From colonial ‘mongoloid’ to neoliberal ‘northeastern’: theorising ‘race’, racialization and racism in contemporary India

Abstract

Contemporary India has witnessed a rise in racism discourse, central to which are people from North-East and Himalayan regions, collectively referred to as ‘Northeasterns’. This has recentred ‘race’ and racism as being a theoretical-political problem of contemporary India itself. However, existing literature shows that there is stark under-theorisation of ‘race’ and racism in Indian context. Drawing from ethnographic research and applying the racialization approach, this paper argues that ‘race’ in India is a postcolonial-neoliberal construct, whereby colonial ‘Mongoloid’ is reconstructed into neoliberal ‘Northeastern’, such that ‘race’ in India acts as a layered mode of constructing identity and difference. It further argues that the ‘Northeastern’ category emerges as a result of exclusion from the ‘Indian’ category, which itself is racialized along Hinduised-Aryanised lines, such that racism is a product of a postcolonial centre-periphery power-relation between India and its North-East; thereby making way for critical ‘race’ scholarship in the Indian context.