Manipur girl's encounter at airport is an affirmation of unchecked racism in India

Imagine an immigration officer telling you that you “don’t look Indian.” Imagine that officer quizzing you to prove your Indian nationality. Imagine a lady at the next counter giggling as you battle these insults. This is the nightmare that Monika Khangembam, a resident of Manipur, encountered last week at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. In a Facebook post on 9 July, Monika wrote about her humiliating experience. “The bloody racist immigration desk at it again! Looks at my Passport and says, “Indian toh nahi lagti ho.” I get that all the time so don’t react much to it but then he goes on, “Pakka Indian ho?” with a smirk. I still don’t react. What really got me was when he said, “See… You yourself need to know your Indianess. How many states are there in India?” she posted. [caption id=“attachment_2886888” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Monika Khangembam. Photo courtesy: Facebook[/caption] Reacting to the incident, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, was quick to apologise to Monika , assuring her that she would take up the matter with Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The minister has also promised to ensure that all immigration officials sign up for a sensitisation programme. Whether such a programme, if and when it materialises, would yield results is of course anybody’s guess. Swaraj’s apology, no doubt, marks a welcome shift of stance from her response (or the lack of it), to the brutal killing of Masonda Ketanda Olivier, a Congolese national, by a mob in the Capital two months ago. Virtually denying that Indians can be racist, Swaraj had then issued a statement saying, “India is the land of Gandhi and Buddha… These were not premeditated acts against a particular community, rather these were spontaneous attacks perpetrated by anti-social and criminal elements.” That this “land of Gandhi and Buddha” has also come to be perceived as the “land of racism” is no longer a matter of speculation. Racism is as much a fact of life in India as is the culture of its denial. A whole range of “Others” –from African nations to residents of the North East – have to grapple with racism on a daily basis. From the colour of skin, facial features, to form of attire and lifestyle, any one of these attributes can work as a trigger to discrimination, harassment, and all too frequently, mindless violence. Monika’s experience at the immigration counter is just one among countless such other incidents faced by people from the North East. Consider for example, the assault on a 26-year-old woman from Manipur that took place in Mumbai four months ago. Molested and dragged by her hair in Santacruz in public, the victim, found no sympathy or help from bystanders and even the local police. The victim’s sister said that North Easterners are frequently discriminated against because of their facial features. A NDTV report quoted her saying: “Because of our North-East facial features, people believe that we are from China or Nepal. Because of this discrimination, no one came to my sister’s rescue.” What is particularly alarming is that far from showing any signs of abating, racism has continued to flourish regardless of the transformative economic and cultural changes that have taken place in the country over the last two decades. Twenty seven years ago, Kishore Seram, a journalist from Manipur, had written an evocative article on what it meant to be an “Outsider Within”. In an article published in the Delhi-based daily Patriot, Seram wrote: “I remember the first three months of my hostel life in Chandigarh — cornered and sneered at by my ‘big-bully brothers’ in the very first week. I remember too, how humiliating it was when they wanted to know if my ‘Nepali’ sister was a prostitute.” Seram described how it hurt to “declare that I am an Indian from the state of Manipur, only to hear them say with disdain: “Junglees!” “And it hurt too, to be grouped with other foreigners, in spite of my vehement protests that I was an Indian. The head clerk in college was adamant that ‘chinkies’ were found only in Nepal and Thailand!” he wrote. Monika’s encounter at the airport is a disturbing affirmation of how little things on the ground have changed since then. Notwithstanding all the political grandstanding on India’s multiculturalism and tolerance, the roots of racism have been nurtured and strengthened. Though Swaraj’s assurance of “sensitising” immigration officers may be a good idea, she and her colleagues would have to acknowledge racism as not as an aberration but a deep-seated structural problem of Indian culture. That is if they are seriously concerned about racism.