By Glenn C Kharkongor
The title of the book is a tacit promise to the reader. This expectation is amplified in a subtext that is added to the book title as the heading for the last chapter: Strangers No More: The New Indians. The knowledgeable reader, or anyone with a passing interest in the North East, will pick the book up with this anticipation.
The book is a multi-layered palimpsest of the history and background of the region that lays foundations for future happenings. Through a thicket of detail, the nuances of geography, ethnicity and polity are explained cogently to the reader.
The stories in the nine chapters are closely parsed and nicely strung together, altogether an absorbing read. The book is a monumental addition to the political lore of the North East, and serious scholars and armchair pundits alike will find much material of interest.
The task of organising this wealth of material is naturally difficult, so there are cumbersome juxtapositions and some of the chapters have three titles combined into one. The book opens with the dark hand of AFSPA, ever-poised to strike with deadly force, and this beginning reminds the reader of the iron fist with which Delhi rules the North East and that the glove with the sweetmeats of development is a thin one.
Having set the tone, Hazarika then takes us on a historical tour of Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Assam. The words and phrases used in the titles of these chapters: “Cry in the dark”, “Cauldron”, “Rocky Road”, ‘Troubled Peace”, “Battles”, ”Fear”, convey clearly that the North East continues to be a battleground of insurgency, military operations and police actions, punctuated intermittently by lulls of short-lived accords and uneasy peace. These chapters are a chronicle of central government ineptness, demonstrated in developmental ham-handedness, administrative high-handedness and a mindset of distrust of the local people.
On page x, Hazarika avers “that this is a deeply personal book”, surely a loaded statement that courts jeopardy for any writer who wishes his or her account to be judged as objective, balanced and unbiased.
A personal account brings to mind a biographical story, complete with intimate human subjectiveness. There are two examples of his involvement in the political proceedings of the day: the first is his membership in the Jeevan Reddy Committee on AFSPA and the second was his inclusion in one of the numerous phases of parleys with the Naga leaders. But these were official assignments and while the insider view is interesting, it did not affect the outcome.
Many of the ‘personal’ accounts in the book are scattered instances of hobnobbing with bigwigs over dinner or with a whiskey in hand and add little grist to the material. But the inflicting of himself on the text is more than compensated by the occasional flashes of anger and frustration that brings an edgy fervour to the story.
Like many writers of the old school, gender issues are off the radar. The martyrdom of Thangjam Manorama and the iron will of Irom Sharmila’s epic protest are duly recorded but nuances of gender in the tableau of violence are not explored.
The victimhood of women, not as collateral damage but as a human issue in the equation of cultural tradition escapes scrutiny. The violence against reserved seats for women in Nagaland in the run-up to civic elections in early 2017, and the fact that after 54 years of statehood, Nagaland is yet to see any woman representative in the assembly, begs some analysis.
Similarly, the role of Christian clergy in the hill states, and the commitment to prayer and Christian values by Naga leaders is narrated but a broader exploration of the role of the church could have delineated the undercurrents of religion. Gender and religion are powerful forces in the North East, visible to all. The author has lost an opportunity to delve into these factors with more depth.
There are other stumbles. While the growth and development in Sikkim and Tripura are praised, Hazarika fails to call attention to the vast migrations into these states that have altered social demographics to the detriment of the local tribals, whose human rights and land ownership rights have been forever upended.
A few factual errors have crept in. There is a reference to an Indian Institute of Management in Kharagpur; perhaps the IIT is intended to be mentioned.
The Niyamgiri Hills are stated to be in Bastar, when actually they are in Odisha. The choice of clichéd metaphors such as the ‘Wild West’, and ‘Friar Tuck of Robin Hood’, betray a convent education.
The author raises the issue of ‘integration’ of the North East ‘in a pan-India context’, and goes on to say that a ‘silent accommodation with India is taking place’ citing the ‘diasporic sweep of communities from the region’ that have settled not only in the metros but in smaller towns.
This is surely hopeful hyperbole, no data has been provided. Migration from the North East to mainland is a textured issue. Many youth from the region seek education in other parts of India and a few stay on, but most migration from the North East is in search of work, necessitated by the lack of opportunity in our troubled states.
So migration is not from overt choice but from silent poverty, and these helpless individuals have no grand plan of national integration, another empty political slogan. Most of this efflux is from areas most affected by AFSPA. These migrants have not assimilated and are starting to set up ghettoes of their own in Indian towns, examples of which are supplied in the book.
How can it be otherwise, given the threats of the mainland, experienced so often by youth from the region? Hazarika articulates the bullying and browbeating of the state and its apparatus on the hapless region, designed to ensure submission, in this eloquent but sombre passage:
“The centre treats the borders as its frontier, where its sovereignty begins and the rights of others end. These borders are boundary stones to its integrity and existence — those who challenge it, no matter where they’re from, no matter that they lived and existed with their own ways of life for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before the ‘modern state’ came into being, are not to be tolerated. It will brook no challenge, countenance no threat, accept no divergence of view, oppose every divergent strand and seek to bind every ‘separate’ ethnic group into a nationalist theme that only it can dictate, design and develop. Any opposing view is a threat to the state and is to be met with utmost force to crush, curb, intimidate and humiliate the opponent or those holding an opposing view to the point of capitulation or acceptance of a superior power.”
“The state survives, conflicts endure, ordinary people suffer and receive no justice. Inequity grows, poverty thrives, hatred and violence are energized. Suspicion sweeps the land and its people. These reflect the visible divergences between the mainstream Indian narrative and that of its periphery in the Northeast…And though mourned by all who suffered, no compensation has been given to civilian victims, no apology offered, no recognition of the harm inflicted or justice denied.”
Given this sharp but factual point of view, one returns now to the premise of the book, promised in the title. Hazarika himself is pessimistic about the hope he holds out, ending the last chapter with these downbeat words, “Pride, prejudice and hatred are old markers. They will destroy not just their targets, but bring all of us down”.
The book takes us on a bumpy journey over the potholed road of the region’s history. Every jolt reopens old wounds, the pus still festering in old bruises. The struggle to make a case for a hopeful future has not come off. I had opened the book with hope, I closed it with despondency.
All the same, this wonderfully-crafted book, rich in content and substance, must be read, chewed and digested, not only by the political class, but by academicians, development strategists, social workers, peace activists and even the self-appointed ‘protectors’ of the cultures of the North East.
(The author is former
Vice-Chancellor of Martin Luther Christian University)
Book: Strangers No More:
New Narratives from India’s Northeast; Author: Sanjoy
Hazarika; Publisher: Aleph; Pages: 420; Price: Rs 799
