My Country Normalized Racism So Much, I Stopped Thinking It Was Hurtful
People from the Northeast are as much Indians as the people from the rest of the country
I was born in Assam — a state in the northeastern part of India. Aside from Assam, there are six other states in this region — Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Tripura — that are collectively known as “the Seven Sisters.”
Ethnically, the people from the northeastern part of the country have different features from the people in the mainland. We have fairer skin, straight hair, more slender build, and epicanthic folds in our eyes. As the book North-East India: Land, People and Economy makes clear:
“While the original settlers were the Mongoloids, the Indo-Aryan and other groups arrived later. There is undoubtedly a dominance of Mongoloid element in the population of Northeast India.”
Our language, culture, and food habits are unique. Most people don’t grow up speaking Hindi, the most widely spoken language in the country.
More than ethnic and cultural influences, the differences could be attributed to the fact that while a large part of South Asia was ruled by the mighty Mughal dynasty for over 300 years, they were never able to extend their rule to…
