It begins, as it so often does, with something that is brushed aside as harmless fun. A plate of food is placed before contestants, laughter fills the room, and within moments that laughter curdles into visible disgust.
Faces contort, bodies recoil, and the camera lingers just long enough to make sure the reaction registers. What unfolds on Tribeverse on JioHotstar is packaged as a task, a fleeting slice of reality television. But for many viewers, particularly from the Northeast, it does not feel fleeting at all. It feels familiar. Not shocking, not new, just deeply exhausting.
Because this is not about a single episode. It is about a pattern. A pattern where food, something that should invite curiosity and understanding, is reduced to spectacle. Where identity is turned into a test, something to be laughed at and consumed for views. And perhaps most troubling of all is how easily such moments slip into the mainstream without pause or reflection.
A Pattern That Refuses to Fade
The anger around Tribeverse is not isolated. It draws from years of quiet frustration. When Paatal Lok depicted the Northeast through a lens of violence and isolation, it was applauded for its intensity, even as it leaned on familiar stereotypes.
Time and again, when films and shows attempt to include the region, they compress its vast diversity into a single, simplified narrative. Languages blur into one, identities flatten, and complexities disappear. Each instance may appear standalone, but together they build a larger story. One where the Northeast is consistently portrayed as distant, different, and rarely understood on its own terms.
Why This Feels Personal
What makes these portrayals particularly painful is not just what they show, but what they echo. For many people from the Northeast, these are not fictional exaggerations. They mirror lived experiences. The questions about food. The sideways glances. The casual assumptions. The feeling of being treated as an outsider in one's own country. To then see these same attitudes amplified on national platforms is not merely disappointing. It is deeply hurtful. It reinforces a gaze that many have spent years pushing back against.
Why Does This Keep Happening?
Mainstream storytelling in India has long treated the Northeast as something distant. At times it is romanticised into an exotic landscape. At others, it is framed as troubled and unfamiliar. Rarely is it afforded the dignity of complexity. In Anek, an attempt was made to spotlight the region, yet it ended up reducing it to a broad, indistinct narrative of conflict. The diversity across states and communities was overshadowed by a singular, simplified lens.
Even more nuanced films like Axone, which sought to humanise Northeastern experiences, still centred the hostility surrounding their food. It highlighted prejudice, but also revealed how deeply ingrained that prejudice continues to be. This tendency is not new. As far back as Ye Gulistan Hamara, tribal communities were depicted through a distorted, almost caricatured lens. The language has evolved over time, but the underlying gaze remains unsettlingly similar.
When Food Becomes a Punchline
Food is never just about taste. It carries memory, history, geography, and identity. To mock it is to mock the people who hold that culture together. The Konyak tribe, one of the largest Naga communities, has a cultural heritage shaped by generations. Their food reflects their land, their climate, and their way of life. It is not meant to be judged through the narrow lens of what feels acceptable to a metropolitan palate.
What Tribeverse presented was not curiosity. It was performative disgust. And that distinction is crucial.
Because for many from the Northeast, such reactions are not confined to screens. They are part of everyday life. From being questioned about what they eat to being reduced to stereotypes, the reality often mirrors what is casually broadcast as entertainment.
What Does This Representation Do?
The Northeast is not a backdrop waiting to be explored. It is a region that has spent decades asserting its place, demanding recognition and dignity that should never have been up for debate. When cinema and streaming platforms continue to frame it as backward, dangerous, or strange, they are not merely telling stories. They are shaping perception.
And perception has consequences. It influences behaviour, deepens biases, and determines how communities are treated in real life. If the industry continues to position the Northeast as an outsider within its own country, it does little to foster understanding. Instead, it reinforces distance and deepens the divide.
The Irony of Selective Sensitivity
What makes this even more frustrating is that Indian television clearly knows how to do better. MasterChef India consistently treats regional cuisines with care and respect. Ingredients are explained, traditions are honoured, and stories are told with sincerity.
There is no ridicule. No spectacle. Only an effort to understand. So, why is this approach not extended across the industry? Why are some cuisines celebrated while others are reduced to shock value?
It Is Time to Reflect
This conversation is not about avoiding difficult stories. It is about intention and responsibility. There is a clear difference between portraying prejudice and perpetuating it. Between exploring cultural differences and exploiting them. Between representation and reduction. The industry must ask itself whether it is creating content that builds understanding or simply chasing attention. Because at present, too often, it appears to be the latter.
The Northeast does not need to be explained away or sensationalised. It needs to be respected. It needs to be seen in its fullness, beyond narrow and distorted frames. And perhaps most importantly, it needs to no longer be treated as "other". Until that shift happens, controversies like Tribeverse will continue to surface. And each one will serve as a reminder that the lesson still has not been learned.
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