‘Momos seller’, ‘drug dealer’, ‘Chinese’, ‘chinky’ and many other slangs are used by Indians so often that we do not even think before uttering them. But when an Indian faces any sort of racial discrimination overseas, our blood boils, and this is what we call hypocrisy.
According to BusinessTech, India is the most racist country in the world. More than 60% of Indians have faced the racist behavior within India and most of them are from the northeastern States. We talk so much about how beautiful the northeast is, but when it comes to the people of the northeast, why don’t we have the same respect for them as well?
When it comes to racism, South Indians face various forms of discrimination as well. We treat the people from North East and South India in a way which is derogatory and alienates them. Even our mantra atihidevobhava(the guest is our god) does not really mean anything in India anymore, as now even the guests are also not treated with basic etiquette.
There are many cases where people from African countries have faced racial discrimination and sometimes, even racial violence. We should ask ourselves why are we doing all this; we should treat all the citizens of India as one instead of us vs them.
One thing which can be said about Indians is that we don’t accept our faults and problems easily. For instance, if a minister or officer is asked to comment on such cases, they will never accept that this is an issue of racial discrimination.
For instance, once a Delhi MP(AAP leader) said that “If we really had any problem with black people we would have never shared houses with Tamilians”. Really?
The constitution has given equal rights to every citizen of India, and we must abide by it. Unfortunately, this sort of discrimination is not only common with respect to races and castes but is also done on the basis of language and region. For instance, in Mumbai, people from Bihar were attacked in 2008. And in 2018 the people of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh were attacked in Gurajat.
While it is quite impossible to eradicate racial discrimination completely, but we can at least try to reduce it to the minimum, and for that, we need to spread awareness among people about this sensitive issue.