The Open Secret - Part 3

I noticed a lot of BJP flags around the place and asked one of the locals if they had the chance to win in the upcoming elections in June and if they would make changes. “I’m not sure. Last year the central government cut off funds and demanded an account of the expenses already incurred over the years. The Congress government here now did not have money to pay the militants who would help with the votes. But, I have heard that BJP has established a link with militants and are now paying them for the same votes. So it is all messed up.”

After days of trying to prove myself wrong with more information, I reached where I had started. This was not about some local issue blown out of proportion but a state sanctioned setup to give itself something to work with, for votes, for money, for status, for grants, for jobs or anything else they could think of!

“Let me explain what the situation is here”, said our friend who has been studying the North East quite extensively as a part of his job and out of his personal interest as well. “This entire region was mainly inhabited by tribal people following their own distinct culture quite different from that of the mainland. With the advent of British, and along with them the missionaries, many of these people converted to Christianity but, they kept their identity intact. After independence, the usual politics of those times ensued and they became part of India. What you have to absolutely understand is that these people are very proud of their identity. Many felt that they were colonized by India and started an armed rebellion (read about A. Z. Phizo). The region was declared as counter-insurgency area and AFSPA was brought in.”

“There are about 220 ethnic groups in the North East. Inter-tribe wars are quite common due to territorial issues but Christianity managed to unite them to a certain extent. Meitheis saw/see Christian missionaries as a threat to their culture and fought/fight it. But like I said earlier, tribe trumps religion. You’ll find killings within religion because they’re internally divided by tribes. Kukis and Nagas don’t get along; Meitheis don’t get along with the hill tribes and so on. As you see, the issue started out quite complex. Nagas wanted to form their own country with all the Naga dominated area under them some of which lie in Manipur and the Meitheis wanted their own country too. This escalates to border rows regularly.”

“Due to gross neglect by the central government and also some atrocities committed by the forces in the earlier days, the people rejected the Union government and placed a ban on Hindi. English is hence more common here. Korean pop culture also found a foothold because of TV channels that came up after the ban of Hindi, which is why you will notice that the dresses these people wear have a lot of Korean influence. As time passed we had more people coming in, better trained forces working here who were sensitized to the issue and the ideology of a separate state slowly died out. But, development didn’t take place simultaneously for whatever reasons and this led to the flourishing business of militancy. Without jobs, people were left with no choice. On the one side, they paid taxes to the government and on the other they were extorted by the militants. But results were visibly provided only by militants in terms of security, jobs etc., so they started moving towards a militant life in the hope of earning their daily bread.”

“Over the years, it has just become a business. The ideology is no more there. The government entered a peace accord about 13 years ago with all these groups and a ceasefire was declared. This was renewed year on year but this year, one of the groups did not sign this treaty. They killed 6 men from the forces in a remote place and then 2 more in a busy market to provoke retaliation so that they could infest militancy in the area once again. Thankfully due to the training of the forces, there was no retaliation but the ceasefire was broken and now you have heavy patrolling of the area.”

“What is the solution then?” we all questioned.

“Slowly and steadily things are changing. The forces have managed to maintain law and order to a large extent. The change is very much visible compared to say about 2 decades ago. People are moving towards bigger cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi etc., and sending back money. Education and employment has created this but it is a very slow process, speed is needed. I am hopeful that we will have more development with the new railway line that is being laid with a station at Imphal and also the Bharat Mala project. But there is another issue that plagues this region, one of discrimination. What is the stereotype for all these people?”

“Chinki, dog eaters, tribals etc!” one of my friends mentioned with contempt for the stereotype.

“Exactly! You forgot to mention that the women from North East are conveniently stereotyped as having “loose morals.” The society is a lot more open with respect to women rights, women move freely, they take part in economic activities etc., but that does not mean they are “available.” And then we ask why they don’t want to join the Union or why there is no development here. If we can remove this, most of the problems can be sorted out. These people just want what is rightfully theirs.”

It struck me hard when I realized that even in our daily lives we use these terms, maybe as a joke but they are rooted deep inside. Even the most “liberal” of people implicitly remove North East (probably even J&K) when they say India. The problem now felt closer to home after the barrier was shown to me. It is only mental barriers that stop us from working on a problem that is “none of our business.”

Part 4 - http://insidemychoaticbrain.blogspot.in/2015/06/the-open-secret-part-4.html