FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

The idea of “territoriality” (with clearly marked out political boundary often controlled by a standing army) and that of the “sovereign” are creations of modern nation states in Europe. In contemporary times, these two traits seem to have been perceived as the sine qua non of nationhood among aspirant nations whose teeming presence mark conflict zones escalating across continents. India’s Northeast, too, reflects the same traits or, rather, an obsession with them.

Consequently, there has been a visible shift among many of these nationalities in understanding their relationships with “land.” Whereas the traditional relationship between people and land is based on identification of land as an extended part of the community’s organic self, the modern take on land as a resource to be exploited, both economically and politically, has made the relationship quite complex, and often confusing. The current issue of the Eastern Quarterly (Vol. 4, Issue II), “LAND AND TERRITORIALITY,” proposes to examine the concerns of the people in India’s Northeast relating to land and claims for exclusive territory.

The beginning of a new form of territoriality closely tied to a specific location of an ethnic group was introduced with the British colonial intervention. In their attempt to construct an ethnic identity, many ethnic movements in the Northeast are closely tied to the claims of a definite, well-demarcated territory, in which the politics of constructing a “homeland” – real or imagined – forms the central focus. The claim generally is about each community demarcating its own territory in geographical term.

The demand for an exclusivist territory became a pervasive force both for the Indian state and the contesting nationalities manifested in the proliferating demands for the creation of new states (or autonomy) under some federal arrangements or that of a sovereign territory. In due course, political and economic rationales have not only become the movers but also contents of these claims. These have come in the forms of the “indigenous-migrant divide” and the articulation of “land as capital.” Direct confrontations between ethnic groups have further compounded the uneasy relations. For example, inter-ethnic battles over the issue of claims and control of territory have resulted in uprooting ethnically mixed villages and emergence of new settlement of ethnically homogenous groups in almost all the states of the region. Further, the idea of the “indigenous” has been used in order to legitimize the exclusive territorial claims inbuilt in the nation making project of each ethnic community.
The situation has been rendered even grimmer by the response of the Indian state to claims for sovereign territories. Such claims had brought the newly formed Indian state in collision with groups in the region in the process of nation making. The demand for an exclusivist territoriality became a pervasive force both for the Indian state as well as the contesting nationalities. In the process, the fight between the group(s) and the Indian State, as well as among the different groups, have begun to affect the ethnic equilibrium in the region. Claims and counter claims for nationhood with exclusive territories in train, which emerged right from the time of the transfer of power from the British rule to an independent India, have become more widespread with the passage of time. The Indian state, whose response had been overwhelmingly military, had also not been above using cynical practices that consolidated its own legitimacy vis-a-vis these challenges. However, the country’s experience in the Northeast for more than half a century has shown the futility of these practices. What is alarming is the extended use of these degenerated practices by the dissenting voices.

Lokendra Arambam, in his paper “Land and Territoriality in the Northeast: Politics of Ethnicity and Armed Violence in Manipur” takes up some of the above issues in a wider canvas. From the British colonial rule till date, Arambam sees major shifts in ethnic landscape – from an “organic geo-political body” to a fractured polity – designed by imperialist forces. Indian state’s politics of divide in order to retain its territorial integrity has led to major rifts in the ethnic relationships in the region. He further sees how the majority communities like Meeteis, who have become target of this ethnic antagonism, are faced with challenges to respond to segmented territorial claims and gradual crumbling of their national life through rapid ethnicization in the overall counter-insurgency designs. He also sees a newer challenge fast emerging in the name of “development” of the region.
(Late) T.S. Gangte’s paper “Struggle for Identity and Land among the Hill Peoples of Manipur” traces how the provision of the special constitutional status under “Scheduled Tribe” given to the smaller ethnic groups has led to rapid fragmentation of ethnic identity. In some sense, this legitimizes the identity struggle generated by fragmented ethnic claims, often prioritizing clan or sub-tribe, among the hill peoples of Manipur. Gangte also notes how the absence of a ideological anchor manifested in the fragmentation process of the Kuki groups have been exploited by the ideologically-driven Naga movement to enhance its agenda of exclusive territorial claims through a politics of appropriation, collusive or otherwise. Escape from this state of neurosis in the Kuki polity is promised by the idea of “Zale’n-gam,” a Kuki homeland. The author drabs this essentially modernist project in terms of primordial relation-ship between the community and the land by marshalling linguistic affinity as a basis of the Kuki collective identity.

