[Assam] A new politics of race: India and its Northeast

[Chan Mahanta]

Hi Himen-da:

First off, you don't need to refer to me as Mr. 
Chandan Mahanta. You can continue to refer to me 
as Chandan, and even Sondon --in a truly Oxomiya 
fashion. I understand why you have turned so 
formal, but I am still cool with the older more 
personalized one, should you wish to revert back 
to it. My disagreements with your views, 
irreconcilable as they may be, does not effect my 
respect of you as an elder of our small probaxi 
Oxomiya community.

Another thing: I don't think that personal 
anecdotes or even biographical accounts are in 
the prohibited list of assam net topics. But I am 
glad I could open that door for you. I too 
enjoyed reading about you as a Naga. And can't 
wait to hear about how the story of the young 
couple ended.

Having gotten those issues out of the way, allow 
me to help you deal with something that obviously 
continues to haunt you, but for entirely wrong 
reasons:

	My comment "-- “the anecdote you cite here --- merely points to
	your importance, as demonstrated by the courtesy you received
	from him 
 with the hour long interview”--" was not about your
	citing a personal experience with J M Lyngdoh. It was about your
         high opinion of Lyngdoh,and how you developed that,  but which
	had NOTHING to do with the subject under discussion: That DEMOCRACY
	was bad for India, a comment that demonstrated Lyngdoh's inability
	to separate DEMOCRACY from what passes for democracy in India.

And I stand by my observation that it did prove 
your own importance. Why else would Lyngdoh, the 
then principal secretary to the President, a 
powerful position I am sure, who not only gave 
you an hour-long interview, but convened a 
meeting of one of the country's most elite of 
bureaucrats for you to give your spiel on banning 
dowry? Would he have given such an interview and 
accord the privilege of pleading to this coterie 
of top IAS cadres to the poor father of a burnt 
bride of Haryana,  for banning the practice?


Finally, and most importantly, a question: How 
would you characterize someone's stereotyping 
Indian Muslims as invaders  :-)?

Regards,

Chandan









At 9:48 AM -0500 3/4/06, Himendra Thakur wrote:
>Dear Netters,
>
>
>
>After  Mr. Chandan Mahanta accused me on 
>December 27, 2005 for posting a “personal 
>experience” with Mr. JM Lyngdoh as “the anecdote 
>you cite here --- merely points to your 
>importance, as demonstrated by the courtesy you 
>received from him 
 with the hour long 
>interview” 
.  I carefully avoided posting of 
>any autobiographical note in the assam-net.
>
>
>
>However, since Mr. Chandan Mahanta himself is 
>now posting autobiographical notes and anecdotes 
>as “Let me share one of my own experiences here” 
>--- I am gathering some courage to post my 
>“experience here” 
 some of these stories maybe 
>quite a funny relief for the netters!
>
>
>
>Mr. Chandan Mahanta writes that “My nick-name at IIT KGP was 'Naga'”
>
>
>
>Well, I was also called a “Naga” --- not in IIT 
>Kharagpur, but right inside Nagaland where I 
>served as an Executive Engineer during the 
>stringent days before the “Peace Agreement” was 
>initiated by the Peace Commission of the late 
>Jai Prakash Narayan, Bimala Prasad Chaliha and 
>Reverend Scott in 1965.
>
>
>
>At that time, Executive Engineers were 
>frequently shot dead by the underground rebels. 
>Every morning when I went out to work, citing 
>the story of Field Marshall Rommel of the Second 
>World War, I used to tell my wife that I might 
>not come back in the evening 
 rather, they 
>might bring me in a stretcher or inside a box. 
>My wife used to cry at the beginning, but very 
>soon she got used to it 
 “No matter how much he 
>brags, this guy always comes back every evening, 
>anyway,” she must have thought!!
>
>
>
>There were some narrow escapes, after which I 
>made a public announcement that I never carried 
>any weapon in my jeep. Scrapping the green-blue 
>camouflage painting of my army jeep, I got my 
>jeep painted absolutely white so that anybody 
>could spot it from distance. If they were 
>interested, they were free to shoot, I announced 
>publicly. Later,  when the Peace Commission 
>came, we painted all the Peace Commission 
>vehicles white.
>
>
>
>I went from village to village fixing their 
>water supply, schools, dispensaries, hospitals. 
>Being an Executive Engineer, working against the 
>vested interest of many, I had to fight tooth 
>and nail to get the work done, 
 and they liked 
>it, because Nagas were born fighters, they 
>thought I was one of them. One fantastic point 
>in their land was that all agreements were 
>verbal 
 nobody would go back on what they said 
>
 they were used to take full responsibility of 
>what they said. One day, two Gaonburhas started 
>a fight right in front of me during my visit to 
>a village border, because one Gaonbura accused 
>the other Gaonburha that he was working in his 
>land (every village is an exclusive territory in 
>Nagaland, like the City States of ancient 
>Greece) --- I quickly placed myself in between 
>the two Gaonburhas and told them that they would 
>have to kill me because it was my fault, I gave 
>the wrong assignment by mistake. They cooled 
>down, and I assigned another contract to the 
>losing Gaonburha --- who christened me as an 
>“Asomiya Naga”!! I have a number of interesting 
>episodes in Nagaland, which I’ll share with 
>netters if they want.
>
>
>
>As for the being called a “Naga”, it is very 
>important to know the answer to the question: 
>who is a Naga? There are some fourteen tribes in 
>the mountainous region that is known as 
>Nagaland. Each one of the tribes has their own 
>language, customs, and name 
 they don’t call 
>themselves Naga 
 they are Ao, Angami, Sema, 
>Lotha, etc. They do not understand each other’s 
>language. They communicate with a lingua franca 
>known as Nagamese, which is a form of broken 
>Assamese.
>
>
>
>I was serving mostly in Mokakchung, which is 
>essentially an Ao area. Greeting me with a joke 
>“Amikhan Ao Naga achey, tumikhan Asomiya Naga 
>Achey” --- they would burst out laughing!! We 
>were all Ao Naga, Sema Naga, Asomiya Naga, Lotha 
>Naga, Angami Naga, Koniak Naga 
 and so on.
>
>
>
>Joining in their free laughter, I used to argue 
>with them about Bengali Indian, Bihari Indian, 
>Assamese Indian, Naga Indian, Punjabi Indian --- 
>their response to such an argument was: “sahabto 
>bar budhiyak achey dei !” --- followed by more 
>laughter!!
>
>
>
>Stereotyping people by their birth is a sign of 
>gross ignorance, which is displayed not only by 
>the witless Army/Navy Guards (Utpal Brahma’s 
>posting), but by very intelligent people as 
>pointed out by Mr. Sanjib Barua in his article. 
>In the assam-net, Mr. Mukul Mahanta stereotyped 
>Mr. Lyngdo as “Khasi Christian”.  Stereotyping 
>is a sign of gross stupidity like what one top 
>India leader remarked about the late Birendra 
>Kumar Bhattacharya when he went to New Delhi in 
>1980 to accept his Jnanapith Award :  “Although 
>Mr. Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya lives in Assam 
>and writes in Assamese, we consider him as an 
>Indian writer.” This was from a top Indian 
>leader, absolutely degenerated into such a low 
>level that even a rickshaw-puller would be 
>ashamed of.
>
>
>
>Inter-caste, inter-ethnic marriages across all 
>the barriers of language, religion, nationality, 
>etc., will be a very powerful tool to stop the 
>stupid stereotyping of people. Stupid 
>stereotyping of people is the theme of my drama 
>“Baagh” (1969) &/or “Bindu” (1993).
>
>
>
>When I was in Nagaland, a young, educated, 
>“first-generation Christian” Ao woman fell in 
>love with an Assamese Hindu young man. They 
>disclosed their quandary to my wife, who told me 
>that I must help them. The bride told me that 
>she had a very powerful aunt in the underground, 
>might be next to Phizo in the Ao area.
>
>
>
>“What did your aunt say?” I asked the bride.
>
>“My Aunt asked for two tablets of Novalgin.”
>
>
>
>Novalgin was a kind of a powerful head-ache 
>medicine in those days! If a powerful 
>underground lady wanted two tablets of a very 
>powerful headache medicine, the problem must be 
>very hard for an “Asomiya Naga” like me!! 
>However, I did not give up. “Did you tell your 
>father?” was my next question.
>
>“Yes, I did.”
>
>“What did he say?”
>
>“He asked me “What will happen to your religion?””
>
>Now this was an interesting turning point. 
>Holding my breadth, I asked, “What did you say?”
>
>“I told him that I would go back to my 
>grandfather’s religion”, the bride replied.
>
>Sensing some danger, I blurted out my next question” What did he say?”
>
>“He did not say anything. Instead, he gave me a 
>such a slap that I fell down three feet away” 
>was her sad reply.
>
>
>
>I could now see the gravity of the problem. It 
>took me overnight thinking to find the solution. 
>Next day, I called the groom privately to my 
>room and told him that we would write a letter 
>to the President of India.
>
>
>
>“What ???” the groom almost jumped off his chair.
>
>
>
>“Yes. The President of India. Dr. Sarvapalli 
>Radhakrishnan. I’ll draft the letter on your 
>behalf and get it typed. You just sign it and 
>mail it to him. It is his job, not mine---” was 
>my cool answer.
