Is the NE integrated with the rest of India

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Silchar, Assam, India

I know this is an unasked question, and once or twice asked too, in this forum. I'll tackle it head on.

Its absolutely the wrong question. The real question ought to be "Is the rest of India integrated with the North East" ?

In fact even this question is wrong. To refer to the people in this region as "people from the North East" is akin to calling everybody south of the Vindhyas as Madrasis. As you might have gathered from this blog, there are a wide variety of peoples, cultures, and ways of life in this part of the country.

The sad answer to the question is that the rest of India is NOT integrated with the North East.

A large majority cannot name the seven states of India in the North East region. As for accurately pointing them out on a map, forget it. This same majority can easily locate Tamil Nadu or Gujarat or Bengal on a map.

Our first task is to learn and understand about the different cultures in this region. We must make the effort to learn. We must read. We must travel here and experience their great strengths. This is an easy ask as this is one of the most beautiful parts of the country.

The second is to openly embrace a Naga or a Meitei or a Garo as our brother and sister. How many times have I seen somebody ask a person from the North East - Are you an Indian ?

The third is to remove the prejudices that abound in our minds. Firstly "they" do not eat every living creature. As we have seen, Manipuris have a big vegetarian component. Many others simply eat the usual fare that others eat - chicken, fish, beef, pork. A Khasi will not eat your dog. Secondly the girls are not "loose". The fact that they dress well and men and women interact freely is a tribute to their culture of openness - not a symptom of easy virtues. The community and family associations are as strong amongst the Apatani or Mizo as amongst a Kannadiga or a Gujarati.

Almost every person I have met here, and talked to at some length, has a story to tell of discrimination he or she has personally faced in the cities of India. They talk openly about the difficulty they have in renting a place to live. One spoke about a group of Nagas being refused entry into a bus. Another spoke of somebody refusing to shake his hand because he was "unclean".

One of the wonderful aspects of India as a country, and Indians as a people, is the sheer diversity we have. No other country comes even close. Language, customs, religion, culture, food - in virtually every aspect each state is almost unrecognisably different from another. And yet we are one nation, and so much the better for it. We revel in our diversity and yet we come together as Indians. It is our strength. It is a model for the world - to live together rather than break apart.

And yet, to our own, we fail to accord the same embracing of our diversity. To the Apatani, to the Galo, to the Memba, to the Ao, to the Meitei, to the Mizo, to the Jaintia, to the Karbi, let us open our hearts. Let us be their brother and sister Indian.

Truly.

In name and spirit.

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Comments

Sandhya Sriram
2015-03-11

this is the constant nagging question in my mind all through the blog and i think, i asked you once as well and thanks for answering this head on. the answer is probably obvious, but your emotions that come with them is what that makes this post special. why do we alienate, i dont know. we are happy to receive a "firang" with a white skin easily into our culture even if we dont know which country they belong to, what is the culture, do they eat live animals or not - or whatever, our stereotypes are - but we cannot accept someone from Pakistan, Srilanka, Bangladesh with the same warmth. In the movie Chak De India - when a North Eastern hockey player arrives at the group, the team co-ordinator "says - welcome to India" and she gives a pained look and says - how terrible it is to be welcomed to your own country. We need like a Polio eradication campaign for this i think - an inclusion campaign

Sandhya Sriram
2015-03-11

Quite sad about the bomb blast in Imphal today. i know this is sadistic, but the first feeling was a sense of relief that you are no longer in Imphal and have come back to Assam. Now with the new connection that you have built which this part of the country, i do feel pained, as pained as the bomb blast in Bangalore. we need 1000s of Ramesh to build this connect i think.

An Indian once means an Indian f
2015-03-11

Ok, two comments:

1. A regional appellation by itself is not a hassle. Like how we might refer to here as the "Deep South" or "New England." Of course, there are some cultural and other connotations with those usages, but to use those geographic terms is kosher. Thus, referring to the "Northeast" in India is not a problem at all.

2. The problem comes up when those terms are used to express prejudice. And to, therefore, refer to the people from there with awful stereotypes.

It is the second one that you are referring to. And that is huge problem. Thus, the "loose girls" characterization or the "unclean" references.

But, about the identity of India is where I will disagree with you quite a bit.
Of course, as one who has ditched his Indian passport in favor of a US citizenship, and as one who has no interest in the PIO card or whatever it is, I have no standing in contemporary affairs.
But, when I was an "Indian" during my younger years, I had no sense of belonging with the peoples from other parts of India. I remember noting in one post in your business musings that I never did develop any "Indian" identity. Intellectually, I understood "India" and "Indian" as a creation of European colonialism--until the British Raj, there was no "India" but a bunch of different kingdoms. After completing the undergrad in Coimbatore I intentionally took up job in Calcutta--in order to live there and understand "India"--I was all the more convinced that I had very little in common ... I felt like a foreigner there even though I tried my best to be an "Indian," and in Orissa where I spent a few days ...
My point is that the "old" me never felt connected to Northeast or the Northwest or the North ...

Anne in Salem
2015-03-12

I see two topics in your post - the need for education in the first half and the need for acceptance at the end. To the first half, you are missing the actual step one. The first task is to care - to care that their is a country and world beyond our small community. Until citizens of any country recognize that there are other people and other cultures outside their narcissistic existence, they will never advance to your first task of learning and understanding.

To the ending, I say amen.

Shachi
2015-03-12

You've done your bit with the first one, and thank you for that. You have aroused my curiosity to learn more and definitely visit someday.