Highlighting this primordial relationship between land and people, Khakchang Debbarma in his essay “Politics of Land Alienation and Problem of its Restoration in Tripura” traces the larger dynamics behind the up-rooting of an indigenous people from their land. He delineates how massive and unchecked influx of immigrants from across the international border reduced a majority indigenous population into an insignificant minority and how an “indifferent” Indian state presided over this unprecedented phenomenon in the subcontinent. Many in the region would be inclined to attribute the phenomenon in Tripura to the absence of a “nation state” evolving historically out of a primordial relationship between land and people. If this primordial relationship had not been so casually sundered, the subsequent ethnic tension and movements often leading to violence in the region could have been averted.

Tara Basumatary in her paper “Fashioning of Identities: Nationalising Narrative of the Bodoland Movement” sees the armed movement for Bodoland as an extension of the “nation state” building project. The advocates of Bodoland consciously distance itself from the Assamese national consciousness in order to highlight its distinctive national character. At the same time, the author brings out the irony of mutually shared hostility among the Bodos and other ethnic communities like the Santhals and other Adivasis. Basumatary critiques both narratives of “nationalism” from a gender perspective on the ground that the nationalist assertion is rooted wholly on patriarchal worldview. In the process, woman is twice victimised: first, by its absence in the “nationalist” discourses and, second, by its pervasive presence in the pantheon of victimhood.

Bijen Nameirakpam in his paper, “Rethinking Cultural Identity and Territorial Autonomy in Northeast India,” raises serious doubt on the merit of politicising the primordial relationship between land and people. Nameirakpam argues that the rationale of the creation of Meghalaya as a mechanism for nurturing an ethnically based state as a safeguard against subversive migration trends has failed to live up to the expectation due to a serious flaw in the Government of India’s (GoI’s) constitutional packages of granting (limited) autonomy. As Nameirakpam sees it, the remedy to ethnic tension and mistrust lies not so much on territorial bifurcation of land but on sincere and mutual recognition of the “other” by each ethnic community by respecting “differences,” and not through central devolution. Drawing from European experiences, Nameirakpam sees cultural autonomy as a more viable answer to ethnic assertions and identity crises than territorial autonomy, as GoI has so far been advocating.

In the KALEIDOSCOPE section, Sumarbin Umdor’s article “Microfinance Programme in Northeast India” analyses the progress of microfinance initiatives in the region during 2001 to 2006. He reviews the performance of Self Help Groups Bank Linkage Programme in the states of Northeast and also makes comparisons with some successful states of South India. Umdor finds that in spite of being successful, there are still disparities within the programme at the level of progress across different parts of the country. In the case of the Northeast, though a late entrant, the states have shown mixed response to the programme hinting at the need for making special efforts to make the programme successful in the laggard states.

Sanjoy Hazarika in TAKE TWO reviews the theme articles of the previous issue “FEDERAL EMPOWERMENT OR DEEPENING CENTRALIZATION” (Vol. 4, Issue I). While discussing the issue of autonomy, Hazarika strongly feels that the papers have not taken into consideration the “political astuteness” and “quality of leadership” that gives directions to all these movements that led to the demand of the same. He opines that there should have been more practical suggestion, which can be implemented rather than give “theory-centric” assessment. Giving an illustrative example of North Eastern Council’s (NEC’s) Vision 2020, Hazarika expounds that there is a need for intellectuals of the region, who are not only rooted but also knows the pulse of the people, to extend themselves to craft result oriented visionary projects.
The current issue seeks to interpose what we in EQ would like to believe is a rewarding counterpoint to runaway partisan passion which is threatening to balkanise the region on the issues of “land and territoriality.” We invite readers to take this debate forward.