'Them' versus 'us'

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN 2010 and updated a  little now in the context of the ongoing reports about 'discrimination against northeastern people'.

 It was after the rape of a lady from some northeastern state (the media was confused about which state it was) that I started getting these mails.

‘Voice your protest’, ‘Sign the protest petition’  ‘We condemn this heinous crime’ etc etc

The words of such mails are always similar and the timing seems to be similar too.  Every time a rape or molestation of a Northeastern occurs in the capital or a metro city, these chain mails and perhaps other social media campaigns become more vocal and active.  I don’t know where they are the rest of the year or why we can’t hear them.

Coming back to the mail, this particular letter voiced its contempt and condemnation for the incident which is all fair and good and also asked ‘concerned’ citizens take part in some protest dharna organized in Delhi.  At the same time there was a list of steps which the NGO demanded that the Delhi government take in order to prevent such crimes.

Two of these steps really caught my eye.

“Immediately provide better street lights and police patrols in all areas, and bus stops.

More effective mechanisms must be instituted to ensure the safety of women in Delhi, especially women from the North East.

 The question that immediately came to my mind is why seemingly educated people ask for measures like “Immediately provide better street lights and police patrols in all areas, and bus stops. Oh! really?  Do you seriously think this will deter rapists and firstly, is this feasible? According to a report by Human Rights Watch, there is just one civil police officer for every 1037 Indian residents, far below the Asia’s average of one officer for every 558 people and the global average of 333 people. You don’t need to read a report to realize this.

 Now of course, we can wait for the police force to increase its numbers OR we can take some matters into our own hands and start on our own.

Secondly, they ask that ‘more effective mechanisms must be instituted to ensure the safety of women in Delhi, especially women from the North East’. - What are these more effective mechanisms? What are these vague statements supposed to mean? The tone of the sentence projects Northeastern women as some kind of endangered species that needs special protection.

Measures like these can be only stop gap fillers aimed at temporary relief but the root issues persist and one of the root causes for these crimes and prejudices is ignorance.

Now I don’t have a M.A. in social work but why don’t these wise NGOs and intellectuals start targeting the root causes of the problems?

I proceed to offer some starting point towards serious work in terms of awareness generation and steps to gradually bring down the rate of such incidents.

The first step to dispelling this ignorance could be concentrated efforts on part of communities to build goodwill and understanding. Now how to go about building it?  Education, I believe is a key to solving problems and also dispelling ignorance.  Why don’t we for starters build a social media campaign on introducing Northeast India in the different school syllabuses as a long term goal.  63 years after independence there is still no mention of Northeast India in any geography or history textbook in schools and colleges other than the respective Northeastern state education boards. The result is that many people think Assam is in South India and Nagaland is in Nepal.

For taking immediate measures; introducing programmes of a recurring nature, students can be motivated or guided to start community outreach programmes where the ‘locals’ get to interact with their Northeastern tenants and so forth in their respective areas. Northeasterners can also interact with locals and take part in community festivals or events.

 For e.g. In Delhi, Mukherjee Nagar and Vijay Nagar are areas that immediately come to mind.

There is no bridge or a go-between among the various communities right now. Local NGOs can play a very important role in this regard.

NGOs could tie up with government and private schools to have talks and awareness classes about the history, culture, geography and people of the northeastern part of the country.

Groups of Northeastern students can participate in interactions in schools and colleges and increase the knowledge of the students there. Once the awareness is there I am sure the mistrust and suspicion will also give way to some level of understanding which will bring down this wall of ‘them’ and ‘us’.  

I am sure there will be some hurdles that will be faced at the outset but what great purpose was ever achieved without a bit of pain?

There is a school of thought that also says that in metro cities not only Northeasterners but people from other communities are also victimized.  I do agree that northeasterners are often discriminated against because of their physical features but crimes are overall not directed at only one community in metros or even the capital. According to a report in the Times of India newspaper, there have been 433 rapes in Delhi this year[(2010) In 2011, 568 rapes were reported].  It would be naïve to suggest that a majority of them were directed at only one community without a proper study of this. We should probably reflect a bit more on this and do some self introspection. Are we doing enough to mix with people?

There is also the media that is obsessed with the idea of painting the picture of ‘them’ and ‘us’ which also plays to popular perceptions.  Keeping that in mind, it is time that we took a good hard look at ourselves and our socialization skills.

It is the onus of Northeasterns who go outside to try and mingle as much as possible with the locals outside.  . As they say, to clap you need to use both your hands.  One sided measures are not going to help. When you go outside your home, there is no point in being aloof from the people and the place you go to. You have to adjust.

I studied in Delhi University myself and do know for a fact that, forget interaction between locals and Northeasterners, there is hardly any interaction among students of the eight states themselves. As they say charity begins at home. We should stop being Nagas, Assamese, Manipuris, this and that and start interacting with each other. Of, course this is easier said than done.

Simply sticking to your own group and forming a ghetto sort of environment won’t help which was the case till 2 years back in my knowledge. I doubt if it has changed. The Nagas stay in their own group, the Manipuris in their own, and so on and so forth.

There seems to be a section of people that simply want to have cannon fodder from time to time to show that “we are also there and “we are trying to make a change”. Certain groups of people seem to be making their living since eternity by raising these ‘issues’ and ‘voicing their protest’.

The point is not to single any one particular NGO or entire community of NGOs and take them to task.  The lesson for us here is that people are talking nonsense about us perhaps due to ignorance or perhaps due to opportunism and it is time we started taking some remedial measures.

 Simply paying lip service and artificial short term and hollow measures won’t help to genuinely solve these problems. It’s time, we as citizens, took matters in our own hands and started to think differently from the herd. It is also time we sent out a message that we don’t need special treatment or someone’s graces but just recognition that we are same as the ‘others’.