For people from Northeast India, an unfinished fight against prejudice

Over 10 years after the Delhi Police established a specialised cell in an effort to crack down on racially motivated crimes against people from Northeast India, the numbers tell a dismal story. As reported in this newspaper, only 33 cases out of the 2,656 FIRs filed between 2014 and 2026 have resulted in convictions. More than half of those accused have remained “untraced”. This glacial progress stands in stark contrast to the continuing experience of discrimination faced by people from the Northeast; earlier this year, two women from Assam reported being assaulted and subjected to racist slurs in Nehru Place, and three women from Arunachal Pradesh complained about racist abuse from neighbours in Malviya Nagar.

The persistence of such complaints, combined with the poor rate of progress on reported crimes, point to serious shortfalls in  existing mechanisms. Earlier this year, the Union Home Ministry urged cities across the National Capital Region to appoint nodal officers to address racism faced by people from the Northeast. Delhi already has a nodal officer at the rank of joint commissioner who is responsible for coordinating with its 15 police districts.  Gurugram, too, has a helpline that is handled by an officer of the deputy commissioner rank. What is missing is awareness, leading to a culture of impunity and a deepening trust deficit between law enforcement and affected communities.

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All too often, as youth from the Northeast, like their counterparts from elsewhere in India, move to different parts of the country for education and jobs, they find their experiences being shaped by slurs and suspicion, housing and employment discrimination,  even violence. In 2014, the M P Bezbaruah Committee, formed after the killing in Delhi of 19-year-old Nido Taniam from Arunachal Pradesh, warned that only time-bound action against racial crime would keep the prejudice from festering and fuelling the “already strong feeling of alienation” among youth from the Northeast. Yet, it takes a tragedy — like the stabbing of 24-year-old Anjel Chakma from Tripura in Dehradun last year — to acknowledge the cost of ignoring these faultlines. Outrage can serve as a necessary driver of urgency, but it’s not  a substitute for the granular work of better outreach, sensitisation of police personnel to diversity and greater transparency and accountability.