‘I speak Hindi and always laugh. But when I offer biscuits to the neighbours’ children, they don’t accept.’
Zaharaddeen Muhammed, a master's degree student from Nigeria living in India, speaks at the Africa-India Solidarity Forum in New Delhi [Aletta Andre/Al Jazeera]
New Delhi/Greater Noida, India – After a year in India, Zaharaddeen Muhammed, 27, knows enough Hindi to understand what bander means. Monkey.
But it isn’t even the daily derogatory comments that make him doubt his decision to swap his university in Nigeria for a two-year master’s degree programme in chemistry at Noida International University. Nor is it the questions about personal hygiene, the unsolicited touching of his hair or the endless staring. It is his failure to interact with Indian people on a deeper level.
Much of what is reported here about Indian racism towards Africans in India probably misinterpreted. There are Indians who treat their own relatives and friends in a similar way. For most Indians, the African in India is a novelty.
But there is also a history of Indians who live in Africa being treated in a similar or worst way by Africans in those countries. Idi Amin and Uganda comes to mind. Most of the Indians were driven out from Uganda..
This does not excuse the behavior of the Nigerians who are now residing and studying in India. But they have no moral basis to accuse Indians of racism when their countrymen have practised an extreme form of racism against Indians.
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