Press Statement on Fatal Racist Assualt on Nido Thaniam

The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) strongly condemns the fatal racist assault on Nido Thaniam, an incident that has yet again underscored the sense of alienation and otherness we have forced on our own people from the North-Eastern states. Such incidents also reveal the cultural insulation and parochial mindset of people in our city. Despite the capital city’s demographic and cultural diversity, the failure to accept difference should be a cause for grave worry. The alarming rise in such incidents of cultural intolerance, at times amounting to xenophobia, can only be curbed through sincere efforts towards making education accessible and meaningful for the masses. Instead of dismissing such incidents as problems merely stemming from police inaction, both the State and Central Governments should seriously introspect on the urgency with which justice needs to be made more inclusive and governance, more responsive to our diversity.

Sharing in their distress and loss, the DUTA commiserates with the family-members and loved ones of Nido Thaniam.