Racial discrimination towards people from the North-East is not a new phenomenon in capital Delhi.
I share my story of being abused and spat at by our neighbours over an insignificant dog bite!
I never really knew what great extents mainland Indians go to, to harass North-East Indians in Delhi until it happened to me.
Living in Gandhi Vihar, I never felt the need to take caution against harassment or discrimination from mainland Indians as many North-East Indians resided there. Everything changed on Sunday morning when a neighbor who has been harassing my family for months tried to kill our dog in front of us!
The harassment from this neighbor was always ignored by us as we had neither the time nor felt the need to argue back.
Earlier in the night (after 12 midnight), our dog had bitten the daughter of this neighbor (25-30 yrs.) as she was walking with a big dog (bite hardly even visible, a scratch). Then she started shouting and throwing abuses at us calling us “people who are like dogs”, “mannerless like dogs”, waking up the whole alley at 1 O’clockin the morning.
She then came back with a drunken old man who created more ruckusand tried to slap my sister;then came her mother banging our gate at 1:30 am. Finally, they left us after we told them we will pay for the treatment in the morning if they bring the prescription.
We never saw the doctor’s prescription in the morning, instead we saw this old woman come to our house and bang our door, for what reason? I still don’t know. The woman sandwiched my dog between the doors and tried to kill him and she refused to let go of the doors in front of us! I could see my dog not making a sound after two yelps and a bleeding left hand (my dog went mute for sometime and now limps, wags his tail). According to this woman our dog bites everyone in the alley but refused to point out anyone in particular.
At 5 pm they were supposed to take her daughter to the doctor. They came at 7:30 with sticks in their hands (sticks to thrash who?). We told them since they didn’t come at 5pm we will take them to doctor the next day morning and that is when all hell broke loose.
Women in the alleys came up with ridiculous accusations that we never chain the dog inside the house. Need we chain our own dog inside the house? What rights do they have to say that?Police turned up, every man walking on the road pointed their fingers at us without even a clue about what had happened, none of the neighbors came forward to speak for us. They knew very well that my family and my dog had done nothing wrong. The caccination card of my dog held no value as the ruckus created by the woman caught more attention.
As people from my community gathered, the ruckus reduced but reasoning with the Indian was impossible.
Getting the daughter injection worth 1500 is not an issue but the manner in which we were treated has left us with an emotional scar. Every women spat on us, abused us! Does this mean we cannot live with respect if we don’t have 20 strong men in my house? Harassed and discriminated against for Rs. 1500? How much longer do the North East Indians have to suffer before we become equals?