Let’s talk about racism | Don’t call us ‘chinky, momo, chowmein,’ says a Northeastern woman

Dear Susana,

We never met, I never heard your name and have not even a single clue to recollect if I have encountered you in life. I learned about your death through NE SOS WhatsApp group while on my way to meet a rape victim who is also from Manipur. While I was reading this heartbreaking news, I met one of your nieces wiping her tears and on her way to see you where you were found dead in mysterious circumstances. But without proper investigation, concerned authorities concluded that your death was natural, after all you cannot speak anymore or tell about what happened to you. If I have to count the statistics you are number 11 of NE women found dead in their rented accommodation in Delhi/NCR in 2016. Many women in the past years have also met the same fate. Let this be the last and I’m praying for safety and justice for all the women in the world. In life, you may not have fulfilled your dreams but in death you will be fondly remembered by your near and dear ones, they will love you still, and in their hearts you hold a place no one else will ever fill. You are in safe hands now, in God’s hand. Rest in Eternal Peace!

Everyone from the North-east who is based in Delhi and other Indian metro cities must face discrimination. I wrote the above letter on Facebook last year to honour a victim of a particularly violent kind of persecution. Since I come from the North-eastern part of India myself and belong to a minority race, I too have suffered from racism, at least in its milder forms. I’ve been called “chinky”, “momo”, “chowmein”, and more. If I am thought to be from South Korea, China or Japan, I’m treated very well, but once I am identified as a North-easterner, the problems begin.

Stereotyping of North-eastern Indians is common. If you are a young man from the North-east India who wears tattoos and sports a certain hairstyle, then you are tagged as an alcoholic or a drug addict. If you are a woman from the North-east wearing shorts and a half-sleeve shirt, then you are automatically considered “cheap”, which provokes unwanted advances. Even polite smiles from such women are often misunderstood. All sorts of different people from the North-east are also typecast as some sort of insurgent. Yet it is not possible for North-easterners to stand up to discrimination if it means risking their livelihoods; economic opportunity is normally what has brought them to a place like Delhi in the first place.

In 2007, I responded to this situation by helping to start the North East Support Centre & Helpline (NESCH), an initiative run by human rights activists, social workers, students, journalists, and lawyers. Our aim is to prevent the harassment, discrimination, and molestation of people from the North-east living in Indian metros. Since this helpline was launched, I have intervened in numerous physical assaults, hate crimes, and even rapes and murders.

I face lots of challenges trying to protect human rights. Members of the NESCH support us with money from their own pockets. We do not have pro bono lawyers, but most victims are from poor families and have no money to pay for legal fees. Court procedures are long and tedious; victims frequently have no faith in the system or get discouraged in the process. That’s the reason why 90% of NE victims never get justice. Dealing with the police in Delhi, meanwhile, often requires our team staying awake all night, sometimes without food, to coordinate between officials and victims.

While writing this piece, I am recalling many cases I handled in the past. There was Reingamphi, a young woman from Manipur who was suspected to have been raped and brutally murdered at her rented accommodation in Chirag Delhi in 2013. She was the main breadwinner of the family, her parents being rice cultivators with meagre incomes back in her home state. Then there was Mary Ezung from Nagaland, who was found dead in Delhi’s Safdarjung Enclave. Her post-mortem report clearly stated that she was brutally assaulted and murdered. Julie, a young woman from Mizoram, was murdered in her rented flat nearby in Munirka. One 19-year-old girl from Assam was raped at a guest house where she was working.

It has almost become a daily affair to hear of North-eastern women being subjected to such abuse in Delhi and the rest of the National Capital Region. Other women suffer similarly, but these women from the North-east, hundreds of miles away from home, often face the extra burden of fighting their cases alone. Most of the women are hard working, the backbones of their families both financially and emotionally. Losing their daughters shatters a family’s dreams: it means life will never be the same again.

Stereotyping of North-eastern women continues even after their deaths. Every year, approximately 10 to 15 women from North-east India are found dead in their rented rooms in Delhi-NCR. Unfortunately, for all these cases there is not even a single genuine and proper investigation. Most of these women are not well known and they are not from influential backgrounds, so what does it matter to anyone? Police reports tend to conclude with causes of death like alcohol consumption, suicide, and natural causes.

