The death of a 19-year-old architecture student in the south Indian city of Bengaluru, Karnataka, has brought into focus the country’s deeply rooted social tensions, issues of integration and, many say, widespread racism.
On April 18, Richard Loitam, a second-semester student at the Acharya NRV School of Architecture, was found dead in his hostel room. Two months later, as investigators still try to piece together the events leading up to the death, two consistent theories have emerged.
The night before Loitam’s death, he was involved in a fight with two students from his hostel. According to the first theory, which Loitam’s parents and supporters believe to be true, the young man’s death was racially motivated. Loitam, who hailed from the northeastern state of Manipur, had argued with his friends about a cricket match and was allegedly hit on the head so hard he suffered from fatal internal injuries. According to a preliminary post-mortem report, Loitam died due to brain haemorrhage caused by external blows.
The second theory, supported by Loitam’s institute and the police, says the student, two days before his death, met with an accident while riding his motorbike. Loitam, according to them, died of the injuries he sustained during the accident and not the fight, which was a minor scuffle.
On May 17, however, an autopsy report ruled out physical injuries and rather indicated cardiac arrest as the cause of death. Loitam’s parents, both doctors, have rejected the report, blaming the police and the institute of attempting to cover up what they have called the brutal murder of their eldest son.
Earlier this month, after pressure from protest groups, Bengaluru police handed over the case to the Crime Investigation Department (CID).
Loitam’s death, which has received unprecedented media interest in the country, has opened up a whole new debate on the reality of multicultural India, where stereotypes still dictate perceptions and social structures are viewed through the prism of race and caste.
Manipur is one of seven states that form India’s northeast, a region connected to the rest of the country by a mere 21-kilometre stretch of land in the state of West Bengal. Thus, geographically isolated, and culturally and ethnically different from the rest of the country, the region shares more than just borders with China, Myanmar and Bhutan. The effects of India’s economic boom have also failed to spill over to the region, reinstating long-held beliefs that the rest of the country simply does not care. Moreover, internal issues of insurgency — many armed groups still fight for secession from India — have intensified economic hardships, forcing many people to move out of the region and into other cities in the mainland to seek a better life and more opportunities. The clash of cultures arising from this migration could, according to one theory, have led to the death of Loitam.
According to A. Bimol Akoijam, an associate professor at the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, the cultural chasm between mainstream India and the northeast has existed for many years.
“Increasing contact will mean increasing confrontations. The Indian society is inherently racist, and issues such as cast and colour are ingrained in its psyche. Even south Indians are looked down upon by north Indians. Over and above that, people from the northeast look completely different. So prejudice and stereotypes will exist.”
Akoijam, who has lived outside Manipur for 27 years, says awareness, brought about especially by the media, is increasing. But he wonders if it is too little too late.
“It’s embarrassing that it is only after more than half a century of independence that people are starting to talk about the inclusion of the northeast in the mainstream,” he says. “When the social activist Anna Hazare fasted, it brought the whole country to a standstill. Only after this did the media start picking up on the story of Irom Sharmila, who has been fasting for 12 years to campaign for the abolishment of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act [AFSPA] in Manipur.”
The AFSPA confers special powers upon the Indian army, which is allowed to open fire on or use any kind of force, even if it causes death, against a person assumed to be acting against law or order in a disturbed area. Sharmila, whose hunger strike is now being called the world’s longest, has been on a fast-unto-death demanding the law to be repealed. She has been force-fed by the government through her nose since November 2000.
Though an official count does not exist, northeastern students in India’s metros number in the thousands.
Monika Khangembam, a media student in Bengaluru, was one of the catalysts that propelled the Loitam case into the spotlight. Her Facebook group, Justice for Richard Loitam, which she started a few days after his death, now has more than 207,000 members.
“We decided to start the group because so many things just didn’t add up. And we wanted to pressurise the authorities to act quicker and not take the case lightly because the victim was from the northeast,” she says.
Khangembam, also from Manipur, organised a silent protest in late April in Bengaluru, which more than 2,000 students attended. “It was amazing. For the first time, so many people from different states in the northeast came together as one. Richard united us. I will never forget it,” she says.
Both Akoijam and Khangembam say they have been at the receiving end of racial slurs and been victims of stereotyping in the cities they live in.
“I’ve been called so many names by people on the streets. [If you are from the northeast], landlords will ask you all sorts of humiliating questions about your private life and lecturers in universities will remind you that your seat could have gone to someone better,” says Khangembam, who recently met the minister of Human Resources Development, Kapil Sibal, to discuss issues of integration, and the problems faced by northeastern students.
Ashish Kumar, who runs a design consultancy in Dubai, says that when he was at a university in Delhi, there was almost no integration between other students and those from the northeast.
“I remember the professors having a really negative attitude towards them. If they asked them a question which they were not able to answer, the professors would say, ‘Go back, you are not wanted here.’
“And the sad thing was that most of the northeastern students had become used to this kind of treatment. No one raised an eyebrow, no one questioned it.”
For Prateek Sharma, a marketing manager based in Gurgaon, Haryana, mainstream India’s reaction to northeasterners is more defensive than offensive.
