Insurgents
belonging to the NDFB(National Democratic Front of Bodoland)(Shobonjit faction)
kill a 16 year old girl Priya Basumatary over charges of being a police
informer. It is an offshoot the anti talk faction of NDFB which has since laid
down its arms and is now in talks with the government of India. Local media
accuses certain sections of politicians of cultivating young boys and girls as
informers at the cost of their lives. This is the quagmire of politics that
North Eastern India fondly called “NE” sees everyday. A vital asset if not the
crowning glory of India’s nationalist project NE has often been a disjoint
function with the rest of mainland India. It is towards understanding these
fundamental questions of homeland nation and role of NE in the Indian project
that Sanjib Baruah’s acclaimed book Durable Disorder comes highly handy.
It
is a collection of essays which tries to put NE in the correct perspective
while clearing a lot of myths on the way. It is not a revisionist project aimed
at stimulating the secessionist tendencies and arming armchair activists with
votaries of secession. Rather it is a rationale look at why after six decades
North East continues to be a troubled cauldron. India has seen long spells of
violence and activities against the state in two regions the Kashmir and the
North East. In the case of Kashmir there is recorded evidence of outside powers
influencing and fermenting trouble against the state but in the case of NE such
evidences are hard to find. Indeed a lot of the misgivings against the state
are often localized issues.
While
a few common threads run through the multicultural terrain of North East yet
each state particularly those where insurgency has run amok for decades now
presents its own peculiar nature of trouble and its relation with the state.
And in each of the different essays of Baruah tries to highlight these
peculiarities one at a time .The introduction of this book begins with the
usual question of democracy, nation and development. Social scientists have
often argued that the modern concept of a nation is perhaps a construct where
communities have a common imagination. In this context of nation Baruah tries
to introduce us to a new term “subnationalism” .Subnationalism has been defined
as the power to assemble, politicize and mobilize people while at the same time
lacking the clear cut goal or idea of a separate statehood. Baruah tries to
find a place for subnationalism in the multicultural project of India while
still framing it strongly within the constitutional and geographical borders of
the country. Baruah in a sense also tried to forecast the “development” debate
that rages within the country today. Is number of roads a parameter for
inclusion and development? What if the area in question is a reserve forest
would the parameters stand even then Baruah counters? He quotes William Sachs
while claiming that development is perhaps sometimes a mirage that communities
chase and in fact a majoritarian narrative.
In
the first formal essay about nationalizing space Baruah counters this
particular argument of nation and nation building while taking up the peculiar
case of Arunachal Pradesh. Arunachal Pradesh is one of the most pristine
regions of the country endowed with natural resources in form of flora and
fauna as well as rivers with a very little population density. Yet Arunachal
Pradesh has regularly been earmarked as underdeveloped for the lack of major
industries etc. The author illustrates the point of a FICCI report where
Arunachal is declared backward on the basis of less number of industries
available in the state. The author argues if another parameter for development
cannot be developed one which is based on a higher standard of living with good
basic health education while an industry developed around agro products and
sustainable tourism. Instead of a mad race for roads and infrastructure can
there be an alternate view of development which does not involve a replica of
development in other parts of the country. Nationalizing the mental space is a
different arena from nationalizing the physical space of any frontier area and
the author believes that nationlising the mental space in a cohesive and
inclusive manner towards national integration is a better way rather than
nationalizing the physical space.
In
the essay generals as governors the author tries to link up the question of
appointing generals as governors of frontier areas and how far it helps towards
integrating the nation. A governor is often seen as a Centre’s lynchpin in
state domain and the general democratic experience with regard to the position
of Governor in free India has been rather mixed. In a federal polity with a unitary
bias like India the position of Governor assumes great significance and in the
troubled polity of NE it assumes an even
larger role. How far would the policy go towards integrating the nation is
something that the author questions. A case in point is Lt Gen SK Sinha who was
Assam’s governor during the troubled “ULFA”(United Liberation Front of Asom)
era. SK Sinha is credited with bringing mainstream Assamese society into the
cultural discourse of Indian narrative while instituting a bust of Assamese
hero Lachit Barphukan in NDA(National Defence Academy) and ensuring that
Gopinath Bordoloi the first Chief Minister of Assam received the Bharat
Ratna.It was part of the Governors three pronged strategy which aimed at ending
insurgency in Assam.The jury is still out as to how much success this the
Governor achieve nevertheless it is indeed an example of how vital Generals are
as Governors in the fractured polity of NE India.
