Attack on Tanzanian students

07/02/2016

That the Union Government has responded promptly and adequately to the attack on Tanzanian students in Bangalore, is possibly the only saving grace in this shameful situation. The Prime Minister's Office has reportedly made a direct intervention and the Ministry of External Affairs is working with the Tanzanian High Commission to ensure that the aggrieved parties receive proper attention. It has also sent a team to Bangalore, where police officials are working to take the case to its logical conclusion. Five men have already been arrested and it is hoped that those responsible for this attack will be held accountable. Only then will black students in particular and foreign nationals in general feel safer in this country. Still, irrespective of the victims' nationality, the incident was a clear law and order failure, as a result of which a mob was allowed to go on the rampage. According to testimony from the victims reported by the news media, policemen were present as the students were harassed and one female physically assaulted by the mob. But the men in uniform did nothing. Notably, police personnel had earlier helped the Sudanese driver who had run over a local resident and stoked public anger, but later, when the mob turned on the Tanzanian group, which had nothing to do with the accident, they reportedly did not intervene. Of course, there are different versions of this story and an accurate description will become available once the investigations are complete, but there is no doubt that this was yet another case of African nationals being attacked because they were seen as easy target.
This brings us to the issue of racism. Karnataka's Minister for Home may want to write the incident off as an overblown case of road rage and mob justice, but the fact is that students were attacked also because they were black. As a country, for whatever reasons, we often tend to look down upon darker-skinned people. Window-dressing the problem or brushing it under the carpet doesn't make it go away. Unless we start dealing with it head-on, racism will continue to rear its ugly heads all over the country. For Africans in India, the situation is worse because not only are they black but also wholly unfamiliar to the average Indian. This is despite the fact that there are significant numbers of Africans, mostly students but also business people and long-term residents, living in many Indian cities Delhi, Pune and Hyderabad for example. However, there is negligible social interaction between Indians and their African neighbours. This alienation breeds fear and misunderstanding. We read in the newspapers about one busted criminal from an African country and quickly assume that all Africans engage in illegal activities. This problem can't be solved overnight but it has to addressed. The overwhelming public response of shame, sympathy and anger after the Bangalore attack, and, indeed, after the other such attacks that have happened with increasing frequency in recent years, indicates that this problem may thankfully be skin-deep. A bottoms-up, long-term mass awareness programme by civil society can go a long way in bridging the gap and bringing people together. In the short term, the state must crack the whip and send out a clear message that such incidents will not be tolerated.

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