A video of a four-year-old girl from Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh, has gone viral after she firmly told a stranger not to call her Chinese, insisting instead that she be called Indian.
The girl, Karga Tinkle Gongo, was being filmed by her mother while buying ice cream when a social media user commented that she looked Chinese.
In the video, she responds, ‘Don’t call us Chinese. Call us Indians. It makes me angry,’ before going on to sing the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana.
Her mother said the family was taken aback by how widely the clip travelled online, with many users praising the young girl for confidently asserting her identity.
The moment has added to a long-running conversation in India about the casual stereotyping faced by people from the Northeast, who are frequently mistaken for other nationalities because of their appearance.
The video has been widely shared as a heartwarming example of a child’s unfiltered pride in her national identity, drawing appreciation from across the country.
People from India’s Northeast have long dealt with being mistaken for other nationalities because of their appearance, with the casual use of terms like ‘Chinese’ or the derogatory ‘Chinki’ remaining a persistent frustration for the region.
In the video, the young girl also sang the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, adding to the emotional response the clip generated online.
Many social media users praised the child for confidently asserting her identity at such a young age, with the video being widely shared and discussed as a moment of unscripted pride.
Itanagar, where the girl and her family are from, is the capital of Arunachal Pradesh, a state in India’s far northeast bordering China, Bhutan and Myanmar.
The clip has added to a recurring conversation in India about casual racial stereotyping faced by people from northeastern states, an issue that resurfaces periodically whenever such videos go viral.
Photo by SK Gupta, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
