The Challenge of Being a ‘Chinki’ in Dilli

TSERING EDEN
“Chingles Hotline [Call me. I know you want to.]”
These words appear in bold against a bright yellow background accompanied by a smiling “Oriental-looking” girl staring right at the reader. The phone number in a larger font is placed at the centre of this advert published in a leading national daily’s New Delhi edition a few weeks ago. There is no mention of what this “hotline” is about or other such details leaving everything to the reader’s imagination.
Prejudice, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is ‘a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience’, and can therefore be said to be an imagined idea of what a people, place, profession etc., is like. The advertisement in question aptly plays with this mix of prejudice and imagination to achieve what it wants to. The ad ran just for a day, but it signifies what has been happening for the past many years and is still happening in the National Capital Region of New Delhi. People from the North East Region of the country, women in particular, fight not just the heat, dust and everyday pains but the deep prejudices held against them by the people of the so-called ‘mainland’.
Seemingly harmless, this sort of warped representation in the popular media actually perpetuates and deepens the already existing prejudice, if not in the conscious then definitely the subconscious minds, of its consumers. The fragmented but in-your-face association of the word “Chingles” [ref chinki], the model used, the underlying [or perhaps obvious] meaning of a ‘hotline’, all come together in the readers mind to form an idea that later turns into opinion that is miles away from reality.
In reality, this kind of off-handed misrepresentation leads to numerous rapes, attempted rapes and molestation cases going unreported. The North East Support Centre and Helpline [Delhi] website [www.nehelpline.net] carries records of some cases that came to them and in most of these cases, no FIRs were lodged with the police. The denial of even lodging an FIR or First Information Report which is the first step and plays a vital role in the successful investigation of a case, obliterates any hope for justice.
Why this denial?
News magazine Tehelka’s latest expose on what the policemen of the national capital think of rape, especially the victims, explains this. In a Gurgaon policeman’s words, interviewed during Tehelka’s two week sting operation, “Yahan pe Darjeeling aur Nepal tak ki ladkiyan business purpose se aye hai… wo jaate bhade pe hain. Baad mein paisa nahi mila to rape case bata diya jata hai (Girls from Darjeeling and Nepal have come here for business purposes. They go with men for money. Later, when the money is not sufficient, it becomes a rape).”
The Tehelka story focuses on the callous, insensitive and debasing attitude of policemen which translates into “flawed first information reports [FIRs], erroneous procedures in collating medical evidence and shoddy investigation”.
Prejudice comes in the way of fair delivery of justice as proven by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) records cited in the story which shows a dismal 34.6 percent conviction rate in rape cases in the capital. When you belong to the North East, Darjeeling, Ladakh or even Nepal, this general prejudice, accentuated by racial discrimination, elevates the problem to a whole new level.
This racial discrimination is a larger problem that prevails in the capital and remains unaddressed to this day. The recent racial profiling that took place during the anti-China protests in the city which saw a large number of ‘Tibetan-looking’ persons getting arrested or detained holds proof. A Shahrukh Khan gets detained at the New York airport for a few hours and it makes national news but the scores of North-Easterns who wound up in police stations across the capital about a month back created no stir as it rightly should have. This writer, on a visit to Delhi at the time, was lucky not to face any unpleasant situation, but was advised by friends to hide the religious threads and pendant [typically Buddhist, therefore running the risk of being mistaken for a Tibetan] around her neck to avoid rousing the suspicions of the Delhi police. Avoid and ignore are some of the keywords that North-Easterns are quite familiar with in the city.
To conclude, Chingles is a mouth freshener/chewing gum by the makers of Rajni Gandha pan masala and the advert ran for one day i.e 01 April. A call to the printed phone number was met by an automated reply which had a woman telling you, in a flirtatious tone, that it was an April Fool’s Day prank, that you had been fooled and finally that you should try their newest product - Chingles. Make any sense?

ENOUGH!

Stop Discriminating People from the North-East India is a group that began two years ago on popular social networking site Facebook and seeks to spread awareness about the region via “constructive engagement with the government, national institutions and the conscious citizens of India”. An update posted on the page on Sunday reads:

“Delhi police known for racial profiling: Yesterday I got harassed by two Delhi cops (lead by Senior Police Constable Naresh Kumar) who frisked me and my young DU student friend William without any reason at a grocery market nearby Ber Sarai flyover around 8 pm. 

When I asked why? They abused back by saying “Chup (Shut up)” and questioned why I was carrying a Rs.500 note and said to each other “Lena ke liye gaya (They went for buying that)”. What’s that supposed to mean? Can’t I go to buy vegetables or food? Or do they think north-eastern people are habitual offenders? 

Earlier I used to ignore such ill-treatment by the Delhi cops, but lately I’ve realized that it was partially our fault for not reacting to such situations, which has further increased their wrong perceptions. 

Anyway, it is not too late, let us set this as an example to our fellow brothers and sisters to raise their voice against such discriminatory attitude of Delhi police. Keeping quiet will only alienate us further more. 

RAISE your voice and let justice triumph!” 

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