Double Battle: Northeast Fights Both Corona And Racism

Before the first case of the novel corona virus was detected in Northeast India, the people of this region, particularly students, young working men-women staying in Indian metros felt the brunt of the pandemic much early. Surprisingly, it was not this deadly virus, which caused trouble to them, but it was something else, though connected with corona, which brought trouble and trauma to their lives. It is a social disease called racism, which was always there in India since a long time it found its new host among ignorant citizens of the country during the time of corona against the people of Northeast India. Northeast Today writes

On 22nd March, on the day of Janata curfew called by PM Narendra Modi to curb the coronavirus pandemic, when a 25 years old Northeastern woman stepped out of her house in North Delhi's Vijaynagar to get some groceries along with her two friends faced racist attack and had to experience a horrible incident. A man, on white scooty probably chewing paan spat on her when she was on her way to the market and called her ‘Corona’ before fleeing the spot.

As per media reports, the victim while recalling the traumatic incident said, “Hewhizzed past me, and spat the paan on my face and shouted “corona”, and left. It was quite a deliberate attack and I was too shocked to react.” An M Phil student of the Department of English, from Delhi University, had been living in Delhi for over seven years and had never experienced anything like this before, though racial attack on people of Northeast in Delhi is not rare. Delhi police had registered a case and arrested the accused in this matter.

Unfortunately, racial attacks related to corona on Northeast Indians didn’t stop with this single incident. A series ofsuch attack were reported in various parts of the country where people of Northeast India were called, ‘corona virus’ and were harassed, abused and traumatized. Though attack on Northeastern due to their looks is not new in Indian cities, such hate crimes multiplied within short span of time amid the corona pandemic. The Northeast Support Centre and Helpline, which was established in 2007 to assist people from northeastern Indian states, has been inundated with distress calls from across the country during the lockdown period. I get five to six phone calls about racial abuse almost every day, Alana Golmei, who manages the helpline, told to media.