Some of those who voted YES had this to say:
• People from northeast should not expect the government to baby sit them and solve all their problems. The people of northeast must also shoulder their own problems and find solutions themselves. Criticising the government while at the same time enjoying the taxpayers money from other Indian states is not good at all. If the northeast people want the Indian government to be receptive, whey don’t they also pay tax to the Indian government. Only in northeast the Indian citizens are exempted from paying tax. How can they criticize the hands that feed them?
• Now, the government had take several measures to tackle our problems especially in delhi. A time will take but it will be fine after some few years.
• Yes, the Indian government is doing what it can to tackle discrimination. The problem is the minds of the Indian society. Unless their minds and attitude changes towards the northeast, the Government of India can do little. Introducing stringent laws will not help. The attitude of Indians to Northeasterners will not change through law, it can only change through education and awareness.
Some of those who voted NO had this to say:
• No, they are encouraging discrimination instead.
• Discrimination is in the mind... i am yet to see any party's manifesto having 'encourage discrimination' as its agenda. People tend to discriminate coz of shallowness and in-congruent outlook
• The GOI cannot be serious in tackling discrimination as it is already discriminating against the NE by the way of PAP/RAP. lack of development profiling etc and the narrow mindset, GOI is thousand miles revmoved from NE, why should they care? since we are only good for training ground for their forces against china, since we look like the chin chin bhai.
• They care about killing insects, but discrimination against the North Easterners is their way of life...
• Ha!!! no way. i have been away for home 14 plus years now. the attitude of the mainlanders have not changed at all. it is getting worse. we are Indian govt step-children:-)we Indians are all first class hypocrites.
• When many officials in main land do not know where northeast is, how do we expect such things. Many think that Nagaland is in far-away Africa.
• 101% no. They are not even talking about it in the parliament forget about trying to do something......unless their mindset is change.
• No. GOI is not serious at all. Discrimination is not a new thing to people from Northeast. Had the govt been serious, Richard Loitam would be living!
• Definitely No.....i think they forget that Nagaland even exists
• Not at all the problem with NE people is that we expect other to be what we think. I think those people in power in delhi don’t even know north east people. Time the NE people need to keep our internal conflict aside and address this kind of larger issue unitedly.
• All that matters to them is "vote bank" politics and sadly north-east has very less MP's
• Racial discrimination has been there since long and the central Govt. was and is aware of it since long. If they are serious why wait until now for the NE people to raise the issue.
• Discrimination has been there even in the early 50ts till today. Being belong to mongolian does not mean that we are not Indians but that not what people think outside northeast. Sometimes its hard to digest that some people dont even know that Nagaland does exist... Is nagaland not in their map? being ST. people have less look on us ie northeast people. We are not Japaness nor chinese we are also Indian. And If government cares, this things could have been solved earlier... And so far there is less response. And I also find some weakness even within up......
• Its just a waste of time for them!
• The answer is a big no and never. The latest example is the hulabola over the visit of EU diplomats and the threat to reimpose PAP. This is the height of hypocrisy in Indian democracy.
Some of those who voted OTHERS had this to say:
• In a very divided India we cannot expect but be racially profiled. It would be a norm but what scares me more is how minorities in the country is targeted to even enhance national patriotism or rather jingoism and that scares me more than being discriminated for not looking 'Dravidian' enough. India, after all its history of communalism has still remained but now filtered to a progressive profiling and bullying form out picking out victims. Influenced sometimes by politics, regionalism and religion or religious-political propaganda disguised as nationalism. It is scary, i would not underestimate how India can quickly victimize a minority group when diversities are many and little unity among them. Caste system is considered a peculiar form of discrimination even more peculiar than racism, whether that is in America, Europe etc. Based on purity (of body and surrounding) and supplemented by implementation of social segregation it is a complex and complicated hierarchy. It is also synonymous to Hinduism faith and a lot of its believers implement it. Politics has never addressed it significantly and now the politics of today is streamlining along caste, region, community, minority, religion, etc. bringing about a different form of politics than that of Congress its final verdict still not visible yet. Congress in its later years managed to dismantle the ideologies of democracy, secularism and even socialism making India more suspicious about these 'western- ideologies' too. It is not in popular demand and what is referred as 'Nehruvian' has definitely degenerated in present- India. It is some of these things that one has to assimilate too while understanding discrimination. How it may work but also how and where the limits of understanding are. If we do not, we may just be victimized and that is something i can predict from our behaviour or what people perceive of us. If we take in some of these truths perhaps we could assert from here and also bring about something pragmatic and useful for our minority group.
• As long as India exist Discrimination will be there, we are a diverse community and we aren't too fond of our neighbors :) be it within our society or even in the Mainland. A Delhiite or a Punjabi doesn't like a Bihari, a Marathi doesn't like Biharis and people from UP etc. ah! The North and South divide is HUGE too. Even the language problem, the South doesn't want Hindi to dominate India and as it was evident on Sunday, when Parliament celebrated it's 60th year, most spoke in Hindi and in a subtle message to those Hindi speaking people the Southern Legislators spoke in their own Languages.
• We cannot think too small and exclusive. we hardly see the outside picture or become prejudiced easily. people may not know about us but what we do in turn to be noticed is our responsibility. here, we function with mostly our prejudice and 'rumours' of what we hear. i have very good Indian friends. i work with slum kids and i do not try to be different from them. then i am at liberty to assess impartially.
• Discrimination:- Just a step from northeast we face the consequences for our race. The recent cases of Richard and many others. It has become our daily bread. The recent protest by the Tibetans on Chinese president visit in India for BRICS, where many from northeastern people questioned and held. Aren’t we enough to say mainland Indians are neglecting the northeasterners, cause we live in the mountains, or our culture doesn’t match them. Where are the Indian government steps in tacking those discrimination. So far I don’t agree.
• Sometimes I wonder why the people of NE region inspite of thriving human resources from all walks of life contributing richly to the diverse vibrant Indian society and its myriad abundant natural resources despite infrastructural bottlenecks strengthening the enviable growth rate of the GDP of an overall Indian economic, and besides the region being an integral part of an Indian union of states is arguably the most strategic location of an Indian sub-continent in terms of geographical advantages for bright prospect for the realization of international trade route with the asian countries and the rest of the world in the future…..(missing sms text)..Taking these undeniable facts into account, the sky is the limit for seven sisters as the sons and daughters of the soils have every potential to stand on own feet without being played a second fiddle to the higher up of an Indian govt or the like. The NE people have all ways and means to chart our own destiny and build our own future without being assisted in any manner from the mainland of the powers that be, if the injustice and disparity continue to be like this in the present context to figure prominently between mainland and NE region that arises out of negligence and indifferent attitude as a result of step-motherly treatment.