Continuing
with the focus on Assam in the next essay the author illustrated how present
clash of resources among communities of Assam can be viewed from a colonial
historical perspective. When the Britishers took over Assam after the Treaty of
Yandaboo in 1826 as opposed to Bengal Assam had vast stretches of pristine
land. And the Britishers viewed this in many ways as land gold mine. When tea
was first grown in Assam it set cash registers of London stock exchange ringing
and there was a mad scamper of land for tea gardens and other commercial
agricultural enterprises typical of colonial projects. Yet such commercial
enterprises didn’t bring any benefit for the local population of the state. And
when India became a free nation Assam continued to be a colonial experiment
with large vast swathes of land continuing to be under tea cultivation while now
there was actue land crisis. In understanding land one must also understand the
movement of the hill people and the plains and that the farmers of the plains
didn’t always lead a sedentary life .The farmer of the plains in Assam for
example the Bodo population regularly shifted its cultivation from one place to
another. Successive government in Centre and state failed to understand such
dynamics and when the Assam government issued the policy of not allowing any
“encroachments” in forest lands the Bodo peasents rose in revolt. It went a
long way in fermenting the Bodo self righteous movement. The author in the end
argued that imagining North East as a homogenous group of people applying
perceived notions of sociological and anthropological reasoning may not always
yield the best results.
Subsequently
the author devotes three more essays on Assam where he talks about the rise and
fall of ULFA .In doing so the author tries to decipher the role of Assam
movement in shaping ULFA since it was the radical strand of the Movement which
eventually took up arms against the state. Yet the author argued that
subnational aspirations though not blatantly anti national have existed in the
mainstream Assamese society where the idea of a proud nation sometimes find
relection in the songs of Late Dr. Bhupen Hazarika as well. Yet the author
beleives that rather than discarding such elements there should be efforts to
understand and accept such strands as diversity of the Indian nation.After more
than six decades of free independence India must now be confident enough to be
able to handle its mainstream voices of dissent and rather than convincing them
through power and might rationalize them through discussions and debate.
There
was an era in the 90s when ULFA superimposed itself on the Assamese society. It
was not merely an insurgent organization with a secessionist goal it saw itself
as a custodian of the Assamese way of life and culture. But because of the
vexed nature of polity in the NE it also gave rise to another phenomenon the
Surrendered ULFA or SULFA which was when Assamese society nosedived into new
lows. The lure of surrender was so great that “boys” surrendered enmasse to
avail benefits of “rehabilitation”. The author laments what model the
government seeks to display when former murderers are seen moving with private
security and living lavish life to the new generation. Perhaps the policy of
handling surrendered militants warrants a new look;. While it must be the
target of the government to wean away as many misguided youths as possible from
the clutches of misguided campaigns yet it must not be seen as a way of “easy
life” by the next generation.
In
the case of Nagaland the author tires to place the debate on the Naga identity
question alongwith the concerns of Manipur another frontier state which has
forever been a source of trouble. The NSCN-IM with whom the Indian government
has a almost a two decade long ceasefire now looms large over political and
social life of the Nagas living not only in Nagaland but also the states of
Manipur Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The project of “Greater Nagalim” sets it
with a collisionary course with the other powers of NE including Manipur and
Assam. In the end the author tries to devise solutions which would give a
cultural integrity and unity to Nagas while keeping the territorial boundaries of
the other North Eastern states intact.
In
the end the author tries to bridge the gap between mainland understanding of NE
which is often clouded by a military vision and security perception and trying
to build an image for a inclusive NE within the colorful imagination of the
Indian project. Eventually the NE has to play a “transnational” and a major
role in India’s Look East policy and it is towards this objective and framework
that NE must be placed in policy discourses. A region that is unique can be
integrated seamlessly into the national polity rather than being viewed with
trouble and suspicion. The author offers us an understanding of looking at NE
not as spolit troublemakers but rather as a historical gap with the rest of the
nation that can be bridged with a proper understanding of the region.
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