‘Is India Racist?’: Murder, Migration and Mary Kom

Abstract

After the 2012 Olympics, Bronze Medal-winning boxer Mary Kom achieved national celebrity status in India. As a member of the Kom tribe, a Tibeto-Burman community from the Northeast region, she has come to represent a region long considered, and self-identifying, as outside the boundaries of the Indian nation. The same week that Mary Kom returned from London, thirty thousand Northeast migrants fled Indian cities fearing racially-motivated attacks. The socalled 'exodus' provoked rare conversations on racism within India. During this crisis, the figure of Mary Kom was invoked continually to challenge the existence of racism in India and posit paths to better integration in India's cities. These conversations paid little attention to the brutality perpetrated by the Indian state and military in the Northeast itself and the voices that publicised this brutality. Thus, while Mary Kom has come to represent a Northeast that Indians can embrace, figures such as dissident Irom Sharmila represent a Northeast that Indians wish to forget.

‘You people have brought the virus here’: Othering experience of northeastern people amid COVID‐19 in Delhi, India

“…Haokip ( 2020 ) argued that northeastern people are subject to differential treatment not because of misrecognition but because they are considered ‘lesser Indian’ in the mainland. They often face derogatory racial remarks such as ‘chinky’ (one who belongs to China) and other comments for their mongoloid‐like features (McDuie‐Ra, 2015 ; Samson, 2017 ; & Haiokip, 2020 ). They are also subject to discrimination and harassment for their culture, such as food habits, skin colour, language, and name.…”

“…Northeast Indian states, namely Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura, share their border with neighbouring countries such as China, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. The region is primarily dominated by indigenous people classified as 'Scheduled Tribes' under the Indian Constitution, followed by non‐tribals of East and Southeast Asian lineage and other migrants from different states of India and neighbouring countries (McDuie‐Ra, 2015 ; Ziipao, 2020 ).…”

Studying race in the field of South Asian religions

“…Especially given the large Christian and Muslim population and India's military occupation of the Northeast, could we understand colorism and Chopra's portrayal of the famed boxer from the Northeast, Mary Kom, to be profoundly about the racialization of religion and communalism? (McDuie‐Ra, 2015a). What we need to have are interdisciplinary conversations on racialized religious divides.…”