The Pen is Mightier than the Dao: People without Writing
Writing a Nation:
The term Northeast India refers to no more than a geographical location on India’s political map. Unlike other place names it evokes no cultural memory and shared collective history. It is, in a lot of ways, reflective of the entrenched view of the people in the region that has remained stagnant since the first colonial incursion into the region i.e. they are people without writing and thus without any veritable recognizable history and memory.
Colonial ethnographic accounts which described the diverse communities dwelling in the hills and the fertile valleys as depressed uncivilized, treacherous, pernicious opiate and wild races was superimposed to generate a dominant image of the people which condemned them as discriminated, underprivileged and backward tribes. The image of the hoary past marked by absence of writing, cultural deprivation and technological backwardness was projected to construct and legitimize the hegemony and maintain the overarching authority of the Indian state. Commenting on this process of construction and subjugation of the other, the anthropologist Debojyoti Das provides a trenchant analysis on colonial and post-colonial anthropological projects in the northeast. He states,
“Both in the context of colonial ‘administration’ and post colonial ‘development through reconstruction’, anthropological representations constituted the most important intellectual backgrounds for the re-imagination of tribal space as ‘backward’ and ‘underdeveloped’. ( Debojyoti Das 2002:75, Polyvocia – The SOAS Journal of Graduate Research, Vol. 2).
In the absence of any coherent historiography; memory and the knowledge of the past became a domain of what is formally known as folklore/ oral mytho-narratives. However, folklore in the Northeast India context where identities are fiercely contested becomes an unstable ideological category. Writing/history and orality/folklore is polarized to such an extent that they repel each other. In fact, there is a tendency in our academic discourses to look at writing/history as a more or less exact science and folklore/orality as something akin to old wives tales. Romila Thapar, a distinguished Indian historian in a recent article co-written with a physicist titled “Mythology, Science and Society” encapsulates the position of the dominant academic discourse on mytho-narratives:
“Myths are old legends; history is what is thought to have happened, of which science is a part.” (Cited in The Hindu, Nov.7. 2014)
The category of folk people to represent native communities in the region becomes contentious not only because of an implicit logocentrism inherent in such academic discourses but importantly because of the history of occupation and the post-colonial syndrome of insurgency and counter-insurgency.
This stereotypical representation of the people in the region without writing and reliable historical tradition is, however, vehemently contested by the numerous ethnic militias that proclaim self-determination and secession from the Indian state. The numbers and strength of these militias each harking back to a “unique history and situation” in the past is crazy! You have about 35-40 militant groups in Manipur, around 40 in Assam and Tripura, Nagaland has 6 and Meghalaya has 7 militia outfits. ( www.satp.org )
Revolutionary groups in Manipur still question the 1949 merger with the Indian union in Shillong where the maharaja of Manipur found himself literally locked up, the United Liberation Front of Assam(ULFA) challenge the legitimacy of the 1826 Treaty of Yandaboo between British and Burmese monarchy. Naga insurgent groups on the other hand draw attention to the memorandum submitted to the Simon Commission in 1929 and the Naga plebiscite in 1951.This makes the northeast region one of the most volatile battleground in the world for the subjugation and control over memory and the past.
While most of the ethnic militia groups seek a permanent political solution to the crisis of memory and identity in the region , the standard response of the Indian state has been to contain insurgency by bolstering the military presence and institutionalizing the narrative of modernity and economic development which is projected as a panacea for the welfare of the people and the region inflicted with “backwardness”. The Indian policy makers cannot help but betray a paternalistic and domineering demeanor in the way they have traditionally dealt with the conflict in the region. We have a whole bureaucratic network starting with the prime minister at the center down to the various ministries and governors of state that collectively holds that modernization of the region and its economic development will ultimately offer solution not only to the condition of backwardness but the vexing problem of insurgency itself. The governor of Nagaland, P.B.Acharya’s recent statement in a seminar organized by the Assam Rifles in Kohima reflects this overbearing attitude of the Indian policy makers. He remarked,
“Naga political problem was an obstacle to development activities, industrial growth and education system in the state.” (Cited in Nagaland Post, Jan.24, 2015 under the heading:”NSCN reacts to statement of governor P.B.Acharya and N.K.Singh CFMG”)
As India marks her 68th year of independence, the meaning of freedom seems rather superficial in the region. In fact, every year around this time a unique ritual is carried out with thousands of army, paramilitary and police personals occupying the streets and landmarks to guard against threats of boycott by the militants. In the state of Nagaland things get a little absurd as Independence Day celebrations are held on consecutive days- while 14th August is declared by Naga separatist groups as Naga Independence Day the very next day marks the birth of the Indian state. This year Nagaland celebrated its 69th year of independence!
Apart from a change in taxonomy from being formerly described as “depressed” people to the region’s official recognition today as “disturbed areas”, there isn’t much to celebrate here. Erosion of human values in the hills has landslided into moral decadency while a culture of fear decimates the once fertile valleys. Reports of human rights watch agencies and recommendations by various public commissions decrying against indiscretionary martial laws and actions of the army have become nothing but a mundane pile of non-feasible fact-finding accounts and information.