>
>
>
>My draft of the letter from the groom to the 
>President of India ran like something this: 
>“Respected Dr. Radhakrishnan, 
. My mother 
>passed away many years ago, my father died last 
>year, I am an orphan now, and I don’t have 
>anybody to advice me what to do. You are the 
>Father of the Nation, I beg you to show me the 
>path 
”   so on.
>
>
>
>It was just a one-page letter from the groom, 
>wondering how he and his bride could get 
>married, seeking the advice from Dr. Sarvepalli 
>Radhakrishnan, President of India from 1962 to 
>1967 ---- 40 odd years ago!!
>
>
>
>This posting is already getting too long. Let me 
>stop here. If the netters want to hear the rest 
>of the story, I’ll write later. In the mean 
>time, let me try to contact the bride and the 
>groom and ask them if I could divulge their 
>names and dig up the original letters!!
>
>
>
>With love to everybody,
>
>Himendra
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:cmahanta at charter.net>Chan Mahanta
>To: <mailto:assam at assamnet.org>assam at assamnet.org
>Cc: <mailto:baruah at bard.edu>baruah at bard.edu
>Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 11:10 AM
>Subject: [Assam] A new politics of race: India and its Northeast
>
>
>Dear Netters:
>
>The following is a very interesting and 
>enlightening article by Sanjib Baruah. He was 
>hesitant to post it to assamnet because of its 
>length. But I felt it something we cannot afford 
>to miss.So here it comes.
>
>The emphasis on bell hooks' name is mine, so people don't miss it. I did.
>
>cm
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>IIC Quarterly (New Delhi: India International Centre)
>Vol. 32 (2& 3) Winter, 2005) pp. 165-76
>A new politics of race: India and its Northeast
>Sanjib Baruah
>There was a time when peoples of Northeast India 
>were described as belonging to the Mongoloid 
>race.  Today Mongoloid and other racial 
>categories such as Negroid or Caucasoid -- and 
>indeed, the very idea of race as a biological 
>category -- have no standing in scientific 
>circles. For there is more diversity of gene 
>types within what was once thought of as a 
>single 'race' than between 'races.'
>
>But while race may no longer be accepted as a 
>scientific category, it does not mean that human 
>beings would stop making distinctions based on 
>stereotypical phenotypes or skin colour. 
>Arunachalis, Assamese, Garos, Khasis, Manipuris, 
>Mizos, Nagas and Tripuris may indeed have some 
>phenotypical similarities related to genetics. 
>Thus one may be able to say that someone is from 
>Northeast India based on looks, though he or she 
>may not always get it right. For "human 
>populations . . . possess a wide genetic 
>potential which increases in variation through 
>chance mutations or new generic combinations in 
>each generation. . . . Completely stabilized 
>breeding isolates. . . are exceedingly rare" 
>(Bowles 1977, cited in Keyes, 2002: 1166).  And 
>of course, most of us realise that what we think 
>of as the 'Northeastern looks' are not unique to 
>peoples from the region.  For instance, peoples 
>from the western Himalayas -- those from Nepal 
>or the Uttaranchal -- might share features 
>similar to those found among peoples in the 
>eastern Himalayas.  
>
>Race as a social category is the product of 
>practices. There are visual regimes of labeling, 
>and individuals encountering those labels from 
>childhood may internalise characteristics 
>associated with those labels and learn to adapt 
>to the socially constructed racial order.
>
>African American intellectuals have long 
>recognised the role of visuality in the politics 
>of race. The writer bell hooks -- even her way 
>of writing her name without capital letters is 
>an intervention in the regime of visuality -- 
>describes her project as one of 'resisting 
>representation' and of constructing an 
>'oppositional gaze.' "We experience our 
>collective crisis as African-American people," 
>she writes, "within the realm of the image" 
>(hooks, 1992).  The project of black liberation, 
>for her, is thus a battle over images.
>The Indian image of the troubled Northeast is 
>increasingly mediated by a visual regime 
>constructed by popular films, television, 
>pictures in magazines and newspapers, and 
>limited contacts with people from the region. 
>Thanks to improved communications, Indians today 
>are quite mobile, and Northeasterners travel to 
>other parts of the country more than ever 
>before.  There are a large number of students 
>from the region in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, 
>Pune, Kolkata and other cities.  They are now a 
>'visible minority' in a number of university 
>campuses.  A disturbingly large number of them 
>tell stories about their experiences of being 
>racially labeled as 'Chapta' (flat nosed), 
>'Oriental' or 'Chinky'. 
