Discrimination against people from the Northeast States residing in Delhi-NCR is overwhelmingly in the form of ethnic and racial prejudice. It is largely manifested through use of offensive names, a first-of-its-kind quantitative survey has revealed.
Yet, only four per cent reported the discriminatory act to the police, while 24 per cent shared their experience with a friend or family member. The data revealed that majority of respondents were from Manipur, followed by Assam and Nagaland. . The Capital’s restaurants, and sporting and public places appear to be the hotspots of discrimination.
The Delhi-NCR Discrimination Survey 2014, prepared by Reachout Foundation, will be released on Saturday by National Human Rights Commission chairperson K.G. Balakrishnan.
The survey was conducted across 30 locations in Delhi from September to October. It has found that more than half of the 1,000 respondents who were surveyed perceived discrimination as reality.
Sixty per cent — the highest percentage — of the individuals surveyed who reported that they had been discriminated against were between the ages of 22 and 30. The majority of those surveyed were students who had relocated to Delhi to pursue a university education, with most studying at Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“I was really amazed by the finding that the respondents felt they were being looked upon with suspicion. That to me is a huge negative since so far we have heard that people are told they look different not suspicious,” said Kishalay Bhattacharjee of the Reachout Foundation who designed and analysed the survey along with Ashish Ranjan from the Centre for Policy Research.
The survey found that the major cause for discrimination that emerged was prejudice and lack of awareness about people from the Northeast. “The majority of the respondents were educated, so we found that they were rationalising the reason for the discrimination as lack of understanding and awareness,” he said. The respondents noted that education is the most preferred way of dealing with this problem.
The most positive response, Mr. Bhattacharjee pointed out, is respondents noting that Delhi can be free from such discrimination, and the government and social bodies are an integral part of this process.
The survey notes that at least 47 per cent respondents hope the city can be free from discrimination in the future, while 30 per cent have negative feelings regarding this and they think that it cannot be free from this attitude.
