SHILLONG: Alana Golmei, a lawyer, has written to the Chairman of the Monitoring Committee, Union Ministry of Home Affairs (NE Division), Satyendra Garg, asserting that people from the North East and those with Mongoloid features in India are being called names such “coronavirus”.
It may be mentioned that Golmei is a member of the Monitoring Committee, Union Ministry of Home Affairs, which is tasked to address issues of racial discrimination faced by the Northeastern people. The committee was constituted in January 2018. She said that people from the North East are being targeted again with racist terms such as “coronavirus” in the metro cities. After the virus emerged in China, other non-Northeastern Indians in metro cities have started calling the northeasterners “coronavirus” in the same way they have called them “Chinki”, “Momo”, “Chinese” and even “Chowmein”. “On February 24, 2020, I was walking inside the NCERT campus with a friend from Meghalaya, and when we came closer to where some four to five people (NCERT staff) were standing, one of the guys started commenting “coronavirus aagaya” (coronavirus has come) and the rest of them were giggling looking at us. Though he apologised later after I told him I will report to the concerned authorities, this is not acceptable as he was doing it deliberately, and on top of that, he is a graduate, working as LDC at publication division in NCERT,” Golmei said.
Again, she said that in one of the colleges in DU, when a Northeastern student entered the college canteen, a group of students commented, “Coronavirus has come”.
In the third incident, she mentioned that when she visited Dilli Haat, a lady from Ladakh sitting in one of the stalls narrated to Golmei that some people in the streets of Delhi called her coronavirus. The lady from Ladakh told Golmei that she tried to explain to them that they are not Chinese, but the people refused to listen and kept making racial remarks.
Another incident involved one Horchipem Khamrang from Manipur, who said that he witnessed incidents of discrimination twice, first at Safdarjung and the second on February 22.
Golmei mentioned about another woman, viz. Thuimei Kamei from Manipur, who said, “We live in Maharashtra, ten of us from Manipur, and even here we face the same plight, locals here call us “coronavirus” whenever we move out of the school campus”.
Golmei asserted that Northeastern people have always been at the receiving end of such racist remarks and discrimination in metro cities, yet concerned authorities have not taken any action to stop them and there is no exemplary action, therefore the ones on the doing end are taking this lightly.
She requested Garg to look into the repeated racism by fellow Indians towards their own citizens and come out with a strong advisory to all the concerned institutions, offices and universities.
