'People call us Kaalia': Foreign student questions Rajnath on racial discrimination

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s address to students at a Teachers’ Day function in Pune took an unexpected turn on Saturday, when a student from South Sudan asked him a question about racial discrimination faced by him. “When we go out, especially in some college campuses, people call us out as ‘Aye Kaalia’ or Blackie…Ask any foreign student and they will tell you about the discrimination they have faced,” the student, Simon Kuany, was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. The event was organized at the Symbiosis International University. [caption id=“attachment_2422912” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo. Image courtesy: Reuters[/caption] According to the Indian Express report, even as the student raised this poser to the home minister, at another location in Pune, a first-of-its-kind national consultation was going on on the issue of making Indian education go global and attract students from other countries to India. Responding to the complaint, the union minister said he was surprised to know about it and appealed to all students of the country against doing so and consider every foreign student as “brother”. “From this platform, I want to appeal to all Indian students in Pune as well as in other parts of the country not to discriminate anyone and consider every one as brother…It is very unfortunate if any such incident takes place in our country,” he said. Thousands of foreign students study in various institutes of Pune. Singh said the Home Ministry, which handles the visa issues, will resolve all problem of the foreign students. “I want to assure you that all your problems will be resolved within a month,” he said in response to a complaint of an international student. The student said that they face lots of difficulties while registering themselves with the Foreigner Regional Registration Offices (FRRO). With inputs from PTI