>A large number of Northeast Indian young women 
>are employed in upscale restaurants and shops in 
>Delhi - their 'Oriental' looks and English 
>language skills being considered desirable for 
>those positions.  Many of them live in ethnic 
>ghettos, for instance, renting rooms and 
>apartments in 'lal dora' areas: the urban 
>villages of Delhi. Apart from rents being 
>affordable, they feel physically safer than in 
>upscale neighbourhoods. Compared to landlords in 
>elite neighbourhoods, these landlords of more 
>modest means are tolerant of Northeast Indian 
>eating habits -- fermented dry fish, beef 
>chutney and pork -- and less inclined to impose 
>restrictions on the lifestyles of their tenants. 
>However, racially marked niches in the labour 
>market or in settlement patterns have the danger 
>of reinforcing racial thinking. Incidents of 
>violence against Northeast Indian women in the 
>country's capital may partly reflect the 
>racialisation of the divide between the mainland 
>and the Northeast.
>While many Northeasterners travel to the 
>mainland, thousands of Indian soldiers and 
>members of the various paramilitary 
>organisations make the reverse journey to the 
>region to fight external threats as well as on 
>counter-insurgency duties.  In the streets and 
>paddy fields of the region security forces stop 
>and interrogate Northeasterners every day.  The 
>soldier himself faces an unenviable situation: 
>the most peaceful of surroundings can quickly 
>turn hostile and he has to be alert against 
>possible offensives by militants.  Some sort of 
>racial profiling becomes inevitable under these 
>conditions, especially since we have no laws 
>prohibiting it.  As Indian soldiers return home, 
>their stories of 'treacherous' rebels hiding 
>behind bamboo groves and jungles spread through 
>friends and relatives. The shared visual regime 
>provides ways of putting those stories and faces 
>together.
>Northeast India's fractured relation with the 
>mainland has been described as a cultural gap, 
>an economic gap, a psychological gap and an 
>emotional gap. The shared visual regime now 
>carries the danger of this fault-line becoming 
>racialised.
>II
>Mani Ratnam's film of 1998 Dil Se is a love 
>story between a woman militant from the 
>Northeast and an All India Radio journalist. The 
>male protagonist Amar, played by Shah Rukh Khan, 
>travels to the Northeast to speak to fellow 
>citizens for a radio programme to celebrate the 
>fiftieth anniversary of India's independence. 
>He develops a relationship with a local woman 
>Meghna, played by the Nepalese-born Manisha 
>Koirala.
>If Bollywood gossip is to be believed, Manisha 
>Koirala was chosen for the role partly because 
>of her 'small eyes.' Director Mani Ratnam, 
>according to Aishwarya Rai, "definitely wanted a 
>small-eyed girl in Dil Se. She had to have that 
>kind of physical features as she was supposed to 
>be from Assam" (Rai, 2000).  The caste of Dil Se 
>also included a number of Assamese actors, among 
>them filmmaker Gautam Bora, who played the role 
>of the chief of a militant group.
>The film's story  unfolds between the fiftieth 
>anniversary in of Indian independence on August 
>15th 1997 and the Republic Day on January 26th. 
>While All India Radio reporter Amar embodies the 
>Indian nation, Meghna represents the horrors of 
>life in the Northeast torn apart by insurgencies 
>and counter-insurgency operations.  Amar defends 
>the nation against rebels bent on tearing it 
>apart.
>The Northeast of Dil Se is a dangerous place 
>where women are raped and families are 
>destroyed. Life in Delhi could not be more 
>different: the film portrays it as a middle 
>class city where tranquil family life and 
>traditional family values prevail.  Meghna in 
>the nation's capital is a danger to both nation 
>and family.  She is on a suicide mission to blow 
>herself up at the Republic day parade.  As a 
>guest at Amar's home she is an awkward presence 
>at a time when the family prepares for his 
>arranged marriage.  "Had it not been for the 
>army, the nation would have been torn to 
>shreds," says Amar to Meghna. It is "your 
>nation, not mine," says Meghna in defiance.
>III
>Am I making too much out of a film? Perhaps. But 
>what if we are beginning to look at people from 
>the Northeast through the prism of a visual 
>regime exemplified by films like Dil Se? What if 
>after nearly half a century of 
>counter-insurgency, the counter-insurgent gaze 
>is framing our way of seeing peoples from the 
>Northeast? 
>Films like Dil Se and pictures in newspapers and 
>magazines enable people to put together a mental 
>picture of the Northeast and its people.  The 
>gaze of the Indian army patrol, reinforced by 
>films like Dil Se, gives meaning to what is fast 
>becoming a racial divide.
>There are signs that we are slowly beginning to 
>recognise this new politics of race, though we 
>seem to be as yet unsure whether to use the 'r' 
>word.  A Manipuri journalist wrote in a national 
>daily that, "physically the people of the 
>North-east are closer to Southeast Asia and 
>China." However, "this racial divide," he said, 
>is not appreciated "in a sensitive manner" 
>(Singh, 2004). The journalist told me that the 
>'r' word was edited out at one place in the 
>printed version. He had actually written, 
>"racially the people of the Northeast are closer 
>to South-east Asia and China." Apparently the 
>editors substituted the term 'physical' for 
>'racial.'  However, his second usage of the 'r' 
>word -- in racial divide - remained in the 
>published text.
