The northeast at election time is a reminder that evolution is a one-way street. There can be no going back to the pristine state that probably exists only in the mind.
But Khasis tell me that the only way of preserving their unique way of life is to apply the Inner Line Permit to Meghalaya as well. The Seng Khasi cultural organisation alone will not be able to prevent the drift into alien mores.
Manipur’s underground has banned Hindi entertainment, and the state authorities have enforced the ban. Instead, therefore, of watching singing and dancing round trees, we watch a South Korean soap in a friend’s house in Imphal and discuss his Biblical ancestry.
About 20 of his relatives have migrated to Israel. Israeli rabbis have recognised Mizos and Manipuris as members of the B’nai Menashi, one of Israel’s 10 lost tribes, and 2,000 of them are already in the Promised Land. “We have always called ourselves children of Man Massi,” my host explains, refuting any suggestion that migration might be economic- ally linked. It’s the call of god for him.
Manipur has always been a melting pot, its Brahmins of Bengali descent since Shanti Das Gossain converted the royal family. There are Bengali villages not far from Imphal. A Sikh whose public call office is wedged into a hole below someone else’s stairs has lived here for 35 years. As elsewhere, Marwaris run most businesses. The population has gone up fourfold since 1948.
Akium Imlong, a highly westernised young Naga politician, once asked me to “do something” about the news agencies playing up a group outside Nagaland that called itself “Hindu Naga”. Such labels made it difficult for state ministers like him to rebut hostile propaganda of a sell-out. Now, there are Bharatiya Janata Party units in most northeastern capitals.
I was told that the 2001 census showed a 68 per cent increase in Nagaland’s population. The additional people are report- edly Bangladeshis who spend time in Meghalaya or Assam before moving into Nagaland, marrying local girls and attaining social, if not legal, acceptance.
Nepalese settlers have overrun Sikkim whose commerce is controlled by Marwaris. A Marwari trader has even represented Gangtok in the Assembly. Everyone knows how during the great excise scam, the major tobacco corporations set up dummy companies with Sikkimese front men. The fraud reportedly cost the exchequer Rs 400 crore. The loss to Sikkim’s autonomy and self-respect was infinitely greater.
Pretending to preserve the northeast in mothballs and lavender exposes it to the worst kind of clandestine infiltration while preventing intercourse at the best levels. Development funds are squandered as bribes to loyal politicians. One reason why the Lok Sabha election arouses so little interest is that MPs are seen as powerless and isolated in New Delhi. “Who cares for th-em?” they ask. I can’t disagree, having seen them sitting around in Central Hall talking only to each other.
In contrast, successful Assembly candidates can become ministers and make hay while the sun of centrally-funded contracts shines.
Elections are an opportunity for both sides to negotiate terms for the next five years. Even rebel groups, ostensibly totally opposed to what they denounce as alien and irrelevant, are not above a little shrewd bargaining. They play the system with canny skill.
Secession is no longer a serious objective. If Manipur had not acceded to India, my friend acknowledges, it would have become the plaything of Myanmar and, eventually, of China. But that does not stop complaints that the Maharaja was kept under house arrest in Shillong until he signed the Instrument of Accession.
All this calls for a new vision for the northeast.
In 1962 when Jawaharlal Nehru morosely gave up for lost the territory beyond the Chicken’s Neck, he thought of the region as only India’s isolated backyard. But it boasts a pan-Asian past. The Khasis’ Mon-Khmer language suggests Cambodian roots; the rest are Tibeto-Burmans from the Shan states, southern China or even Siberia. Manipuri tribes nurse the legend of escaping from labouring on the Great Wall of China.
As an international zone, bordered by Bhutan, Bangladesh, Tibet and Myanmar, the region can play a dynamic part in proposed links with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Recent joint exercises with the Americans highlighted its strategic importance. Israel will soon open a new centre in Imphal.
Treating the people here like an endangered species in a reservation does not help the northeast. It helps the country as a whole even less, and reduces elections to an empty ritual.
