But, Is it necessary to speak-up?

Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow – River Phoenix

The deadly Covid-19 has gripped the planet with fear, but a civilization of 1.4billion people has no time to think twice about a coughing or sneezing neighbour, as it finds itself battling a vicious virus of hate and mistrust. New Delhi has witnessed the spark of communal riots and the viral reactions that followed such horrific incidents have created ripples of rage and anxiety among netizens in India. A (misunderstood or misrepresented) legislation poses a threat in catalysing a civil war on the lines of religion and identity, and I sit here dispirited in a foreign land, ironically studying an LLM in conflict resolution.

The truth is, no matter who you are or where you live or what God you pray to or don’t, you are concerned about the loss of humanity in certain pockets of the country, and you are afraid it will trickle down to your region, your neighbourhood, your family and even worse, your own self. The physical unrest in one corner of the country has provoked our minds and shaken our souls as we know we will have to all face the test, someday soon. Some of us are ashamed of our friends’ political orientations and hidden racist insecurities, while others are shocked to learn of our families’ secret ideologies and value systems.

You can try to shut yourself from the world, ignore the chaos surrounding you or sprinkle some humour on everything you hear and watch, but you can’t do it for too long – not if you’re human, not if it begins to haunt you. Many of us have taken to Facebook and Instagram expressing our fear or rebellion, while others are tweeting furiously about how they condone or condemn the brutal scenes which have gone viral on social media.

There are many of us who have not spoken out on social media or even to a friend over a call or even to our families, but, internally, we feel shattered. It could be the fear of being persecuted, the anxiety of losing age-old friends, the tensions of everyday life – work deadlines and home responsibilities, the pressure of excelling at examinations and job interviews, the risk of being ignored for a raise or fired by your employer – or it could simply be a sense of hopelessness and frustration that we can’t make a change, that our voice is just an insignificant drop in an ocean full of bigger influencers.

It is perfectly alright to relate to any of the reasons listed above.

It is also perfectly fine to not relate to any of the reasons listed above and simply say, “We chose not to speak – not because we don’t care, but because we really don’t care!”

Yes, for many of us, life goes on. We wake up every morning going about minding our business like we always have, choosing to live in peace like we always do, deciphering right from wrong without letting our moral compass be prejudiced by negative energy. No news we read, watch, or hear from external sources affect our relationships with friends and acquaintances at our workplace or strangers we meet on the street. We don’t feel the need to go out of our way to be secular or liberal, as that’s the lifestyle that flows through our veins. We don’t care who you are, where you are from, who do you worship, how you dress, what language you speak, where were you born, what you eat or drink, why you don’t wear your patriotism on your sleeve- as long as we can connect with you on a human level, and that’s what we plan to keep on doing in these times of a humanitarian crisis.

We understand the rationale and good intentions of some of our friends who think it is necessary to speak up, but we rather spend our time and energy living in freedom and creating memories with our friends from diverse communal backgrounds. We prefer being kind with the food delivery guy who was late, than slamming a random stranger on Twitter who swore at a food delivery guy. We prefer greeting our taxi driver with respect, than take out our phone and shoot a video of fanatic youth beating up a cabbie and spread hate on Facebook.We prefer gobbling up savoury and sweet delicacies at religious festivals celebrated by our friends, than re-posting Instagram stories expressing anger about something bizarre and ridiculous a certain religious leaders said of another religion. We prefer cracking positively racist jokes on our closest friends in front of them, than joining hate groups on WhatsApp and instigating disgusting chatter based on unauthentic videos.

Since health organizations around the world are putting out precautionary measures to tackle human contagions of the Coronavirus and suggestions to build our immunity, here are few tips, from some of us to the rest of us, to tackle human contagions of Communal-Hatred virus and rebuild humanity.

• Wash yourself from any negative energyyou have gathered on your contact with the outside world. Don’t take it for granted that something you have watched or heard, or something that was said to you, won’t affect you. Suppressing a negative experience will only help nurture the virus of mistrust and hate. Speak to someone who practices the same liberal and secular philosophy as you.
• Quarantine yourself with positive energy– news of hope, peace, progress, courage – and optimistic personalities. Unfollow, unsubscribe, uninstall anything that is affecting your mental state of mind. If you think the news is not letting you sleep, turn off the notifications. If you feel nauseous listening to the rabid discussions at the dinner table, excuse yourself – feel free to politely express your discomfort and lack of appetite for such bigoted views.
• Emergency Helpline– Feel like you suffering from any of the symptoms of the Communal-Hatred violence, don’t infect the whole world. Call up a friend from a different religious background – speak to them of your honest thoughts and feelings. There is no better way to dispel hatred than to rebuild trust. Grab a coffee, go for a movie, do things that you always do to hang out with the friend. Laugh about your insecurities, cry about the pain you feel for those suffering. Acknowledge and appreciate their perspectives as well, which might not be the same as yours.

These measures should not be misconstrued by our more vocal soldiers of humanity as our indifference to the injustices meted out to the people. To prioritise ourselves and then help educate others around us, by having conversations and calling out the hatred and bigotry from amongst our own family and friends, we help contain these bigger injustices in our own small ways, and not necessarily through social media.