The brute dictatorial stance of many of the ethnic militias only adds to sense of despondency and despair that eclipse everyday life in the region. Low levels of tolerance, cultivation of xenophobia and a rigid outlook towards diversity, heterogeneity and hybridity have become the hallmarks of these ethnic underground movements. In addition to this is the problem of “unabated taxation” or “rampant extortion” which most if not all the insurgent outfits claim as if it were their birthright. It has had the adverse of hijacking and paralyzing not only emerging grass root movements but also home grown innovation and entrepreneurship in the northeast.
The cycle of violence and conflict, it is argued here, is maintained and perpetuated both by the inconvenient forces of retaliation and retribution that characterize counter-insurgency and insurgency imperatives and operations in the region. However, it would be nothing but a futile exercise to identify in state driven counter-insurgency and ethnic militia backed insurgency operations the locus of the protracted conflict that shroud the political landscape of the region. The separation between insurgency and mainstream counter-insurgency operations is a myth which needs to be exploded. According to a political thinker on the region Sanjib Baruah,
“ethnic militia, counter insurgency operations, state backed militias, developmentalist practices and the deformed institutions of democratic governance ” together constitute a coherent whole that he describes as “durable disorder”.(Baruah 2005:13)
Post Mortem: People without Writing
The writing of history and the construction of a homogenous national subject and identity which was an important feature of 19th century nationalism in Europe were simply duplicated and replicated in the infant native nation-states in Asia and Africa. While written histories were commissioned and authorized towards the projection of a national identity, the assumptions and prejudice that underlie writing were never really questioned and remained uncontested. People and cultures with oral traditions where systems of writing/script was absent were categorised as backward, illiterate retrogressive people and cultures. Their collective memory and history were marginalized and subjugated in obedience with the macro-narratives of the nation-states which projected itself as the custodians of modernity and progress. The post-colonial nation-states in many ways actually relieved the white man from his burden that had become too heavy to carry.
Writing/script has become a part of a growing vocabulary that include words like science, objectivity, history, literature, urbanization, democracy, free market and others which are considered the great virtues of human progress. Writing/script is thought to be an abstract property and manifestation of a higher intellectual capacity and advanced cultural historical evolution. Writing and the literary event in dominant academic discourses of today is construed as a psychodynamic function of the brain which is believed to have brought about a lasting and irreversible transformation of thought process, of personality, and of social structures so that what went before, orality is clearly distinguishable from what came after, literacy. Correspondingly, writing has come to be associated with a change of consciousness in the human species - a change that is described as “modernity” and “development”.
Writing as a signifier of modernity and development in this sense has provided the nation states of the world with an epistemological rationale and moral justification to proselytize diverse cultures and people. The whole myth of progress that was invoked to construct and justify the supremacy of 19th century European civilization is evoked once again to legitimize a hierarchy of thought and social structure that privileged the nation-state, western scientific traditions and technological achievements. Freedom and independence have proven to be uncertain paradoxical positions as the same native national movements in Asia, Africa and rest of the world that had successfully worked to overthrow colonial regimes have became domesticated and fettered to this new paradigm of modernity and development.
The long road of national integration in the northeast region since India’s independence has been strife with protracted violence and trauma. The self-assertion ethnic movements, one can argue, share an intimate relationship with their adversaries in the Indian state. They both essentially share the same basic ideological framework and fundamental underlying assumptions involving writing and the construction of the nation-state. Inherent to the macro narratives of national identity propounded by both the sides is the assumption that a nation is a homogenous whole constituted by a general cultural uniformity, a demarcated sovereign territory, a standardized written history and the idea of obedience maintained through the use and monopoly of coercion. This thesis of the nation-state essentially means that minority communities will continue to be pushed to the margins and persecuted. For instance, the Mizo Accord of 1986 that is often cited as a success story of the Indian state in countering militancy although secured rights and greater autonomy for the Mizo people laid the ground for the emergence of another tragic cycle of conflict involving the minority Brus in Mizoram. Mass evacuation and displacement and gutting down of Brus villages has led to the upsurge of sub-ethnic insurgency groups like Brus National Liberation Front (BNLF) and Brus Liberation Front of Mizoram (BLFM) that demand repatriation and resettlement of the Brus people.
Writing and by a stretch of imagination the pen, therefore, becomes a useful metaphor to underline the violent history of arms struggle and internecine factionalism in the region over memory and the past. Writing brings about a certain rigidity of thought and structure and since it is “tethered to fixed meanings” the pen becomes an indispensable instrument in the dissemination of ideas of homogeneity, uniformity and standardization that characterize the nation-state. Writing is a highly manipulative process that makes it susceptible to oppressive regimes, ideologies and coercive social institution like the nation-state. The pen in the Northeast India context thus assumes an important function as an instrument of myth-making. The pen becomes a potent weapon in the hands of the auteurs and champions of the nation-state. The people of the dao (a traditional machete that is common to most of the native communities in the region) have slowly but certainly taken cognizance of this innocuous but mighty power of the pen. What has ensued is that social order and harmony has lapsed into permanent disorder and turmoil in which the separating line between the oppressor and the oppressed is blurred by their unflinching commitment and devotion towards the dogma of writing the modern nation-state.
Comments
Post a Comment