Racism
in India has so far been debated in relation to the caste question but the
northeast question is an opportunity to imagine modes of collective living
which go beyond lip service multiculturalism While the Supreme Court may have
relegated LGBT people back to the closet (at least legally) the issue of racism
in India on the other hand — with the vigilante raid against African women and
now Nido Tania’s death — has been outed and we can either choose to confront it
or continue to live under the delusion that all is well in our multicultural
wonderland. And if the issue is out, it is perhaps time to differentiate
between racism with a capital R and racism with a small r, or, in the world of
the media blitzkrieg that we inhabit we could distinguish it as front page
racism and footnote racism.
Nido’s
death — shocking as it is — is merely symptomatic of a much larger systemic
malaise of how we deal with cultural difference in this country. While racism
occasionally manifests itself in the form of hate crime it is felt most acutely
as an everyday phenomenon in the form of snideness, smirks, casual references
to someone being “chinki” and morally upright judgments about clothing and
sexuality. On that count, it would be difficult to find a single northeastern Indian
who has not at some point faced the brunt either of unwelcome banter or
culturally curious questions (“Is it true you eat snakes?”) whose naïveté would
be touching were it not so offensive.
Ignorance
and prejudices The ‘racism’ word understandably provokes a fair amount of
discomfort since it presents an unattractive picture which stands in sharp
contrast to the official “unity in diversity” rhetoric. And yet it is a little
ironic that even as we fume with righteous indignation at the treatment of Indians
in the United States or Europe, we are shocked when we are accused of racism
ourselves. Even if we were to agree with detractors who argue that it may be
rash to characterise Nido’s killing as an instance of a hate crime or a racist
attack and that it was just an instance of hooliganism that could have happened
to anyone, it is a little difficult to forget that the comments about his looks
and hairstyle which prompted Nido’s angry response smacked of racism.
Nido’s
death is a sad testimony to the fact that we are able to speak about systemic
everyday racism only when confronted with the capital R variety. Commentators
have observed that the cultural ignorance and prejudices have always existed in
India citing the familiar example of how all South Indians are “Madrasis” and
those living north of the Vindhyas are clubbed “Punjabis.” But it is important
to recognise one crucial difference in the way that people from the northeast
are treated. While a north Indian may be called a Punjabi or a South Indian a Madrasi,
the markers are still within the rubric of Indian nationhood whereas it is not
uncommon for northeastern Indians to be hailed as Chinese, Japanese, Nepali or
Korean. One of the placards in the protest against racism in Delhi on Saturday
read: “We are confused and scared in our own country. What shall we call
ourselves? Indians? Nepalis? Chinese?” When was the last time someone from
Delhi was called an Afghan because of the similarity of his or her facial
features? Kashmiris on the other hand can equally testify to the generous
bestowing of indiscriminate citizenship having been accustomed to being called
Pakistanis.
In
the protests and the debates on media that have ensued, one of the recurring
themes and slogans has been “We are Indians too.” While this is understandable
as a claim of equal citizenship it is also a little disturbing since it casts a
burden on people from the northeast having to prove their sameness rather than
assert the right to be different. What then of the expatriate Japanese or Chinese
community? Do they abrogate their right against non discrimination because they
are not Indians? By framing the experience of racism within a limited rubric of
citizenship alone we run the risk of obfuscating questions of national identity
with questions of belonging. It is in fact ironic that groups who have proudly
claimed their self-determination on the basis of their unique identity have to
respond to the experience of racism through a sentimental language of
citizenship.
A
truly cosmopolitan ideal is one in which a city or a country can belong to you
even if you do not belong to it and while it is tempting to resort to a liberal
plea for promoting cultural awareness and the importance of “mainstreaming the
northeast” — the complicated history of the northeast with its various
self-determination movements and armed struggles requires a slightly different
imagination of multicultural citizenship — one in which we move not from
cultural difference into sameness but from cultural difference to cultural
difference.
Opportunity
to imagine Racism in India has so far been debated in relation to the caste
question but the northeast question is one that allows us an opportunity to
imagine modes of collective living which go beyond the lip service multiculturalism
of exotic floats accompanied by tribal dances in Republic Day parades. The
presence of northeastern Indians in “mainstream” India extends the very concept
of India and demands a political and ethical imagination beyond inclusion into
history textbooks and speedy trials of hate crime cases alone; it asks instead
what it may mean for the mainstream to be open to be northeasternised, for
Maharashtrians to be a little more Bihari’d and to acknowledge that a plurality
of hairstyles and food cultures only enriches our collective selves.
The
French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze once remarked that it is better to be a
schizophrenic out for a walk than a neurotic on a couch — perhaps a bold
imagination of our diversity demands that we be comfortable with our multiple
identities if we are not to collapse into the neurosis of the singular.
Incidents like the Richard Loitam, Dana Sangma and now Nido Tania cases have
the possibility of opening many old wounds which have only been tenuously
resolved in recent times. It is not surprising that in the midst of the protest
against racism, one protester chanted “Hame kya chhahiye? Azadi chhahiye.” This
was echoed by many others who were there. It was a spontaneous act but one that
stands witness to the fact that even if the Azadi is not about
self-determination any longer, it echoes an underlying sense that they have
never belonged. If we fail to understand that the call for freedom first and
foremost emanates from the struggle against racism and discrimination, we run
the risk of collapsing into what Tagore once described as a world broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
(Lawrence
Liang is a lawyer and researcher with the Alternative Law Forum. Golan Naulak
is with Our Little Stories, currently based in New Delhi.)
No comments:
Post a Comment