By Thangkhanlal Ngaihte
People like to have it easy. No one wants to get hurt.
This may be one good way to explain why cases like Juliet Zonunmawii keep happening. Juliet was a 24-years old Mizo woman who died on October 16 in Delhi. Investigation is ongoing, but there was a deep stab wound on her thigh and foul play is apparent. Her alleged boyfriend, one Virender Singh from Dehradun, is a suspect in the case.
Predictably, social media is awash with wisdom-after-the-fact. Why did she went out with an outsider (community-wise) in the first place? She brought shame on the entire Zo community and she deserved what she got, many said.
Juliet was unlucky. There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of northeast women whose lives are identical to Juliet. Take a walk through the by-lanes of Munirka, where Juliet lives, around 11 pm. There is no dearth of young woman, too drunk to walk, or, too affected by whatever drugs they are taking to care how they look or what others think as they watch. You see them cavorting with African men, or mainlanders. On a Christmas night a few years ago, when I was also living in Munirka, I came across a Mizo-speaking girl crouching on the sidewalk as I walk out, sobbing and whispering into her phone. When I returned, she was still there. It was a cold night. I gingerly approached her and tried to talk to her. She suddenly jerked her face toward me and shouted, `get away.`™ I got away and never see her again.
There was a time when things were better at home in the northeast and very few ventured into places like Delhi. Then, things got bad. The better-off amongst us started migrating to the cities, mainly for education and government-service. Then, the economy went global, internet boom happened and with it, BPO and retail jobs. Northeasterners, who have a headstart in English education, came to be much sought after. Retail jobs and hospitality demand exotic-looking girls. The profile of those who migrate to the cities changed. Now, the majority of those who come here do so to grab jobs in the private sector, not for education.
At home, we have layers of social solidarities protecting us. Most of us live with our parents and grand-parents. We sometimes resent their overbearance, but we can always rush to their ams when we face trouble. They are precious cushions to emotional turmoil. There is the church in which we seek emotional and spiritual well-being. There are legions of social and philanthropic bodies to set rules and boundaries regarding social life.
In places like Delhi too, we tried to reproduce those institutions. We used to make records of everyone from our community coming here. We organize social meets and freshers welcome functions. We set up our own churches. We connect and keep track of each other.
But, since sometime, we seem to be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of migration. Some people also resent that we set up all those social bodies, trying to create a `mini-Lamka`™ in Delhi. Churches no longer search out those who come, it is for those who come to search out the church. Many people, especially those who came for easy jobs, do not bother to reach out to their own kind. They started to live on their own.
The cities are unforgiving. There is neither soul nor emotion. This is especially hard for us northeasterners because we were used to layers and layers of social relationships and protection in a tight-knit village society. One major complaint against northeasterners is that they often gather together, party and play loud music. This is actually no surprise. It is simply that this is how we live life back home, though, in a more innocent setting. We long for home food. We want to hear and talk about home. We cannot do without our own kind. We always long for that animating fire-side chat and human solidarity.
You live alone. You don`™t know the person living next door. You feel lonely and depressed. You had a fight with your parents who don`™t understand how things are. You broke up with your boyfriend. Your job did not work out. You run out of money and feel ashamed to ask your parents. What do you do? It is natural, in such case, to open up and make relationships with anyone who show care and interest in us. That`™s what many of us do. But, these people are not interested in marriage or long term commitment. They want sex, and once they got that, they tried to use you for flesh trade or worse. They abuse you, call you a slut and leave you. You become heart-broken, but cannot turn to your own kind because you have already become famous in a bad way. What you do? Drugs, drinks, prostitution, suicide?
In many such cases, there are concerned people, or relatives, who heard about it and reported the same to parents back home. But, normally, such news are not appreciated. It`™s not that parents don`™t care for their children. They care for them so much so that they come to be willing to listen only to good news about them. They would rather not hear anything than hear bad news. May be, they are in constant dread of receiving calls for fear of hearing bad news. Feeling helpless and frustrated, they often vent that frustration on the bearers of bad news. As I said above, no one likes to get hurt. People want it easy. Only, in some cases, the refusal to face reality and confront it leads to corpses coming home.
Migration to alien cities will continue. Racism and racist violence will not end. If at all, it will still get worse before it gets better. Incidents like Juliet`™s will likely continue too. What can we do? Frankly, I am at a loss. But, one thing we should focus on must be to rebuild our social and religious institutions. We should reconnect in a human way. Churches should pay more attention to the city and train more pastors for personal counselling, psychological support, etc. Our need for such solidarities increase, not decrease, in the city which is, by its very nature, atomistic, alienating and soulless. Facebook is simply no substitute for such warm solidarities.