Top Problems faced by North Eastern Indians in Delhi

A lot of North Eastern people come to Delhi for education or job purpose and undoubtedly they face a lot of problems everyday here. When Delhi is one to accept everyone what causes it to step back when people are from North East India. Let’s see what are the problems faced by North Eastern people in Delhi.

1) Called ‘Chinese’ or ‘Chinkies’

North Indian People have different facial features from mainland people. Most of time North Eastern people have been the victim of such racism. Just because their features match to Chinese you don’t have any right to mock on them or make them feel foreigners in their own country.

2) Different dialect of Hindi

Since they are from different part of India, they are not perfect in speaking Hindi as other Delhi people. Just take an analogy of how much your English version differ from the English spoken in America. And what if they start mocking at your accent. Same inferiority is felt by north eastern people living in Delhi.

3) Question on what they eat

Several time North eastern people have been targeted by saying ‘Momo ‘. As if ‘Momos ‘are the only dish they eat in whole day. If it seems less people reach to their other eating habits and present a mockery of their Dog and insects eating.

4) Westernized lifestyles

Most of North eastern Indians are liberals. Their lifestyle reflects western culture.Especially North Eastern girls who come to Delhi for more Education or job opportunities are offended for their dress up. Come on,India is a democratic country and you are not the one to decide for them what should they wear or not.

5) Harassment is common issue

North eastern people are harassed and humiliated verbally as well as physically. Though Delhi is gaining popularity in sexual assaults and number keep on increasing every day. In that also, number of north Eastern girls suffering from such cases of eve teasing are more. People have stereotype thinking against them and have given them a tag of ‘easily available’ because of their westernized attitude.

6) Not taken seriously

Another problem faced by North eastern people is that they are not taken seriously by law enforcing bodies. ‘They are from farthest part of India and are not a born Delhites so we need not to listen them so carefully’ remains the attitude of law enforcing people against them.

We barely know the name of states that come under North East India and so we treat them as people of some other country. Just because these states are located geographically far from mainland and their culture is totally different from rest of India we do not have any right to boycott them. They are part of this big family called ‘India’ as much as we are.  Stand with them and support them!

By Anushikha Chaudhary