 |
| English: Abhishek Pratap Shah is a Nepalese politician, belonging to the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The Word Madisey
By Paramendra Bhagat
www.paramendra.com
The word madisey is like the word nigger. It is hate speech. There is no nice way to say it. There is no tone of voice that is right. You can call someone a Teraiwasi. You can call someone a Madhesi. There is a Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, there is no Madisey Janadhikar Forum. Someone from Mithila is a Maithil. I take great pride in my heritage. But hate speech is inexcusable. You can call me Indian, I am half Indian. But hate speech is a whole different paradigm.
Suman Timilsina was national president of the Non Resident Nepali Association when he said the m-word, in a public speech too. I took great exception to it. My blog post taking offense is still in the archives online. Timilsina is nowhere to be seen anywhere in the public space. He does not belong.
I was at the Woodside Café with some friends a few months ago. Someone at an adjacent table but within hearing distance kept saying the m-word. He also used the “dhoti” term quite liberally. He was not anyone I knew or who knew me. He was not talking to me. The guy was using the hate terms to talk about his Indian boss in the city. Obviously he would not say that to the boss’ face. This was not racism that was coming out of any claim to superiority. I did not speak a word of protest. But I arranged to have tea with my friend a week or two later. And I asked about that guy. Who was that “namak haram,” I asked. The underwear that guy is wearing he must have bought with the money his boss gives him, I guessed out loud. But look at the racist way he was talking about his boss.
Some of the poorest white folks in the deep South are some of the most racist white folks in America today. White folks in the northeast and along the West Coast look down upon them, so they look for people to look down upon too. They look in the direction of Africa. Poor Nepalis talking racist about Indians fall in some similar weird category. That is like low income senior citizens in my homevillage in Nepal thinking white Christians are lower than the so-called untouchables. It is a fabricated superiority mindset that might not go away anytime soon but it has absolutely no basis in reality. The socio-economic indicators provide no leverage to that way of thinking.
The word madisey is like the word nigger. The word Madhesi is like the word Negro. The word Teraiwasi is akin to the term African American. Teraiwasi is a respectable term. But the word Madhesi has cultural connotations. 40% of the Teraiwasis today are of hill origin. They are not culturally Madhesi. The word Madhesi encompasses the Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Tharu, Urdu, Hindi and Marwari speakers.
Madisey, bhote, and jyapu are not nice terms. I hear in Britain Paki is a similar derogatory term for all South Asians. The respectable term of course would be Desi. Many Nepalis protest the use of that word. To me that is like saying a Nepali is not South Asian. Of course a Nepali is a South Asian. Of course a Nepali is a Desi.
The term Bahadur and pakhey are also derogatory. I disapprove of the use of the word Bahadur in India. It is hate speech. But that use does not justify the use of the word madisey. I support the idea of a Gorkhaland state in India and all peaceful action that will lead to its creation.
There is some major work to be done to create a positive pan South Asian identity in Jackson Heights. The community is at peace and the crime rate is low, but it is too fragmented. Most people stay within their comfort zones socially. There are the country groups, and there are the various ethnic groups within those country groups. The right to peaceful assembly is a basic human right and rightly so. So I am not going to protest the various pretexts people find to come together. But I think effort has to be made to create a larger tent.
At one end you are an individual and you need your personal space and dignity. At the other end you are part of the humanity at large. And there are many groups in between, all of which deserve to co-exist peacefully.
You can make a practical case to simply ignore some Neanderthals making peaceful use of hate speech. The positive change might not come fast enough. But I think it is a fairly simple proposition to say hate speech should meet social ostracism. A community that makes the effort towards positive interactions will be a more productive community.
There are practical implications. Hate speech gets in the way of the riches. A community that tolerates hate speech will not cut all possible business deals and will lag behind. New, higher levels of cooperation will not be an option for a Nepali community that is okay with the use of the word madisey. That word creates roadblocks and gets in the way of wealth creation.
Jackson Heights is only a few blocks of India but it is the most famous Indian neighborhood in all of North America. For a Nepali to talk hate speech against Indians in a place like Jackson Heights has got to be one of the less wise things. Don’t do it.
