Discrimination and India

Recently, mainland Indian cry foul of the alleged ‘racial abuses’ against an Indian actor participating in a British TV show. The alleged abuses garnered the actor a wave of sympathy across the country and she emerged the final winner. I cannot say she played the racial-card well but I hope she knew what she is going to face when she agreed to compete in the show.

I knew the kind of treatment I will be given before I decided to move to Delhi. I was not wrong. Each and everyday I faced some sort of discrimination –it can be mild, coated or blown-out abuses.

It is scary being a minority in India but it is intolerable being a racial minorities.

I really do wish those people who took out to the street for the actor will also look closer at home and stop being a perpetrator and stand-up for the minorities which they failed to notice all these years.

I remember how much the British Indian hated being called ‘Paki’ (Pakistan). In the same way I hated being called a ‘thapa’, ‘bahadur’ or a ‘nepali’. It is not that I have anything against the thapa, bahadur and nepali nor am I ashamed of my nature endowed facial feature, I hated this generalization of race. Above all, the above term refers to race and it is racist.

If someone wanted to abuse me, let him abuse me individually –not in a generalized term. At least that will let me realize some of my weaknesses. I am proud of my race, but I am very proud of my individuality.

I remember reading a column about an Indian dignitary travelling to China who failed to recognize the Indian envoy there because he is from a north-eastern state.

I remember working with a retired bureaucrat in a Japanese funded project in Himachal Pradesh who treated me well -mistaking me for one of the Japanese who worked with us. Once I told him the truth, he treated me like a servant –to the extend of waking me up at the middle of the night to buy him a cigarette. I slapped him twice and never give him the apologies he demanded.

I remember a teacher in my college who never took class but give us attendance anyway. She gave me the lowest attendance. I called her ‘Fuhrer’ and she smiled. I wished I’ve punched her face.

I remember seeing my sister squirming when labourer to men-in-car gawked at her on our way to church. I know she faced this everyday on her way to work. I remember being denied entry into a night-club because we are north-east Indian. I remember arguing with the man in the ticket counter of Red Fort who tried to charge me as a foreigner.

My friend suggested to me to pretend as a foreigner. They say in some places it always works. But pretending to be a foreigner didn’t help much when you squeeze in to a crowed bus. Neither will it help when looking for a job or your job is in the lower rank of the ladder.

Anyway, I have enough of pretending to do and I don’t like a bit. I hate trying to flow with the main stream which refuses to see me as a human being. I hate trying to conform to this strange society which doesn’t want to recognize my individuality.

I hate being racially generalized, it is racial discrimination. It undermine my individuality, it undermine my identity. I am proud of my race, I am proud of my identity, and I am even prouder of my individuality.

Tags: mizo, zomi, zogam