It was in the early eighties that I first visited the North East of India. I had the good fortune to spend a few days in Guwahati too then. As a youngster, that visit was a kind of an eye opener to me; a bit of shock too. The first shock I received was from a co-passenger in the Tinsukia mail, an Assamese working in a bank. That was the time dissent and rebellion had first erupted in Assam.
As we spoke, he casually told me, 'If you look at the map, you will see that we are connected to India by a thin strip of land. So, that thin strip becomes very important.'
The Chicken's Neck, or the Siliguri Corridor.
'What did you say? That you are connected to India and not the rest of India? Are you not part of India?' I asked the question in disbelief.
He refused to open up and have further discussion with me on the agitation that had started in Assam then.
In Guwahati, I could interact with a lot of college students, and all of them were quite honest and forthright in their opinion on the problems that were haunting them then. They were confused, troubled and disturbed. We sat huddled on the steps in a college campus and talked. When they told me about the frustration they felt when they saw 'outsiders' or 'foreigners' ruling them in their own land, I could not understand their anguish. I asked, how could you call your neighbours, Indians as outsiders?
They confessed that they had been lazy but that was because nature was kind to them. They didn't have to toil hard at all to earn a livelihood. Every year, after the Brahmaputra flooded and then receded, it left them a soil that is so fertile that they only had to throw a seed to reap well.
"When nature is kind to you, you tend to be lazy and slow," they tried to analyse and find a simplistic solution to all the problems. "One day, when we woke up, we found that all the businesses in the state had been hijacked by our Bengali neighbours. We see our culture also dying soon. We see our land being taken over by them. We see ourselves losing our identity. Should we not fight for our land and our identity?"
The violent struggle that began in the eighties still continues, more violently and more viciously. If it was against the business class then, today it's against the poor labourers who migrate to this fertile piece of land for livelihood.
The questions that haunt me are not different from what I felt then. Who owns the earth? Who is the proprietor of land? Could the earlier settlers in Assam claim the right to throw the immigrant Bengali or Bihari out as a "foreigner"? Can the dispossessed Native American say that the European immigrants five hundred years ago are "foreigners"; can the European immigrant regulate further immigration by others? Do Jews have a right to the Galilee where they were turned out of by Romans two thousand years ago? Or is the Palestinian who later settled there the rightful occupant? Could we claim a right to the free land in Australia and Canada as a denizen of the world? There is also the greater question under WTO; movement of natural persons being not considered while movement of capital was taken up in the globalisation agenda.
Is the land the occupants declare as theirs, really theirs? Does anyone own it? Is it not man made boundaries that separate us? Is our culture so fragile as to die because of somebody else?
Let us not talk about the world, let us talk about just India. If there is an entity called India, do we not have the right to move anywhere in India? Who decides the ownership of land? Just because you are born in a particular place and just because your forefathers have been there, can you claim that place?
These questions came up in my mind again when I read about the merciless butchering of the poor labourers from Bihar by ULFA. Do they realise they are killing human beings who are no different from them?
Friends' Update
-
Loading ...Please wait..
I liked your post. As I am from the area, I would like to comment on your post. The North East has always been a neglected part of our country. There is no politician in the top level of Central Govt who is from this part of the country who really did anything for the area.
A very pathetic part is that, there use to be no news of the North East in our media in olden days. Not even the Weather News gave any importance to the area. There is no political will for betterment of the area. Neither the Central Govt Cares and even more depressing is that the local Govt of the Nort Eastern States are just Govt for name’’s shake. They are just carrying on what they have…no new projects nothing for the development of the area. If you enter into deep it is a big ZERO in the entire political system.
