By Subhash Chopra
India’s proud boast of Atithi Devo Bhava (the guest is like god) lies exposed once again. The spate of recent attacks on African residents in Gautam Budh Nagar or Greater Noida on the outskirts of Delhi has brought out the naked prejudices — and fears — that we are heir to.
Accepting the foreigners as equal citizens, far from honouring the atithis, has been a difficult test. It looks we have failed that test yet again. Over 4,000 Africans, mostly students at various private institutes and colleges, stay in the area, out of about 25,000 all over India. Many of them hail from Nigeria whose envoy in India was promptly assured of swift action by the External Affairs Ministry brass in Delhi. Police action on the spot has seldom, if ever, saved the situation. The cops stand, watch and wait for orders to come from somewhere above, after the damage is wellnigh done.
The latest eruption so close to the national Capital, happened following the death of a local 17-year-old class XII student Manish Khari on Saturday (March 25) after cardiac arrest. The Africans came under sudden attack by local residents who blame Manish’s death due to drugs allegedly supplied by the Africans. Local anger turned into violence on Sunday but the worst came on Monday at Greater Noida’s Ansal Plaza Mall, following a protest by the Africans over the detention and later release of two of their colleagues by the police. The release of the duo on bail ignited the mob attack in which six African students were injured and later treated at nearby Kailash Hospital. Two of them, including 21-year old Economics student Endurance Amarawa, were treated for head injuries.
The list of attacks on our guests from the continent of Africa is shamefully long. The national Capital has a history of its own. Three of them since 2014 stand out as sharp reminders. The 2014 incident of AAP MLA Somnath Bharti leading a midnight drive, with the police in tow, to bust an alleged drugs and prostitution racket involving an innocent Ugandan woman living in South Delhi’s Khirki area tops the list of vigilante actions of local leaders. The same year in September saw three young Africans, two from Gabon and one from Burkina Faso, beaten up by a mob right outside Rajiv Chowk Metro station in the heart of the Capital in full view of the police who after a year of investigation closed the case for want of a single witness despite video footage going viral. In the third incident, a 23-year-old Congolese national was beaten to death with bricks and stones in Vasant Kunj area after, what the police said, an argument with some local people.
In the aftermath of the latest Noida episode, the Association of African Students in India took to smart phones and sent out an advisory to fellow students to stay indoors and not venture out – even for food and water. The association said it was arranging “free food and water supply to the needy ones at the doorsteps.”
What messages the students have sent back home to Africa is anybody’s guess. The reaction of a Nigerian resident in South Delhi’s Khirki area to a reporter’s question is bitterly instructive: “Why do you remember us only when something like this makes headlines? We are nothing more than ‘black monkeys’ for Indians and we know it now. You will forget us tomorrow… I do not feel safe in India at all.”
India’s diplomats, ministers and other leaders may do their best to save the country’s reputation but damage-control in the era of smart phones is damned difficult. Short-term, it is simply impossible. The long-term answer is even harder.
Let us not pretend that it is a clash of cultures and blame it on other people’s food habits, love for loud music or even drug problem of a minority among them. As hosts we also have different food habits; in terms of music our loudspeakers from the top of temples, mosques, gurdwaras, baratghars and marriage venues are no less shrill than anyone else’s. Nor are we completely innocent about drugs. A minority among us is also victim of the same weakness. For all these deficits in any community, including the foreign guests, let the law take its course. Go and report it to the police and other authorities, once, twice or as many times as it takes. But no vigilante mob action, please! Taking law into your own hand is the road to anarchy.
What we need is a mindset change. Let’s admit it: we are deeply prejudiced when it comes to a question of colour. Our matrimonial advertisements in newspaper columns reveal our inner thinking day in and day out. We need a massive long-term educational drive among all our communities.
Neither last nor least is the requirement of special hostel accommodation for foreign students who are often at the mercy of private landlords and their prejudices. Wherever feasible, foreign students should be provided rooms in normal hostels of colleges, with common rooms, libraries and other facilities. Delhi University alone has 60 colleges, many of them with hostels. A few rooms for foreign students can always be reserved. That way the foreign guests could get a chance to interact with Indian students. The walls of separation need to be broken down. Too often the African students are lost in ghettos. That leads to alienation and mutual suspicions and prejudices. Urgent steps are required to maximise foreign students’ interaction with the host community. Not just by arranging annual functions but by arranging common living facilities. Both the Central and state governments need to spend thought and money to provide such accommodation to make the foreign guests feel at home and welcome.
Time also for pandits, moulvis, padres, teachers and all leaders to sit up daily and look inwards to fight the apartheid mindset by sending out the message of brotherhood, the true path of all religions!
(The author is a freelance journalist and author of ‘India and Britannia’ and other writings.)
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