While concerns over the safety of African nationals living in India have been raised in the backdrop of some recent incidents of attacks, Indians living in African nations say that attacks that happen in India affect their “image” among the people there and have already started to make them feel “uneasy”. Indians in Africa feel that the media has a greater role to play in reporting these incidents in order to discourage untoward repercussions.
Sharing his experiences with The Sunday Guardian, N.K. Somani, an Indian who has been living in Nigeria for 25 years, said, “Life is good here and people are friendly too. Indians in general are respected in Nigeria.”
About Indians being affected by attacks on Africans in India, Somani said, “We do feel that such incidents in India can translate into negative repercussions for us in Nigeria. People here are already talking of revenge.”
In order to mitigate untoward escalation, Somani said, “Here in Nigeria, Indians are publicly condemning the attacks on Africans in India. We have been part of gatherings where safety concerns have been raised and discussions have been held to bridge any misunderstandings among Nigerians and Indians living here.”
Rupinder Singh, an Indian MBA student studying in Nairobi, said, “Indians and Africans in Nairobi live together, eat together and celebrate together. None of us would want our lifestyle to change because some prejudiced people in India decide to take the law in their own hands. If people in Delhi NCR see how much respect Indians get here, they would feel guilty of treating their African guests so badly.”
Another Indian student living in Nairobi, who did not wish to be named, said, “To say that we have no worries irrespective of these attacks in India would be a lie. There are palpable doubts in the air. Under any circumstances, this situation should not be escalated into anything bigger. It will directly affect all Indians living here. People back home need to be mindful of this. Indians contribute significantly to the economy here. Even Africans won’t want to lose the advantage they get from highly educated Indian human resource. So using these incidents for political gains will negatively affect those Africans too who are living here, especially given that their state elections are due in August.”
Earlier this week, in a strongly-worded press statement, the heads of missions of African countries in India had slammed the recent physical attacks on their nationals in India as “xenophobic and racial” in nature, adding that the government in New Delhi took no “known, sufficient and visible” deterrent action despite such incidents happening in the past. The press statement was issued after the envoys of 44 African nations held a “special” meeting and agreed to call for an independent investigation by the UN Human Rights Council as well as other human rights bodies. They also urged the matter to be comprehensively reported to the Commission of the African Union.
On the subject, it is to be noted that several attacks have taken place since last year on Indians living in African nations. While not all of them have been termed as “racist attacks”, but afew have taken place as a repercussion of what happens with Africans in India. In April last year, an engineer with WAPCOS Limited had died in Mozambique in a robbery case by local assailants. A month later in May, to protest against the death of a Congolese man killed in New Delhi, several Indian shopkeepers were forced to shut down their businesses in Congo, while people there took to streets. Three Indian men in South Africa, who hailed from Gujarat, were killed in cases of attempted robbery, which were also suspected to be racial attacks.