Being African in India: 'We are seen as demons'

Al Jazeera ^ | 27 June 2016 | Aletta Andre

[Cronos]

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.

"People often look at me as if I am different, and hard to be trusted," the tall, softly spoken student explains. "I try to be friendly. I speak Hindi and always laugh. But when I offer biscuits to the neighbours' children, they don't accept."

While he speaks with his Indian classmates at the university, a 75-acre campus accommodating students from more than 20 countries, and some of them also showed up for an international cultural event he helped to organise, none of these encounters lead to friendships.

"I have never been at an Indian person's home, as a friend. No one has visited me," Zaharaddeen says.

.."My landlord is an extremely good person," Zaharaddeen says. Although he has had some bad experiences with Indian people, many of them are good, he stresses. And he doesn't want to generalise.

"That would be a huge mistake. Because it is Indians often generalising about all people from Africa that makes us feel unsafe."

..This was seconded by Ibrahim Djiji Adam, a 25-year-old business student from Libya.

"We are often seen as demons, drug dealers or prostitutes," Ibrahim said.

[kearnyirish2]

Freddie Mercury’s family left Zanzibar under the same circumstances; they were originally from elsewhere in Asia.

[Cronos]

Freddie Mercury, or Faroukh Bulsara (his actual name) was an Indian Parsi (Zoroastrian by religion) who, as you correctly point out, ran from Tanzania when Indians were attacked by blacks<