Living in a melting pot of races, religions and cultures, the inhabitants of Northeast India continue to struggle with an identity crisis while battling decades of ethnic conflict.
Northeastern India
consists of the seven
sister states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram,
Nagaland and Tripura, and parts of North Bengal.
This is a very diverse region and has strong
ethnic and cultural ties with Southeast and East Asia while it is officially a
part of India since 1947. These states constitute a special category which is officially
recognized by the Indian government. The major religions practiced here include
Christianity, Hinduism and Islam.
Northeast India has seen a steady flow of
immigrants throughout history, which accounts for its ethnic, linguistic cultural
and religious diversity. Linguistically, the Bengali and Assamese speakers have
been the most in numbers, as Subir Bhaumik pointed out in Ethnicity, Ideology and Religion: Separatist Movements in India’s Northeast,
and the statistics regarding linguistic majority have been influenced by
political affiliations e.g. in Assam, the migrant Muslims of Bengali origin
registered as Assamese speakers between 1947 and 1982 to become part of the
larger community, but after the 1983 riots, many of these Muslims began to
register as Bengali speakers, changing the statistics about the number of
Assamese speakers in the 1991 and 2001 Census.
There are three main groups inhabiting the Northeastern
region which have been at odds with each other: the Assamese, the Bengalis and
the tribal communities. Historically, wave after wave of migration towards the
region was directed from the Eastern Asian countries like Tibet, Burma and
Thailand, and the 1947 Partition led to increase of Bengali Hindu and Muslim refugees.
As happens with
demographic change and tipping of ethnic balance in any region when also accelerated
by political maneuvering, a feeling of discrimination and deprivation slowly established
itself and hatt has led to a constant sparking of ethnic violence for decades, uprooting
families and claiming lives.
This sense of discrimination
has been aggravated to a level that the resulting agitation has led to
accusations of changed political loyalties of the Assamese towards the Indian
government. This attitude of distrust has sustained in the minds of some politicians
and policy makers and has prevented implementation of policies for social
uplifting and effective conflict management. The fact that is
conveniently ignored by politicians is that the historical
differences and resulting conflict actually originate from the Colonial era discriminatory
treatment of Assamese, and has continued due to mismanagement by the government
and exploitation by political leaders.
Several reasons are acknowledged
by economists and policy makers to be the cause of conflict in this region. One
of them is the region’s geographical location as a poorly integrated remote
corner of the country. Assam is landlocked by Bangladesh, Bhutan and
Tibet and is joined by a narrow corridor with India through Bangladesh, Bhutan
and Nepal. Some blame successive economic
and political policies of the Indian
government relying on use of force to suppress conflict rather than to manage
and understanding it, and sometimes even just focusing on temporary political
gains. Dr. Shakuntala Bora of Gauhati
University finds in the course of her research that the reasons for the
identity crisis of the ethnic groups in Assam include their awareness of being
different from the majority group, a sense of being discriminated against and a
strong desire for a significant share in political power – all of which are legitimate
concerns for self-assertion. Dov Ronen,
who has been affiliated with Harvard University’s Centre for International
Affairs, also suggests that ethnic nationalism is just an expression of self
determination and, “ethnicity is politicized into the ethnic factor when an
ethnic group is in conflict with the political elite over such issues as the
use of limited resources or the allocation of benefits.”
The
Northeasterners also suffer discrimination due to their physical appearance. Racially,
they are considered to be closer to Southeast Asia, and have trouble fitting in
and being accepted by the larger Indian population. The discrimination has resulted
in a steady increase over the years in trafficking of, and sexual violence against,
women which is seen, based to a 2011 study of North-East Support Center and
helpline (NESCH), by Madhu
Chandra as “a reflection of India's caste practices and social system as
majority of North-East Indians come from Scheduled Castes and Tribes and
ethnically Mongoloid race, which falls out of caste hierarchy.” Though the
Indian constitution protects right of minorities, practically, there has been little
protection from hate crimes and exploitation for the Northeasterners even in
the capital, Delhi. Northeasterners working or studying in Delhi have
complained of having little support from the police or legal system. Hence, it
is seen that most of the cases go unreported. Even when reported, however, they
are often denied FIRs or their cases are delayed by the police and courts. According
to the NESCH, of the cases studied less than half were taken up by police, out
of which only 1% actually made it to court. Derogatory terms are also in common
usage for referring to Northeastern men and women.
To add to their misery, Northeast Indians
face identity crisis not only in their own country, but due to their East Asian
looks but Indian passports, they are also meted out the same treatment when
they travel to adjoining Bhutan, Nepal, China and Myanmar. This discriminatory
behavior often fuels anger and sense of deprivation among the inhabitants of this
region and contributes to socio-political unrest and communal violence. It is no wonder that the
Northeast has been India’s most insurgency affected region.
A crisis in
multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies may result from suppression
or exploitation of any group. To prevent it from blowing into a full-fledged
conflict, we need policies that prevent polarization and encourage integration.
Politicization of ethnicity which turns it into ethnic conflict has to stop. Without
effective solution, or continuance of discriminatory policies, the situation only
leads to insurgency and militancy as observed in Northeast India for the last
many decades.
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