By Ellerine Diengdoh
Disclaimer:
This is not an indictment of all Indians, nor a rejection of a shared identity. It calls out a specific pattern, how mainland media and casual prejudices continue to misrepresent the Northeast. Not all Northeasterners are savages or saints. Not all mainlanders are ignorant or bigoted, but when stories rely on stereotypes, both harm and erasure follow.
If you’re offended, ask yourself….is it because you’re implicated, or because you’re uncomfortable being reminded?
To those who know, India’s strength lies in its complexity, this is not about you. However, if what you read sounds familiar because you once laughed, nodded, or stayed silent, then yes, it’s very much about you. Not everyone gets to belong to the idea of “India,” some of us are too busy being explained, excluded, or exoticised by it.
There are only three things I remember, that have ever brought the people of Shillong, to a complete, reverent halt:
1. Amit Paul making it on Indian Idol Season 3.
2. The Shillong Chamber Choir winning India’s Got Talent Season 2, and
3. A man named Raja Raghuvanshi being found dead in Sohra, and an entire community immediately being put on trial for the crime. If that sounds extreme, that’s because it was.
Mainland media, bless its slowly decaying frontal lobe, did exactly what it always does. It conducted a couple of Google searches, summoned a few “experts,” and executed a flawless misreading of anthropology to finally christen an entire state: “Crime-Prone Hills.” As if crime is something that naturally occurs at altitude. Like moss.
For seventeen days, the whispers bubbled back up like bad curry. “So they love dogs? Cooked, not cuddled, right?” “Since China’s next door, are they all, like….half Chinese?” “With those tiny eyes, how do they even watch TV?” “Why so much mob lynching up there? Is that how they say hello?” “They passed exams outside the North East? What did they do, sacrifice a chicken?” “Bit odd that they wear jeans. Where’s the tribal authenticity? You know, feathers, spears, war-paint?” “Are they interested in human rights or just human ribs?”.
On the early hours of June 9, 2025, when news broke that Sonam Raghuvanshi, Raja’s wife, had been found thousands of kilometres away in Ghazipur, and more crucially—was not abducted by a roving band of Khasi head-hunting flesh-eating savages, the collective sigh that rose from Meghalaya brought on a light drizzle. Not because the truth finally came out, but because “we,” the “accused”, had finally been acquitted. By this point, social media was already overflowing with thoughtful insights like “savages” and “bring the CBI in.” One post stood out, from a certain Pia Singh. Whether Pia is a real person or not, only God and Mark Zuckerberg know.
Pia Singh, who, armed with a Facebook account and no particular credentials other than a louder-than-average delusion, claimed, that during a recent visit to Shillong, her “driver” gave her a chilling warning: “Don’t walk alone. You might end up in someone’s plate.”
Now, a reasonable human being might have paused here. Thought, briefly. Is this something an actual person in a functioning democracy says out loud without being dared? But no. No one questioned her (in fact, 54 people liked it). But again, why would they? Pia had the Sacred Trifecta of Indian credibility: a North Indian name, Instagrammable activism, and a blind spot the size of Northeast India.
Meanwhile, here on the ground, we watched as an entire state got put on trial without any of the usual legal formalities, like suspects or evidence. Meghalaya’s main offence appeared to be “looking a bit murdery”. The rivers were too dangerous, the cliffs too death-defying, the caves too… cave-like. Apparently, this made it the perfect setting for a homicide. Or a shampoo ad. But mostly homicide.
Somewhere between drone shots of majestic cliffs and interviews with people known only as “local resident” (a common name in these parts, apparently), Meghalaya stopped being a functioning state and became a location in someone else’s psychological thriller.
Every waterfall was now a crime scene. Every local, a potential killer. Every local stew, laced with slow-cooked remains of bone that looked suspiciously “mainland”.
Then, rather inconveniently, came the truth.
Sonam, it turned out, had not been kidnapped by local savages, sacrificed under a blood moon, or slow-roasted over a ceremonial fire pit. No. She had allegedly planned the murder herself…along with her lover. Like a boring garden-variety mainland criminal, straight out of Delhi Crime, but with terrible planning and no Netflix deal.
At that moment, when it became quite clear that Meghalaya wasn’t the villain, a few apologies trickled in. Most of them, of course, had never been the ones shouting in the first place. No follow-ups, no prime-time self-reflection. Just a quiet pivot to the next outrage, because the walk-back is never as theatrical as the accusations.
When someone from the Northeast is attacked or killed, it is an unfortunate detail, like bad weather, regrettable, but not worth adjusting the coverage. When they are accused, it’s a case study, a pattern, a long-overdue conversation we suddenly feel qualified to lead.
However, this time, the Meghalaya Police solved the case. In ten days. The savages—how dare they. Where was the chaos? The confusion? The incompetence? Instead, the investigation was clean, professional, precise, inconveniently efficient. But the real insult came after. It was the Chief Minister. The ministers. The guides. The locals. All speaking to the press—clearly, calmly, like people who didn’t need to be spoken for. The officers leading the investigation? The most eloquent of the lot. Composed, razor-sharp, fluent…each word spoken with the kind of quiet authority that doesn’t raise its voice because it doesn’t need to. Almost all of them spoke in English so crisp it could anchor the evening news. What really ruined the national fantasy was that some of them even spoke in Hindi. Not the painful kind we’re used to exoticising, but neutral, deliberate Hindi. Polite, even. Which is a betrayal of several long-held stereotypes, and frankly, very rude!
This wasn’t the script. What everyone got instead, was a region refusing to perform its designated role in the national imagination. The myth of the mute, ignorant, semi-naked savage North-easterner collapsed under the weight of its own lazy construction. Suddenly, all that righteous noise disappeared.
The Khasi community didn’t just dodge a bullet, we dodged a narrative. Which is worse, really, because bullets eventually stop, narratives don’t. They cling on like damp. They show up in suspicious pauses, in badly pronounced place names, and in questions that start with “No offence, but…” and absolutely always end in offence.
So, we are not angry. Just tired. Tired in that specific way you get when the punchline is always you. Tired of being described like terrain….remote, difficult, dense. We are just trying to get through the week without becoming a genre.
I would like to end with a personal note to Pia Singh, wherever you are, probably sipping organic tea designed to boost moral superiority—thank you. You’ve managed what centuries of colonial officers, clipboard anthropologists, bored news anchors, badly subtitled documentaries failed to pull off: you proved that in India, the loudest voices belong to those who’ve seen the least and guessed the most. In trying to unravel the savage tribes of the East, you accidentally unravelled yourself. Which is impressive, really. Most people take years of therapy to do that.
So no, Pia. No one is coming to eat you. But if, by some cosmic accident, you were the last edible thing on Earth? We’d all turn vegetarian. Immediately.
Just to be safe.