Cry, My Beloved Region

By Prasenjit Biswas

When one takes a hard look at how the nation-state of India manages its ethnic and cultural diversity and the attendant issues of social justice, one encounters the claims of being a nation in India’s Northeast as a challenge to the very idea of a national identity called “Indian”.

The claim of the Mizo, Naga, Assamese and many other smaller ethno-cultural groups as a “nation” creates a difference of meaning between what is meant by “Indian nation” and what is meant by “nation” in India’s Northeast.

The nationalist notion of Indian national identity cannot resolve this difference, which is further intensified on occasions like Independence Day or Republic Day, because on such days back in 1947 and 1950 respectively, many national identities and communities of the Northeast did not self-consciously become a part of the Indian nation.

Much of this history needs to be recounted to understand the contemporary crisis of identity in the Northeast. On 14-15 August 1947, meetings of important Mizo political leaders, chiefs and the public were held to decide whether to join India or not, only to later realize that the Mizo hills were already included within the territory of Assam.

Treaties of accession signed between 16 Khasi states and the government of India made it part of the Indian union. The status of Manipur was an independent princely state on the first Independence Day and it had to wait till its process of merger was completed by a treaty of accession signed with India on 15 October 1949.

As far as the Naga hills were concerned, the Naga National Council declared “independence” on 14 August 1947. Later, a nine-point agreement between the NNC and the governor of Assam established a set of rules of how the Nagas “will be free to decide their own future”.

On the flip side of Independence, the partition of Sylhet from India by a referendum resulted in a massive displacement and, arbitrarily, Sylhet was divided.

This entire process of constituting India in the Northeast remains at the back of any claim of nationhood that poses itself over and against a unitary notion of Indian national identity.

As long as the multiplicity of narratives and counter-narratives of how one became part of the post-colonial nation-state remains alive, a play between place, identity and history really decides the shape of polity and economy in the Northeast.

The specific nature of the claim to being a nation and its embedded sense of independence assumes the form of linguistic, cultural, territorial and economic claims of belonging articulated in an impressionist manner.

A lot of arguments and counter-arguments on the veracity and validity of the claim of being a nation resonate in all these modes and methods of articulation. There is a cacophony of such voices in the region.

Many of the ethnically specific insurgent outfits articulate these opinions in terms of political and cultural aspirations that assume a degree of legitimacy and engage in a struggle for formal recognition by the Indian state.

The idea of independence then took the shape of a claim of representation, autonomy and what is popularly expressed as the “right to self-determination”. Although a strict constitutional connotation of the term is yet to be determined, it still assumes a variety of meanings, starting from local self-government to institutional autonomy to secession.

The plurality of legal, political and cultural interpretations given to the most contested notion of “self-determination” in the Northeast acquires great currency in the background of ethnic claims and joining the Indian union as a group, community or nation.

Inclusions within the nation space of India and the exclusion from certain dominant social and political categories result in a radical discourse of alternatives, much of which are presented in the interpretative contest over the term “self-determination”.

In effect, two distinct prongs of political articulation emerge; one, a sense of belonging, and, two, a sense of seeking institutional authority and power. Both these prongs get mediated by various strategies of governance by the state that often treats people’s rights as subsidiary to the operation of the state.

This sub-sumption of politically articulated concerns of a number of ethnic and cultural identities within a framework of governance produces a whole range of contestations of the state by all of the Northeast’s civil society.

Strategies of development, such as big river dams, denudation of forest cover to build roads and other structures, are legitimized by the end that they are supposed to fulfill. As such, the “ends” are never achieved as they are described on paper and the “means” adopted for their achievement come under public scrutiny.

The projected generation of 70,000 MW in Arunachal Pradesh alone by 2020, by displacing a huge tract of tribal habitat, is critiqued for its corporate orientation and dependence on corporate funding.

Civil society groups pointed out that such massive power projects were not based on informed priori consent of the people. As such, projects would completely alter the life of a river and, hence, disparage climatic stability and affect rainfall, soil quality, underground water and the overall fragile ecology of the region.

As the livelihood of tribes, communities and others living in the Northeast solely depends on cultivation, animal rearing and forest and mineral resources, any attempt at industrialization driven by forces of the capital and the state is bound to frustrate and anger a huge section of indigenous and other people rooted in the region.

Sociologically speaking, models of development in the form of big projects imposed from above would give a fillip to claims of identity and would create a chasm between the state and the nation through renewed articulations from below, carried out by conscious sections of ethnic and cultural groups of the region.

Further, the thrust on industrial development at the cost of future ecological sustenance would convert the region into a free labor market, threatening its cultural demography and natural resources.

The recent concept of having a new time zone for the Northeast to save labor time clearly symbolizes such an imminent industrialization and the mindset for it. Changing the very concept of time in the Northeast does not bring any liberation from the puzzle of losing one’s culture and habitat in the name of development.

The sensitive context of the region requires a reinterpretation of the Constitution to give people a new meaning of Independence, which they would like to enjoy like others elsewhere in the country.

The continuation of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and the regime of impunity that it provides percolates at every level of civil and judicial administration.

This has hurt the people. Insurgent groups seeking a peaceful resolution to conflicts have not only suffered but they also are trying to a write a new history for the region. But it will not be possible to change this “history” unless the meaning of independence is redrawn by taking into account the cry of the people.

**The writer is associate professor, Department of Philosophy, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong