In Arjun Nagar, Safdarjung Enclave, there is a small beauty parlour called Above Blessing Africa. A young Nigerian woman named Blessing, who looks like she is in her mid-20s, set it up two years ago when she realised there was a shortage of salons that knew how to handle African hair. Blessing said, “Africans here hardly have any place to make their hair because Indians don’t know how to do African hair.” Business has been kind enough to ensure Above Blessing Africa survives, which is a testament to Blessing’s entrepreneurial spirit and also an indicator that there are enough Black people in Delhi to keep salons like this one in business. Yet no one in Above Blessing Africa — neither Blessing nor the two other people in the parlour (one of whom was Blessing’s younger sister and a student in India) — were particularly interested in answering my questions about being African in Delhi.

They spoke with a degree of indifference and caution, as though they had resigned themselves to being harassed and targeted. Racism was a part of their everyday lives and all they wanted to ensure was that speaking to me wouldn’t in any way land them in trouble. “They stare at you and laugh at you,” Blessing said, referring to the general populace on the streets. “They use abusive words. They call you names in Hindi.” The language barrier prevents Blessing from knowing exactly what is being said, whether the phrases are racist, but she can tell it’s not pleasant.

India has been a popular destination for African students for decades because it’s a foreign degree that is relatively affordable. A recent report calculated there are more than 2,000 African students in Jalandhar and Phagwara alone. The experience of being Black in India is troubling enough for Amity University to have set up a separate counseling centre for its 150-odd African students.  There are also people like Blessing and James, who come to India to work, hoping to make a little money and then return home. The reason it is difficult to calculate the precise number of Africans in India is because many stay on with expired visas. In Karnataka, of 1,156 foreigners staying illegally in the state, 842 are from African countries.  Ninety-one African nationals have criminal cases registered against them.

Referred to as “kaley” and “habshi” by even the police on most occasions, Africans in general and Nigerians in particular are suspected of being drug dealers and human traffickers. While this is an accurate description for a few, there are also people like James, a 26-year-old Nigerian businessman, who I met at Blessing’s parlour. James has been in India since 2015. Based on his experiences and those of his friends, James had no qualms in saying “99.9%” of Delhi would discriminate against Black people. “They look at you as if you have shit on your body, like you are an animal,” he said.

Listening to James, it seemed like some of the discontent between Africans and Indians comes from cultural differences. “If you greet someone good morning, they won’t greet you,” he complained. While this might be a normal expectation for James, this kind of genial public behaviour isn’t common in big Indian cities like Delhi, but he doesn’t know that because he doesn’t really know many Indians despite living here. The fact that I was the first Indian person that James said he’d chatted with casually — barring his colleagues with whom he talks work — shows just how segregated black people are and how different their experience is in India in comparison to that of white expatriates.

A quick chat with a shopkeeper in Khirki Extension shows why Africans are not able to feel at home in Delhi. Without the slightest hesitation, the shopkeeper said, “Woh sab gande log hai.” (They are all bad people.) He was convinced that all of them were involved in drug peddling and consumption, and had an insatiable sexual appetite. Every statement of his was prejudiced, which puts paid to the theory that greater exposure lessens prejudice. Khirki Extension has many Black people living and no doubt this is the reason the shopkeeper did go on to make a distinction between Somalians and Nigerians.  He was of the view that Somalians were not a problem and that it was only people in the Nigerian community who were a nuisance. According to him, people had stopped giving homes on rent to Nigerians in the locality and if someone did choose to, the backlash from the local populace would make him alter his decision.

A cigarette seller who has been living in the locality for the past 25 years has no misgivings about referring to Africans as “habshi.” He justified it by saying, “Yahaan sab hi habshi bolte hai. Hum bhi sunte sunte bolne lage.” (“Everyone here calls them habshi. After hearing everyone say it, I also started calling them that.”)  He also said, “Woh log bohot problem karte hai.” (“They create a lot of problems.”) When asked what he exactly meant by “problems,” he couldn’t elaborate.

The sense of isolation that Black people feel in Delhi was plain for all to see when Nigerian football coach Evwrirhe Isaac made news in March this year.

Four days before Holi, Isaac, who lives in Uttam Nagar, was struck by a water balloon. Not amused by this antic, Isaac scolded the kid who had aimed at him. For a dozen locals, this was reason enough to brutally attack Isaac and his Nigerian flatmate, Aliyu Abdul, on March 20. Abdul remembers the men, carrying bats, barging into the flat and trashing the place. Glass was shattered, the basin was smashed, and Isaac says they also assaulted him and Abdul.

Image: An injured Isaac

 All this for protesting a kid throwing a water balloon.

In the past few years, incidents like this one have forced us to acknowledge India is not a comfortable place to live in if you’re Black. “We have been experiencing racism on the streets of India,” said Michael, a friend of Isaac and also a Nigerian who has lived in different parts of the country over the past 12 years. “This is not the first time,” he said, while discussing Isaac’s experience.

It certainly isn’t the first time that these incidents have made news. Most recently, Bengaluru saw two appalling incidents of racism when in February, a Tanzanian woman was stripped by a mob and in March, three African men were beaten up by a crowd. In Delhi, perhaps the most notorious example happened in January 2014, when Aam Aadmi Party’s Somnath Bharti led a ‘raid’ on three Ugandan women in Khirki Extension because he claimed they were running a drug and human trafficking ring. This was not substantiated and when tested for drugs, there were no traces found in the women’s samples. Later the same year, in September, there was a mob attack in the Rajiv Chowk Metro Station on three Black men who allegedly harassed a woman. The situation escalated to almost riot-like proportions and if the YouTube video of the attack is any indication, the guards who were present didn’t bother to intervene.

More common is the everyday racism that Africans face in India. From being abused to denied service, the range of offensive behaviour is wide but it’s consistent. Just look at the Registration Card that Isaac was issued by Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital in Hari Nagar on the day he was attacked.

Not only is Isaac’s name irrelevant to the hospital, they couldn’t even be bothered to spell ‘Nigerian’ correctly. His address, on the other hand, is accurately and elaborately written, which shows “Negerian” wasn’t a hasty mistake but callousness.

In the 21^st century we’re supposed to be more enlightened and progressive, but when it comes to open-mindedness about race, there’s a lot we could learn from our predecessors. In the paintings of the 17^th century from places like Golconda and Bijapur, we see gorgeous portraits of African noblemen who were evidently important courtiers. They stand proud, wearing local finery, carrying swords — at home in a world that must have been foreign to them, at least in parts. Considering how lavishly they were represented — one painting even has detailing in gold that still gleams, four and a half centuries later — it seems unlikely that these men felt like Blessing, James, Isaac and countless other Africans do in modern India.