[Assam] Sanjoy Hazarika's write-up on Map: AT 28/01/2008

uttam borthakur uttamborthakur at yahoo.co.in
Sun Jan 27 21:12:44 PST 2008 

      Chandan Da  I Have made it easier for you:-) I though I am the only lazy one!  
EDITORIAL 
    
---------------------------------
    Redrawing the borders of North East
— Sanjoy HazarikaThe other day, I attended another of those Summits on investments in the North East at the cavernous, galleried indoor stadium on the outskirts of Guwahati, which has become the place of choice for various economic meetings for reasons unclear to me. 

All of us at the event heard the same phrases parroted that have become de rigueur for such events, where we are told to lift up our eyes to see the vision before us (with apologies to the New Testament) – and forget the keecher that swamps us, that is destroying the world around us and certainly the greatest resource of our State, the Brahmaputra.  The rivers are our lifelines yet we don’t have a single town along it that has a sewage or effluent control system. We defecate in the open, especially along the river line – why do our toilets face the river and not elsewhere?   obviously for quick disposal of waste. 

The money that is wasted in such jamborees would have served a better cause had the organisers spent it in launching a campaign of private and public toilets across Assam, where barely eight per cent of the population has access to sanitation.   But let’s hold our noses a bit longer because I’m now coming to the heart of this article and the specific issue I want to raise.

The conference, for a bunch of Non-Resident Assamese (who come home like migratory birds evry winter for a few days before going to their foreign nesting lands), some international companies and a few domestic ones, was organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, arguably the most powerful representative association of industry in the country, the Ministry for the Development of the North Eastern Region (DoNER) and the host Government of Assam. There were government delegations from all States of the region and ministers from the Assam Government.  

We heard how good the opportunities were for investment and some spiffy power point presentations on all that was glowing and good in the region.   Some of the foreign delegates used the opportunity to beat their own drum or that of their organisations, one doctor from the UK talked about how wonderful and large the British Health Service was (it’s not, it’s poorly run, overstaffed and difficult to get appointments) and horrified he was at the bad traffic in Guwahati and how his wife did not even dare to cross the road all the time she had been in the city. 

But the impressive statistics reeled off by Jairam Ramesh left a sense of dejavu.  Broad band connections would soar from a pathetic current figure of 20,000 to six times that by 2009. And that there was no point expecting private players given the circumstances in the region and the huge gaps; it would have to be the public sector that would have to step in with funds, technical specialisation, programms and projects. 

The Rs. 50,000 crore that is to be spent on roads in the North East was actually a repetition of an announcement made in February 2007 in Kolkata by the Minsiter for the North East, Mani Shankar Aiyar, at an event organised by another powerful business body, the Indian Chambers of Commerce there, where he also talked about the surge in air connectivity in the region (226 flights per week to the various States, better than most metros could boast) and other issues.   Apart from the paeans of praise showered on each other and the need to push connectivity to South East Asia (conveniently side stepping an inconvenient and harsh truth, that Burma or Myanmar, one of the poorest countries in the world saddled with a brutal regime – it was left to Tarun Gogoi, the Chief Minister of Assam, to deliver a few home truths. 

He said he really was not interested in just getting more funds, a courageous statement for a major political leader, but what Assam needed was to really build skills, deliver an education system that produced employable youth and develop capacity. 

All this took place in the background of a conference folder put together by the three sponsors of the meeting. And that’s the punch line of this piece – on the cover of the folder was a map of India with the title of the conference and the sponsors. Nothing special about that. What made it unique — and this was repeated on the cover of the CD inside – was that the demarcated map of the North East on the map of India began in West Bengal, at the Sunderbans. 

This is not a casual mistake by the printer.  An American IT specialist who was at the New York “Investment” conference for the North-East in September 2007 said he and a number of others had seen it and puzzled by it.   The CII’s regional office for the North East is in Kolkata. The Chairman of the CII Northeastern region is from Kolkata.  And which is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the “Look East Policy?” No prizes for guessing: Kolkata – it has a powerful, well organised State leadership that makes the Central government shake when it catches cold; it has fraternal connections with the Communist Party of the Peoples Republic of China and flights from Kunming in Yunnan are coming to Kolkata, not to Guwahati! 

