It was only recently that US President Donald Trump was called out for referring to coronavirus as the “Chinese Virus.” And while it is not the first instance of ascribing a disease with a country and blaming it for the same (Take, for instance, the name “Spanish Flu”), this also proves how hard it remains for humans to let go of their racist mindsets and xenophobia.
As the coronavirus has stunted our lives on so many levels, it seems like the pandemic is giving way to a number of other problems as well, racism being a prominent one of them all. Sadly, when it comes to racist mindsets, Indians are no better. And amidst all the coronavirus scares, it’s our Northeast citizens that seem to be facing the brunt of racism.
In a rather revolting incident recently, a middle-aged man from Delhi spat on a Manipuri girl from capital’s Vijay Nagar area, called her “corona,” and then fled away on his scooty.
A Manipuri girl at Vijay Nagar, Delhi was spat on by an middle aged man and shouted at “Corona” before fleeing on his white scooty.#Racism #COVIDー19 pic.twitter.com/H2fgR0yzzt
— Akhu Chingangbam (@Akhucha) March 22, 2020
An FIR has been registered against an unknown person. The case has been registered at Mukherjee Nagar police station under IPC Section 509 for outraging the modesty of the woman.
Thankfully, there still happens to be a bunch of people who are enraged by the incident and took to Twitter to support the girl and everyone else who is being subjected to any kind of racism owing to the pandemic. Here’s what the Twitterati have to say:
However, shocking as it is, there have been more than one instances of racism or racial violence since the coronavirus outbreak. Last week only, a group of Northeast students in Punjab shared a video documenting how they have been under constant racial attacks since the outbreak. Here’s the video:
It was only yesterday that we heard the news of Air India staff that evacuated Indians from COVID-19 hotspots being ostracised by their neighbours. As the world struggles to fight a pandemic, how desensitized does one have to be to make out time for racism? Don’t we all have bigger problems to be dealing with instead of creating new ones?
Featured Image: Twitter
