Chandanda, Here is an article,written by HK Deka,which you may find relevent. The North-East: fragments and invention of a metaphor
------------------------------------------------------- *In 1972, the map of Assam changed and a whole became fragments. The country had to invent a new metaphor to give the new map a new image in the process of cutting it into parts and then re-joining it into a whole. That metaphorical image was of seven sisters. But to understand the compulsion behind this act of dismemberment and re-suturing, we need to peep into its development in the political history of Assam following independence. * *In 1947 too, there was a change in its map. It lost Sylhet to Pakistan, the largest and most populous district of the British province of Assam. But in the rest of the province (which became a state under the Constitution of independent India), no change was affected except transfer of some land (which was in the plains) from the frontier tract which consisted of hills. Interestingly, the exclusionary policy of the British in respect of the hills was not abandoned by the new nation-state but the emphasis was different. The sixth schedule of the Constitution served the purpose of the excluded and partially excluded areas. What Nehru said in his address to the opening session of the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Area's Conference at New Delhi in June 1952 throws some light on the purpose of giving the north-eastern hill tribes a separate status under the Constitution. It was not to 'allow them to be engulfed by the masses of Indian humanity' and not to make them 'anthropological specimens'. The North-East Frontier Tract remained under direct charge of the Central Government through the governor though it was considered a part of Assam. Provisions were made for the Assam hill district to have autonomous councils to enable the tribes to participate in democratic process and local self governance. These were constituted except in Naga Hills where a demand for independence grew and where resistance against a council set up was strong. However, there were problems regarding fund and this caused discontent amongst the emerging tribal leadership. On the other hand, many Assam leaders like Rohini Kumar Choudhury and Kuladhar Chaliha were opposed to the move and asked for immediate integration of these areas with the rest of the country. Nehru's fear was not unjustified. There was a possibility that sudden opening of the living space of these communities to those with whom they had very little social contact and who had different cultural life could have caused fear and anxiety. It would have been like confronting an alien culture as the British officials, by a deliberate design, kept these cultures apart. On the other hand, this protective arrangement appears to have been taken too far by the Government of Independent India at a time it sought to build a united nation from the varieties of its cultural life. As a result, the leadership in both areas could never gain the precious experience of working together in governance. Another unexplainable arrangement was made in respect of the North-East Frontier Tract, later called North East Frontier Agency (presently called Arunachal Pradesh). The area was placed under the External Affairs Ministry as if it was not a 'home' territory of the emerging Indian nation. The only explanation was that Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to pay personal attention to the area and the external ministry was under his charge. This tract being a frontier with China and China's territorial intention becoming clearer day by day, its placing under the home ministry was necessary even as a political posture against china's emerging claim. Nehru's desire to give personal attention to the region was hardly fulfilled if we look at the state of development there during his time. It was because, Nehru, despite his immense sympathy for the area as borne out by copious notes and letters he wrote that are on record, was much preoccupied with events elsewhere in the country. His growing involvement in international affairs also must have taken his attention away. Moreover, in those days Nehru appeared to have been more concerned about the integration of the remote north-east region than its economic development as borne out by his remark, "thus they (the people of the frontier areas) lack the feeling of oneness with the rest of India or the Indian people and are distinctly afraid that their small numbers will be swamped by others…,apart from suffering economically." On this aspect, his feeling was that removal of the 'fear and apprehension from their mind' was of the first priority. 'How to make them feel at one with India' was so important that ' everything else is subordinate to this, even economic betterment, although that is highly important.'( Documents On North-East India vol 4 edited by S.K.Sharmaand Usha Sharma,,2006, page288, from JN collection, note, Shillong, 19 October,1952, henceforth DNEI) * *It was thought that the autonomy granted through the mechanism of the sixth schedule of the constitution would remove the hill peoples' apprehension that they were being dominated by the people from the plains. Nehru also felt that self governance at local level would help in psychological integration of the hill people with the rest of the country. Even If this was so, removing economic backwardness of the region should also have received pointed attention. Nehru had seen first hand that the British in their effort to keep the north-east hills in isolation deprived these areas of road or rail connectivity. During his extensive tour of the region from 19 to 25 October, 1952, Nehru had to undertake his travels aerially as motorable roads were almost non-existent or if there were a few they were in deplorable condition. During his aerial tour, he could not land at Towang as his