You don,t care for them and now they dont care for you. You never listened to them and now the bad elements of the world have misled them. North East is a hopeless case of pathetic Govt Mach
Nice thoughts, but Singapore is closer to North East than New Delhi, so these guys feel cut-off. Such discrimination is there in Mumbai also where the locals want jobs reserved for them
wow… it is beautiful and thoughtful, the way you presented it. I am an immigrant in USA and I feel these thoughts everyday in my life…
The problem is that we give priority to the regions we are from and never consider ourselves Indians first. I saw someone called Zake post a comment and that gives you a hint as to what kind of people are - if we learn to consider ourselves Indians first and then whatever our regionality things will improve very much. Politicians know this very well and they use the spectre of Regionalism to cause the divides - I do not think in the near future we will ever change -even given all the culture and education we have.
dude..u havent lived there, u were not born there..ur forefathers were never from there..hence stop asking these stupid questions..u dont even have the right to ask these questions in teh first place…the same argument can be used againts george Bush..tell him..who decides who owns the lands of USA..who decides on Russia..u cant take a holistic/or human view about these kind o things..just becasue u r human and share the ”brotherhood of man” doesnt give everyone the fking right to claim everyhting they want..
fantastic thought provokong post!
The blame lies squarely on the politicians. It is evident that the most important thing in politics is governance. The Congressmen bisect, trisect and multisect the Hindus in their own land. They are totally unafraid of their machinations because they are insulated by their power and by popular appeal. The immediate requirement is a common agenda for the country as a whole. Appeasement of the states is dangerous. The whole country needs to get together and re-think on the future of the nations. We should banish the egotistic, unthinking, cunning and criminal politicians once and for all. Nothing will work with improper governance. We need able, brave, visionary, patriotic and compassionate leaders. Otherwise doom for the nation is not very far away given the nature of our neighbours and the nature of our kinsmen.
A very good article. All I will say is the strife is accentuated by the differences. We say the differences bind us together, tragically it does not. It is an evolutionary process. Anyway pointing fingers at others will not help. Better option is to look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we are not guity of discrimination based on sex, caste, religion, language whatever. In the end its pointless.
India is loose congregation and so any binding would be just that, loose.
Pray, tell mw what is common between a Salem Tamil to Ghaziabad Hindi and Tinsukia Assamese. Nothing or as much as between a South East Asian and Alaskan!!!. So, who owns the lands. The natives, obviously.
Integration comes from understanding another’’s culture and language. Now how many North Indian know Tamil or Telugu.
The bottom line is, all these agitations are nothing but a creation of an empty mind. People dont have anything better to do and then when someone who is capable of doing something good comes along, they start fighting against them because they feel that their land/money/resources will be taken by an outsider. If they feel so strongly, they should wake up and start working rather than fighting and killing. People who kill innocents are nothing but murderers….cold blooded killers.
Answer is too many people fighting for very few resources, very simple. All these assholes who lived here have made procreation their main job and left the fending for these humans to god.
Seriously if we had 1/4th of todays population there wont be as many fights and if it was 1/10th …. see for yourself.
Be cool guys, Make India very strong Hindu country,Because of the arunjun singh like Guys thse people are figting for states–Frankely before 1957- there is no state called tamilnad/andra.kerala/karnataka/others…Due very bad political benificts some culpruts make this nations in this way….
1.You can see we are together we are in Thirupathi
2.You can see all we together in Sabarimala.
3.You can see all we together in Rameshwaram
4.you can see we are with no diff in mookambai temple
5. In kumba mela– we can call its Vaus-devia-kudumbam
Please thorw this silli polits by using resevation for alll, make poor people in good standard, in my point of view if arjun singh is right for resevation then ULFA or other terrior also we are figiting……
we are hindus, belive we are hindus…….we will unity, this means we will not hurt muslims or christainas, Hindus are one family , Muslims and christainas are our relatives that alll jai hind, vandae mataram
I won’t answer this question directly, but direct your attention to the backlash against outsiders in Karnataka, especially Bangalore, supposed to be the most educated and liberal city in India. The answer is the same, “Too many people fighting for meager resources.”
