FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

The present issue of Eastern Quarterly (Volume 5, Issue I) is devoted to the theme “LITERATURE, SOCIETY, POLITY: TRENDS AND PERSPECTIVES” primarily to capture the relationship between the state of affairs in the region and its literary practices in terms of trends and specificities. In the foregoing issues, scholars, activists and administrators have employed various methodological tools to capture focussed aspects of the Northeast for a better understanding of the region. We have so far taken up discussions on political issues like nationalism, autonomy, decentralization, development, national security, human rights, etc. as it is played out in the region. The idea in these exercises was to try and capture various aspects of the political through objective and verifiable social facts. We must, however, confess to a nagging feeling that we need to explore methodologies other than what has so far been tried to capture the complexity of the social reality in the region comprehensively.

We are, therefore, exploring literary trends and perspectives in the region – a task to which this issue of the Eastern Quarterly is anchored – hoping that it can help fill the gap. For, literature is one unique tool which harvests its yield by traversing through the raw experiential and existential dimensions of human reality at a micro and intangible domain. The current issue is devoted to mapping the literary practices in the region in the hope that we may succeed, through the eyes of the writers and artists, in capturing glimpses of the invi-sible or what Martin Buber aptly calls as “hallowing the profane.”

We in the Eastern Quarterly are also aware that it would be unrealistic to hope for glimpses of the “invisible” with the current interaction. To be so rewarded, Eastern Quarterly would need to revisit the literature and literary practices in the region many more times. Planning and designing these prospective interactions would require a certain degree of being conversant with the diverse literary practices in the Northeast which is host to a plethora of languages. Given the immense diversity, the endeavour in this issue or in the prospective ones cannot be about capturing the vastness of the types of literature and the focus and/or of representing the varieties and range of existential concerns rooted in the political and social lives.

For the current issue, we have set ourselves two modest objectives: First, to understand and have an idea of the overall macro picture of the literary trends in the region and, second, to critically assess a literary classi-fication or individual writer and their interlinkages with the life and times of the creator in terms of trends and insights. The articles by Manjeet Baruah and Laltluangliana Khiangte represent the former, while those of Nahakpam Aruna and Ashley Tellis represent the latter.

In the opening piece, “Literature in Northeast India: An Overview,” Manjeet Baruah takes the readers through a fascinating exploration of how “women is represented” in contemporary literature of the Northeast by examining a diverse body of novels and short stories written by women in Assam and other parts of the region. Most of the writers that Baruah examines ubiquitously depict patriarchy as the hand that shapes the identity of women. But some like Temsula Ao and Anuradha Barpujari, Baruah says, suggest that the “experience of patriarchal subordination need not be an internal social phenomenon but can also come about through cross politico-cultural interaction.” For example, in Temsula Ao’s These Hills Called Home, “the Naga woman came to be situated not only as political foe but also as object of patriarchal domination for Indian soldiers who belonged to entirely different societies (mainland India) which were highly stratified with regard to patriarchy. Rape became the instrument that brought together both these facets of treatment of women together.” However, Baruah finds that depiction of women has not necessarily been in terms of victims. These writers portray not only defiance of patriarchy, but also a wide range of other societal attitudes in which patriarchy has historically come to be weaved in. It is this diffused character of patriarchy, opines Baruah, that has resulted in different kinds of representation of women in contemporary literatures of the Northeast, and which can be seen as a protest against the concoction of nation state system and patriarchy such as in Anuradha Barpujari’s No Man’s Land.

