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Nomadic Indian, a travel vlogger from India with more than 1.7 million YouTube followers, claimed he was a victim of racial discrimination during a recent visit to South Korea. The content creator, whose real name is Deepanshu Sangwan, narrated his experience in a video posted on Sunday.
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What he says: Sangwan recalled how some Koreans reportedly gave him uncomfortable looks, which he attributed to his brown skin. “We are Indians, we have brown skin, what can we do? We were born this way,” he said. The YouTuber shared other encounters in his pinned commentincluding an incident on a bus where a passenger reportedly shouted and made rude gestures while talking to a friend. Another alleged incident involved a man yelling at him in a restaurant and telling him he “had no right to film while people were eating,” even though he said he was only filming himself. Indian YouTuber Nikita Thakur highlighted similar cases of racism faced by Indians in South Korea in December 2023 videoincluding one incident where an Indian man was reportedly banned from a club due to a rule reportedly banning entry of Indian and Pakistani nationals.
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No grudges: Despite his experience, Sangwan pointed out that he holds no grudge against the Korean people and still considers South Korea one of his favorite countries. However, he stressed that “if I don’t address these incidents, I won’t be fair to my subscribers by only showing the good experiences,” adding that “it’s important to show both sides.” While acknowledging the presence of racism in other countries, Sangwan said the issue does not exist in his home country of India. Sangwan’s video has drawn mixed reactions, with some users correcting a translation error to claim he was not discriminated against. “11:40. This means that you have to film from the sidewalk for safety reasons. The translation is incorrect because ‘인도’ (‘indo’) has the same word for ‘sidewalk’ and ‘India’, but different meanings,” said a Korean user explained. Yet others shared similar experiences with alleged racism, such as one commenter noted“I worked in Korea for three years. And I can totally identify with you.”
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