So bemoaning the lack of understanding in people serves no purpose other than as an excuse to take responsibility for our failure as a nation to understand and address these issues with sufficient foresight and compassion, not only in Assam, but in the J & K, the Naxalite affected regions, the cotton farmer-suicides in Vidharba. Who is to say that the situation of the farmers in Vidharba will not trigger a new violent agitation against the unresponsive administration??? Who will take the responsibility for that???
You??? Me??? the government??? Who?????
The student agitation in Assam was laid on basic and good ideals with all the right intentions, as all agitations across the world are started. But somewhere down the line, the rebels lost their cause and found money to be their new mantra. The ULFA had limited itself to threats and extortion activities for most of its existence with actual killings limited to single incidents which were few and far between. It is only in the past 5-6 years that they have “graduated” to large-scale massacres. Why this sudden and strategic shift in tactics?? Where are the funds coming in from ?? Has the Indian government done anything to investigate the source of these seemingly unlimited funds??
You ask, “When they told me about the frustration they felt when they saw ‘outsiders’ or ‘foreigners’ ruling them in their own land, I could not understand their anguish. I asked, how could you call your neighbours, Indians as outsiders?”
The general public asked a simple question, when we have limited opportunities available, why was the administration turning a blind eye to the issue of illegal immigrants. When the Centre was not interested in the economic development of the state are they also not interested in the security of the state? The influx of Bangladeshi immigrants has led to an unprecedented change in the demographic profile of some districts of Assam. Politicians were/are only interested in the ready vote banks in the teeming ranks of the Bangladeshis.
Assam has been blessed with immense beauty and natural resources. A substantial portion of the energy resources for the country comes from Assam. The tea industry contributes a substantial amount to the country’s GDP, but what has the State received in return??? Till today, Dibrugarh, the main town in the heart of tea-land undergoes power cuts for 4-5 hours a day, leave alone the outlying areas.
Look around to different parts of the world, you will find the same situation prevailing. Every armed agitation has its roots in genuine pain and anger. But that does not mean that the means are justified. My contention is that the Central government should be treating the disease and not the symptoms. While the best way to tackle the situation would have been investing more in the economic well being of the state, the Centre has repeatedly resorted to the Armed forces. The Centre has been fighting a war on the wrong front all these years. And mark my words the militancy will continue till visible and definite steps are not taken in the right areas.
So if you ask is there reason for the common Assamese to be angry??? YES…
Do we feel that we have been given a raw deal??? YES..
Does it justify the recent killings??? An even more emphatic….. NO.
Do the average person in Assamese support the demand for an independent Assam?? No..
Dear Indian,
Look at your back properly before blaming the south Indian. Why the heck that in some northern states of India they “Indians” from south part(all the southern states including keralites, kanadigas…!) are called “Madarasi”? Pathetic! many of them doesnt even know where Madras is? They think the whole south is called madras!
If you have “really” worked and lived in south India, you could have met many people from northern peacefully living integrated with the local community! There are hell lot of Engineers, bank employees, money lenders etc., living in south India happily with the local community. You too.. grow up man! Being native of and living in one of those south Indian states, the number of friends I have from north has out numbered locals!
Dear Atulan Lahiri,
That is not problem only in Goa! If you see closely your hometown will also have the same problem. Foreigners are looked as Money trees wheres Indians traveling to Goa mostly will be “budget travelers”. That is the reason for the special respect!
Dear Raj Kishore Baruah,
Elect the right person who can address properly your concerns!
Dear Kanadiga,
Your karnataka will just be another Bihar if the so called migrants are not there! Now the choice is yours! Grow up man! So First be a Indian and then naturally you can be a Kanadiga!
The problem starts anywhere,when the migrants start becoming majority and start treating the locals (who have been living there for generations) as slaves. This is happening today in Karnataka. Today’’s Karnataka could be tomorrow’’s North-East.
A Kannadiga
Your post addresses the feelings I had when I worked in “South” India. I used to think, “being an indian, cant I stay in any part of India as an indian? do I need to be a “South” Indian to stay in South? or a So called “North” ( this name is given by our “South” indian intellectuals (??).) Indian can only stay in North.
