six pages seem to be inserted especially for the Northeasterners while the rest looks like a cut-and-paste job from a standard travel directory issued from time to time.

Some advice did not make sense. Like

'When in rooms, do as Roman does' (Dress Code);
'Ladies be careful in trial room' (Shopping).
And do you ever heard of any food item, however ‘smelly’ it is, ever creating ‘ruckus’;
dictionary meaning: noisy disturbance) in the neighborhood?

There is any number of expressions like these. If they are meant not to be literal expressions, or are attempts at humor, they are still in poor taste.

I am a Northeasterner and two encounters I had had with the Delhi Police remained etched in my memory. The first happened on April 17 last year when I visited the Vasant Vihar police station to report theft of my mobile phone.

I just needed the police stamp to claim my old number. But it didn’t turn out to be that simple. After ascertaining the place I came from (which, it was made clear to me, was not Vasant Vihar, but Manipur) and whether I know Hindi or not, the man in-charge told me to go to Dwarka station as the theft occurred in a bus which came from Dwarka.

No use explaining. It was one of those occasions when the tone and gestures speaks louder than the words. I left and never returned.

The second encounter was, of course, during the rally over landmines at Parliament Street on March 23 this year. Apart from the disproportionate use of force against the student agitators, which I witnessed, and severe criminal cases brought against them (which are yet to be quashed), the police had actually rounded up everyone who look like a Northeasterner from the area and heaped abuses on them, shouting ‘Go back to China’ etc.

There are other forms of abuse and discrimination, some subtle and some not so subtle, which we face everyday by virtue of our looks. I am of the firm belief that even if the ‘Northeast people’ (which itself is an unfair generalization) behaved badly and need some tough lecturing, the Delhi Police should be the last to proffer that advice. And if there is indeed anyone who need to be tutored about decent conduct and sensitivity, it is the Delhi Police themselves.

But that was the well trodden path. I am not here to merely join the Delhi Police bashing crowd. The fact that the Delhi Police were the least qualified to preach to us does not mean that what they said in the booklet were wrong. It is really about time we do some soul searching and not simply wallow in a game of denial and complacency. It is about time we put the mirror to our own faces.

With the mushroom growth of private sector jobs, especially in BPO companies, it’s much easier to get jobs now than it used to be before.

The Northeast population in Delhi–students and job seekers– accordingly increased manifold. Earlier, it used to be mandatory to be under a local guardian, and to register with the local churches. No longer so.

There are any number of people from the Northeast taking up residence in Delhi and they just live on their own, outside the bounds of family discipline, the church and society organizations.

And the result shows. The ‘Northeast Nite’, the annual gathering of JNU students from Northeast in recent times frequently witnessed ruckus and disturbances, mainly created by fellow Northeasterners from outside.

Gang type fighting, groupism, drunken brawls, thievery and drug addiction among the youth is on the increase. Of immoral social and sexual conduct, the less said the better. Unfortunately, whatever Robin Hibu said in his introduction were true.

In fact, there was much outrage earlier this year when there were reports that local authorities in Munirka village were considering whether or not to evict ‘Northeasterners and Negroes’. Do we ever seriously consider why they would do so?

How many ‘scantily clad’ Northeastern girls do you meet when you walk the by-lanes of Munirka? To broad-brush all Northeasterners this way is wrong. But the bad apples are, in all cases, always easily marked out. And they become, to outsiders, our emblems.

Why talk only of Delhi? What about back home? How tolerant are we to those who don’t look like us? Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland. You know how it is better than I do.

In the Northeast booklet case, the Delhi Police got the beating they deserved. But I don’t think that’s victory. It’s just that they are the wrong messenger.

We will not change people’s impression of us by browbeating them. We will do so only by convincing them. And we will convince them when they see us to be good people.

And they will see us to be good people when we become good people, inside and outside.

Related Article on NE Dress & Behaviour

Thangkhanlal Ngaihte is a regular columnist for The Sangai Express
This article was webcasted in e-pao.net on August 20th, 2007

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