Click to play videoNew Delhi: Are Delhiites Xenophobic — fearing or hating anyone who's different?
Meet Samson, a Nigerian student studying at Jawaharlal Nehru University. CNN-IBN wanted to see how Delhi perceives a foreigner.
The mission is to find him a house in South Delhi. In the upmarket Green Park Extension area the monthly rent crosses Rs 15,000 for even a small apartment. However, the minute our broker saw the potential tenant, he told us what to expect.
"They won't give you a house. Nigerians are not given houses because of their reputation," said the broker.
Even when CNN-IBN told the broker that the Samson was an educated person working with an MNC, the broker seemed apologetic about the houseowner's preference, but said he was helpless.
CNN-IBN then decided to go a notch higher — to Vasant Vihar, an area preferred by embassy officials.
They showed Samson one house, but then the landlord changed his mind and firmly refused to give him the house on rent.
Landlord: "We don't want to give our house to Nigerians because many of them are involved in drug peddling."
People's reactions left Samson clearly upset.
"People differentiate because they want certain values, a certain way of life. They don't want foreigners who they can't relate to," he said.
But there's more to refusing Africans than the obvious reason of discrimination.
A real estate agent, Kajal Makhijani says, "People associate paying capacity with Europeans and inferiority with Africans. Also, people believe that at the end of the day, Europeans will go back to their countries."
Samson is among the many others — Kashmiris, Muslims and of course hundreds of foreign students — who are not welcome in Delhi.
These people say they are simply different — and perhaps, this is their only fault and that is why they are racially discriminated against.
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