(Inputs by Rejith Balakrishnan, Sumitra Deb Roy, Sunitha Rao, Rohan Dua, Mohammad Ibrar)

Global anxiety about the spread of the novel coronavirus has fuelled racial tensions , prompting the United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Thursday to urge the world to tackle the “disturbing wave of prejudice” against people of Chinese and East Asian ethnicity. In India as well, the virus spawned fear has stoked xenophobic sentiments.Earlier this month, a student of Delhi University’s Kirori Mal College who hails from the Northeast complained to college authorities that she was called ‘coronavirus’ on campus by a group of students. The principal, Vibha Singh Chauhan, said the college would soon hold a sensitisation programme for students.In Mumbai, a resident of a housing society shot and circulated a video of a woman from Nagaland, suspecting her to be Chinese. The 23-year-old woman had arrived from Kohima to visit a friend — a tenant in the society — on February 10 when another resident shot a video of her and again sent it to the landlord. The friend hosting the woman, a 23-year-old from Nagaland studying at Tata Institute of Social Sciences(TISS), said, “I was shocked to see the video where my friend was being filmed by my neighbour. His wife even asked my friend to leave the building.”Fear of and ignorance about coronavirus is increasingly resulting in anyone with East Asian features or people from China and its neighbourhood becoming targets of racist slurs and discrimination — in campuses, hotels, and malls.About the time Lui (name changed), a 27-year-old Chinese man, reached Kerala for the last leg of his solo expedition across Southeast Asia , the severity of an unassuming flu-like illness reported from a sea market in China had become apparent.By February 4, thousands of cases of the novel coronavirus had come to light, unleashing along with anxiety a barrage of anti-Asian prejudices and sinophobic incidents across the globe. And Lui — who hails from Sichuan province and had reached Thiruvananthapuram after covering Sri Lanka, Delhi and Bengaluru — was about to find firsthand just how bad things were.All the hotels Lui went to, including government-run guest houses, denied him accommodation because he was Chinese. When he approached the city police commissioner for help, he was taken to the isolation ward of a hospital though he did not have any symptoms. For two weeks, the hospital was Lui’s home. Later, tests cleared him of infection and yet no hotel was ready to take him in.As the infection has spread so has the hostility towards “Chinese-looking people”. While a man in the US was caught telling someone “you dropped your corona”, several people in France have spoken about the prejudice they faced under the hashtag #JeNeSuisPasUn-Virus (#IAmNotAVirus). Now it’s come to India.In Maharashtra, the government had to issue an advisory this month, urging people not to discriminate against foreign nationals from countries affected by coronavirus. The move was prompted after reports that Chinese nationals returning to the city were being asked for medical certificates by members of their housing society to prove they were infection-free. Several calls were also made to Maharashtra’s public health department by private companies wanting to know whether their employees who had returned from China were infection-free.State epidemiologist Dr Pradeep Awate narrated how a Pune resident, who was back from a work tour in China, was found queuing up at BJ Medical College for a fitness certificate. “We told his office that there was no need for a fitness certificate if he has been under observation. Importantly, we had to remind companies that medical reports are confidential,” he said. Dentist Dr Tulun Chen, a member of the Chinese community in the city, said that travellers going on cruise ships starting from Mumbai were asked to produce certificates despite the city not reporting any coronavirus cases.The advisory also urged people to not believe in rumours that have indicated non-vegetarian food as a cause of the infection. But few are listening. Chinese restaurants in Mumbai are struggling for business, as as those in Kolkata, because fears have been raised about the “cleanliness” of the food. Upscale restaurants serving Chinese food have seen a number of inquiries about the source of ingredients that they use.In Bengaluru, when a 30-year-old Chinese woman entered the general ward of a government hospital, all other patients tried to leave. Kin of the patients also alleged that the woman would “infect everyone”.TOI reported earlier that a flyer on a Delhi-Kolkata IndiGo flight refused to sit next to a passenger from Arunachal Pradesh after the latter sneezed once. There have been cases of passengers trying to avoid those with “Mongoloid features”.In another incident, an senior Indian scientist who was attending a conference in Gurgaon’s Aerocity told TOI that six people from South Korea were had just entered the hotel he was staying at when they were asked to leave the hotel by the manager. “They argued that their country was not affected by coronavirus and that they were not Chinese. They finally left.” Meanwhile, a family in Bengaluru which had returned from China on January 23 was forced to undergo medical tests by neighbours who called up the health department. The family of five was taken away in an ambulance by a team of doctors. They tested negative for the virus.