Justice to Northeast Indian victims of racism – A distant dream!
By Dr. ALANA GOLMEI | August 09, 2018
As I stood in the courtroom with yet another impending fight in mind, I found myself thinking about the numerous stories and cases I've handled and seen throughout the years of fighting against racism and the discrimination of people from Northeast India in other parts of the country, specifically Delhi, where I'm based. The pain, the struggle, all the lives lost and the large, looming fact that, for us, victory in the strife for justice remains an unfulfilled goal. It made me think about how something as basic a requirement to human existence as justice has become an institutionally prohibited territory to those who seek and ask for it. It made me realize over again how this system of racism has become a huge, multilayered web that has been built from endless ends and is held up by visible as well as invisible support systems in a big fat show of hierarchy and division.
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It took me back to one particular case in 2014 when a northeastern woman was molested by a lawyer in Delhi. Even trying to tell her story became a dangerous ordeal as things turned ugly and sour quickly when the student community accompanied her to Tis Hazari court to give a statement under section 164. They were unable to do so when more than ten lawyers ganged up and physically attacked the student leaders and representatives. Another lady lawyer was beaten too and the lady magistrate was left deeply frightened and unable to assert any authority. The Police were mute spectators to the whole incident. Navigating through the immense injustice and ill-treatment rendered to the Northeast people, the victim managed to get a statement finally recorded some time afterwards. But we were met with a closed door during attempts for further proceedings when information was received that the woman had expired, putting the case in an even more disadvantageous position. The case could not attain any witnesses or family participation as they lived thousands of miles away in their home state. The case is still being processed though it has been reduced to a sad formality now and the only thing I can do during the court hearings is seethe in anger as I look upon the smug, victorious, entitled face of the accused.
This is only one example among many other 'sinking' cases, which continue to increase in number with time, which have been disregarded, dismissed, disrespected and even destroyed by the very ones who claim to be protectors and executors of law and justice.
Another such example takes us to the recent incident in Bangalore in March 2017 where a student from Arunachal Pradesh was physically and verbally abused by his landlord, a lawyer. He was beaten up and forced to lick the landlord's shoes while the latter made derogatory and racist statements against the boy and his parents. It makes me question how things can be brought into order and how justice can ever be served when people like these are still the ones at the front line carrying out these crimes. While the humiliation and hurt this boy and his family faced are inexcusable, we still consider this case fortunate because he did not lose his life and it is frightening to think how it has come to this and how little we would settle for because of the circumstances.
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Three years ago in 2014, when Nido Tania, another young student from Arunachal Pradesh was abused and ultimately killed in a racist attack which started with the accused persons attacking him because of his hairstyle. I remember his mother tearfully saying to the hundreds gathered there at Jantar Mantar, Delhi for his first memorial service, "Let this be the last time a mother goes through this pain."
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Standing there and listening to her, we all shared that dream, we all hoped. But just four months later that year in Kotla Mubarakpur Market, Delhi, a twenty-nine year old man from Manipur, Akha Salouni, was beaten to death by a group of men who were strangers to him while shouting racist remarks. Salouni would not have lost his life had it not been for his looks.
To talk about the causal factors of motives such as these would be to open up a whole new level of questioning and discussion, which too has been done over and over. So, with the larger picture of racism against the people of North-East India at the heart of this discussion, I would like to dive into specifics for the moment and express my dream for this cause, which is to walk out of the courtroom one day with the knowledge that justice has finally been served to the rightly deserving.
ABOUT THE WRITER: Dr. Alana Golmei, General Secretary, Northeast Support Centre & Helpline. The writer can be reached at alana.golmei@gmail.com
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