Over 1,000 Delhi-based students from the North-East on Saturday gathered outside the shop in Lajpat Nagar area of South Delhi where an Arunachal Pradesh student Nido Taniam was beaten.
Protesting peacefully with grace and discipline, the young students served a reminder of the insecure conditions under which people from the North-East of India have to live with racial abuses in the metros.
After they realized their protest was disrupting the traffic at the busy ring road, they shifted the venue to outside Lajpat Nagar police station. Refusing to believe that death of Taniam was an isolated incident, they believed the death was a symptom of the pervasive racial discrimination that people from the region face in metropolis.
Compared to the usual demonstrations that throw city out of gear and protesters make ever effort to register themselves by breaking police barricades, these students used a typical ‘Gandhigiri’, sat peacefully, displaying placards and raising slogans. Even the rolling cameras did not tempt them to turn violent. The North-Eastern states often fight against each other, but in Delhi, all of them had come together to display anger at the sense of insecurity. Yet they take pride in calling themselves Indian. “We are angry but that does not mean we become indiscipline,” said Mark, a protester.
