India
North East India: A paradise unexplored or a paradise lost?

Sikkim flickr/ahinsajain
Sikkim and seven sisters of North East India represent seven percent of Indian area and 3.7% of Indian population. These figures hide the immense diversity of languages, ethnicity, culture and biodiversity as well as the wealth of natural resources. Relatively untarnished with human exploitation, unlike most of the India, this place offers a cleaner slate than rest of the country to write a new story of a sustainable development.
The perils on the road to grand promises of this place arise from several unresolved issues of history, the unbalanced component of equation that we have brushed under the rug but not really solved. Depending on what we define as the epicentre of a parochial monolithic identity: Lahore, Delhi, Patna, Thiruvananthapuram or Kolkata, one might find North East India further apart than say Indonesia, which had the same rulers as parts of South India for centuries. North East India and for that matter, several troubled regions of India, can only become full participants to the Indian story and make India a true success story, only when we understand that unlike several more monolithic countries, India had a different history of national evolution. India is not a manifestation of expansion of city-states on ethnic or linguistic lines. It is not a history of one emperor’s sweeping conquests or a legacy of one dynasty. It is a mini world and not just a subcontinent in itself. For Europeans until quite late into Renascences, Hindustan used to be area around Indus and everything to the east of it including South Asia and Parts of South East Asia. In contrast, for majority of Indians (and not all), their country used to be whatever small territories inhabited by people alike them. Even a place hundred miles away could be pardes (foreign country). A lot of South Asia and South East Asia happened to be divided in the current boundaries but could have been divided into several smaller parts or united all as one, if the slight accidents of history were just slightly different. The boundaries are a result of stochasticity and parochialism but not a manifestation of historic inevitability, just as were the establishments of European trading ports and initial colonial conquests in India. It does not mean that there is not a common thread to India or that every inch of its territory is not worth laying one’s life for but what it means is that to unite India, we need to understand its historic and cultural richness. India is much longer and richer experiment of the same kind as is the US: of admixture, conflict and coexistence of different people. Past uncertainties do not mean that we cannot make the future trajectory more certain. To have a future unity and progress we need to understand the past flux and address the unresolved issues. The wounds and the unresolved issues of North East India are a bit more than most of India. These stem from the following:
- Underdevelopment of the border regions, with majority of the agricultural sector being involved in subsistence farming and at times only one highway running through rather large regions.
- Recent demographic shifts add to sources of conflicts. There are several examples of both incidental and state encouraged demographic shifts in the region. The incorporation of Sikkim by India, which was a separate country until 1975, only happened after Nepalese migrants became the majority in the state. In Tripura, influx of Bengali people has rendered the majority Tripuri people to be now just 30% of the population.
- What most Indians forget that India was first populated by groups classified as Austroloid and Mongoloid (the predominant groups in Northeast) by anthropologists and the fact that Chinese population is also genetically a subset of Indian populated that migrated via South East Asia route. North East has interesting history of migration to and back from East and South East Asia. It is ethnically one of the most diverse regions of India. This diversity at times manifests in the form of tribal rivalries. Cultural differences of neighbours can range from nuanced differences to as big of differences as being a patriarchal or a matriarchal society. There are several autonomous state demands in the region that if smartly negotiated and implemented can ease ethnic strife.
- Hypocrisy of Indians claiming Northeast as integral to India when there is trouble with China, while forgetting it at the times of peace. This mistreatment extends to treatment of Northeast people as second grade citizens.
- Heavy handed and indiscriminate response by Indian armed forces and continuation of Armed Forces Special Provisions Act (AFSPA) are sources of ongoing resentment. Northeast has witnessed the only bombing of Indian territory by Indian Air Force. Po Zoramthanga who went on to become the chief minister of Mizoram, once said that the main reason he joined separatist Mizo National Front was because of “Relentless bombing of Aigawi in 1966”. Nagaland has several veteran citizens who claim alive skinning of their comrades in the Naga Nationalist movement by Indian armed forces. International Human Right Watch argues that human rights violations only fuelled insurgency in most states. It is high time to remove AFSPA and punish the rogue elements in the armed forces.
Right now the separatist movements in Northeast have subsided but not died out. Most of them have devolved into criminal nexus that can be dealt with as a law and order problem. This is right time to push the path of development, representation and reconciliation to prevent another wave of separatism. With corridors to both East Asia and South East Asia, we can build several business nodes like Singapore and Hong Kong in the Northeast. This is the right time to put North-East and similarly troubled regions like J&K on the national agenda.
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