It has a vibrant economy and strong administration; its capitalists are not just very wealthy and influential but close to the Left comrades who run the State; investors from abroad are rushing there; the infrastructure is good, the roads are excellent; Buddhadev Bhattacherjee carries more clout in New Delhi and the rest of India than all the eight Chief Ministers of the North East put together. The head offices of major tea companies and others with substantial investments in Assam and the NER located in this first capital of British India, despite the agitations of the 1980s by students in Assam that they should relocated in Guwahati. 

Map making is political. It is a perception translated from colonial ambitions and more, where traveler’s tales and measurements are shaped into empires and nations. These perceptions make demands. Above all they emphasize the concepts of borders, boundaries and frontiers, of margins, settlement and sovereign nations. 

It is not an accident of drafting but an agenda proclaimed, not counting mountain peaks and valleys but asserting political rights and mandates. Map making has been the preserve of the powerful; those without a voice have had to lump it for centuries. Maps are political statements – take the Chinese map of India which excludes Arunachal Pradesh or the Indian map of Kashmir which includes Pakistan-held Kashmir. And what of the NSCN map of a Greater Nagaland that takes in parts of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh? 

Is it the view of the Government of India, especially MDoNER, of the Government of Assam and the other States of the region, of CII (in the NER as well as Kolkata and Delhi), that the North-East, without being consulted is now part of West Bengal or vice versa, whether ostensibly for economic activity or otherwise? Is this the real face of the Look East Policy, Summits or not?   The powerful prevail, often.  But as in Perth, the underdogs do sometimes. By issuing a map such as this, the three partners at the conference have issued an unacceptable position. 

In 1947, Mahatma Gandhi and Lokpriya Gopinath Bardoloi backed by the Congress party in Assam and in the face of opposition from Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhai Patel – stalled the proposed amalgamation of Assam with East Pakistan. Is there an effort to rewrite history, through the back door, as part of economic “globalization?”   That this has happened without fuss or objections from groups like AASU and others who proclaim their commitment to Ai Asom and the people of the region is astonishing.   This article seeks to reach a wider audience so that others voice not just their concern, including rational people, scholars, media and professionals, but their opposition.  

It was perhaps appropriate that soon after this event an international conference on the North East and its borderlands took place at another venue in Guwahati; the discourse was more academic although grassroots organisers and others were present. One of the issues that caused concern was over the opening of borders which would place small vulnerable communities at the mercy of a political-industrial juggernaut.


Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:  O' Uttam:

Probondhotw ontotoh uddhrito kori pothabo paarlihetentw .

What shall we do now? Guess what Hazarika wrote :-)?

c-da








At 3:21 AM +0000 1/28/08, uttam borthakur wrote:
>Mr. Hazarika has written a crispy piece in The Assam Tribune on 
>28/01/2008 regarding the recent exercise of bringing in outside 
>funds to NE for investment and its off shoot: Kolkata centric map 
>of the NE.
>
>Chan Mahanta wrote: 
>I think we are attempting to split hairs over nothing.
>
>Just because another language differentiates between a house and a
>home, and Oxomiya does not, one does not need to go into a fit of
>grabbing at Sanskrit words that few use. For us 'ghor' is a ghor--a
>house and a home too. The difference lies in HOW it is used in a
>sentence. There are many such nuances to all languages. The
>differentiation lies in the usage.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>At 6:00 PM -0600 1/26/08, kamal deka wrote:
>>HOUSE = BHOBON / AWAKH /GRIHO
>>HOME = GRIHO BAKH /GHOR
>>KJD
>>
>>
>>On 1/26/08, Alpana B. Sarangapani wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Does anybody know if there are separate words for "home" and "house" in
>>> Assamese? I know we use 'ghor' .
>>>
>>> But if you need to assert the real meanings of a "real" home and just a
>>> house with 4 walls, what are they?
>>>
>>> I believe it is 'ghar`' for home and 'makaan' for house in Hindi.
>>>
>>> Thanks for your help.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "In order to make spiritual progress you must be patient like a tree and
>>> humble like a blade of grass"
>>> - Lakshmana
>>>
>>>
>>>
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Uttam Kumar Borthakur

       
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