<p>A Nepali student’s death by <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/suicide">suicide</a> at a private institute in Odisha draws attention to the darker, even dangerous, facets of life in India for foreign students besides deficiencies in India’s diplomacy, especially when it comes to dealing with neighbours (and Africans). Prakriti Lamsal, a third-year B Tech student in Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), was reportedly driven to suicide after her complaints of harassment against an Indian student were ignored. </p><p>Worse, her suicide was dismissed as unworthy of investigation, which triggered protests by hundreds of Nepali students enrolled in KIIT. The protesters were beaten up by security guards and goons. KIIT faculty berated Nepal and Nepalis in unacceptable terms and hundreds of these protesting students were evicted and packed off to Cuttack railway station without any arrangements for their transit or travel. At least 800 students are said to have left for their homes while about 100 continued to stay in the campus.</p>.<p>Neither the state government nor the Centre stirred in the matter until Nepal’s Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli posted about the death, violence, and eviction on Facebook and X. Oli said that the Nepalese Embassy had sent two officers to counsel the affected students. This was, predictably, followed by apologies from the institute, dismissal of the offending KIIT staff, reassuring words by the Indian embassy in Nepal and the state government’s announcement of a fact-finding committee.</p>.<p>The diplomatic dimension of the situation is seen as an “issue” raised by Oli. Such a view which fails to recognise the significance of the incident cannot but affect India-Nepal people-to-people relations and add to the negative perceptions of India in Nepal and the larger neighbourhood.</p>.<p>At the official level, the silence of India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) flies in the face of the outrage in Nepal, which compelled Oli to prod his country’s embassy to take swift action. It is an extraordinary situation when officials of a foreign mission have to rush to the aid of their citizens in India while the governments at the state and Centre refuse to be moved by the plight of hundreds of foreign students who are attacked, ill-treated and driven out of an educational institute where they are, at great expense, to stay and study.</p>.<p>Observers of India-Nepal relations point out that India as a whole, and conspicuously its political leadership, chose to keep quiet about the shocking incidents; and, instead of India, it is Nepal that had to depute officials to handle the crisis. This is attributed to “India treating Nepal as the US treats India” and an “Indian exceptionalism” premised on Indian sovereignty being greater than that of its “lesser” neighbours. When it comes to Nepal, many Indians are racist by nature and this is laid bare by their behaviour. In this case, the rants of two staff members of KIIT, videos of which have gone viral, bear out their racist bias against Nepali students.</p>.Stampedes and missing red flags.<p><strong>Racial bias</strong></p>.<p>Unfortunately, the racial bias against the Nepali is the same one that also victimises people from India’s northeast region. The predominant narrative that only a particular type of people – which targets the physiognomy of those in India’s northeast and Nepal – are Indian has done much to entrench prejudices and encourage intolerance. This has resulted in a situation where many Indians, including in authority, feel that we can do anything to a neighbour like Nepal and they deserve what they get.</p>.<p>Given this situation, the Union Government, through the MEA, could have rushed to the rescue of the Nepali students and made it known loud and clear that such violence against foreign students in India would not be tolerated and taken exemplary action that would act as a deterrent to institutions and individuals who tend to treat ‘others’ as lesser human beings.</p>.<p>African students in India have faced similar, if not worse, situations. In 2014, AAP MLA Somnath Bharti led vigilantes who abused and beat up Nigerian women in New Delhi based on allegations linking them to a drug and sex racket. In 2016, African countries decided to boycott the ‘Africa Day’ (May 25) celebrations to condemn the rising Afro-phobia in India. This unprecedented international rebuff by the African envoys in New Delhi was delivered around the time when two US senators raised the issue of bigotry and intolerance in India. Weeks earlier, while electioneering, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had berated Kerala as “Somalia”. Envoys of 54 African nations cited the “racism and Afro-phobia” prevalent in India as the reason for wanting the Africa Day event to be put off.</p>.<p>Now, the Nepal government has said that it may stop issuing no-objection certificates to students wishing to study in institutes in Odisha if the situation arising from the death of the student is not resolved in a “justifiable and legal” way. </p>.<p>Unfortunately, there are no legal, constitutional or institutional remedies that can prevent or deliver justice in such cases. It is a societal condition where the victims have to bear it in silence or face violence. The narratives rooted in race, caste and prejudice and the resultant conditioning that pervades India’s educational institutions need to be rooted out for achieving the aims of modern education. That being easier said than done, India has an uphill task in striving to reach its avowed goal of bringing in five lakh foreign students by 2047. The first step towards that could be resolving the situation in Odisha to the satisfaction of Nepal and Nepali students and ensuring their educational advancement with assured safety and security.</p>.<p><em>(The writer is a political and foreign affairs commentator, and co-editor of the book State of Nepal)</em></p>