>Let me turn to a small sample of writings by 
>Northeasterners who have been students in 
>mainland India, recalling their experience of 
>being seen as different and encountering racial 
>labels.  "I did my schooling in a boarding 
>school in India," recalls a Manipuri living in 
>Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He was the only student 
>from the Northeast in that school.  He posted 
>the following on an email discussion group:
>Being the only minority I was subjected to many 
>racist comments . . . The one that I still 
>remember clearly was my being called "Chapta" 
>(flat nose - for those fortunate ones that never 
>heard the term) by my Hindi teacher. The word 
>"chinki" . . . is peddled around with not even a 
>little thought of whether the term could offend 
>someone, by even my closest friends. I came in 
>contact with some Mayangs (the Manipuri term for 
>other Indians) here and it shocked me that 
>despite my being there amongst them they refer 
>to the other Asians as chaptas still with no 
>consideration that I could find it offensive. 
>Even on my bringing up the issue they just 
>laughed it off saying they saw nothing offensive 
>in it. So I have now resorted to referring them 
>as "Pakis" and that really seems to anger them. 
>For those who don't know about it, "Pakis" is a 
>racist term used in Britain to refer to people 
>with the sub continent features (Pakistan, 
>Indian, Srilankan etc.) So the next time you 
>hear any mayang using the word chinki or chapta, 
>call them a "Paki". I think once this word gets 
>common usage as a term to refer to them by all 
>the people of the north east they will finally 
>realize what it is like to be referred by a 
>racist term (Manipur Diaspora, 2004; cited in 
>Ray 2005). 
>In Kuala Lumpur, he wrote, because of his 
>features he had a hard time convincing people 
>that he was an Indian. He got tired of 
>explaining that he was from India since he 
>"didn't look like the Indians they knew."  On 
>the other hand, he said, he was "able to melt 
>into the crowd and it was easier making friends 
>with the Chinese and Malays" (Manipur Diaspora, 
>2004; cited in Ray 2005). 
>
>At a seminar in Pune a Naga student joked that 
>after coming to Pune he became "half Naga, and 
>half Indian", while he was "a complete Indian" 
>before. He elaborated that in Pune, shopkeepers, 
>doctors, teachers and government officials, 
>everybody treated him as Japanese or Chinese 
>because of his features. He was asked to show 
>his passport when applying for admission to 
>college  (cited in Das, 2004). While doing 
>fieldwork in Manipur, anthropologist Sohini Ray 
>asked a young student about his first visit to 
>Mumbai. He told her that "the first thing he and 
>his companions found difficult was that every 
>other person asked them where they were from, 
>and stared at them." When they said Manipur, 
>people asked where it was and if it was really 
>in India. To avoid such uncomfortable encounters 
>after a few days they started saying that they 
>were from Thailand, because "it was more 
>convenient" (cited in Ray, 2005).
>
>An Assamese woman describes her first year as a 
>student in Delhi University (1996-97), as 
>follows: "I didn't look 'Oriental' - the 
>politically correct term they'd devised in lieu 
>of the derogatory sounding 'chinky'. So I didn't 
>have to face some of the stupider questions. My 
>friend from Mizoram was asked if she needed a 
>passport to come to India." The 'Oriental' 
>looking among us," did not have to go through 
>hazing, she recalled since "Indians are always 
>nice to foreigners" (Goswami, 2004).
>
>IV
>
>The emergence of a racial label to include all 
>'indigenous' Northeasterners fits nicely with 
>the category 'the Northeast' that since 1971, in 
>the words of a retired senior civil servant who 
>played a key role in designing this political 
>order, has "emerged as a significant 
>administrative concept . . . replacing the 
>hitherto more familiar unit of public 
>imagination, Assam" (Singh, 1987a: 8).  In 1971 
>a number of the new states were created (though 
>not all of them were states at the beginning), 
>and another piece of legislation gave birth to 
>the North Eastern Council (NEC).  These two laws 
>were 'twins born out of a new vision for the 
>Northeast' (Singh, 1987a: 117).
>
>Unlike the distinction between tribal and 
>non-tribal that is an important part of our 
>vocabulary in discussing the Northeast, the 
>racial label has the advantage of including all 
>those who belong to the troubled region, and, is 
>perceived as being connected to the troubles. 
>For instance, a majority of the plains people of 
>Manipur and Assam are not "tribal" which, after 
>all, is an arbitrary governmental category. 
