The incident which occurred in Mysore City, India, on 31st October 2009 leading to the arrest of one (1) Kenyan and nine (9) Tanzanian students has raised a lot of concern among foreign students, in particular Africans based in Mysore and other training colleges in India. Most of what has been said in the media is not true nor all of it is true, the truth lies somewhere in between. All in all the damage has been done, that cannot be changed at this late hour. As far as the truth is concerned on that morning, is yet to be determined by the Court of law in India.
In the meantime, we should realize that we have been ill treated and stigmatized by the surrounding community. This is based not only by this particular incident rather than numerous other incidences which have occurred in the past days, and all this is considered the “mistakes” made by those who studied in India or in other foreign lands in the last few years.
We have noted with deep concern that once a mishap occurs whereby an African and an Indian enter into loggerhead, immediately without making a comprehensive enquiry, it is promptly presumed that an African student is always at fault. It is true that some of the individuals, out of their own intuitions, breached the laws of the land occasionally, but we are certain that the majority of the students are law abiding despite of the prejudice that held by the Indians community that an “African” is always a guilty person and negligent who deserve severe penalties.
One of a typical negative image was concerned with one of the students involved in a road accident early last month whereas an “Indian” pedestrian died on the spot. Consequently, the headlines in the local newspapers read “a foreigner kills an Indian”. The interpretation of the public was held as an intentional murder scenario involving an Indian citizen. It is forgotten that road accidents do happen out of somebody willingness, whether you are of black or white racial origin.
Within the same time-frame, in another shameful incident one male and two female Tanzanians were beaten up by Indians in a public restaurant on the grounds that the Indians colleagues demanded to be served first before the “Negroes” who happened to have entered the designated restaurant earlier than their Indian origin customers. There is a strange notion that they deserve priority to be served due to their “Indian” origin and that they pay statutory taxes more than the “Africans” hence it was their right to be served first. Our comrades were brutally beaten and injured fortunately one of the Indians involved in the fracas happened to be a fellow student in the same class together with one of the Tanzanian victims.
To our astonishment, the lecturers kept begging us to exclude this particular Indian from the case as it would bring a bad reputation to her family simply because “she” has a descent background. They completely forgot the fact that another foreign student, from the same college, who had equal rights had to be suspended at the expense of an Indian girl who was worried more about her reputation. This particular incident was not published in any local newspapers despite of the complaint being filed at the Police nor did the Principal who is supposed to oversee the behaviors of students take a trouble of inquiring the facts of the matter.
The local community has been blaming our cultural values in anticipation that being in a foreign land we should adopt their local customs and discard our cherished norms and traditions. We wish to point out that being in the 21st century and taking the advantage of the globalization and improved infrastructure the world has become one big village and people from different parts of the world are coming together and interacting in various fields. In such occasions cultural clashes are bound to happen so if it is cultural adjustments and the “give and take” approach overrules the living standards hence the locals need to adjust accordingly.
The local inhabitants should be aware that there are foreigners around them and harmony need to be created between people of different cultural background accommodated through their Government machinery. If the Government of India did not want us being admitted in their reputable educational establishments we would have been denied the entrance visas. It is a matter of concern that in our home countries we live with fellow Indians without harassment or discrimination and embrace them in the spirit of humankind and development. We respect the notion of “majority rule” but we should not be forced to loose our individuality, dignity and throw away our customs and values at the expense of being in India and forget the “right to freedom” concept.
Being in compliance with acceptable law and orders as a universal principle however we are afraid that it is difficult to observe cultural malpractices which are offensive to the foreigners and always lead to breaking the laws of the land in context. All we are asking is for the right to live with human dignity and respect of developed mankind. It is worth reporting that up to this moment the Indian community still refers the Africans as “Negroes” despite of the world-wide rejection against the use of this particular terminology as it is obviously offensive and provocative. We are greatly disturbed in the events that juveniles call us “Negro” with a wide smile simply because they test our reactions while their elders are watching protectively. It is obvious that they are being taught by their elders and we consider this as a high level of ignorance, backwardness and racist among the majority of Indians.
We often see in the newspapers and televisions Indian from different parts of the world protesting about racism against them. From Shilpa Shetty’s incident in England few years back to the recent protests in Australia. For a country practicing the caste system of “un-touchability” you need not look so far to realize there is racism against your own citizens. It is obvious that the Indians are aware of the racist characteristics happening within their motherland.
Your attention should be drawn on the fact that back at our countries, we live with many people of Indians origin with ample opportunities in socio-cultural, business and Government environment. Fire crackers are not allowed in our country but with due respect to Indian culture, they are allowed to fired during the “Diwali!” ceremony and this reflect the respect we have for your culture and how far we are willing to make your fellow people are comfortable in our land.