aircraft lost its way in an unfamiliar air route. The route was not charted for regular aerial visits. Despite Nehru's such experience, neither the central government nor the state government did much to improve road connectivity in the region. Each government felt that the responsibility was with the other. Even at that time, there was technology to provide rail connectivity to the hills. The British had done this in the North Cachar Hills to connect Sylhet and Surma valley in the interest of the tea planters but nowhere else in the north- eastern hills did they try to build railways. What Edward Arnold had said in 1865 and what proved prophetic about the role of railways in helping India in its national integration might be remembered. He said, "Railways may do for India what dynasties had never done--- what the genius of Akbar… could not do; they may make India a nation." ( See introduction, section 2 to B. R. Nanda's book 'The Making of a Nation', 2004, Harper Collins. ) Even in the north-east, a railway could have played this part effectively. If not a railway, efficient all weather roads connecting the remote parts of the north-eastern hills would have been an important developmental step towards better understanding and integration of the hills people with the people of the rest of the country. Sadly, even after India's debacle in the Indo-China war in 1962, road connectivity remained extremely poor in NEFA. * *However, the policy of engaging the hill people in self governance did have a positive effect in one respect. English education introduced by the British had given rise to an educated middle class among the tribes and this middle class felt a sense of engagement in the democratic process of the country. Nehru hit the point when he wrote to Jairamdas Doulatram, the governor of Assam on April 3, 1955 as follows " the main object should be to make them feel that they are functioning for themselves and are not being ruled by outsiders. It is this psychological situation that we have to create." (DNEI, page 366 ). It was this class that represented the political voice of the people and their sense of participation stood in good stead when China overran a part of the North-East hills. The tribes instead of hailing the Chinese as their liberators fled from their homes and suffered immensely in heat in refugee camps in the plains. The tribes of the North-East Frontier Agency (the Tract became an Agency in 1954) passed the loyalty test but still the mental distance between the peoples of the hills and the plains was not satisfactorily bridged. NEFA's political isolation, socio-cultural exoticism as seen from the plains and its remoteness due to lack of communication were factors that distanced them from the people of Assam plains as well as from other Indians. * *After Gopinath Bordoloi, there was little attempt by Assam's political leaders and also by the bureaucrats to understand the tribal mind. As said above, the Centre did not allow the Assam Government to exercise its executive jurisdiction over NEFA and this region remained both physically and psychologically isolated from the state to which it was constitutionally attached. But other hill areas were under the direct responsibility of the Assam Government, which failed to handle them sensitively. Among them, the Nagas were the first to demand not only separation from Assam but also sovereignty. But other hills which had no immediate objection to being a part of the state were not nourished with care and discontent started brewing in a few years after independence. Nehru lamented in his note that the state administration lacked human approach. He recorded, "Ministers hardly ever go to these areas in the interior and have to rely on reports of some local officials. Even officials at headquarters seldom go there. The approach thus, instead, of being human and personal, is very largely official, departmental and bureaucratic." In a letter dated April 9, 1955, addressed to Bishnuram Medhi, Nehru castigated the State Government thus, "There is a feeling among these hill people of frustration and a lack of faith in the Assam administration." An instance of the state government's insensitivity can be cited here. During Bishnuram Medhi's time, Nehru had to tick off the State Government for failing to release a sum of Rs 4 lakh kept in a separate account for tribal development in Khasi hills. The state government merged it in its own fund on technical ground and did not even think of finding a way out to release the money in time, which caused resentment amongst the Khasi leaders. How a remote frontier area can become emotionally sensitive on issues that might seem insignificant otherwise can be understood from another incident that caused serious repercussion in Manipur. When in 1955, rice was exported from Manipur to Assam to tide over scarcity in the latter, prices shot up in Manipur and caused law and order trouble there. In Nehru's own word "People (of Manipur) said that this was the first effect of merger with India, and they cursed the Government of India….In fact, everything that had gone wrong was laid on the score of rice export being allowed." ( Letter to A. P. Jain dated May 19, 1955, DNEI, page 370). Among the hill tribes the khasis had closer social commerce with the people of Assam plains as the capital was in Shillong. But there tribal lands were allotted to settlers from the plains--mostly service holders and traders, and this caused strong resentment among the tribal indigenous people. Some of the areas opened up for such settlement were named after the ministers who were from the plains. All these insensitive actions and some more fueled mistrust and the cherished assimilation was never achieved. * * The psychological scenario was quite complex. With the democratic process opening up political possibilities, it was the respective middle class that was aspiring to