>However, the Assamese and Manipuri insurgencies 
>are among the most potent in the region. Thus 
>the distinction between tribal and non-tribal is 
>not very useful when it comes to discussing 
>insurgent Northeast India. Since tribal and 
>non-tribal Northeasterners share certain 
>stereotypical phenotypes in common, the racial 
>label has become more functional.
>
>The racial label incorporates meanings that 
>predate the era of insurgency and 
>counter-insurgency.  Willem van Schendel, 
>writing mainly with Bangladesh and the 
>Chittagong Hill Tracts in mind, comments on the 
>"remarkably stagnant view of the hill people" 
>that has prevailed in South Asia.  The classic 
>nineteenth century Western assumptions about 
>social evolution from a state of savagery to 
>civilisation were superimposed on the ancient 
>South Asian distinction between civilised 
>society and nature. The later distinction, 
>indicated in the categories grama  (village) and 
>aranya  (forest), implies a relationship that is 
>complementary but always unequal. These two 
>traditions, writes van Schendel, combined to 
>generate a dominant view that considers the 
>tribal peoples as remnants of some "hoary past 
>who have preserved their culture unchanged from 
>time immemorial. Backward and childlike, they 
>need to be protected, educated and disciplined 
>by those who are more advanced socially" (van 
>Schendel, 1995: 128).  The visual label of race 
>that transcends the colonial categories of 
>tribal and non-tribal and reaches out to 
>pre-colonial categories such as the Kirata 
>people -- used to describe the people of the 
>periphery - may now give a new lease of life 
>some old Indian prejudices.
>
>Responsible Indian officials have from time to 
>time used the metaphor of children to describe 
>the peoples of Northeast India.  In February 
>2004 the Mizoram Governor A.R. Kohli described 
>the entire region as a spoilt child. Contrary to 
>the charge that the Northeast is "the most 
>neglected region," he said it is "in fact, the 
>most spoilt child in the country." The central 
>government, he said, "showers funds and other 
>goodies" liberally on the region. But the funds 
>are not properly utilized or they do not reach 
>the intended beneficiaries. A news report 
>paraphrased the Governor as comparing the region 
>"to a petulant child who is showered with 
>goodies but does not know what to do with them" 
>(Telegraph 2004). 
>
>Such sentiments are also found in the language 
>used by B.P. Singh - the former civil servant 
>who played a key role in the creating the 
>Northeast as an administrative category. In an 
>article published in 1987, he concluded: 
>
>There is no tangible threat to the national 
>integration ethos in the region despite the 
>operation of certain disgruntled elements within 
>the region and outside the country. But in the 
>context of a history of limited socialization 
>and ethnic conflicts, and rapid modernization 
>after 1947 the unruly class-room scenario is 
>likely to continue in the region for years to 
>come (Singh, 1987b: 281-82).
>
>  "Unruly class-room" is a telling metaphor.  In 
>the Northeast, Singh seems to imply, what is 
>needed is a paternalistic and disciplinarian 
>teacher - someone who knows what is good for 
>children and, occasionally uses the stick for 
>their own good, the role that he probably sees 
>the coercive apparatus of the Indian state 
>playing in the region.
>
>These passages smack of attitudes and habits of 
>mind that long predate the politics of 
>counter-insurgency.  But while these prejudices 
>are old, they have acquired new meaning in the 
>context of India's failed policies in the 
>Northeast. While Singh's metaphor of an "unruly 
>class-room" rationalises the coercive response 
>to insurgency, Kohli's description of the region 
>as a "spoilt child" expresses the frustration 
>with the failures of a policy of nation-building 
>through corruption or what Jairam Ramesh calls 
>"using corruption as a mode of cohesion" 
>(Ramesh, 2005: 18).
>V
>What are the some of the consequences of the 
>racialisation of the divide between India and 
>its Northeast? 
>1, Motivation for militancy: According to 
>Manipuri intellectual and politician Gangmumei 
>Kamei, a major motivation for joining insurgent 
>groups in Manipur is the social discrimination 
>that young Manipuris face in different parts of 
>India because of their appearance (cited in Ray 
>2005).  Race has been a factor in the Meitei 
>religious revival movement of the 1940s as well. 
>Some revivalists converted to the newly formed 
>faith "only after returning from pilgrimages to 
>Mathura and Brindavan, where their Southeast 
>Asian features raised curiosity and animosity 
>among the local population." The racial divide, 
>according to anthropologist Sohini Ray, is 
>central to understanding the Meitei urge for 
>constructing an alternative history.  A 
>constituency for an alternative geneology 
>emerged when "the whole idea of sharing a common 
>ancestry with the people who are hostile to them 
>for their looks" became unacceptable (Ray 2005).
