By Kusum Arora

Jalandhar, May 21, 2020: In early March, when the number of COVID-19 cases was yet to increase in India, a northeastern woman in Jalandhar heard a group of men shouting, “Go Corona, we will not ferry you.”

Before she could understand what they were saying, they fled in the dark.

It was only after they left that Chelsea Kikon Kaur, who was waiting for public transportation, realized that the ‘Go Corona’ remark was a derogatory comment directed at her looks and identity as she is from Nagaland.

Although she ignored it, after a few days, another girl – a PhD student from Nagaland – shared a similar incident of racial abuse, where a man publicly called her ‘coronavirus’ at a shop in Phagwara.

These incidents, and others from across the country, would have left anybody dejected, but Chelsea preferred to set an example by reaching out to migrant workers during the Covid-19 crisis. It has been over two months now since she has been providing rice, flour, sugar, pulses and soaps to the migrants, who have been left to fend for themselves during this pandemic-induced lockdown.

A single mother, Chelsea also distributed ration from her restaurant, ‘The Village by Chelsea’ at Phagwara to her employees.

“I started the restaurant in November 2019 but it was shut down in March following the lockdown. So, every day, we reach out to the migrants on the highways, in localities, and contribute whatever little we can. The smile we see on the faces of the poor children and their parents is the biggest satisfaction,” she said.

Undeterred by the racist comments, Chelsea, along with her brother, said that this was a way to send a strong message to all those who had been targeting communities for the coronavirus outbreak – be it people from the northeast or Muslims.

“It is disappointing to hear such comments. Coronavirus has affected the entire world but people don’t apply their mind before uttering such hateful comments. All I want to tell everybody is that we are not Chinese. We have not spread Covid-19. We are Indians and are helping the poor who are in deep crisis, staring at losses, hunger and poverty in the pandemic,” she said.

Chelsea, who is also the advisor of the North East Students Organisation in Punjab, said that it was a big boost when the Delhi police arrested a man for spitting paan at a Manipuri woman and calling her “corona” in March.

“The worst was when people also trolled World Badminton Champion Jwala Gutta for her looks and called her ‘China ka maal hai, sasti hogi’ and ‘half corona’, as her mother was Chinese. Jwala was trolled after she retweeted the Northeastern girl’s incident in Delhi. Such incidents hurt us, but I feel that the only way to overcome hatred is through positivity and hope,” she said.

The union has more than 2,500 students and employees hailing from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, who live in and around Jalandhar.

Asked if the union would take strict note of any such cases in future, she said, “We have a legal team, which would tackle racial abuse cases. But, despite these incidents, Punjab is like a second home to us. We still feel safe and people in Punjab are friendly and generous,” she added.

On the targeting of the entire Muslim community in the wake of the cluster of Covid-19 positive cases from the Tablighi Jamaat gathering at Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi, Chelsea said, “People don’t realize that Islam is a religion and Muslims are Indians too.”

(Kusum Arora is an independent journalist. This first appeared in thewire.in on May 18, 2020)