Those of us who have more than a soft corner for the Northeast have been crying wolf since the day we stepped into journalism. We have been crying ourselves hoarse over the stepmotherly attitude of the Centre towards the region. And we have also been mincing no words about what we think of how the news media itself has been handling the Northeast.
Over the last few years the news media has shown some interest in the region. For whatever reason. Maybe people have matured. Maybe they have inculcated a sense of sensitivity over time. Maybe political correctness has rubbed on to the journalistic fraternity in the metropolitcan cities from the scores from the region who are now working in the big media. Or perhaps it is a reason I am not aware of.
Just when one thought that things were getting better, comes a slur. Oh, quite a slur it is.
What we have here is an article from the Times of India. Quite an enlightening piece it was about spas. No, I am not sure if it was a sponsored story. But then the reporter wrote:
"Walk into a spa which has music, scented aroma candles, but you'll meet a professional doctor rather than a Linda from the Northeast."
Er, sorry? Come again?
No, I won't. A sentence that reeks of callousness and stinks of racism does not deserve to be granted a mention. But then, that is what it was—callous and racist.
You might wonder how the "Northeast" dropped into the story out of the blue. Even I am wondering. I have been wondering about it since the Sunday last that I saw it in the papers. I am still wondering. One gets the impression that every woman from the Northeast is a tart in a dark, dingy spa. Or maybe all dubious masseuses in sleazy spas are from the Northeast.
Well, well, I can't quite make out what the reporter meant to convey. Either way, it doesn't speak volumes of what she (her name is Nona Walia) thinks of the Northeast and its distaff side.
The Times of India is not a newspaper I like to spend much time on like I used to 25 years back. So I would might have missed the story had it not been pointed out to a discusion list by a colleague from the region, Hoihnu Hauzel.
She naturally took umbrage, and wrote to the reporter concerned:
I don't quite see the connection between "a Linda from the Northeast" and your attempt at telling a story on a booming trend on medispa. In fact, I will be quite happy if you can enlighten me with the link between the two.
If I am correct, it seems you were trying to refer to Linda, the nurse from Manipur, who was recently held for her supposed role in the kidney scam. Anyway, you must understand that there is a black sheep in every society and we, as supposed members of the media, cannot effort to be prejudice and racist.
Valid point. But will it cut ice with the one the mail was addressed to?
Hoihnu writes further:
While am trying hard to figure out why you have made that reference, I would like to let you know that as responsible people form the media, we ought to be sensitive about sentiments of other communities. After all, India is a diverse country. It would be incorrect, if the media loosely make such remarks.
Your reference to NE is in your story is ugly and cruel. It is hurtful and negative to the community. To me and many members of the civil society, your reference reflects ignorance and insensitivity.
Another colleague, Utpal Borpujari, too wrote to Walia:
As someone from the North-East, I find the sentence "Walk into a spa which has music, scented aroma candles, but you'll meet a professional doctor rather than a Linda from the Northeast", to be in a very bad taste - and blatantly racist - to say the least. The comment is seemingly off the cuff, but when you write about a whole region, whether it is the North-East or not, in such a dismissive tone, it won't be wrong on the readers' part to take it as not so off the cuff. What is the connection between the sentence and the negative reference to the North-East and the subject of your article?"
Utpal goes on to say:
I hope you will see the point I am trying to make, and would try to understand that you cannot just make derogatory comments with a few strokes on your keyboard about a whole community of people from a region whose ethnic diversity you are obviously unable to imagine. You cannot just paint a whole community or a whole region with a particular colour just because there could be a few rotten apples in the basket, as they would exist in any basket, including the one you come from. You have to realise that it is because of this kind of dismissive attitude that many of the problems of North-East continues to boil, and the alienation of the people continue. Please try to understand.
Maybe Utpal is being quite restrained, civil and polite here. If you know Utpal, you would know that he is quite genial and soft-spoken. He is unlikely to badmouth—the way I feel like doing (badmouthing, I mean) right at this moment. Huh.
It has been a good five days since the report was published. But there has been no reponse from the newspaper so far. Hoihnu's mail must have landed in their mailbox the same day. Speak of journalistic callousness, duh. What does the Times of India want us to do? Light a pyre of its copies on Bahadurshah Zafar Marg? Or call for a boycott of the paper? Civil and civilised responses don't seem to work these days, or what?
Linda from the Northeast!
For the record, I do happen to know a Linda from the Northeast indeed. And she is a journalist too, an ex-colleague of mine. I wonder what she has to say about it.