>2.  Perpetuating a divide: While official 
>narratives about counter-insurgency view each 
>Northeastern insurgency as distinct; the racial 
>label disrupts this narrative.  As a result the 
>differences between political conditions in 
>different parts of the Northeast have no effect 
>on popular perceptions about the 'disturbed' 
>region, since racial thinking do not allow for 
>such distinctions. For instance, the Mizo 
>insurgency that ended with a peace accord in 
>1986 is usually portrayed as a success story. 
>Yet that does not mean that Mizo relations with 
>mainland India are any different from that with 
>other parts of the Northeast.  Even today Mizos 
>such as Laltluangliana Khiangte complain about 
>mainstream India not understanding their culture 
>and traditions, and about Mizos being mistaken 
>as South-east Asian tourists in the national 
>capital (cited in Singh, 2004). After nearly two 
>decades of a peaceful Mizoram, as Manipuri 
>journalist Khogen Singh puts it, Mizos "still 
>don't feel fully at home outside the North-east" 
>(Singh, 2004).
>3. Hijacking of counter-insurgency: There is 
>evidence that the racial divide sometimes 
>subverts counter-insurgency operations and they 
>get hijacked for other purposes. For instance, 
>it was reported that in the Karbi Anglong 
>district of Assam, Indian security forces, 
>ostensibly there to deal with the security 
>threat posed by insurgencies, became partisans 
>in local land conflicts between tribal Karbi and 
>Hindi-speaking settlers.  The settlers whom 
>Karbis refer to as Biharis had over time 
>acquired informal control over what is formally 
>designated as public lands and had consolidated 
>a "considerable amount of economic and political 
>power."  They now seek formal change in the 
>status of those lands and formal land titles 
>(MASS 2002, 11-13). In Karbi Anglong's ethnic 
>configuration and the growth of insurgency, the 
>loss of land by Karbis to "Biharis" is a factor. 
>Many Karbi young people have come under the 
>influence of the United People's Democratic 
>Solidarity (UPDS).  But in local armed land 
>conflicts, because of racial solidarity, 
>"Bihari" settlers have occasionally secured the 
>informal backing of Indian security personnel 
>stationed in the area to fight the UPDS (MASS, 
>2002: 21).
>4. Facilitating militarisation: The racial 
>divide facilitates the relentless militarisation 
>of the region.  Consider for instance, the 
>recommendation to strengthen Indian military 
>presence in Manipur made by E.N. Rammohan -- a 
>senior Indian police official, who was Advisor 
>to the Governor of Manipur.  In order to stop 
>the penetration of the government departments by 
>militants, Rammohan recommended that battalions 
>of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) 
>should guard all government offices and the 
>residential neighborhoods housing central and 
>state government officials in the state. 
>Furthermore, he recommended that ten battalions 
>of the Central Para-Military Force (CPMF) be 
>deployed in the Manipur Valley in a 
>"counter-insurgency grid", and six to eight 
>battalions be deployed in each hills district, 
>where roads are few, with "helicopter support to 
>effectively dominate them" (Rammohan, 2002: 15). 
>Were it not for the racial fault-line it is 
>unlikely that such policy options would have 
>been seriously considered.
>
>5. Legitimisation of corruption: The leakage of 
>funds allocated for Northeast India's 
>development can be best described as insurgency 
>dividend.  The figures are staggering. Jairam 
>Ramesh estimates that the annual expenditure of 
>the Government of India on the eight states of 
>Northeast India, including Sikkim, is about 30, 
>000 crores a year. With the region's population 
>at about 32 million, he estimates that the 
>Government annually spends about 10,000 rupees 
>per person in the Northeast.  This money is not 
>going for development. In Ramesh's words, it is 
>going to 
>
>ensure cohesiveness of this society with the 
>rest of India through a series of interlocutors 
>who happen to be politicians, expatriate 
>contractors, extortionists, anybody but people 
>working to deliver benefits to the people for 
>whom these expenditures are intended.
>
>A surer way of improving the economic conditions 
>of the intended beneficiaries, he suggests, 
>might be for the Indian government to open bank 
>accounts and deposit an annual cheque of Rs. 
>10,000 for every poor family in the Northeast 
>(Ramesh, 2005: 18-19).
>
>The racial divide facilitates the sharing of the 
>insurgency dividend between local political and 
>bureaucratic elites and outside contractors and 
>suppliers.  Not unlike western businessmen who 
>justify bribing politicians and bureaucrats in 
>the Third World in terms of local norms, the 
>image of the Northeast and its people in this 
>new visual regime is that of a modern frontier 
>where corruption is just a part of the natural 
>landscape.  Even the "chinky" students from the 
>Northeast in Delhi, after all, appear more 
>"modern," "westernized" and affluent than many 
>of their mainland peers apparently confirming 
>the corruption-friendly image of the region. It 
>is hardly surprising that when it comes to doing 
>business in the region 'make a fast buck and 
>run' appears to have become accepted practice. 