“In a typical Indian family you are told how to behave, what clothes to wear, whom to marry … And then we see our friends from the northeast who seem to do what they want, wear what they want and live with who they want. I think there is a sense of jealousy from which a defence mechanism springs, and we convince ourselves that their lifestyle is wrong,” he says. “If I told my parents that I wanted to marry a girl from the northeast, they would never agree.” Sharma recently got married to his girlfriend, from a north Indian community.
Pratyush Sarup, a design and lifestyle writer based in Dubai, says he understands why people from the northeast do not feel part of the mainland.
“For the longest time, for one excuse or another, terrain being the most common, the centre has not done much for the region, except obviously during election season or when there’s a strategic threat. If I were living there, I too would’ve asked, ‘What have they done for me lately?’ I say this from experience, as one of my closest friends is a girl from Nagaland I met in Delhi. They are made fun of, stared at due to their very fashion-forward dress sense or simply assumed to be sex workers. They’re made to feel like foreigners in their own land. One can only try to overcome [this alienation] by making a heartfelt effort to understand them. The government also needs to put actions where its mouth is. Indians also need to start being more accepting of India’s diversity,” he says.
But Wormila Jasmine Keishing, a northeasterner herself and an Indian Civil Services officer, says acceptance is a two-way street.
“I think we need to stop interacting only with people from our region. We need to step out of our comfort zones and mingle with people from other states as well,” she says. “I think limiting oneself to only people from one’s own community limits one’s worldview. It further increases the feeling of alienation and makes the differences seem more unbridgeable.”
Having lived for many years outside her home state Manipur, Keishing, whose grandfather Rishang Keishing is a former chief minister of the state, says the lack of basic information about the northeast is astounding. “Even among the most learned, whether it’s looking down upon us as uncivilised tribals, being wary of us as being Western or even heralding us as exotic beings, there is such an extensive degree of other-ing that takes place,” she says.
Yet, thanks to the media, social media and activism such as Khangembam’s, awareness is spreading.
“So many people have started posting their stories on our Facebook group, telling us they’ve found the courage to speak up against injustice and racial profiling,” Khangembam says. “After years of silently suffering because they are minorities, northeasterners have started to find their voice. As tragic as Richard’s murder is, it has led us to this point, which is a step forward.”
These voices of protest have also reached India’s parliament, where recently a debate was held on the plight of people from the northeast in the mainland. The inclusion of the region’s history and culture in school textbooks was one of the suggestions made. History also seems to be in the making. In the upcoming presidential elections in July 19, P.A. Sangma, a senior politician from the northeastern state of Meghalaya, will, for the first time, attempt to stake a claim on India’s presidency, its highest constitutional post. The odds, however, are stacked against him, as he will stand against present finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, who has been nominated by the ruling Congress party-led alliance. Sangma on the other hand, is supported by the main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Sangma, a 64-year-old tribal leader, has been an active player in national politics and is also the former speaker of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the parliament. If he wins, he has promised to actively champion the issue of the northeast’s isolation, among others. “I am appealing to the country’s conscience,” he said in an interview recently.
But according to journalist Priyali Sur, awareness of the problems of minorities is only limited to the urban population.
“The educated class may be talking and thinking about changing its perception of the northeast, but I don’t think there has been any change among the masses,” says Sur, a special correspondent with English broadcaster CNN-IBN, which pioneered the concept of citizen journalism in the country. “The other day I was travelling with a friend from Manipur, and my driver asked me almost mockingly: ‘Is this chinki madam Chinese or Nepali?’ So will a few media stories change all that? I don’t think so. The mentality of the masses needs to change. Change in the perception of just a few educated people is not going to make a difference.”
CNN-IBN has been actively following the Loitam case, also running a series of special packages on the northeast region. “The Loitam case was something that needed national attention and was hence highlighted. Our endeavour has always been to sensitise more and more people to the rights of the northeast and to stop its alienation.”
Akoijam believes a long-term solution for the problem is for laws to be enacted. “Awareness is good, but what we need is a law that tackles the issue of discrimination, not just of people from the northeast but also minorities in general.”
Khangembam says universities need to put proper induction programmes in place. “It all starts with ignorance, and then leads to prejudice. Thousands of students come from the northeast to the many educational institutions across India. The government and universities need to acknowledge that,” she says.
But for the family at the centre of all of this, the least they can hope for now is justice. “Richard’s murder has been a terrible loss to the family. Being the eldest son, he was the hope of his parents, which has been shattered,” says Bobby Loitam, an uncle. “His parents have still not come to terms with the loss. His mother still waits for his phone call every night.”
Attitudes will not change drastically, adds Bobby, who also went to a university in Delhi. “The very fact that even the prime minister denies that racism exists in India means we can’t really expect much from the general public. When the leaders of the country accept that racism and discrimination exist, and find a way to address the issues, then maybe things will change.”
Bobby, however, agrees that his nephew’s death has led to a kind of awakening, if only a small one. “We need a far wider revival. I can’t say whether anything positive will come of [this tragedy], but it is definitely a starting point,” he says. “Let’s hope justice is delivered to Richard and that no other Richard has to die his death.”