Embracing them as one of our own and removing the prejudices/biases - I feel this is not a NE only issue, and therefore, is much difficult to solve.

Just recently, at an Indian grocery store in our area, we lost our son for a few mins. I was yelling his name out loud, and even though the store was packed with customers, not a single person stopped what they were doing to help me. When I told the lady at the counter to stop her billing and help me, she laughed. All Indians, 50+ in the store, and not one cared.

On the other hand, we lost him at Costco couple weeks ago (I know, I know, you and others reading this must be thinking what lousy parents we are) and within a couple of mins, they shut the entire store down.

Such behavior still puzzles me. If a person has empathy and cares, you can break through somehow. If not, its a lost cause.

Suja
2015-03-12

A very thoughtful post Ramesh. There three points you have made..the first is about knowledge and education. I myself know very little about the NE states, but that doens't bother me. Its also true that I can possibly name all the states of USA but not all the states of India. That doesn't bother me either. We all pick up info which interest us, if we have to start apologizing for that we'll never stop! The question then is why doesn't it interest us? I never even considered travelling beyond Assam because when I was growing up in India, the NE was always a place of unrest and not considered safe for travel. If the area is promoted by the powers that be as a safe and interesting place, if access was made easier (better roads/trains/flights), if popular movies area made in that area (this is important!) so that it gets good press..people will automatically develop an interest and learn more about the area.

As to acceptance and prejudice- We Indians fare very poorly in that area, judging by colour, caste, religion, financial status, education etc as a norm. I myself have stories of discrimination - I who come from a well to do, educated, high caste Brahmin, city bred family!!! So no surprise if there is a prejudice against the NE people. I am not sure that education is the answer..the educated in India are equally capable of apalling ignorance in this area! I am not sure what the solution is..

Sanjay Balachandran
2015-03-12

Yeh Chinki hai... An oft repeated comment. Mostly uttered as insult rather than in jest... it dawned on me just now. In schools when we are taught about diversity we are shown photos of a Hindu Christian muslim but never even talk about north east perhaps they have adopted any of the aforementioned religions.
I think the education must start from that point that people for NE are equally part of us. Maybe our next generation and future ones would have lesser discrimination against them

indigoite
2015-03-12

@Sandhya - An inclusion campaign would be lovely. The bomb blast in Imphal was very sad. I will write about this in an upcoming post

@Sriram - Yeah, I know your views and respect them. Of course heartily disagree :)

@Anne - As always, simply, wonderfully and profoundly said. Marvel at your ability to make a telling point with simplicity and grace. Bravo.

@Shachi - Oh yes, bias is not to one group only, but the bias against people from the North East, especially in Delhi, is rather extreme.

@Suja - Yes, you have to attract interest and not demand it. Well said. I know biases and prejudices abound, but this is an extreme case. So much so that Delhi has needed to set up a separate cell to "protect" and take care of people from the North East. What a shame

@Sanjay - I didn't want to use the C word in my post, but know exactly what you mean. We ave a long way to go.

Vincy Joseph
2015-03-12

You have rightly pointed how disintegrated the rest of the country is with NorthEast and surpisingly until you pointed that out it never pained me. An inclusivity campaign though education could be an solution. but how, by whom, who will take the initiative, move the right coins etc I have no clue.
IF, most of us ( atleast the readers of the blog) are well educated, if i can say that, travel a lot, on top of worldly affairs and intelligent need a Ramesh to point this out to us, God save the others.
I do have new found love for this part of India, now. thanks to you :-)
BTW, I was reading the comments and your readers are competing with you in sharing their thoughts and now you have a battalion along with you in your travel. Way to Go Ramesh!!

indigoite
2015-03-13

@Vincy - All commenters, and you especially, are awesome. I really mean it when I say this trip would have been nowhere as enjoyable but for all of you.

Ravi Rajagopalan
2015-03-13

Sriram: In the fourth century BC when Alexander the Great first marched his armies over the Pamirs and across the Indus, he arrived at the great city of Taxila, near present-day Islamabad, and questioned the holy men of the town about the land they came from. From personal experience on the pilgrim roads, they were able to give remarkably precise information. They gave him an idea of how broad the land was - from the Indus to Kamakhya on one end, Kashmir to Kanyakumari on the other end. They gave him an idea of the distances involved which the Greeks faithfully recorded. Years later, British cartographers compared actual distances with the distances the Greeks recorded and they were uncannily close - give or take a few hundred miles. Given the poor state of geography in the Western world at that time, this left me dumbfounded.

India may not have achieved political unity until centuries later, but already there was great clarity about the sacred geography of the land the Greeks called Indika – the lands beyond the Indus. Moreover there has always been an idea of India united under common cultural practices. There has always been an India, and your lack of connectedness to this idea is something personal in your experience which one cannot question.

Given modern communications and transportation there is a relentless merging of identities. This may or may not be a welcome phenomenon - one has to ask the Mizos or Khasis if they welcome the Bengalification of their culture - or even the local Mumbaikar about the complete Hindi-isation of a former Gujarati and Marathi city. But this is happening. What is remarkable is the existence of this idea in 300BC when the Greek armies showed up at the banks of the Indus.

The idea was forged by the sacred geography of the country threaded together over centuries through pilgrimages. I have recommended Diana Eck's book before in these columns and I repeat that here. What Ramesh is doing is a pilgrimage of sorts - to experience and appreciate at close quarters, and then to understand.

Like you, I have taken the salt of the firangee and in my case I have sworn an oath of loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen. But I have always felt connected to this country. Much as though I hate quite a few things about it, I am part of this country and part of its legacy.

2025-05-23

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