Had there been no racism in this country, Nido Tania, a 19 year old from Arunachal Pradesh, would not have died because of his hairstyle. Akha Salouni, a 29-year-old man from Manipur, would not have lost his life due to his looks. A student from Arunachal Pradesh would not have been beaten up and forced to lick his landlord’s shoes in Bangalore while the man shouted, “You deserve it only because you are a dirty tribal from the North-east”. Two men from Nagaland would not have been beaten and had their hair chopped off by local attackers in the Sikanderpur area while being told by their attackers, “We want to send a message to all of you in the North-east. If you guys from Manipur or Nagaland come here, we will kill you.”

Hate crimes against North-eastern people are being treated as isolated cases by law enforcement and are being ignored by most Indians, but what I’m recounting here is only the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of incidents, many of them unreported. The list goes on and on.

Dr Alana Golmei is general secretary of North East Support Centre & Helpline, launched in 2007.

This is the second part of Lets Talk About Racism, a new HT campaign that addresses deep-rooted prejudices and discrimination in India. If you have faced racism, tweet using #LetsTalkAboutRacism or write to talktous@hindustantimes.com. HT’s earlier series, Let’sTalk About Rape and Let’s Talk About Trolls, focused attention on crucial issues.

Beneath The Surface: Racism In India By Dr. Alana Golmei

Some months ago, I received a message via WhatsApp from a lady named Mawii which stated she wanted to meet me for a talk. I felt from her message that it was important so I agreed to see her. When we finally met at JNU campus in one of the makeshift shops there, we had a nice, long talk. She carried about her a calm, quiet countenance but when she started to speak, she was very articulative about what was on her mind and what she wanted to share with me. She grew up in the Northeast Indian state of Mizoram and had come to Delhi in 2007 for higher studies. She graduated from Lady Shri Ram college, then went on to get her masters degree and studied law at Delhi University afterwards. As she began to speak, I realized that she wanted to share her story regarding the hardships that she had been facing in the capital, especially in the workplace. I was listening to a first hand narration of how discrimination takes place among people which, in the case of India, is often based on ethnicity and of course, gender, which usually piles on.

At first, she talked about how one does not really understand the many ways in which discrimination takes place unless one experiences it. Besides the more apparent ways like physical violence and such, it also happens in very intricate and deep spaces but the effects it has on the victim are no less damaging or hurtful. For some, it can turn into a daily affair, one that they battle everyday but which is otherwise invisible to everyone else around. Mawii had experienced a similar fight during the time she worked at a certain law firm. She talked about how she continually felt like an outsider because she was treated like such, and how her colleagues would look at her in a certain way, approach her in a certain way, all owing to her ethnicity. Many times she had been made to feel inferior and less capable in comparison to the so-called“mainlanders”. Despite her sincere efforts and competent contribution in the workplace while also possessing all the academic qualifications and having been quite sufficiently educated, she was brushed aside many times when it came to promotions, with the ones who were not always deserving often getting promoted instead. She told me it can certainly be hugely discouraging to be subjected to such treatment when one has worked hard and given the best one can, when one has sat in the same classrooms with the rest of them, read the same books, taught by the same teachers and received the same seal of qualification. When all these things say that you are capable and equal but the rest do not treat you as such, it becomes a different story altogether.

Mawii went on to tell me that she has been taking it all quietly as she bore a risk of losing her job if she spoke out against her firm. But she had eventually left the place as it was getting worse by the day making it impossible for her to continue working there and could now tell her story. Mawii came forward with her story because, having endured it first hand, she knew exactly how it felt to be forced to remain quiet but also how wrong it is to have to go through all of that. With retired parents and younger siblings still studying, she had been the breadwinner of the family, a huge responsibility to carry along with the burden and torture of being discriminated against. She talked about the many other women from Northeast Indiain similar situations, who work and earn for their families but are still underestimated in a lot of spaces in their lives and are deemed inferior.

While listening to her, I recalled many incidents and cases I had handled in the past– Reigamphi, a young woman from Manipur who was suspected to be raped and brutally murdered in her rented accommodation at Chirag Delhi in the year 2013. She was the only bread winner in the family, her parents being cultivators with meagre incomes back in the home state. Mary Ezung from Nagaland was found dead at Safdarjung enclave, her post mortem reports clearly stated that she was brutally assaulted and murdered. Julie, a young woman from Mizoram was murdered in her rented flat atMunirka, and another 19 year old girl from Assam was raped at a guest house where she was working. It has become almost a daily affair to hear of the Northeastern women being subjected to such happenings in Delhi and NCR. While other women too often go through the same in society, these women from the northeast, hundreds of miles away from home, many times face the extra burden of being left alone to fight for their cases which is a tremendous challenge in an unfriendly place.

