This month alone, New Delhi, India’s cosmopolitan capital city, saw three incidents of racial attacks and racial abuse targeting citizens from the country’s Northeastern states. All three incidents occurred in posh South Delhi and not in some outlying suburb.

While casteism and caste discrimination are officially recognized as crimes and categorized as penal offenses under India’s laws, the blatant and widespread racial discrimination against Indian citizens from the Northeast continues to be overlooked.

India’s Northeast comprises the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura. This is a predominantly hilly region that is not only geographically remote from the rest of the country but also economically deprived and hardly integrated into the mainstream. The physical features of the Northeastern peoples are different from those in the rest of India.

This has prompted them to be described as “Chinki” and “Chinese” – both pejorative references to their small eyes, “foreign” looks, and supposed alienness. Racial prejudice underlies such perceptions, which are widespread and normalized across the rest of India. Such prejudice often manifests in name-calling, bullying, and even violence. Students from the Northeast are often denied accommodation in India’s metropolitan cities, due to their food habits — they are shunned for eating “stinky and blood-laced meat.”

On March 8, two young women, one from Manipur and the other from Assam, were walking near the Saket court complex in New Delhi, when a group of men assaulted them. The men had hurled racist and lewd slurs at the two women, and when one of the women objected to this, they were physically assaulted with belts.

The same evening, in a separate incident, a group of women from the Northeast were racially abused and attacked in Malviya Nagar, also in South Delhi. Police cases have been registered in both incidents.

Just days earlier, a video of three Arunachali women, now living in Delhi’s Malviya Nagar, being racially abused and insulted by their neighbors went viral. The women were getting some electrical repairs done in their flat when an argument ensued over debris that fell into the flat below. Harsh Singh and his wife, Ruby Jain, who were living in the flat below, can be seen in the video abusing the three women in vile language. They called the women “momos” (a popular snack in the Northeast), and referred to them as “massage parlor girls who worked for 500 rupees ($5)” — a euphemism for sex work, and alleged that they were running that “business” from their home.

The women refused to be cowed down by the couple’s intimidation, confronted them and demanded an apology. “They started targeting the Northeast. They kept saying that Northeastern people are illiterate. They even threatened to beat me up,” one of the women told news agency PTI. A police case has been lodged against the couple.

Recently, the Supreme Court of India acknowledged the increasing incidence of violence against Northeastern students. In response to a petition demanding a specific law against racial attacks on the lines of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the apex court said that those who attack people for their appearance, language, race, region, or place of origin must be dealt with an iron hand. While disposing of the petition, the court asked the attorney general to look into the matter.

The petition, a public interest litigation, was filed in the wake of the fatal stabbing of 24-year-old male Anjel Chakma, an MBA student from Tripura, in Dehradun in the northern state of Uttarakhand, for objecting to being called “Chinki” and “Chinese” by a group of men. Chakma had protested the name-calling, which was solely due to physical appearance. “We are Indians. What certificate should we show to prove that?” he told his attackers. He was stabbed several times and finally succumbed to his injuries on December 27, 2025.

Following Chakma’s killing, outraged citizens and especially youth from the Northeast took out protest marches in several cities demanding justice.

“Angered” by the spike in attacks on Northeastern youth in “mainland India,” Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma demanded strict action from the authorities. “Racial bullying should not be accepted as the new normal and we must act against it,” he said on X.

Unlike several decades ago, youth from the Northeast are now educated, vocal, and refuse to be intimidated when confronted with racist abuse. They assert their constitutional rights to equality. Although racist slurs by “mainland” Indians are as routine as caste prejudices, Indians refuse to acknowledge their severity, spread, and seriousness. Even when highlighted, the administration and civil society have treated racist slurs as “just another crime” without addressing their roots in racial prejudice.

When viewed in historical context, it was British colonial rule that established the racist categorization of Indians, terming those from the Northeast as “Mongoloid.” In many ways, this also exacerbated their marginalization and contributed to their being excluded from the national mainstream. Indian school textbooks and curriculum have tended to ignore the Northeast and its historical and cultural heritage, leading to ignorance of mainland Indians who pejoratively refer to them as foreigners and Chinese.

Moreover, for the patriarchal and conservative society of India, the visual presence of women from the Northeast, who are English-speaking, more vocal, liberated, and dressed in fitted clothes, appears alien and foreign.

Incidentally, much of the population in the northeastern states of Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Manipur is Christian, with several following tribal religions as well. There is also a considerable Hindu presence in states like Manipur and Assam.

The Northeast rarely makes it to the news in India. When it does so, it is during outbreaks of violence, such as the horrific ethnic violence in Manipur since 2024. Consequently, the Northeast states are perceived to be synonymous with tribal or ethnic conflict and secessionist movements. With a population of 51 million people and a diversity of 220 ethnic groups, Northeasterners proudly identify with their tribal identity, whether it is Khasi, Mizo, Naga, or Kuki. Cinema and OTT entertainment have only further ingrained these stereotypical images of the Northeast.

Long in the grip of multiple armed insurgencies, the states in India’s Northeast were neglected in terms of economic development, forcing young people to migrate out of the region to Indian cities for education and employment, especially in the service sector, be it the IT industry, hospitality, restaurants, and beauty parlors. This has made them more vulnerable to racist attacks, even in the IT hub of Bengaluru. Between 2012 and 2014, attacks against Northeastern students and workers created panic and triggered their exodus from Bengaluru. They returned eventually following assurances from the government and authorities.

It is not surprising then that the daily racial stereotyping, abuse, and violence they face in Indian cities have intensified the feelings of exclusion and alienation of Northeastern youth. It is indeed ironic that Indians are quick to condemn racism in the United States and elsewhere, but cannot see their own racism against fellow Indians from the Northeast.