The Stranger Within: Why Northeast Indians Still Fight for Belonging

For seventeen years, Chongtham Vikram Singh made Delhi his home. The celebrated Manipuri musician taught students, performed on its stages and contributed to the cultural life of the national capital. But on a September night, after stepping outside his South Delhi residence to object to loud music, he was allegedly beaten so brutally that he later succumbed to his injuries. As police investigate the circumstances and whether prejudice played any role, his death has done something else. It has forced India to confront a question that surfaces with disturbing regularity: why do so many citizens from the Northeast still feel like strangers in their own country?

Whether Singh's killing ultimately proves to be a case of racial hatred, a violent altercation, or both is for the courts to determine. Yet the grief and fear it has triggered across the Northeast are rooted in lived experience. For countless students, professionals and workers from the region, racial slurs, suspicious glances, housing discrimination and casual humiliation are not exceptional incidents. They are part of everyday life. Singh's death has therefore become more than a criminal investigation. It has become a reminder of India's unfinished struggle to live up to its own constitutional promise of equality and fraternity.

Delhi prides itself on being India's most cosmopolitan city. It attracts dreamers from every state, speaking every language and practising every faith. Thousands from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura come to the capital each year to study, work, build businesses and serve public institutions. They contribute to hospitals, universities, restaurants, media houses, start-ups and the arts. Yet many continue to live with an unsettling reality: acceptance often depends not on citizenship but on appearance.

Discrimination rarely begins with violence. It begins with words. The casual use of racist slurs such as "Chinki", questions like "Which country are you from?", mocking accents, intrusive comments about food habits and stereotypes about character may appear trivial to those who utter them. For those who endure them every day, they communicate one message repeatedly: you do not belong. Women from the Northeast frequently face an additional burden of racialised sexual harassment, while many students and professionals recount being denied rented accommodation or treated with suspicion because they "look different". During the COVID-19 pandemic, such prejudice became even more visible as many were abused as "Chinese" and blamed for a virus that knew no nationality.

Such attitudes are born first from ignorance. The Northeast remains one of the least understood parts of India despite being home to extraordinary linguistic, cultural and ethnic diversity. School curricula devote little attention to the region's history, freedom movements, tribal traditions or contributions to the Republic. Many Indians can identify European capitals more easily than they can name all eight Northeastern states. When knowledge disappears, stereotypes inevitably occupy the empty space.

Appearance reinforces that ignorance. Distinct East Asian facial features often lead Northeast Indians to be mistaken for foreigners. Their patriotism is casually questioned, their identity constantly explained and their citizenship implicitly treated as conditional. It is a cruel irony that citizens must repeatedly prove they belong to the very nation whose Constitution guarantees them equal status.

Economic and social anxieties deepen the divide. Delhi's fierce competition for jobs, housing and opportunities often transforms migrants into convenient scapegoats. Regional prejudices become easy outlets for frustrations that have little to do with the people against whom they are directed. Social media magnifies these biases through anonymous abuse, misinformation and racist humour that quickly normalises discrimination.

The media, too, must accept part of the responsibility. National attention usually reaches the Northeast only during insurgencies, ethnic violence, natural disasters or elections. Stories of scientific achievement, entrepreneurship, sports, literature, music and innovation seldom receive comparable prominence. This selective visibility reinforces the false perception that the Northeast is a distant frontier instead of an integral part of India's national story.

Institutions have not always inspired confidence either. Victims often hesitate to approach the police, fearing indifference or disbelief. Complaints of racial abuse are sometimes dismissed as harmless jokes rather than recognised as attacks on dignity. Delayed investigations and inconsistent enforcement create the impression that discrimination carries few consequences. Impunity, even when unintended, encourages repetition.

The damage extends well beyond individual victims. Racism breeds insecurity, anxiety and alienation. Students begin avoiding public spaces. Professionals question career opportunities in metropolitan cities. Families wonder whether safety lies closer to home. More dangerously, every act of discrimination weakens the bonds that hold together one of the world's most diverse democracies. National integration cannot be built solely through highways, railway lines and development projects. It requires every citizen to feel equally respected wherever they choose to live.

There is also a contradiction India can no longer ignore. The nation rightly condemns racism whenever Indians are attacked overseas and demands dignity for its diaspora. That demand carries moral force only when India demonstrates the same commitment towards its own citizens. Equality cannot stop at the international border.

The response must therefore move beyond expressions of sympathy after every viral incident. Police must investigate allegations of racially motivated crimes with seriousness and sensitivity. Universities, employers and housing associations should adopt enforceable anti-discrimination policies. Dedicated support mechanisms for Northeast residents should become functional, visible and accessible. Schools must teach the history and cultures of the Northeast as central to India's civilisational story, not as footnotes. Newsrooms, entertainment industries and public institutions must ensure greater representation of Northeast voices so that visibility replaces invisibility.

Political leadership also has a responsibility. Every instance of racial discrimination must be condemned without ambiguity. Silence, selective outrage or dismissal as isolated episodes only emboldens prejudice. Constitutional values acquire meaning only when they are defended in everyday life.

The distance between Delhi and Imphal is measured in kilometres. The distance between fellow Indians should never be measured in prejudice. Chongtham Vikram Singh deserves justice through a fair investigation and due process. But the larger challenge extends far beyond one tragic death. It is about ensuring that no Indian is made to feel foreign because of the shape of their eyes, the language they speak or the state from which they come.

A Republic succeeds not when it merely celebrates diversity in speeches, but when every citizen can walk its streets with equal dignity. Until Northeast Indians stop feeling like strangers in their own country, India's promise of unity in diversity will remain incomplete.