enjoy the dominant share of power in hills and plains and their expectations got projected as the aspirations of their communities. There was a lack of convergence of their differing goals. Assamese nationalism seeking dominance during the fifties and sixties and even thereafter cannot be read in isolation and without taking into account its own sense of vulnerability against assertive Bengali linguistic nationalism. The Assamese middle class elite started feeling a sense of dominance only after 1951, the year that showed in its census that with the removal of Sylhet and the immigrant Muslims of the Brahamaputra Valley deciding to adopt Assamese as mother tongue, the Assamese speaking people became a majority in the state. The picture was quite different in 1931 census. It was not for nothing that Assamese political leaders were keen to lose Sylhet at the time of partition and Sir Sadullah, one time Muslim league premier of Assam was keen to retain it. The Assamese nationalists' attempt at dominance stemmed from a defensive psychology and its actions, at times violent, were principally directed against the assertive politics of the Bengalis of both the Brahmaputra and the Surma valleys. Only later, unemployment and land alienation brought the question of ' bahiragata' to the fore. The latter was an old issue but linguistic nationalism kept it in the shadow till the end of the seventies of the last century. By that time linguistic nationalism of the Assamese middle class achieved a measure of success through the Official Language Act of 1960 and introduction of Assamese as the medium of instruction in higher studies in 1972. But while seeking consolidation of the dominant status, the adherents of Assamese nationalism failed to read the sensitivity of the people in the hills where the educated middle class was seeking its own political space and wanted to be the master of its own people's destiny. The emerging political class of the hills in their ethnic aspirations encountered hindrance from Assamese nationalism. The homogenizing project of the Assamese middle class did not take into account these aspirations of the tribal middle class nurtured in English education. This middle class was also conscious of religious difference and cultural distinction between the peoples of the plains and the hills. In this psychological scenario, Lushai Hills (later Mizoram) suffered from 'mautam' (famine) between 1959-61 and the famine situation was very indifferently handled by the State Government. The Mizo National Famine Front under Laldenga formed to help food distribution during famine rebelled in 1966 having renamed itself as the Mizo National Front in 1961. It took the path of armed insurgency and demanded sovereignty like the Nagas. The discontent in Garo, Khasi and Jaintia hills was on the issue of the introduction of Assamese as the state official language but the agitation there was fortunately channeled through a democratic path. Even before that, it was seen that assimilation process was not working and there was a demand for a hill state when the State Reorganization Commission visited the state in 1955. After the Assam Official Language Bill was introduced in Assam Assembly in July 1960, a newly formed organization All Party Hill Leaders Conference (APHLC) built up a strong movement for a separate hill state. As S. K. Agnihotri said, "In the 3 **rd** conference in November 1960, the APHLC emphasized that the fulfillment of this demand was the only solution that could safeguard the interests and satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the hills people." (His article 'Constitutional Development in North- East India since 1947' in 'Reorganization of North-East India since 1947' ed B Duttaray and S P Agrawal, 1996, Concept Publishing, New Delhi.This article has incorporated accurate details of the development in the North-East after India's independence.) * *In Naga hills, the hardliners built up an armed guerilla struggle since 1956 and the Centre eventually conceded a state of Nagaland in 1962 to conciliate the people. While the moderate Naga leadership became reconciled to this arrangement and decided to seek national destiny in the Indian democratic structure, the hardliners continued their armed struggle for sovereignty, which at the moment is showing signs of thaw. Separation of some of the hills from the plains of Assam thus actually started from 1962 and culminated in 1972. The Hill state movement that grew in strength in Khasi, Jaintia and Garo Hills and the insurgency in Lushai Hills were the contributory developments that led to the division of Assam into several states and the concept of seven sisters took birth. The rise of a politically conscious middle class both in the Hills and the Plains, divergent ethnic aspirations, socio-cultural distance, inability of the national wisdom to discover essential threads for integration in a salad bowl syndrome, and above all, governmental myopia in the state administration all led to this division of Assam. So long, the geographical name was applied to a portion of the present North-East India, but it was now applied to the seven states comprising a problematic frontier region and having international borders with hostile powers. A frontier was fragmented into several parts and their economic viability came to be questioned. Against this background, the Centre desperately sought a strong metaphor to bind these parts in a cultural filial bond. The region came to be called seven sisters. Has this metaphor overcome the negative reality that we have tried to trace above? Have the seven sisters themselves been able to re-discover an umbilical chord that assures them that they have been siblings separated only by different cultural upbringing? This we intend to examine separately in another discussion. (2873 words) * * . .*
_______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
