Recently, 29-year-old fitness enthusiast and actor Milind Soman‘s wife Ankita Konwar, who belongs to Assam, posted about the racism that North-East Indians face in their own country. While sharing her powerful message, she mentioned that the only time north-east Indians get accepted as Indians is when they win medals for the country.
As per TNIE, this statement was reportedly made in reference to Manipur wrestler Mirabai Chanu, who won a silver medal for India at Tokyo Olympics.
While making her point, Ankita Konwar mentioned:
“If you’re from Northeast India, you can become an Indian ONLY when you win a medal for the country. Otherwise we are known as ‘Chinky’ ‘Chinese’ ‘Nepali’ or a new addition ‘Corona’. India is not just infested with casteism but racism too. Speaking from my experience. #Hypocrites (sic)”
Many people agreed with her point of view, and shared their personal experiences of facing or having witnessed racism:
Yip! Totally agree!
— Angel T (@angel_t_22) July 27, 2021
I was telling my husband the other day of the same. I studied at Wilson College and we had a lot of students from the eastern states and the kind of names they were called, was atrocious.
People of the NorthEast often face hatred many times
— Bhushan Ghongade (@bhush0417) July 27, 2021
In the early days of Corona many incidents took place…. it’s so shameful things
Let’s hope these things change later
I agree with you on this. My brother in law is from North East his name is Chayan and many of the people including our family members use to ask my aunt ” Tera damaad cheeni hai ki japaani ??!!”
— Ghost_Rider (@Guru_S0205) July 27, 2021
Yes indeed we Indians love to hate each other. My wife who hails from Nagaland was addressed as Chinese just yesterday all we did was to smile and walk away But the sad thing was this was an educated affluent as they would like to call themselves Unfortunately no vaccine for this
— Vivek Anand (@asupandavivek) July 28, 2021
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