Why SOME people of India think that the northeast people are bit different from others?
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I have seen people from other parts of India calling me and my friends by a general term ‘Madrasi’. We were furious, at times confused whether to shout at them or ignore them or talk some sense into them. Then I saw many of my south Indian friends calling North East Indians by another general term ‘Chinky’. As a Keralite, being called a ‘Madrasi’ angers me, because you are confusing my identity with that of a Tamilan. Still they are confusing me for an Indian from different part. People from North East are regularly being referred to as ‘Chinky’ meaning a Chinese person, in other words some ignorant Indians are calling other Indians as Chinese; it is painful that your own countryman fail to acknowledge you. Another example of such casual racism is “you all look same”. People from NE India are not only stigmatized but are also subjected to racial abuse and violent attacks. In 2014, Nido Tania, a student from Arunachal Pradesh, was murdered in Delhi in a racial brawl. How and why people from so called ‘main land India’ be so insensitive?

Even though I have no source to back up the following incident, being in North East for some time and having listened to personnel recounts of my friends from NE, I would be amazed if this didn’t happened. Incident goes like this “Some people from Nagaland went to visit the Taj Mahal. The personnel manning the ticket counter tried to charge them the rates mentioned for foreigners. Since they did not have any identity card on them, they all sang the National Anthem. This convinced the personnel that they were Indians after all”. This just proves how ignorant we are about the region. What is the reason for this ignorance?
There is no immediate solution to this problem as the problem is gross ignorance. People are fed continuously about narrow idea of ‘desi’ look by entertainment industry and media, anything else is foreign to its viewers. However on long-term, ignorance of so called ‘main land Indians’ to NE can be brought down by compulsory teaching of young students about North East culture in educational institutions. Students from other parts of India should know about NE culture and history so that first time they see someone from NE, they will embrace them with some sense of familiarity rather than with ignorance.

Even though I have no source to back up the following incident, being in North East for some time and having listened to personnel recounts of my friends from NE, I would be amazed if this didn’t happened. Incident goes like this “Some people from Nagaland went to visit the Taj Mahal. The personnel manning the ticket counter tried to charge them the rates mentioned for foreigners. Since they did not have any identity card on them, they all sang the National Anthem. This convinced the personnel that they were Indians after all”. This just proves how ignorant we are about the region. What is the reason for this ignorance?
There is no immediate solution to this problem as the problem is gross ignorance. People are fed continuously about narrow idea of ‘desi’ look by entertainment industry and media, anything else is foreign to its viewers. However on long-term, ignorance of so called ‘main land Indians’ to NE can be brought down by compulsory teaching of young students about North East culture in educational institutions. Students from other parts of India should know about NE culture and history so that first time they see someone from NE, they will embrace them with some sense of familiarity rather than with ignorance.
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