Many young women also fall into the trap of traffickers. There have been many incidents where young girls from the region were promised jobs but were instead confined and sent to brothels as soon as they landed in the capital. In many cases, these women are the sole breadwinners of their families who dote and wait on the money they send home for their livelihood. And in trying to make ends meet, they go through sexual, mental and psychological harassment, exploitation and discrimination. Many have lost their jobs because they refused the advances of their employers who asked for sexual favours. To make things worse, many times, the law has dismissed and disregarded these cases by assuming a place of higher moral ground and assassinating the characters of these victims even in their deaths. Every day is a challenge for them. I get to hear only one percent of the story, which, going by fair standards, is a lot and which I try my best to make sure the world hears of. The rest are suffer in silence. For some, only their corpses come home while some return with shattered dreams and face stigma in society for no fault of theirs.

http://www.countercurrents.org/golmei031015.htm

Crimes against Northeast women: Is the state concerned enough?

The brutal gang rape of India’s daughter on the night of 16th December, 2012, has awakened the whole nation from its deep slumber just like the fairy’s spell that was broken when the Prince finally arrived. As the tale goes, when the fairy cast a spell, everyone that lived in the castle – soldiers, ministers, guards, servants, knights, etc., all fell into a deep sleep, wherever they were at that very moment. Only when the Prince came and shouted ‘wake up! wake up!’ everyone woke up. But unlike the Prince in the tale, ‘Nirbhaya’ had to wake up the state at the cost of her life.

It is a very well known fact that crimes against women are rampant across the country. Under the Indian Penal Code, crimes against women include rape, kidnapping and abduction, homicide for dowry, torture, molestation, sexual harassment and the importation of girls. Not to mention the many cases which go unreported, as per the data of the National Crime Record Bureau, 2,28,650 incidents of crimes against women were reported in the country during 2011 alone.

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The statistics compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau showed that between 1953 and 2011, the incidents of rape went up by 873 percent. Despite the rise in the number of sexual crimes against women in India, the lackadaisical attitude of the concerned authorities to tackle the problems is a matter of serious concern. Many incidents could have been prevented including the heinous crime on 16^th December if the police were pro-active in tracking criminals in the cities, if stern sexual assault laws were implemented and stern actions taken for every crime that had happened to many women and girls in the country.

Following the 16^th December tragic incident in Delhi, there have been nation-wide protests, talks and debates by experts, professionals and people from all walks of life in the national television news channels, write-ups in many national newspapers etc., etc. The government also appointed a three-member panel of legal experts to review the criminal law headed by the former Chief Justice of India, J.S. Verma. The committee has come out with a report ‘Amendments to Criminal Law’ in 29 days. Eminent jurists, legal professionals, NGOs, women’s groups and civil society were involved in compiling this report by sharing their views, knowledge and experience. Many citizens applaud the committee’s report while there was no response from the government initially. Finally, the Joint Secretary of MHA received the report although the panel wanted to submit the report to the Prime Minister. Later, the Prime Minister promised prompt action on the report. Subsequently, amendments are being made. For example, the term ‘rape’ is to be replaced by ‘sexual assault’, acid attack to be treated as sexual assault. However, activists are disappointed and furious as some key points including the ASFPA, marital rape, etc., did not appear in the Union Cabinet decisions.

While such steps have been initiated, sexual violence continues unabated in this country – dalits, SC/ST, Northeast communities in the metros and other parts of the country face sexual harassment and violence every day. In a class-divided society like India, how does it matter if a dalit girl/woman is raped and killed? How does it matter if SC/ST or Northeast girls/women are raped? How does it matter for the insensitive police who instead of helping them, further harass the already traumatized victims, which compels them to take extreme steps?

At this point let us do a recap of some incidents on Northeast women/girls that haunt us:

• Rape and murder of 8 years old tribal girl at Mahipalpur in Delhi on April 17, 2009. After she was raped and murdered, the accused dumped her inside the neighbour’s water tank. The 21 year old accused had several criminal records including a charge of raping an 11 years old girl in R.K. Puram in 2004. After he went missing from the area for two days he was later caught in a railway station in Delhi while trying to flee. Following the incident the girl’s parents left Delhi for good to settle in a faraway village which is not even reachable by phone. No one knows about the status of this case. Had the accused been punished earlier, the life of this young innocent girl could have been saved.

• A young woman pursuing Masters in Jamia Milia Islamia was waylaid and molested on 22 October, 2009, by a group of school boys while she was returning home from the University. The police was even reluctant to identify the culprits.