<p>A Nepali student’s death by <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/suicide">suicide</a> at a private institute in Odisha draws attention to the darker, even dangerous, facets of life in India for foreign students besides deficiencies in India’s diplomacy, especially when it comes to dealing with neighbours (and Africans). Prakriti Lamsal, a third-year B Tech student in Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), was reportedly driven to suicide after her complaints of harassment against an Indian student were ignored. </p><p>Worse, her suicide was dismissed as unworthy of investigation, which triggered protests by hundreds of Nepali students enrolled in KIIT. The protesters were beaten up by security guards and goons. KIIT faculty berated Nepal and Nepalis in unacceptable terms and hundreds of these protesting students were evicted and packed off to Cuttack railway station without any arrangements for their transit or travel. At least 800 students are said to have left for their homes while about 100 continued to stay in the campus.</p>.<p>Neither the state government nor the Centre stirred in the matter until Nepal’s Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli posted about the death, violence, and eviction on Facebook and X. Oli said that the Nepalese Embassy had sent two officers to counsel the affected students. This was, predictably, followed by apologies from the institute, dismissal of the offending KIIT staff, reassuring words by the Indian embassy in Nepal and the state government’s announcement of a fact-finding committee.</p>.<p>The diplomatic dimension of the situation is seen as an “issue” raised by Oli. Such a view which fails to recognise the significance of the incident cannot but affect India-Nepal people-to-people relations and add to the negative perceptions of India in Nepal and the larger neighbourhood.</p>.<p>At the official level, the silence of India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) flies in the face of the outrage in Nepal, which compelled Oli to prod his country’s embassy to take swift action. It is an extraordinary situation when officials of a foreign mission have to rush to the aid of their citizens in India while the governments at the state and Centre refuse to be moved by the plight of hundreds of foreign students who are attacked, ill-treated and driven out of an educational institute where they are, at great expense, to stay and study.</p>.<p>Observers of India-Nepal relations point out that India as a whole, and conspicuously its political leadership, chose to keep quiet about the shocking incidents; and, instead of India, it is Nepal that had to depute officials to handle the crisis. This is attributed to “India treating Nepal as the US treats India” and an “Indian exceptionalism” premised on Indian sovereignty being greater than that of its “lesser” neighbours. When it comes to Nepal, many Indians are racist by nature and this is laid bare by their behaviour. In this case, the rants of two staff members of KIIT, videos of which have gone viral, bear out their racist bias against Nepali students.</p>.Stampedes and missing red flags.<p><strong>Racial bias</strong></p>.<p>Unfortunately, the racial bias against the Nepali is the same one that also victimises people from India’s northeast region. The predominant narrative that only a particular type of people – which targets the physiognomy of those in India’s northeast and Nepal – are Indian has done much to entrench prejudices and encourage intolerance. This has resulted in a situation where many Indians, including in authority, feel that we can do anything to a neighbour like Nepal and they deserve what they get.</p>.<p>Given this situation, the Union Government, through the MEA, could have rushed to the rescue of the Nepali students and made it known loud and clear that such violence against foreign students in India would not be tolerated and taken exemplary action that would act as a deterrent to institutions and individuals who tend to treat ‘others’ as lesser human beings.</p>.<p>African students in India have faced similar, if not worse, situations. In 2014, AAP MLA Somnath Bharti led vigilantes who abused and beat up Nigerian women in New Delhi based on allegations linking them to a drug and sex racket. In 2016, African countries decided to boycott the ‘Africa Day’ (May 25) celebrations to condemn the rising Afro-phobia in India. This unprecedented international rebuff by the African envoys in New Delhi was delivered around the time when two US senators raised the issue of bigotry and intolerance in India. Weeks earlier, while electioneering, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had berated Kerala as “Somalia”. Envoys of 54 African nations cited the “racism and Afro-phobia” prevalent in India as the reason for wanting the Africa Day event to be put off.</p>.<p>Now, the Nepal government has said that it may stop issuing no-objection certificates to students wishing to study in institutes in Odisha if the situation arising from the death of the student is not resolved in a “justifiable and legal” way. </p>.<p>Unfortunately, there are no legal, constitutional or institutional remedies that can prevent or deliver justice in such cases. It is a societal condition where the victims have to bear it in silence or face violence. The narratives rooted in race, caste and prejudice and the resultant conditioning that pervades India’s educational institutions need to be rooted out for achieving the aims of modern education. That being easier said than done, India has an uphill task in striving to reach its avowed goal of bringing in five lakh foreign students by 2047. The first step towards that could be resolving the situation in Odisha to the satisfaction of Nepal and Nepali students and ensuring their educational advancement with assured safety and security.</p>.<p><em>(The writer is a political and foreign affairs commentator, and co-editor of the book State of Nepal)</em></p>
