India at 75 | The fragility of the integration of the Northeast

Integration of Northeast India into the mainstream of Indian life has been on the national agenda since the beginning of India’s journey as an independent nation. The region has always been seen as somewhat foreign and in need of assimilation, which is also (and finds) reflection in administrative terms. Two such measures, on the opposite end of the spectrum, should characterize this plight: the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution introduced in 1949 and the stringent Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), promulgated in 1958. Seventy-five years after independence, the question is, how successful has this integration been?

‘Excluded’ area

The British had also considered abandoning this “Mongolian fringe” – a term coined by British India’s Foreign Secretary Olaf Caro in a paper in 1940 as a Crown colony. This unit was to be a combination of the mountainous regions of Northeast and Upper Burma. The Governor of Assam, Robert Reid, in a 22-page note titled ‘A Note on the Future of the Present Excluded, Partly Excluded and Tribal Areas of Assam’ in 1937 called the people of Assam “neither racially, historically From the form” was flagged off. culturally, nor linguistically”, had no connection with the rest of India. On the Age of Empire: Four British Plans for North East India 1941–1947,

These “excluded” and “partially excluded” areas Reid refer to, formed the largely unincorporated hills of Assam separated from its revenue plains by the “Inner Line” created by the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation 1873. , and it was Assam a year ago. A Chief Commissioner’s Province was carved out of Bengal. Earlier, Assam was annexed to British Bengal after the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824–26 and the signing of the Treaty of Yandabo.

Sixth Schedule

British Assam was virtually the entire northeast of today, except for two states, Tripura and Manipur. Even in these states, although no inner line was introduced, the British brought in a similar administrative system to separate the “outcast” hills from the revenue plains. In Tripura, the plains of Chakala Roshnabad were annexed to British Bengal and the kings of Tripura were allowed to be zamindars there, but did not claim sovereignty over them. In Manipur, the hills of the Imphal Valley and the Central Revenue Plains were treated as separate administrative regions in 1907.

The Crown Colony plan was eventually dropped on grounds of administrative feasibility. Reid’s view was probably also influenced by a 1929 memorandum given to the Simon Commission by a nascent Naga nationalist body, the Naga Club, which argued that the Nagas were not Indians. Interestingly, the Crown Colony bears a resemblance to the notion of “Zomia”, which was conceived by Willem van Schendel and coined by James C. Scott in The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. This complex mosaic of castes was inherited by India.

The Sixth Schedule was independent India’s first administrative instrument for the tribal belt of undivided Assam. It was inspired by the works of British-born Indian anthropologist Verrier Alvin, who advocated encouraging the tribals to live according to their talents. The schedules mandated the formation of autonomous district councils, which, among others, gave legitimacy to tribal customary laws.

The Naga Hills rejected the Sixth Schedule and would have nothing less than sovereignty. A powerful uprising resulted, and in its wake, the AFSPA, with the Armed Forces granted extensive powers. As a resolution of peace, the Naga Hills district was merged with the North Eastern Frontier Agency (NEFA), or the adjoining Mon and Tuensang subdivisions of present-day Arunachal Pradesh, to form a separate Nagaland state in 1963. However, the Naga rebellion created a ruckus. in various avatars. Peace talks have been going on for the past 25 years, and are expected to result in a permanent solution.

In 1972, most of these autonomous regions were carved out of Assam. Meghalaya became a state, while Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram were made union territories. The latter two were upgraded in the states in 1987. Tripura and Manipur, which were made Part-C states after its merger with India in 1949, were also upgraded to states in 1972.

In the midst of all this, the question of national identity remained unfinished and insurgency grew and spread even in states such as Assam and Manipur, where the emotional gulf with mainstream India had narrowed. The hegemonic suspicion of the Indian state of the “Mongolian fringe”, and the latter’s mutual fear of being out of their traditional world, were forced to be overwhelmed by a cultural and population influx from the mainstream. Every deviation from national norms in this area was attributed to the conspiracies of unseen “foreign hands”; Similarly, each nationalization project came to be seen as an insidious cultural attack on the other side.

inclusion by accommodation

But as India gained confidence and shed its insecurities of greater balance after its painful Partition experience, attitudes toward national identity and nationalism softened, leaning toward a constitutional definition of these understandings rather than cultural ones. . National integration also came more about the expansion of the mainstream to accommodate all other streams within the national sphere, rather than the need to drop its streams to join the mainstream later.

The changes that have taken place in the North Eastern Council (NEC) can be read as a demonstration of this. This institution was established in 1971 as an advisory body. Initially, its members were the governors of the northeastern states, thus remaining as the ears and eyes of the centre. Its original pledge also made security a primary concern. In 2002, the Act that brought the NEC to life was amended. From an advisory role, it became an infrastructure planning body for the region. Sikkim was also brought into its fold. Significantly, its executive structure was expanded to include chief ministers of these states, linking it to the aspirations of the local electorate.

Similarly, DoNER was created in the central government in 2001, and was upgraded to a full-fledged ministry in 2004. The paranoid suspicion of a “foreign hand” has also vanished, and earlier, in 1991, India’s Look East policy was born with the stated objective of connecting the Northeast with the vibrant economies of Southeast Asia. In 2010, a protected area regime that restricted visits by foreigners to Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram was relaxed. Although unsuccessful, a judicial commission was even set up in 2004 to recommend ways to repeal or “humanise” the AFSPA. New optimism was evident. In fact, it would not be unreasonable to assume that it was John Paul Lederach’s “moral imagination” at work, resulting in the many rebellions seen in the region today.

Now, a troubling question

But the idea of ​​India is changing again under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in New Delhi, indicating a return to the rigid understanding by the Indian mainstream. The troubling question is, does this mean a return to mainstream versus sub-stream friction? The BJP has a strong presence in the Northeast today. The party is in power in Assam, Tripura, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, but it needs to be remembered that electoral politics in the region has been less about ideology and more about forging an alliance with the party in power at the Centre. The core sentiments are not always reflected in it, and are supported by two examples. Assam strongly opposed the BJP-sponsored Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), yet voters returned the BJP to power. In Manipur, AFSPA remains an emotional issue, yet the BJP which did not even mention AFSPA in its election manifesto was voted back. Whatever this separation between grassroots and electoral politics, there is no guarantee that the party ideology of the BJP has exploited or uplifted the undercurrents of dirty politics in the region. If this is not taken into account, the CAA, known for the potential for crisis in AFSPA or other counter-cultures, could flare up again regardless of the party in power.

Pradeep Phanjoubam is the editor, FPSJ Art & Politics Review