• Rape and murder of a 19-year old woman by Pushpam Kumar Sinha, a Ph.D. scholar at IIT Delhi, at Munirka village in New Delhi on 24 October, 2009. This incident happened in the heart of the capital while the country was headed by a woman President and a woman Chief Minister in Delhi. Many women’s groups questioned the statement of the Delhi Police that Pushpam Kumar Sinha was a pervert and a mentally deranged person. In a memorandum submitted to the then President, Pratibha Patil, by combined women’s groups in Manipur stated that “The fact that Pushpam was undergoing his doctoral studies at such a prestigious institute like IIT which only the most brilliant minds of the country can enter, is evidence enough of the fact that Pushpam was an intelligent person with a clear and sound mind. His attempt to pass off the killing as an accident by burning the victim is an action which only an intelligent and sane person could do.” The petition further questioned the statement of Delhi Police as how could a prestigious institute like the IIT which is very strict about allowing admission to only the brightest and most brilliant minds in the country have allowed a “mentally deranged” person like Pushpam to enrol in its doctoral course? The family still awaits justice as hearing continues without any stern penalty for this criminal.

• Gang rape of a 20 year old Delhi University student on May 8, 2005, in Dhaula Kuan in a moving car. She was abducted while walking back home after buying food from a roadside eatery. One of the accused, who was caught, was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment by a city court while the remaining three accused are still absconding.

• Gang rape of a 30 year old BPO employee in November 24, 2010. Five men, intoxicated with liquor, raped the woman for over 40 minutes in a moving vehicle. She was forced into the vehicle near Nanakpura Gurdwara and was later found in a semi-conscious state in Mangolpuri Industrial Estate. It took more than one hour for the police to find her after she dialled ‘100’ and informed the police

Following this incident, women representatives met the CM, Police Commissioner and other concerned authorities and submitted recommendations to the CM including fast tracking of all cases of sexual assault, daily trials instead of extended hearing, stricter advisories for clamping down on vehicles with tinted glasses as well as on tinted glass dealers, GPS tracking systems in public transport and BPO cabs, CCTV for surveillance in public transport, increased  publicity, information dissemination about helplines and related services for women in distress, etc.

Demands and call for justice is not a new thing, given that these demands are reiterated every time any crime or sexual assault is meted out to women. Many victims from the Northeast left the city (Delhi), for not having anyone or support groups to turn to. No trauma counselling and no compensation were provided by the state to restore their lives. They came to Delhi with aspirations and dreams and not to be raped but they had to return home humiliated and shattered. Had the state been concerned and the police ensured security and care for women from the Northeast, these victims would have stayed on and continue to fight till they got justice. But having lost faith in the system, they left the capital for home.

Taking some of these painful experiences and challenges into account, the following points need to be looked into seriously (some of these points were submitted to Justice Verma Committee):

(i) All types of sexual offenses and abuses including eve-teasing, touching and showing private parts should be treated as equal to intent to rape and tried in fast track courts.

(ii) Targeting vulnerable SC/ST women from Northeast India with verbal abuses and passing lewd comments must be booked under SC/ST Atrocities Act.

(iii) All Government/private institutions including residential areas should be sensitized to take strict actions on eve-teasing, using of racial slurs, sexual harassment by male staffs/colleagues or whosoever.

(iv) Violence/crime against women should be handled and investigated only by a lady/woman police officer.

(v) Influx of girl children from the Northeast states must be closely watched in railway stations, bus stops, etc., to check trafficking by agencies.

(vi) As per media reports, a number of young girls are found missing and kidnapped every day but no progress of their rescue is made known to the general public through any media. There should be regular reporting of progress by the Delhi Police who are searching for the missing persons.

(vii) The attitude of Delhi Police needs to change. They should stop harassing the victims, especially the Northeast women/girls, whose complaints, many a times, are refused by the Delhi Police in police stations.

(viii) All the police stations, police duty booths and check points in the National Capital Region must be more sensitive, alert and helpful to the Northeast women in times of need.

(ix) While attempts are being made to look into all the pending cases, speedy action must be taken including that of (1) 2005 Dhaula Kuan rape case (2) Rape and murder of 8 years old girl in Mahipalpur in 2009 (3) Gang rape of a 30 year old woman BPO employee in 2010, and (4) other cases related to rape and sexual harassment meted out to Northeast women.

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Alana Golmei, General Secretary, North East Helpline, completed her Post Doctoral study under Northeast India Studies Programme, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 2011. She is one of the founding members of Northeast Support Centre and Helpline in New Delhi, which was launched in 2007 with the aim to prevent harassment and abuses meted out to women, the North East people and tribal communities in Delhi and NCR.

http://www.dalitweb.org/?p=1600