Recurrent Famine and Re-producing Knowledge.

Sajal Nag, Pied Pipers in North-East India: Bamboo-flowers, Rat-famine and the Politics of Philanthropy (1881-2007), New Delhi: Manohar, 2008, Rs. 780, pp. 307..

By Yengkhom Jilangamba

Natural disasters are intrinsically linked to human experiences across history. One such is the case of the “ecological disaster” of bamboo-flowering in Mizoram which results in famines. Tracing the genealogy of this phenomenon historically from the time of the British encounters and conquest of the Mizos in the nineteenth century, Sajal Nag’s book looks at the intersecting relationships of different phenomena viz. bamboo-flowering, increase in rodent population, famine and the ways in which both the community as well as other institutions like the state and the missionaries have reacted. He points out the intermeshing of these phenomena with colonial production of knowledge, issues of political control and the expansion of colonial economy along with the self-representation of the coloniser. The famines also served as a fertile ground for the building of Mizo national identity. This is the history of a recurring calamity, largely neglected by historians, which has affected the Mizos for centuries.
The book opens its discussion by comparing the famines of 1860–61 and 1881–82. In the former the Mizos were still resisting and the British were not yet able to conquer and subdue them politically. Interestingly, this lack of political control went hand in hand with lesser production of information. By the time the latter happened the Mizos had surrendered and the famine “compelled them to take shelter with their enemies” (62). Understandably, the 1881–82 famine was recorded in minute detail by the colonial officials.
The famine of 1881–82 got interlinked with the colonial policies towards the Mizos. Till this point, the British were unable to completely subjugate all the groups despite different military attempts. Moreover, the rising plantation economy in Cachar was always in a precarious situation of uncertainty from the attacks by these groups. The famine gave the British an opportunity to rethink their strategy: “What several years of war and genocide failed to earn could be achieved in weeks by coming to the aid of the tribals” (109). The extension of British help made good economic sense as relief was “provided to the applicant chiefs on condition that the relief be treated as loans and repaid within a year” (110). Thus, the chiefs were tied both politically and economically to the British colonial system. The famine-affected Mizos were incorporated within the plantation economy as labour force for clearing jungles. In fact, the famine provided the British an opportunity to “intrude into the deep hills” (121). What it demonstrates is that famine relief work served as a pretext for a politics of paternalism, and though it might have been mobilised as a rhetoric, there was an underlying intention to use these resources for pacification. Famine and the relief work broke the social constitution of the Mizos – arms and ammunition were sold off, rubber trees perished from over-tapping, and no articles were left for trading, making them destitute, killing off a large population and  forcing some to migrate. Once integrated into the colonial economy and subjugated politically, Mizos were turned into “coolies” in the name of repaying the loans after successive famines.
However, there seems to be some inconsistency in this argument of how the British were able to establish their rule. As pointed out, the British were able to manage a calamity into a productive strategy for colonial expansion. At the same time, it is argued that the Mizos “began to look up to it [Raj] as a kind and merciful system manned by white-skinned Europeans. The administration was looked up as paternalistic” (146). If the white-skinned British were the people who had destroyed both the fabric of the Mizo society as well as the capacity to be sovereign and cope with disasters, it would be important to investigate the ways and the rationale through which the Mizos began to look at them as paternalistic figures. Or, what are the ways in which the Mizos resisted colonialism? Is such a formulation another version of the colonial narrative which prides itself in transforming the “warlike savages” into a “civilized, docile workforce of hill tribes” through colonial mediation? There is indeed a need to look at the many ways of both negotiation and resistance which mark any historical transformation.
In a significant intervention in historical writing the book goes beyond the standard marker of 1947 to look at the contemporary issues as well. He contrasts the experiences of the famines under the colonial rule with that of independent India’s rule in the event of the 1959 famine. As Nag squarely puts it, “[T]he Government of Assam, which replaced the British administration in the hills showed no signs of any pre-emptive measures” (245). The famine relief work was caught within a larger politics of the Mizos, the Assamese and the nascent Indian state and this in turn churned out different kinds of political dynamics. The Mizo National Famine Front (MNFF) under the leadership of Laldenga used the opportunity as a footboard for its own political goals. Ironically, this organization later transformed into a political party – Mizo National Front – emerged as a political force under the auspices of the Assam Government only to turn against it. And thus began the history of the Mizo armed movement of two decades.
While exploring famine as a site for colonial production of knowledge, the author’s moment of investigation and writing of the book also becomes another site of re-producing that very knowledge, as discerned from his constant and unproblematised use of terms like tribe, head-hunting, and so on: “Raids, plunder, kidnapping and head-hunting in the foothills were a part of tribal life. The British were prompt to label such acts as barbaric, inhumane, and primitive. For the tribes, however, this was their way of life” (59). Statements like these are in the danger of forming a homogenised and simplistic representation of “a tribal way of life,” changeless and secluded from interactions, exchanges and confrontations as a part of their history. In fact, by portraying these as changeless groups of people they are represented as if they have no history except to carry the burden of repetitiveness.