This is no time to judge the ones who stay silent. Not all of us have the words and the voice to express those words. Some of us prefer to live with action and affection, peacefully going about our daily lives and hope to contribute to the same goal – the restoration of trust and humanity in this country.

Just another day ‘Being Sikkimese’

By Younita Pandey

“Smash and Grab”, as historians would call the annexation of Sikkim as the 22^nd state of the Indian Union on 16^th May 1975, Sikkim, today, is one of the fastest growing states in terms of GDP and education.

We aren’t just proud of our rich culture, our giant mountains, sacred rivers and beautiful landscape; we are also equally gratified by the fact that we are the most peaceful state in the country.

Does that mean our lives are simple? Not really. If there was anything that led us to experience contradictory feelings, it probably surfaces from internal identity crisis we suffer.

“Where are you from?” I get asked often, when I travel,

“I am from Sikkim,” I answer proudly.

“Ooh! What a wonderful place. I’ve always wanted to visit Sikkim,” comes a reply from a newly-acquainted educated Indian

Other literates ask, “Do we need a passport to enter your country?

It isn’t just me encountering these ignorant people, but you could ask any Sikkimese living in any part of the country be it Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Goa, Hyderabad, one in three of us has definitely been asked this question, “Is Sikkim in India?”

I recall an incident with a tailor who asked me where Sikkim was. Finding it too hard to help him form a geographically precise map in his head, I said Sikkim is near Tibet, which is near China.

The tailor replied, “If Sikkim is near China, why do you look like Paki?”  Initially such incidents sound funny, but after a certain point of time, it gets really frustrating to explain that Sikkim is an amalgam of different communities, predominantly Bhutias, Lepchas and Nepalis.

Of the Nepali community, the chettris and bahuns, defy the usual ‘north-eastern’ look and hey presto! We happen to have big eyes.

“So you are from Nepal then!” comes the prompt response from a smug face which unmistakably adds, “I knew you weren’t from the north-east!”

There is a phrase in Nepali which goes, “Bhalu lai puran sunaunu”, which translates, “Explaining things where ignorance persists perpetually is similar to reading out the holy books to a bear.”

So how do we deal with issues such as these?

Well, we happen to be peace-loving people and hence, we simply ignore questions like that. Usually we take then with a pinch of salt and either ignore it or reply politely. We have been brought up in a region, nurtured by the hospitality of our ancestors, who were and wish us to be liberal people who celebrate all festivals with equal fun and frolic, beyond religion, caste and community.

We won’t deny that our state has been ruled by the same leader for around twenty years now, and political uprisings occur every now and then during and before elections of any kind. But, citizens are never under any real threat during a political crisis.

Of course, it isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, we do have conflicts and differences when it comes to property, ancestral land ownerships, etc. However, from what I have observed, any form of conflict in a society is resolved through meetings held by concerned members.

History books talk about how tribal wear has evolved in our region. We used to share similar clothing with the hunting tribes that exist in the north-eastern lands including Bhutan and Tibet. But, our ancestors chose to wear longer forms of clothing which restricted the movements needed for such purposes. These very small details lead us to infer that our people were inherently peace-loving and resolving conflicts came more easily than expected.

Coming back to our identities, when Sikkim was added as the part of Indian Union, two groups of identification emerged – the ones who hold the certificate of identity, commonly known as the COI, which is basically the Sikkim subject, and those that possess a residential certificate. The former identifies the Sikkimese, the indigenous people who enjoy multiple basic rights in terms of jobs, education, land, etc., while the latter comprises the business community, mostly the Marwaris and Biharis, who settled in our state while it was still a monarchy.

Therefore, the identity within the state is very much balanced and secure and this difference in documentation is essential in protecting the rights of the indigenous people, lest they be encroached upon by those settling in Sikkim. Being landlocked on three sides by three different nations has not really bothered us. Often, when the only highway we have running through our state into West Bengal is blocked for some reason, we do turn outrageous, but that is because we are denied of basic rights of food and freedom to travel.

Apart from the minute political issues and communal conflicts, that occur in many other parts of India too, we are an open-minded, respectful community that doesn’t discriminate. This of course is a subjective opinion of life, as it is in Sikkim. Anything contrary to this is always a possibility and must be duly respected as a point of view, too. But, as a Sikkimese, I can proudly say that our home – Sikkim – has treated everyone on her soil as one.

Like myself, many of my generation have briefly left our motherland to build our careers, see the world, live a little more, but despite all the novelty we experience elsewhere, most of us return for the kind of solace only Sikkim offers.

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The author is a student at Goa College of Engineering and is very much interested in learning and understanding new cultures. This is Sikkim, according to her. Racism is an excuse many of us use to draw geographical outlines in our heads, but these biases based on culture or colour sometimes gets manifested in inhumane expressions that are bred in a hostile and fanatical neighbourhoods in many cities in India. People from the north-east of India continue to be victims of racial prejudice, and more often than not we don’t realize that we have unconsciously been a part of this behaviour. Most of us don’t mean any harm and are openly racist for the sake of humour. The lesson though is that what words we choose to use in a conversation with someone from a different region. The tone of our voice, the questions we ask, the opinions and views we share – we must rehearse most these in our minds before we say it out loud to them, thus preventing awkward, sometime tense situations. Building a rapport and drawing a line is essential while engaging racism for humour, highlighting a need for us Indian’s to imbibe for people skills. – JR