Uttarakhand Police Are Minimising a Racial Killing. The State Must Answer
Anjel Chakma did not die in an abstract “law and order situation”. He was stabbed to death in Dehradun after being racially abused. Stripping this case of its racial context is not neutrality or procedural caution. It is a deliberate narrowing of truth, and it reflects a failure that extends from the police on the ground to the political leadership that oversees them.
From the outset, the language used by the Uttarakhand Police has been telling. “Altercation”, “argument”, and “heat of the moment” have been deployed with consistency and care. These are not neutral descriptors. They are narrative choices. They flatten a racially charged assault into a generic street crime and allow the state to avoid confronting a far more uncomfortable reality about prejudice, impunity, and the everyday vulnerability of people from the Northeast outside their home region.
This minimisation persists despite the presence of a direct eyewitness. Anjel Chakma’s younger brother was there. He survived. He gave a statement. His account speaks of racial slurs, targeted abuse, and violence that escalated when that abuse was challenged. The system has no difficulty accepting his testimony to identify the attackers, reconstruct the sequence of events, and justify arrests. Yet when the same testimony points to racism, it suddenly becomes “unverified” and “inconclusive”. This contradiction cannot be explained by law alone. It reflects institutional discomfort with naming racial violence.
The familiar defence that “motive is still under investigation” sounds responsible but functions as a shield. Indian policing rarely struggles to infer intent in cases involving property disputes, political clashes, or personal enmity. But when motive involves race or identity, the bar is raised so high that denial becomes the default outcome. The result is a pattern where violence is prosecuted, but its cause is quietly erased.
What makes this failure more glaring is the absence of leadership. Pushkar Singh Dhami has offered neither a public apology nor a firm assurance that the investigation will examine the racial dimension without fear or favour. There has been no clear message to the people of the Northeast that their concerns are understood and taken seriously. Silence in this context is not restraint. It is abdication. A Chief Minister does not weaken the state by acknowledging failure. He weakens it by pretending none exists.
The damage is compounded by silence from the Centre. Narendra Modi has not publicly condemned the violence or the racism alleged in this case. When the Prime Minister speaks loudly on some injustices and not at all on others, it creates a hierarchy of concern. For citizens from the Northeast, this silence reinforces a long-standing belief that their pain is negotiable and their safety conditional once they leave their states.
This is not a demand for special treatment. It is a demand for equal citizenship. Justice is not served merely by convictions if the truth is diluted along the way. Punishing murder while refusing to acknowledge why it happened may close a case, but it leaves the underlying harm intact and guarantees repetition.
India cannot continue to invoke unity while refusing to confront racism within its own borders. The role of the state is not just to process crimes, but to name them honestly. The role of leadership is not to manage optics, but to reassure citizens that the system will not look away when prejudice turns lethal.
The anger surrounding this case is justified. It does not stem from impatience with due process. It comes from watching a familiar pattern unfold yet again, where denial precedes investigation and silence replaces accountability. Courts will decide guilt in time. But trust is being decided now. And unless Uttarakhand’s government and the Union leadership choose acknowledgement over minimisation, they will not just fail Anjel Chakma. They will deepen the sense of alienation that made this tragedy possible in the first place.
