Xenophobia Archives - DU Beat - Delhi University's Independent Student Newspaper

Several students from colleges in North Campus have been abusing and harassing their peers from Kerala with highly discriminatory remarks in the classes and groups.

Note: The following article contains mentions of threats and sexual harassment.

The First Years have come forth with their first impression on the campus which with no doubt appears to be extremely sexist, bigoted and discriminatory. Reportedly students of various colleges of North Campus have made extremely discriminatory and insensitive marks towards students from Kerala Board.

Following is a text sent in the Fresher’s class of B.com Honours where the student can be seen accusing their peers from Kerala as ‘frauds’

The student even went further and asked the Teacher to “throw them out” of the North Campus. The comments don’t just bring forward the indecency of students but also their blatant racism. The language used here shows the ingrained biases of merit among students. SFI unit of Ramjas College has openly protested against such behaviour and asked for appropriate action to be taken against those responsible for harming the college space that is deemed to be a safe and inclusive one for all. The unit has mailed the Principal regarding this issue and urged them to take stern action as soon as possible.

“In recent times we have been seeing an increased level of intolerance among the larger society from the standpoint of Religion, Caste, Region, Gender and Race. As a student community, we must resist these sort of narrow narratives to maintain the inclusiveness of the Campus spaces.”

-SFI Ramjas in its Press Release

The xenophobic comments didn’t end there, Freshers have been harassing others in the unofficial groups to no extent. In its investigation, DU Beat found several such remarks made on other students that are highly offensive and discriminatory.

“In the unofficial group for Ramjas students, some people started bullying and abusing. First, they went on with verbally harassing the female students but further, they started with their bigoted remarks that Keralites are ‘black’, and started blaming us(students from Kerala) that we have stolen their college seats.”

-A First-Year student from Ramjas College

“Then the people targeting kept on saying that Keralites should move to the South Campus, mocking us again. Blatantly saying that students from Kerala got 100% marks through unfair means occupying good colleges such as Hindu and ‘jeopardizing his friends’ seats’.

-Shabeeb Areekode, a First-Year student from Ramjas College

Expressing his concern the CPI Rajya Sabha MP, Binoy Viswam has written a letter to Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu about the increasing hostility and hatred against students from Kerala and sought his intervention in the matter.

“Such remarks bring great dishonour and discredit to the students of Kerala who have worked hard to gain admission into reputed institutions of high rank. It further stigmatises students from applying and enrolling in these institutions,”

-Binoy Viswam in his letter to the Vice President

The entire focus shifted to students from Kerala when the ever scoring cut-offs dropped and about 2000 students from Kerala who scored a perfect 100 per cent secured their seats in North Campus colleges. Earlier Rakesh Pandey, a Professor from Kirorimal college also made some discriminatory and Islamophobic remarks against the students from Kerala where he termed it as “Marks Jihad”.

The issue at hand is of grave concern. In such a discriminatory environment how will the students from Kerala receive equal treatment in their very own University Campus? The session for this year just began and this is the first impression that a student is receiving who hasn’t even visited the campus in offline space. This portrays the true image of the University that is considered to be among the top ones in our country and blurs the delusional sparkly image.

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat Archives

Kashish Shivani

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Fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, and that stands for a centralised autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

In the process of looking up the above definition on Merriam-Webster’s website, I’ve made my contribution towards making fascism Webster’s ‘Word of the Year.’ The word that has been looked up the maximum number of times on the website receives that prestigious position of word of the year. While announcing the likelihood that fascism may become its word of the year, Merriam-Webster took to Twitter to send out an entreaty-“there’s still time to look something else up.”

In related news, Oxford Dictionary has declared ‘post-truth’(relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief) its word of the year, while dictionary.com has gone with xenophobia (dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries). The pattern is hard to miss.

Why this fuss about a ‘word of the year,’ you ask? They tend to reflect the socio-political situation we are currently faced with, though to a largely limited extent. A single word fails to capture the plurality of experiences across the world, but does serve as a mirror image of the ideas that are bandied about in conversations or in the media, virtual or otherwise.

While 2016 cannot be described in a word, our concern lies primarily with the circumstances that have led several thousand across the world to take to the internet and find out what ‘fascism’ or ‘xenophobia’ might mean. Acknowledging such words as ‘words of the year’ would involve accepting the unfortunate idea that such circumstances predominate in the minds of a large number of people, and this can be a scary prospect when it comes to terms like fascism. The world definitely hasn’t forgotten what happened the last time fascism gained ground as an ideology.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations human rights Chief, claims that, “The rhetoric of fascism is no longer confined to a secret underworld of fascists meeting in illicit clubs. It is becoming part of normal daily discourse. In some parts of the USA and Europe, anti-foreigner rhetoric full of unbridled vitriol and hatred, is proliferating to a frightening degree.” This rhetoric is evident in Donald Trump’s plan to build an “impenetrable, tall, physical, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall” between the USA and Mexico, and in his suggestion of a ‘register’ for Muslims.

Though Trump occupies pride of place in the media, he isn’t the only one sounding the death knell for liberalism. European politicians like Germany’s Frauke Petry and Sweden’s Jimmie Akesson have been consistently opposed to ‘open-door’ refugee policies. An 89-year old survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp recently took to the internet to appeal to people not to vote for a far-right Austrian politician, Norbert Hofer, as their President. She draws similarities between Hofer’s politics and fascism of the pre-second world war period. There have been allegations that India is also currently experiencing fascist undercurrents.

Though Trump has the backing of the people of a democratic nation, having been elected President in a valid election, similarities have also been drawn between Trump’s politics and that of Hitler’s. These similarities, seen not just in Trump but also in several politicians across the world, can be quite appalling.

Maybe looking up other words will help avoid the negativity associated with fascism and xenophobia? But doesn’t the “fear of a name increase fear of the thing itself?”

Maybe we should all look up tolerance instead. Our collective amnesia seems to prevent us from recalling what it means.

Image credits: Uproxx

Abhinaya Harigovind
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