A few weeks after a UPSC training platform referred to Gamosa as an animal, now a faculty member at Unacademy referred to tribal farmers as “brainless.”
In a video published on Twitter, Siddharth Singh, a faculty member, discusses Jhum cultivation in his lecture titled “Mission IAS 2021 | Geography by Siddharth Sir | Biomes.” He employs racist remarks against tribal farmers in the Northeast.
Talking about jhum cultivation in the UPSC training video, the faculty Siddharth Singh says “during Jhum cultivation, what happens is that these tribal people we have, these people neither have brains nor property nor land documents”.
Watch the Video here:
The controversy
The usage of such racist language was quickly brought to the attention of people on social media, and as a result, Unacademy, the episode’s uploader, has removed the video from YouTube. However, a clip of the controversial portion has been shared on social media. While the problematic footage from the Biomes 2 lecture is still available on YouTube, the controversial clip from the Biomes 1 lecture has been removed.
Video goes viral
Soon after a screenshot of this video became viral on social media, it was met with extreme outrage across the country. Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarman, a Tripura royal scion, slammed the video and called on all chief ministers of tribal-dominated states to get together to address the issue.
“This is the reason that impedes India’s progress. Still, people are being called out by their caste and creed. This is unfortunate,” he said.
He blamed the narrow mindset, claiming that the same mindset is responsible for the North East’s alienation from the rest of India.
“When a teacher is speaking like this, imagine its impact on the thousands of students who are learning from such platforms,” said Debbarman.
Tripura CM’s OSD Sanjay Mishra also reacted angrily to the remarks, claiming that it was due to a lack of awareness about the Northeastern region.
“These types of derogatory remarks on indigenous people are unacceptable & most of them are repeated offenders. Indigenous people are carrying forward their culture and heritage. It is the result of lack of understanding about the northeast region among mainland Indians @unacademy,” he tweeted while responding to Pradyot’s tweet.
#NorthEastMatters
The hashtag NorthEastMatters was trending on Twitter a few weeks ago to draw attention to the need for authorities to educate people and raise awareness about North East India.
Recently, A video went viral on the Internet of a popular educational YouTube Channel named – ‘GradeUp’ – after Raushan Sir explained Assam’s “Gamocha” (Pronounced as Gamusa) as an Animal.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma tweeted, “Gamesa is the symbol of rich culture & vibrant history of Assam. Honourable PM Sri Narendra Modi using games to cover his face makes us gleam with both happiness and pride. I request people of Assam to also use gamma to cover their faces as replacement of mask.”
A few months back, For making uneducated, bigoted, and insulting comments about the people of Arunachal Pradesh, a Youtuber with the handle name “Paras Official” provoked an uproar, especially among the North-Eastern people.
He racially attacked Ninong Ering, an elected member of Arunachal’s state legislative assembly (MLA), in his video, calling him a ‘Chinese.’ He also made remarks about the politician’s name and appearance, which he claimed were not ‘Indian’ enough.
This was in response to a letter from the MLA to the Union Government, requesting that the mobile game “Battleground Mobile India (PUBG)” not be released, a game that the gaming community is anxiously anticipating. Bring reasoned that the game was created to mislead the government and the general public, and thus should be outlawed in the country.
