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mid-day editorial: Racism is just not funny

Updated on: 13 July,2016 07:31 AM IST  | 
MiD DAY Correspondent |

Outrage is brewing ever since a Manipuri woman complained that she faced racial harassment at the Delhi international airport, where an immigration official claimed she didn’t look Indian

mid-day editorial: Racism is just not funny

Outrage is brewing ever since a Manipuri woman complained that she faced racial harassment at the Delhi international airport, where an immigration official claimed she didn’t look Indian. The woman, identified as Monika Khangembam, revealed her experience in a Facebook post that has since gone viral.


She was heading to Seoul in South Korea for a conference when the immigration official stopped her and made racist remarks. Thinking he was being funny, he then quizzed her about the states in India in a bid to “know her Indianness”.


It is shocking that an immigration official made such comments. One has to remember that the airport is the first point of contact for tourists; it makes a deep first impression on visitors. If officials are unprofessional enough to make comments about how people look and think these puerile questions are funny, it does not bode well. These personnel need to go in for sensitivity training.


Closer home, in Mumbai, this is a disappointingly familiar scenario for people from the North East, who continue to face derogatory remarks and stereotypes because of their oriental features. Such racism is born out of ignorance and many North-Easterns said they tend to dismiss the comments. But there’s no denying that it is hurtful. Most of all, there is the disappointment that they are treated as outsiders and are shunned.

While the verbal taunts hurt, it is shocking that some of them are targeted physically too, and have had to live in fear. A few months ago, this paper had reported how a Manipuri woman was assaulted by a stranger who first spat at her and then dragged her by her hair in public, while people just stood by. Even the police resisted filing an FIR for days. The woman said she had faced such racism several times in this so-called cosmopolitan city.

We need to get aggressive about stamping out this kind of stereotyping. Let us celebrate differences, not denigrate them.

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