I recall some months back being on a plane back home for my holidays and sitting next to an Indian woman carrying a very young girl. She addressed me in our local language “Kiswahili”, enquiring where I was originating. I told her I was a Tanzanian and she told me she was Kenyan and that she is so excited going back HOME to Kenya after giving birth to her beautiful three months old baby girl in India. This was only her second time in India in 35 years since she was born in Kenya. I was not surprised by all this because back at home many of them even get angry when you refer to them as Indians, they want to be called Tanzanians, proudly, with full of joy on their faces and hearts. You should see the look on their faces once we tell them that we are going to India for studies. They ask, “why India?” and we often wonder “could it be that bad?” Never have I heard of or read in the newspapers a racist act against an Indian back in our country. Last month I had entered in one of the bookstores here in Mysore, they do offer membership cards but unfortunately for me that day I was denied of one. When I asked the reason behind this, the clerk replied “we do not offer these cards to your kind.” I asked “when you say my kind, you mean foreigners?” He said “No, Africans!” God forbid, if this was how you are being treated back in our home countries.
To make matters worse, our guardians on this foreign land, the Tanzanian High Commission in New Delhi, is not putting efforts to our rescue and we feel there is a sense of apathy on whatever is happening to us. Based on the experience of Tanzanian citizens who visited and required assistance from the High Commission they ended up with mere disappointments. For the 4 years I have been here, I haven’t come across any Tanzanian who has spoken positively about our High Commission. It might sound odd, but it is the truth. I had to experience it first hand during these several months when I got the opportunity to be the Chairperson of Tanzanian Students Association in Mysore. I wish to point some incidences that indicate lack of support from our representative of the Government such as:-
(i) One of Tanzanian students was involved in an accident and injured a middle aged Indian woman. The Indian family demanded a huge sum of money as compensation. It was obvious that the exorbitant amount of money was demanded simply because the driver was a Tanzanian, a “Negro.” The driver and his parents back at home tried to seek assistance from the High Commission but nothing materialized up to this moment. It has been more than 2 years now, after extorting a lot of funds from us, the traffic case had to be taken to the court of law where it is still going on at a snails pace.
(ii) There is another student who had a problems with his Visa and needed to go back home, he was stranded here for 1 whole year but the High Commission responded as it always does “ we cannot help you on that.” So he had to seek assistance from the Indian High Commission in Dar Es Salaam that enabled him to leave India.
(iii) The other Tanzanian got an accident where unfortunately a pedestrian died instantly. He was later arrested and convicted. The High Commission was asked for assistance but it did not provide any, it responded with “what was he doing on the road at that time!” We engaged a lawyer and posted bail on our own without a helping hand from the High Commissioner.
(iv) The three Tanzanians who were beaten up by Indians in a restaurant, after the complaint was filed, we expected the High Commission to put pressure and fight for the rights of the victimized students but rather it responded with “what were they doing there in the first place? If they could have been inside their houses, none of this would have happened.”
With the most recent incident in hand, being Chairperson of Tanzanian students in Mysore, has been constantly being asked for a full report, as to what have we accomplished so far in helping our colleagues. For the sake of updating the interested stakeholders, we engaged a lawyer by ourselves and came up with the bail money of 50,000 Indian Rupees {nearly T. Shs 2 million} through our meager living contributions. It was essential to have the bail money immediately or else the 9 Tanzanians would have remained in custody till today. The Embassy responded that “the matter is already in the Court there is nothing much we can do. Just keep us informed with a written report!” We noted with a surprise through the media where the High Commission claimed that they have helped us and are closely working with the concerned students throughout this saga. We are deeply disappointed by such unhelpful common responses from our patrons, the High Commission in New Delhi, whom we feel are not showing adequate concerns that will safeguard and promote our studying and living environment without discrimination.
In 4 years, an official from the High Commission has visited Mysore only ONCE. And this could not have been possible if it was not for the son of the current Vice President of Tanzania who was studying here at the time. We usually hear from our neighbors in Bangalore that an official is has come from the High Commission for an event or just to come and check on things. We have sent invitations to the Commission several times for various events such as Graduations, but they always reply saying they are caught up with work hence can not make it here. This is not the case with Bangalore. Mysore and Bangalore is only 2 hours away but these people never make it to Mysore. It is alleged that this is so because most of the students in Bangalore are under Government sponsorship, does this mean others who are under private sponsorship need not be assisted in any way by the High Commission? A year ago, the son of one of the most top officials was studying in Bangalore, everyone here knows what kind of a character he was but yet the Commission made constant visits to Bangalore to clear up whatever mess he had made. But for the Tanzanians in Mysore, it takes only 1 incident to be blacklisted. If this is so, if the Commission is at the disposal of only the selected few, then it should be disclosed so that us, the sons and daughters of the common laymen, and of the farmers, should look for other means of assistance or other guardians who will look out for our interests.
As if it is not enough being discriminated by the local community, our own High Commission has not done adequate sensitization on the social-economic and cultural background of Tanzanian living in India. Due to the lack of assistance from the High Commission, Indians take advantage of us because they know there is no one near to help us since we are lonely and left our parents miles away back home and we feel being orphans. We have no choice than to keep aside our differences and look out for each other because we are all we have got in this foreign land, far way from home.
A friend of ours who once said “The only mistake we have made is for being BLACK” however we are consoled by the “change” being a motto that at last saw the American Black President on the wheel of a powerful nation in the world.
MWINGA B. MUNGWE
MYSORE
http://kilinyepesi.blogspot.com/
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