Indian wont become a superpower unless we dissolve our “Language” based states to form a managable state.
Hi sobha,
I wanted to reply in full but i ran out of space
just check out my reply in http://o3.indiatimes.com/idlemind/archive/2007/01/17/3405705.aspx
regards
Raj
Hi Sobha,
I stumbled on your post through a friend of mine. You ask pertinent questions. But it seems to me our world has regressed to a place where a question generates another question instead of leading to a solution for the basic cause.
Just to give my background, I am an Assamese myself, living and working outside Assam since the last 5 years.
The main issues tormenting the Assamese public are:
1. The constant neglect of not only Assam but also the entire Northeast in terms of economic and social development.
2. The issue of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants
The consequent lack of job opportunities had led to a simmering anger, which burst out in the seventies and eighties, first in civil agitation and then in violence.
Who bothers afterall? and why? Been to Goa ever? You are treated like dirt if you are an “Indian, that too a brown skinned one.” 3 races exist in Goa- Goan, foreigner and Indian. Ever thought of it? All jokes - Sardars, Bengalis, Madrasis and more recently Gujjus, Mallus are enjoyed most when they are at their racist best. North East? Who knows there what India means? A walk down the streets of Itanagar, Shillong or Agartala will reveal that. Let alone Nagaland, where you need special privileges to enter the state. What is India? Who is an Indian? Everybody has his own definition to describe the word to his advantage. Do we really have anything remotely like “unity in diversity”? I am sure this is a phrase of an opportunist clan. For me it’’s all “obscurity in diversity.” Love for land? Do we have the least concern for our neighborhood, our city, our schoolgoing kids, our driving habits?
very good thought provoking article.
for so many days i had not read anything so good.This make you ponder and seriously consider the points raised.
I feel that we should be tolerant towards others and also let others also live.
The correct example is of parsee community who came from Iran driven away by Iranians and when they landed gujrat coast they went to local king and one of the leaders took a glass of milk and put sugar into it and told king that we will assimilate in your society as sugar got assimilated in milk.
You will find that Parsees follwo so many guju customs and that it is difficult to distinguish between the guju and a parsee.
An interesting question……but who has the answers ?……………..raj
If some primate had not begun the long journey a couple of hundred millions of years ago from a river basin then the earth would have been a relatively virgin place. But necessity makes the wheel turn and life moves on. People should realise that life started from a single cell that had a right combination of chemicals at the right time brought together by, perchance, an invisble hand? Questions breed more questions, don”t they, very annoying.
Dear Shobha,
good read. Earth had always been defined by the trespassers - the squatters - and not the natives. Look at the American history. Or as you observed, our own history. India is a fifty year old thin fabric woven by Gandhiji, almost single handedly. The charisma has worn off and the dhoti is coming apart at the seams.
Like any business, governing a land needs agility, constant vigil. Once you lose momentum, the competition takes over your territory. The natural instinct is to physically remove the threat - even Dhirubhai Ambani does it. The Assamese are no different.
It is the failure of the government, that the people are exposed to external threats. When they talked about natural bounty, the natives were talking about political insulation. Things fall apart, as Eliot said.
regards
hari
All land belongs to all of mankind. This ought to be our understanding. We should have a borderless world. No one should have any objection to anyone settling anywhere, provided settlement or residential laws, drawn up by enlightened liberal people, something like a UN charter, are adhered to. In this age of globalisation, we should give once more the clarion call of ”Vasudeva Kutumbakkam”.
I have spent my childhood in Assam, did two tenures in Assam, and in more ways than one, the entire NE has been wronged- left out of the mainstream! The problem is that the mainstream Assamese politicians themselves have soaked up more than the natural wealth of Assam, with the collusion of the rest of their ilk! yes it is a piece of land, that at least now deserves a better deal! Not appeasement though, but a firm and fair deal!
u hv captured the sentiments regarding this delicate question amazingly well…i doff my hat to u ….