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])

By Oliver Lyngdoh

There was a report in a local news channel a few months ago entitled “Hindi in Meghalaya”. As a response to it, I would like to bring up another topic relating to language. Just a reminder, the news report gave valid reasons as to why we as a state should be fluent not only in speaking the language (Hindi) but also in writing it. I support this notion entirely, as being a student I need to interact with different people of the community and “English” isn’t the only medium I have to do so. This brings me to the reason of this letter-“English”. Shillong is known to all as The Scotland of the East. However, is it a valid reason for all of us to be using the English language on a daily basis? Whatever happened to the “Khasi Dialect”, our mother tongue? Being a student of NEHU I commute daily from my place to the university campus via the University’s buses, and sometimes I laugh at myself when I hear conversations such as-“ Uto te ei, He called me up last night and U phah kylli ia nga” (that guy called me up last night to propose to me) ; always followed by the reply -“I know, uto te pha, he is such a flirt, kam kai ha te ei,” (I know that guy he is a flirt and fools around).

I’ve been commuting back and forth for three years now via these buses and these are not the only conversations I hear which disgrace not only the English language but also our own mother tongue! If you don’t know how to converse in English then don’t! But better question is – “Why not converse in Khasi among your “Khasi friends?” Now that is a concept I fail to understand among the youth today. Does it make you part of the “In-Crowd” if you converse in English? Or is it because you don’t know your own mother tongue anymore that you have too? If this is the case, then the result of a recent study by research scholars concluding that the Khasi Dialect will disappear in a mere 6-8 years will come sooner than later and our grandkids would be speaking in a manner similar to this-“Mom, Dad peit kato ka newspaper sieh that was written mynhynnin where the writer raised a valid point saying that Ka Khasi kan nym don shuh hadien 8 snem. I don’t understand te pa. Isn’t this Khasi that I’m speaking?” (Mom, dad look at that newspaper of yesterday where the writer raised a valid point saying that Khasi will become extinct after eight years. I don’t understand Pa. Isn’t this Khasi language that I’m speaking?)

To conclude I would like to suggest that even though Hindi lessons are vital to students but Khasi lessons are more important if we want to preserve our lineage. Make Khasi a compulsory subject in schools and not just a second language. Parents, I urge you to encourage your children to speak in Khasi while at home at least. That way your kids can have the privilege of saying –“I know My Own Mother Tongue”.

Ps- Nga thoh da ka phareng ia kane ka shithi namar nga kwah ba kan print ha kot khubor phareng namar nga tip bun kim ju pule khubor Khasi shuh. ( I write this in English because I want it to be published in an English daily for I know that many no longer read Khasi newspapers)

By Umashankar Joshi

Those who have to professionally study History have to eschew poetry where it distorts historical facts in order to build up some characters and run down others. The misuse of history to serve the interests of those in power is a well-known fact.

An example can be taken from the war cries: “Allah-o-Akbar” and “Har Har Mahadev”. In 1857, they were used by freedom fighters (both Muslim and Hindu) against the British rulers. By rewriting Indian History and giving it an unprecedented communal twist, the British succeeded in dividing the people of India to the extent that in 1947 — a mere 90 years later — the war cries were used by Muslims against Hindus and Hindus against Muslims.

How deep the communal divide has become can be judged by what we commemorate. In May 2012, the Congress and therefore supposedly “secular” government of Haryana put out large advertisements on Maharana Pratap, Chatrapati Shivaji Bhonsle and the 5th Sikh Guru, Arjun Dev, highlighting communal conflict as the cause of strife between them and the Mughal state.

As is well known, the most famous battlefield of Haldighati in Mewar is littered with Muslim graves. The vanguard of Maharana Pratap’s army consisted of Pathans seeking vengeance against the Mughals who had wrested power from them. Similarly, Shivaji and his successors, the Peshwas, always had professional Muslim soldiers in their ranks. The Mughal armies that fought Pratap were commanded by Hindu Rajputs like Mirza Raja Man Singh while Mirza Raja Jai Singh fought Shivaji on behalf of Aurangazeb. There is not a single battle in the annals of Indian history in which there were only Hindus on one side and Muslims on the other.

Those interested in learning the details of how Indian history was deliberately distorted can read Romila Thapar’s lecture Reporting History: Early India at Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, on 3 May 2012.

The distortion starts with The History of British India published by James Mill in 1819. Mill divided Indian History into ‘Hindu civilisation, Muslim civilisation and the British period’.

This “periodisation” formed the basis of the colonial argument that the primary identity of Indian society was that of religious communities, generally antagonistic to each other.

Unfortunately for “modern” India, periodisation has become axiomatic to the study of Indian history and nationalist Indian historians and the general public accepts it without thinking. The worst part is that Indians in general and Hindus in particular have bought the British claim that by conquering India, the British rid the country of “Islamic tyranny” for which the Hindus should be grateful for them.

The belief that 1947 saw “freedom” arrive after a 1,000-years of servitude stems from this lie equating Mughal and Sultanate rule with that of the Brits. This falsehood served the British thesis that India has always been conquered and ruled by aliens and those they were the same as the Mughals and the Sultans before them.

The 1882 Census was based on the idea that Indian society was a collection of religious communities. The vast population of India was categorised in terms of religious communities and the numbers in each community made Hindus (including Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists) the ‘majority’ and all others — Muslims, Christians and Parsis — minorities. Even economic laws like taxation were affected and we have the “Hindu” undivided family enjoying benefits denied to the minority communities.

Unless a concerted effort is made to correct this distortion, Hindu communalism will continue to flourish and Muslims will still be ill-treated and looked upon with suspicion.

The people of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh must not forget that the Bengal Army of the East India Company was largely a Hindu body with 31 per cent Brahmins and 34 per cent Rajputs. When they rose against their white masters and shot them as a warning that no quarter was to be asked for or given, they sought out the 82-years plus Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar as their titular head.

When he protested that he had neither treasure nor army to be of help to them they only asked that he put his hand on their head in a token of blessing. If there was abiding Hindu hatred for Muslims this would not have been possible. The Partition of 1947 occurring only 90-years or four generations later took at least 250 thousand (a quarter million) lives. This total turn around was caused by distorting history. This must be righted for sanity to return. INAV