As Baruah’s article maps out trends of different literary forms (novel and short story) in some languages of the region, Nahakpam Aruna focuses on a specific literary form (short story) and locates it in a specific linguistic tradition. Tracing the development of Manipuri short stories, she has not only laid emphasis on locating literary texts historically but also diligently observes the organic changes in content and thematic patterns. Her approach to different stages in the development of short stories is not only a matter of locating the genre chronologically but also identifying the dynamics of patterns in the chronological order. According to Nahakpam, the themes of Manipuri short stories have moved from the phase of “romance and idealism” of a simpler times to radical themes that encapsulates the entire spectrum of the socio-economic and political turmoil that has beset the state. In its early phase, the Manipuri short story was in step with the resurgence of hope in a polity marked by an uncomplicated world view. This innocence of the medium was, however, soon lost as the nascent democracy went into a tailspin and as the society and polity was prised open from its traditional value system and ushered into one marked by catching up (and perhaps also overtaking) the Joneses. The new milieu has produced a crop of writers flailing their arms (and pens also!) at the spectre of decadence; it is their fate to portray. Nahakpam classifies the current phase of Manipuri short story that began in the 1970s as the age of Meirik (Sparks) with a wide range of perspectives, styles, experiments and execution forming a rich body of work.

Laltluangliana Khiangte, in his “Growth and Development of Mizo Literature” focuses on the Mizo literature, but maps out various literary forms practiced in contemporary Mizo literary works. He traces the development of contemporary Mizo literature as a product of the contact the Mizos had with Western Christian missionaries in the last part of the nineteenth century. Since then, Mizo literature has been recognised as a fast evolving literature. In highlighting the various turns that have taken place, Khiangte also gives an account of how “print” or “textual” culture entered the realm of Mizo social practices. He interestingly observes how Mizo writings have evolved from the sacred to the secular. Khiangte has also spelt out the difficulty of literary productions in Mizo language despite the introduction of incentives for those engaged in the activity.

Taking a departure from the above trends of either mapping literary forms (novel, short story, etc.) for the entire region as seen in Baruah, or a specific form (short story) for a specific linguistic tradition (Manipuri) as in Nahakpam, or of literary forms in a specific tradition (Mizo) as in Khiangte, Ashley Tellis makes a detailed study of two literary works (a novel and a short story) written by authors belonging to a particular ethnic community (Naga) in a foreign language (English). In his “Differing Resistances: Mediating the Naga Struggle in Easterine Iralu’s a terrible matriarchy and Temsula Ao’s These Hills Called Home,” Tellis uses the psychoanalytic concept of resistance and analyses the differing conceptions of the term in two recent works of fiction by Naga writers, Easterine Eralu and Temsula Ao. Tellis argues that specific access to literature offers an understanding of the political imagination but he shows how this is not normatively either exploratory or subversive. According to him “not all Ao’s characters are victims” yet many of them are “subversive in remarkable ways and almost all of them resist the Indian state.” According to Tellis, “her stories enunciate the quality of resistance… of a people who built their history out of suffering almost beyond endurance…; hers is a literature with as many dark areas as there are areas of illumination, which is the stuff of our political engagement with the world.” Iralu, however, resists engaging with the Naga political text and also Naga patriarchy. Her text instead shores up the Indian state and buttresses patriarchy.

The KALEIDOSCOPE section consists of a paper by I. Anungla Aier titled “The Gateway Towards Participatory Development.” Aier is concerned with the externally induced changes that Nagaland is currently witnessing. She argues that most development policies so far have been insensitive to social and cultural complexities, and, if not treated cautiously, are bound to ruin the traditional institutions and ways of life. Aier suggests a participatory approach where people have a say in deciding their destiny and forms of development.

TAKE TWO titled “‘A Road, Smooth and Sleek like a Snake’: Development and the Rhetoric of Vision” by Sanjib Baruah is a detailed critical assessment of Eastern Quarterly’s last issue on “DEVELOPMENT: POLITICS AND PROSPECTS.” Baruah argues that development is “not just one thing: self-evident and predictable.” While reviewing the papers in the issue, he throws up a very pertinent question on development – if development is about removing poverty and systematic social deprivation, does it actually enable or restrict freedoms and capabilities? He says these questions must be asked about interventions that claim development as the goal.

We hope that our readers continue to enjoy the engagements we have put forth in our issues and look forward to your take on the fares served herein. As mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, we in the Eastern Quarterly are aware that the task we have set ourselves is a challenge which, ideally, can best be tackled through an active partnership of the publishers of the journal and stakeholders in the idea of making Northeast intelligible to ourselves and the world. We would like to reaffirm our commitment to this vision once again and ask for the incremental participation of stakeholders in the same vision.