The anger is palpable. Not sadness, not shock, just plain anger. The two office-bearers of the Association of African Students Union in India (AASI) that we met talk about two objectives. The first is creating a positive outlook about Africans and destroying the narrative that shows people from the continent as criminals. The second? To do unto us what we are doing unto them.

This conversation took place after the November 22 attack on four Tanzanian women and two Nigerian men on accusations of kidnapping and cannibalism. They were rescued after the women made frantic calls about their home being surrounded by a 200-strong mob baying for their blood.

Interrogation and subsequent investigation found that there had been no kidnapping of a 16-year-old boy, as alleged. The additional accusation of cannibalism was also farcical.

A police officer privy to the investigation said they have not found out who started the rumours. The Additional DCP of Dwarka, Giriraj Singh, said “it’s a small matter” and that “nothing has happened”. He further added that the victims didn’t want any legal action.

For now, though, IPC Section 341 on unknown persons has been put in the FIR. This section, which deals with wrongful restraint, has not seen any arrests. The police say the victims must come to the fore, while videos circulating of the incident have many distinguishable faces. The police refuse to call it a racial attack, as has been seen in numerous incidents that have taken place either in the city or around the country. This time, the students from the African continent don’t want to call it that either.

Merveil Ntambwe Ngongo, the president of AASI, says he wants to do and hear only positive things. “We don’t want to focus on racism. We don’t need to be accepted, I don’t need to prove who I am.” 

 Ngongo goes on to add that “deep in my heart”, this incident has taught him a lot. “I live quite differently [here in India] … we face challenges. But that’s part of life.” He says if a similar incident took place between a Hindu and a Muslim, “it becomes discrimination, a fight between two religions”, and so they don’t want this depicted as racism. We are no victims, he says.

But in the same conversation, Ngongo points out that only in this country has he learnt about racism—“the culture, the hatred”. He says he will go to the extreme of advising brethren back home not to come to India.

Back in his home country of Congo, Ngongo was taught humanism: “That we are one, and that’s what I believed in.” But here, he has learnt “something else”, and he says this isn’t bad. “It’s just a bad thing when you project yourself as a victim. When someone says someone is acting racist, maybe it’s [out of] the love for your country.”

He says this is something his people need to learn. “Stop calling others racist but become racists yourself. It will help the situation everywhere. Africans complain about racism around the world. Why? They need to love themselves before anyone else. That’s what’s going to happen.”

Ezeugo Nnamdi Lawrence’s anger is more prominent. General secretary of the AASI, he says sarcastically, “The West has taught us a lot and now its Asia’s time.” Soon, he says, “it will be our turn. Although we won’t really want to be racist but I think it becomes inevitable.” 

When he goes back to his country, he says, “We wouldn’t like a situation where someone is going to see me and say, ‘hey Ezeugo, you were in India, why are you treating me like this?’ I’m not going to listen.” Lawrence adds calmly, “At that time, we will be focused on paying back.”

The first thing he says he will do after going back is “identify those places where Indians are staying. I’m being frank. I’ll identify the community (and) just as we are not allowed to do things here we will start pushing our government to make policies.” He adds, “When I start telling people back home about my experience and of other Africans, I think they would have second thoughts.”

Africa’s trade with India has grown nearly 35 per cent every year from 2005 and is now estimated at $100 billion. At the World Economic Forum (WEF) India Economic Summit in Delhi in 2014, the plan was to boost India-Africa trade to $500 billion by 2020. There are more than three million persons of Indian origin in Africa, according to the World Economic Forum. However, common people are not aware of the growing ties.

“These are all things that the society needs to be educated on,” says Lawrence. “Don’t tell us about the age-old Indo-Africa relations. If there is that long a relationship, then why do people stare at me? That means you have not seen us, but you claim we have been partners for a long while.” He says perhaps people “don’t care because think they’ll never depend on Africa”, but things are changing.

In even simpler terms, as Lawrence puts it, they pay school fees, rent for their accommodation—which is pegged higher for Africans. Over and above that, “the government takes taxes”. Despite all this, “They don’t even bother about the security.”

In 2016, following attacks on African nationals in India, and a threat made by African ambassadors in solidarity saying they would not send their students here, the government had promised to work on safety and sensitisation. Promises were made by the ministry of external affairs and even the prime minister. But Lawrence points out: “You meet Africans but what about the Indian locals? The mindset that they can bully anybody, that mindset should change.”

He also blames the media. In 2017, after the attack on Africans yet again, they led a protest with the hashtags #LetsUniteAgainstStereotype and #LetsUniteAgainstDiscrimination, but instead of promoting it, he says the media “got angry that we don’t use the racism tag”. He explains, “The reason why we use these hashtags is that we understand these two to be units like the seed that breeds racism. If you look at the dynamics in Indian society, there is discrimination everywhere. You don’t love each other that much. So rather than make it an African problem, we thought: let’s make it all-inclusive.”

Ngongo and Lawrence think the larger problem lies here. The day Africans cease to come to India, and India doesn’t have someone to bully, “You may start doing it to yourselves on a larger scale”. He gives the example of how North Easterners are routinely targeted. 

For now, at least, they want to start a campaign in Dwarka, where the mob targeted the Africans on false rumours. “This is our work to initiate something positive in the community,” Ngongo says, adding that on a personal level, however, he feels, Indians should be concerned about tomorrow. “Just because nobody talks, it does not mean that people are not taking notice. When you come to somebody’s house, you abide by their rules. But even after that cooperation, there is only hatred; then that is not good.”

The students say they’ve tried in the past to change the narrative that seeks to demonise Africans or victimise them. They led a drive in their community to collect relief material for those affected by in the floods in Kerala. Lawrence says he travelled for two days to get to Idukki to help people affected. “We wanted to do something positive. Show compassion.” He says it doesn’t matter that this received no media coverage since the people there appreciated their efforts. But he thinks it would help their cause if there was some more focus on their positive work, just as much as the media likes the negative stories that come out. 

The African community also joined in the government’s Swachch Bharat Abhiyan initiative, picking up brooms to clean up Noida’s Sector 18. They wanted people to recognise that they are part the community, that they also care about the environment—and to dismiss this thinking that Indians have about them: “People think we’re dirty, unclean.” They have also had various charity drives: from visiting kids with cancer to visiting old people, and going to slums to donate books and pens to children.

But at the same time, Lawrence says even if Indians change their ways, “it won’t stop people from paying back the society which has treated them unjustly”. He adds: “The world is turning. The generation in power back home is old. That means the generation you’re discriminating against now will be the future leaders whom you’ll have to deal with in 10 years to come.”