>Even today's much-lowered levels of inhibition 
>and moral compunctions do not apply to India's 
>modern but wild Northeast Frontier.
>VI
>Things did not have to turn out this way. As an 
>Arunachali minister once said at a meeting in 
>Mumbai, "Why can't you think that in a big 
>country like ours a few people may even look 
>Chinese? Come to Arunachal Pradesh, he said, 
>people in areas bordering China will greet you 
>by saying Jai Hind" (cited in Das, 2004).
>In everyday conversations Northeasterners resist 
>mainland India's representation of the region. 
>But intellectuals, artists and activists will 
>have to develop what bell hooks calls an 
>oppositional gaze. Khasi commentator Patricia 
>Mukhim believes that because of its geographical 
>location policy makers in Delhi think of the 
>Northeast primarily in terms of its "strategic 
>importance."  The region, she suggests, is 
>treated as "enemy territory, which needs to be 
>subdued by force."  But "you cannot buy 
>allegiance with force," she warns and calls for 
>'an entirely new approach' to the region 
>(Mukhim, 2004). 
>A new approach must start with the domain of 
>representation. Our policies have an impact on 
>the way the Northeast and its people are 
>represented.  For instance, softening our 
>international borders -- opening up the region 
>on the east and the north, and encouraging close 
>cross-border interaction  -- can slowly change 
>perceptions.  The region seen as a gateway to a 
>friendly transnational neighbourhood will evoke 
>very different emotions than those of a frontier 
>or an "enemy territory"  -- a danger zone where 
>foreign and domestic enemies conspire against 
>the Indian nation. Policies could transform the 
>Southeast Asia within India into a dynamic 
>gateway to the Southeast Asia of world political 
>maps. This could be the foundation for a new 
>social contract between India and its Northeast. 
>This could radically change what it means to 
>look Northeastern in India. The battle for the 
>future of Northeast India is also a battle over 
>images.
>References:
>Bowles, Gordon 1977. The People of Asia. New York: Scribner.
>
>Das, Arup Jyoti.  2004. "The Half-Indians" (Unpublished essay)
>Goswami, Uddipana 2004 "Misrecognition" (Unpublished essay) 
>hooks, bell 1992. Black Looks: Race and 
>Representation. Cambridge, MA: South End Press
>Keyes, Charles 2002 "Presidential Address: "The 
>Peoples of Asia" - Science and Politics in the 
>Classification of Ethnic Groups in Thailand, 
>China and Vietnam," Journal of Asian Studies 61 
>(4) November, pp. 1163-1203.
>
>Leshin, Len  2003 "What's in a name The "Mongol" 
>Debate," Down Syndrome: Health Issues (website) 
>http://www.ds-health.com/name.htm (Accessed 
>September 16th 2005)
>Manipur Diaspora. 2004. 
>Manipur_Diaspora at yahoo-groups.com Archives, 
>E-mail No. 367.
>MASS (Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti). 2002.  And 
>Quiet Flows the Kopili [A Fact-finding Report on 
>Human Rights Violation in the Karbi Anglong 
>District of Assam] Guwahati:  Manab Adhikar 
>Sangram Samiti.
>Mukhim, Patricia.  2004.  "Life under Martial 
>Law," [Shillong Notes]; The Telegraph (Guwahati 
>edition) September 21.
>
>Rai, Aishwarya. 2000. 'I've not come here 
>looking for fame,' Interview by Kanchana Suggu, 
>http://www.rediff.com/entertai/2000/mar/29ash.htm 
>(Accessed September 16th 2005).
>Ramesh, Jairam 2005. "Northeast India in a New 
>Asia," Seminar (550) June, pp. 17-21.
>Rammohan, E.N. 2002. "Manipur: A Degenerated 
>Insurgency," in K.P.S. Gill and Ajai Sahni 
>(eds.), Faultlines. Vol. 11, New Delhi: Bulwark 
>Books and the Institute of Conflict Management: 
>1-15.
>Ray, Sohini. 2005. "Boundary blurred? 
>Folklore/Mythology, History and the Quest for an 
>Alternative Geneology in Northeast India" 
>(Unpublished manuscript).
>Singh, B.P.  (1987a) The Problem of Change: A 
>Study of Northeast India, New Delhi: Oxford 
>University Press.
>Singh, B.P.1987b. "North-East India: Demography, 
>Culture and Identity Crisis," Modern Asian 
>Studies 21 (2): April: 257-82.
>Singh, M. Khogen. 2004. "As Indian as You and 
>I," Hindustan Times, September 10th 2004.
>Telegraph 2004. "Governor Slaps Spoilt-child Tag 
>on Northeast," The Telegraph (Guwahati edition) 
>14 February.
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