By Edelbert Kharsyntiew
We look different! And we are different in many ways. Ideally, India should be a good place to live in, since India, as a country is a concept based upon pluralism of belief and culture. But alas, it is not. Outlook magazine did not condemn the rape of a northeast girl in Delhi, and cited ‘cultural difference’ as the reason for the crime. Can you imagine the consequences of such a deduction if you take it to its logical conclusions? And one wonders how such archaic anti-national outlook by a popular magazine is tolerated. Poorly portrayed Its funny how media in India ape the west in oppressing its own poor and underprivileged. Like the West used the media for centuries, to portray India as a land of fakirs and slums dwellers and more recently the pitiful WCG toilets in Delhi, so also the Indian media portrays the NE, as a region of militancy, and the northeasterners as drug addicts and sluts. It seems it’s the case of the hurt hurting others.
Illegitimate child
Just yesterday a Thangkhul friend who recently visited Indonesia narrated the twin plights he faced. Firstly, he was detained at the Bangalore airport for questioning, and at Jakarta airport he was summoned to the airport official’s office and questioned on his passport data. When he affirmed that he is Indian, the response was a sudden burst of laughter. I told him it’s the Indian government’s fault. It has kept us hidden from the world. Unlike America or UK which have fully accepted the blacks, though historically they were slaves (and we were never slaves), here things are bad. I do however appreciate the HM’s statement in parliament who said that the northeast young people are our own ‘children’. As heartwarming as it came, it was too little and very late.
Actually, we are treated as illegitimate child. India is ashamed of us, and that’s the fact. We are kept at the fringe, only as a decoration for convenient occasions or guests. Someone asked “when you guys feel so alienated, then why are you part of India? Just leave”. We tried, but they brutally stopped us. That’s a deep wound that need not be opened again. So now, we are neither here nor there. We are not allowed to come in, nor to leave.
Guilt-induced
We are brainwashed and guilt induced that we live off charity. I have lived almost 30 years outside Northeast India and discovered that this notion is widespread. As if other states spend their own money on flyovers, metros and airports. As if each state spends its own money on roads, energy and stuffs. All states demand their own ‘package’ from the center. I hate the word ‘begging bowl’. No state has to beg from the centre. No one has the right to brand the constituents in a federal set up as ‘beggars’. The centre is only a steward and not the owner of the national fund. Once you adopt a child, it’s your bounden duty to not only feed that child, but to empower the child towards self reliance. If the child is malnourished it is the fault of the parent. Has the parent spent enough on the child or did it stash away all the money?
By the way, this illegitimate child is not really poor. It owns a beautiful paradise with lots of oil, uranium, rich tea, coal and other precious minerals. It can be self sufficient in energy needs and even export it. This paradise provides employment to a huge number of Indian soldiers and ‘babus’. They are not charged entry fee and they do not have to pay for the tourist’s delights (clean air, fresh water etc). If fees are levied, it will be a colossal sum.
Idiosyncratic hypocrisy
I can see the tribals in northeast India suppressed and their growth stunted. If not for church-aided education we would have been worse. The most dangerous form of suppression is mind control. As a tribal community, our confidence in our own thinking is ebbing away. The English media is either non-tribal or ruling party- owned and controlled.
One area where we see this lack of confidence is in the recognition of our true leaders. Our liberty to celebrate the lives of those we admire is taken away. If recognition of individual achievements is abolished, then Nobel Peace Prize, Bharat Ratna & Arjuna, halls of fame and all gallantry awards have to go. In fact history itself has to be rewritten. Sports must cease since its all about human achievement. Every normal being celebrates over their own – their children, their fraternity or fellow countrymen. That is life. Life bereft of celebration is not life anymore.
What is wrong when a family, group or country celebrates its own? No one thought it idiotic that the whole government machinery came to life when Shah Rukh Khan was detained and frisked at an American airport? It would have happened even if he did not own Kolkata Knight Riders. When the Cricket team wins, or Sushmita Sen was crowned Miss Universe, the whole country went berserk. But can tribals celebrate the life of Irom Sharmila or Mary Kom? Why is it right for some but not for the others? Do the 100 million tribals in India need permission? Can they celebrate if one of their own is elected to the highest office in the country? It’s hypocrisy at its lowest ebb. It exposes the raw edge of this psychological war weaponry, which decimates worthy heroes. What I fail to fathom is the absence of recognition for the local heroes who shone in the national arena. I heard that the Capt Williamson Sangma museum, Shillong has Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, but not Rev JJM Nichols Roy, Kong Mavis Dunn or Prof GG Swell. This oddity can only be compared to the plaque of U Tirot Singh appearing on the walls of Vidhana Soudha of Karnataka. It appears that some are hell bent on stretching this idiosyncrasy to the limit.
Divide and rule
The tribals in northeast are caught in a trap of infighting. It has become our favourite pastime to lambast our own. To put it squarely, our own are devils and others, angels. Eccentricity and narcissism are injected deeply into our bone marrow. The divide and rule design seems to have triumphed. We minimize on issues that unite and maximize on issues that separate.
I do agree that wrongdoing has to be exposed or corrected so it serves as deterrent. But while we chide our own who violate the benami law and even gave away the raid syiem to outsiders, shouldn’t we consider the simple issue of first approach? Who is the real tempter, the seller or buyer? Why are we not doing enough to register our protest against those who in 2006 took on the Land Transfer Act itself and tried to change it? Which of these acts is more dangerous?
I am a tribal
I want it to be clear that my judgments are not clouded by who I am. I would have taken the same stand where it concerns the blacks in the US or the Indians in Australia. I cannot say that I am proud to be a tribal, but it’s a discovery that finally led to personal liberty. I knew about my ST status but never felt its full impact till I ventured out and lived amidst mainstream Indians. Similar to a Keralite friend who never ‘knew’ he was a Malayali till he joined college in another state. It dawned on me that no matter how hard I try or how ‘good’ I am, I cannot escape the fact of being scrutinized through the SC/ST prism, and the stereotypes it carries. I felt the weight of identity, and could almost touch the invisible prism of who I am. I understood then why some changed their titles in order to hide their true identity. I determined to face the challenge head on and become better by it. It helped, but not fully. My friends were good to me, but I had my personal demons to conquer. The victory came when I finally decided to accept who I am, fully embraced the ‘tag’ and resolved to fight the battle of life from that platform. Freedom came at last. It set my soul free. Had I not done it, I would have shut myself in the prison of self contradictions and denial. I dare claim that I understand a thing about what Moses went through in the palace, and the freedom he finally experienced out of it. He identified with his people. I thank God I am a northeast tribal!
(The writer works as a pastor and motivator among the diasporic North East Youth based in Bangalore and can be contacted at [email protected])