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Attack on young migrant triggers racial controversy in India

The mostly tribal people of the northeast are often targeted elsewhere because they look, dress differently
Attack on young migrant triggers racial controversy in India

Students from northeastern India sing hymns at the Christ the King festival procession in New Delhi on Nov. 20, 2016. Thousands of such internal migrants in Indian cities say they are attacked because of racial hatred.

Published: January 12, 2017 09:49 AM GMT
Updated: January 12, 2017 09:49 AM GMT

An attack on a young man from northern India working in southern Karnataka state has triggered fresh debate about race-based violence in major Indian cities.

Khuadun Khangam, 22, was attacked on the evening of Jan. 7 while returning home from work. He sustained serious head injuries that left him paralyzed.

Khangam who works in Bengaluru, the Karnataka state capital, hails from Miao Diocese in Arunachal Pradesh, northeastern India.

Police quickly ruled out robbery as his wallet and other belongings were left intact. The young man arrived in Bengaluru, four months ago, police said.

"The condition of the boy is deteriorating," Father Shaju Kalapurakal, secretary of the Bangalore archdiocesan office for internal migrants, told ucanews.com on Jan. 10. 

The city is now known as Bengaluru while the archdiocese based in the city is called Bangalore.

The priest, who met doctors treating him, said the man’s friends in Bengaluru were taking care of him, as the family had not yet arrived in the city.

People from the northeastern region of India who travel elsewhere for work or education have complained they are often the victims of racial discrimination in major Indian cities.

The region covers the seven states of Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura. Three of the seven states — Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland — are India’s only Christian majority states. The mostly tribal people in the region have mongoloid features and differ in culture and ethnicity from other Indians.

"Their egalitarian social outlook, commitment to gender equality and westernized dress often raise eyebrows among other Indians who follow a caste-based and patriarchal social outlook," said Rini Ralte, president of Northeast Solidarity in Bengaluru.

"The latest incident is a case of targeted, racial violence," Ralte told ucanews.com. She said they have filed a police complaint and police are investigating the case.

Ralte, a native of Mizoram, said that there are a lot of young people in Bengaluru from the northeastern region who face discrimination due to their facial features, race and culture.

Ralte, whose also runs a helpline for northeastern people living in Bengaluru, said her NGO is working on 600 complaints ranging from attacks, murder, harassment at work and sexual assault.

 

Continuing problem

Such attacks have a history in the city. In 2012, over 30,000 people from northeastern India left Bengaluru over rumors of an impending pogrom against them.

Such violence is not limited to Bengaluru. The national capital New Delhi has also witnessed attacks and discrimination against people from the northeast.

In 2014, a 20-year-old boy, Nido Taniam, from Arunachal Pradesh was killed after a fight broke out in a Delhi market over his appearance and clothes.

Binalakshmi Nepram, founder of the Northeast Forum Against Racism, told ucanews.com that they have worked very closely with the government to rectify the continuous cases of abuse, rape, attacks and murder.

"Repeated incidents of northeastern people being attacked shows the failure of the Indian government to ensure that its citizens are treated with respect, irrespective of their color, or the shape of their eyes or nose," she said.

Also describing the recent attack as race-based, she said that every attack on a person from that region is racial.

"They [the attackers] look at your face. We do not look like other Indians but we feel Indian and those people who do not understand India consider us as Koreans, Japanese and Chinese and we become easy targets of discrimination," she said.

An estimated 62 percent of Bengaluru’s 10 million people are from other parts of the country or from outside India, as the city is India’s primary IT hub.

Since 2015, Bangalore Archdiocese has operated a commission for internal migrants to coordinate the pastoral care and provide help in times of need.

"Most of the migrants are from the northeast Indian states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Right now around 10,000 migrants are associated with the commission," said Father Kalapurakal.

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