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India, recognise your 'Mongoloid' face and own it

Mainstream India remains ignorant, disconnected and racist towards its North East region
Last Updated 24 June 2021, 06:03 IST

What makes an average Mongoloid-featured face of a North Easterner 'foreign' to mainland Indians, who are largely of Aryan/Dravidian origins?

The question shows up a cultural, historical and political anomaly in the larger national project of developing a mutually respectful and common 'Indian-ness' that must be addressed. Why did the popular young YouTuber from Punjab feel that the face of an Arunachal man, Ninong Ering, a former Union Minister of India and a sitting MLA in the state no less, didn't "look Indian" and why indeed did Arunachal itself, distant and too close to the border with China perhaps, did not seem to him to be part of India? Would he have made those comments, which raised a Twitter storm from the youth of the North East, had he been exposed to the history and culture of the region and its peoples?

The Twitter storm raised a demand that at least 10% of the NCERT curriculum for schoolchildren must include the history of the North East's role in the Indian freedom struggle, hoping that that would help bridge the divide between mainland India and the people of the North East that goes back to British machinations in the colonial era.

Indeed, there has been little or no representation of the North East in the narrative of India's freedom struggle, a betrayal of the contribution made by the region. The ineffective role of the NCERT and other Delhi-based education boards in this regard is one reason why the psychological and cultural distance between mainland and mainstream India and the North East has not been bridged. The history of the sacrifices of each of the North Eastern states remains an unsung saga, and the region mostly neglected in the national discourse.

The Twitter storm, organised by the youth of the region and supported by public figures across India, aimed to remove the bias and misidentification of North Easterners through the demand for the inclusion of the North East's role in the anti-colonial struggle. The people of the North East played a significant part in the struggle, helping create independent India, and expressed their loyalty and belongingness to the country, rising above race differentiation. Stories of the freedom struggle from the country's North Eastern periphery will surely open up a new idea of India.

While a large number of anti-British revolutionaries from Assam, East Bengal and other parts of undivided India adorn the list of names of inmates in the infamous cellular jails, most of them seem to be forgotten. In Meghalaya, U Tirot Sing, U Kiang Nangbah and Pa Togan Nengminja Sangma were among the many who sacrificed their lives while facing British bullets, custodial torture and repression. The Nagas, who had been part of Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army (INA), laid down their lives on the battlefields of East and South-East Asia. The illustrious Naga nationalist Angami Zapfu Phizo was a member of INA. Stories of patriotism of Veer Tikendrajit, Jadonang, Oja Irabat Singh and Rani Gaidinliu from Manipur and Nagaland are illuminating. There are similar sagas of the courage of freedom fighters like Darthawma Renthlei, Ropuiliani and others from Mizoram. Arunachal Pradesh's Matmur Jamoh killed a British officer and fought valiantly against the imperial forces.

The spread of the freedom movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, Bose and the Communists in Brahmaputra Valley and Surma Valley of undivided Assam is an important chapter in the struggle for independence. Assam's hall of martyrs includes the glorious sacrifices of Gandhians and revolutionaries like Kanaklata Barua, Kushal Konwar, Mukunda Kakati, Bhogeswari Phukanani, Ullaskar Dutta and Asit Ranjan Bhattacharya.

The impact of the freedom struggle in the North East was such that the British administration declared the hill areas like Nagaland, Arunachal, Mizoram, Manipur and parts of Assam and Chittagong as 'excluded' and 'partially excluded'. The British created a colonial concept of the Bengal frontier to keep the North Eastern region away from the national mainstream, and it has remained that way since independence. Seemingly, India does not recognise itself beyond Bengal.

Although the Bezbaruah Committee in 2014 created penal provisions against anyone abusing North Easterners in racial or gender terms, mainland India is yet to accept the region as part of its mainstream. Cultural fests and exhibitions presenting insignia and symbols from the ethnic cultures of the region are a usual sight, but the complex history of the North East is yet to be appropriated as part of national history. The country needs to recognise its 'Mongoloid' face and develop a sense of ownership of it. Mainland India needs to be more sensitive to its remote North East.

(The writer is Associate Professor of Philosophy, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong)

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(Published 23 June 2021, 17:59 IST)

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