Racial Divide in India’s Northeast

By Bhaskar Dutta-Baruah

People specific states and Autonomous Councils have helped in the protection of the identities of the tribals.

A friendly chat on a sultry summer evening in Kokrajhar with my Bodo friends — in low voices — the arrest of Ranjan Daimary (commander of the Bodo rebel outfit, NDFB) and the visible mistreatment meted out to him by the Assam government crept into the conversation.

Questions that arose — why the bias in the manner Daimary was handled compared to Arabinda Rajkhowa (chairman of the ULFA) after their arrests? How did the Guwahati blasts turn Daimary into a bigger criminal than Rajkhowa who was accountable for the killing of schoolchildren in Dhemaji?

Daimary and NDFB are the prime accused in the serial Guwahati blasts of 2008; the ULFA has been charged of the murder of 10 schoolchildren in 2004.

We talked about my ‘foreign’ ancestry and my invading forefathers — a tinge of guilt overshadowed the feeling of pride in my mind.

A cold spring afternoon in Nagaland; the conversation I was having with a senior Naga associate went into the days of the Naga movement in the early 1950s and the punishments his father’s generation faced from the Indian authorities.

A majority of the Naga people had voted for independence during the plebiscite of May 16, 1951. 

The Indian authorities’ efforts to suppress this movement resulted in countless atrocious incidents and the ugly memories they left behind will probably remain in the Naga pyche for another generation or more.

Five of the seven northeastern states were a single entity before the 1950s — Assam. One by one, the indigenous people rebelled and succeeded in forming their own political entities namely Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. I can give other examples of this global phenomenon of ‘assimilation.’

Australia, 1869-1969: The white settlers created the ‘Stolen Generations’, ie the indigenous Australians victimised during the process of forced assimilation — most went missing, many died and the aboriginal gene became endangered in Australia.

North America, late 18th century: The European settlers took steps to eliminate the culture and traditions of the indigenous Red Indians. The resulting Indian wars lasted for more than a hundred years.

Ancient India (Indo-Aryan transmigration theory): Immigrants from the western side of Hindukush settled in the Indian subcontinent — without going into the debates and ongoing researches on this theory and stating from the old chronicles, we find citations of many ‘clandestine’ people in parts of what is now India, namely Asur, Daitya, Danava, etc.

It is difficult to believe they were simply mythical creatures; the fact is that basically everything non-Aryan or native was branded Pagan (negative) and had to be either assimilated or obliterated.

In the northeast: The indigenous people never gained the ‘mainstream’ status among the ‘more advanced’ people that migrated here from Uttar Pradesh in the 14th century — these warlords called the Baro-Bhuyans bulldozed the indigenous culture, especially in the plain areas through their customs, language and later their religious views.

Barring the ruling Ahoms that were the 13th century settlers of Assam, the indigenous people including the Kacharis were pushed to lead an obscure existence. Something that both my Bodo and Naga friends had told me separately, “I lived in Delhi for so many years, but never was I invited by my friends to their homes for a meal because I am a Bodo/Naga.”

It may not be what they think it was; maybe their friends never thought about it that way, but something, somewhere must have hit them to shape their mindsets in this manner.  It is easy to see what this factor might have been — Kachari is a metamorphosis of Ku-Achari (people of an evil nature) in the Assamese language — most of the tribes have the suffix Kachari added to the name of their tribe.

Majority of the modern Assamese (read: until a generation back) scorn the Kacharis because “they eat pork, drink alcohol, dress scantily and possess a bad temper”. No reader of this article, Kachari or non-Kachari can deny having heard this in the past.

Today, people specific states and Autonomous Councils for the tribal people have forged strong environments for the protection of their identities. The rebellions, past and present, were in fact ways these indigenous people hit back at their oppressive conquerors.

‘The invader-native conflict in northeast India’ is by far the longest of such wars in the world and it still continues.

We do not need any more ‘lands’ or bloodshed here — this is a time for unity and for these wars to stop. Let the invaders realise the mistakes of the past and rectify the future and let the natives forgive and start the social order afresh.