BY PAMPOSH RAINA

Thick white curtains with a colorful zigzag pattern only partially block the scorching sun from the living room of Sandra Adaora Okoyeegbe’s rented apartment on the outskirts of New Delhi. An episode of BKChat LDN streaming on YouTube flashes on a modest flat-screen TV mounted on a wall. The 21-year-old African student calls the recently launched British web series a “chat show,” each episode featuring a group of mostly black, young participants who exchange their views on issues including the racism they contend with in the U.K. Okoyeegbe has faced it in India, too.

A Nigerian from the southern state of Anambra, she left her home to pursue an undergraduate degree in pharmacy at one of the private universities that have mushroomed in recent years in Greater Noida, a suburb about 25 miles south of New Delhi’s center. “Indians have racism in them, even the educated ones,” she says, with a trace of sarcasm. “They think because of the color of our skin, we are lesser than them. We face racism here every day.”

In March, not far from her neighborhood, a roving mob beat up a number of African students in multiple attacks. Some of the violence was captured on a widely circulated video of Indian men storming into a local shopping mall, kicking and punching a black man, and thrashing him with metal trashcans and stools. The severely injured victim, a young Nigerian, survived, but Okoyeegbe and many other Africans in the area feared enough for their safety to remain indoors for several days, in some cases weeks. Even now, Okoyeegbe says, “I cry seeing that video.”

The rampage followed the death of an Indian teenager. A few days earlier, when the young man was reported missing, rumors buzzed that Nigerian men had kidnapped him, and lurid tales of cannibalism ensued — until he came back home in a dazed state. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died. Soon unsubstantiated reports surfaced that he’d overdosed on drugs provided by some Nigerian men living in the area. After the teenager’s parents filed a complaint, the police detained the alleged culprits, but there wasn’t sufficient evidence to hold them, and the men were released. The African link to the episode refused to die, and anger toward the community boiled over.

That tension is connected, in part, to a widespread belief about Nigerians in Indian society — that they all sell drugs or are a social menace. Respected Indian publications have indeed reported on Nigerians’ disproportionate involvement in drug trafficking in some Indian cities, and many Africans, irrespective of their nationalities, have been subjected to a presumption of criminality. And there is minimal social exchange between the Indian and African communities to help dispel these stereotypes.

Source: FP