HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVES OF THE PROCESS
OF MARGINALIZATION:
A STUDY OF
THE HILL PEOPLE’S EXPERIENCE
IN MANIPUR.
Prof. LAL DENA
The hill areas of Manipur were peopled by
two major ethnic groups - the Naga and the Kuki-Chin-Mizo, which are
sub-divided into about thirty two smaller tribes according to difference in
culture, language and customary practices. No clear-cut boundary line can be
drawn between the areas occupied by the Nagas and the Kukis as they are all
mixed up in all the hill districts except Churachandpur. In the present
district of Ukhrul of north east Manipur, though the Tangkhul Nagas are
predominant, a large number of Kukis also settle there. The Senapati district
of north Manipur is inhabited by Chiru, Kom, Liangmei, Mao, Maram, Nepali, Paomei,
Thangal and Zemei Naga while the two subdivisions of Kangpokpi and Saikul are
predominantly inhabited by Kom, Koren and Thado Kuki. In the district of
Tamenglong of west Manipur are found the following tribes- Chiru, Gangte, Kom,
Koren, Hmar, Liangmei, Rongmei, Thado Kuki and Zemei Naga. The district of
Chandel of south east Manipur is again inhabited by Aimol, Anal, Chothe,
Lamkang, Monsang, Moyon, Thado and Zo and the Naga tribes appear to be in
majority here. The district of Churachandpur of south Manipur is an exclusively
Kuki-Chin-Mizo area.
This is to show that all the indigenous
peoples have been living in what may be termed as frontier regions right from
pre-historical period. They are just survivors. They have been living what
seems precarious or bare existence till today. What have actually emerged today
are two unequal societies or two different worlds. People in the valley are
politically and economically more powerful, often linked to national or
international market. But people living in the periphery or frontier lands are
still languishing for their survival. Despite the widespread impact of
globalization on modern life, the indigenous people in Manipur hills still
practice primitive modes of production and nomadic land use, for example,
shifting cultivation, hunting and gathering with a village-based administration
which does not extend beyond the community. As a result, the people have
continued to retain many social handicaps and economic hardships which set them
apart from the mainstream or more affluent society in the valley. This paper
argues that the marginalization of the hill peoples of Manipur was deeply
rooted in history and geography which was further distorted by the isolationist
and ‘divide and rule’ policy of British imperial rulers.
1. The Colonial Experience:
The major strategy which had been popularly
used by imperial rulers to maintain their power was “divide and rule” policy
which had played a crucial part in ensuring the stability – indeed, the viability-
of nearly every colonial system. Richard Morrock in his ‘Heritage of Strife:
The effects of colonialist “Divide and Rule” strategy upon the colonized
peoples’ defines “divide and rule” as the “conscious effort of an imperialist
power to create and/or turn to its own advantage the ethnic, linguistic,
cultural, tribal, or religious differences within the population of a subjugated
colony”[1].The
basic tactics of “divide and rule” as practiced by western colonialists were to
create differences within the conquered population; to exploit those
differences for the benefit of the colonial power and then to politicize those
differences so that they were carried over into the post-colonial period. The
creation of differences can come about in several ways: first by playing one
ethnic group against another; secondly, by throwing hostile ethnic groups
together; thirdly, by magnifying linguistic or cultural differences; and
fourthly by religious conversion. Let us now see how the British colonialist
‘divide and rule’ policy and its basic tactics were applied to various ethnic
groups and communities of Manipur thereby resulting in their isolation and marginalization.
1:1 The formal contact between the colonial
rule and the hill peoples can be said to begin when the treaty of Yandaboo was
signed in 1826 after the conclusion of the first Anglo-Burmese war. The
geographical division of Manipur into valley and hills undoubtedly provided the
best opportunity to the British for the application of their well-known “divide
and rule” policy. J.Shakespeare, political agent (1905-1907), placed the scheme
for the future administration of the state which deliberately excluded the hill
territory on the plea that “the hill tribes are not Manipuris and have entirely
different customs and languages”[2].
The political agent and the vice president (British officer) in the durbar were
solely responsible for the administration of the hill areas and the maharajah
and the state durbar had nothing to say in it. The British officials justified
their action by maintaining that “the dealings of the state with the hill
tribes have been in former years so cruel as to cause several remonstrations
from the supreme government and much friction was caused between political
agent and the state authorities by the efforts of the former to protect the
hill tribes”[3].
In dealing with the hill peoples, the colonial officials thus adopted
paternalistic attitude which was confined to the formal recognition of tribal
chiefs only and beyond this nothing was done to improve the living condition of
the people..
The
only officials with whom the people came into contact were the Meitei lam subedars and lambus who always tried to extort something from poor villagers on
the promise of exempting them from coolie works[4].
The interference of lambus in the
internal affairs of tribal chiefs was one of the causes of the Kuki rebellion
of 1917-1919.
Structure of Hill
Administration
|
Governor
Of Assam
|
|
Chief Commissioner
|
|
Political Agent
|
 |
Maharajah
|
Manipur State Durbar
|
President
|
Members
|
|
Lam-Subedars
|
Lambus
|
|
Tribal Chiefs
|
After the suppression of the Kuki rebellion,
some changes for the administration of the hill territory were introduced in
1919. Under the new scheme, three new sub-divisions were formed. They were
Churachandpur, Tamenglong and Ukhrul. Each sub-division was placed under the charge
of a European officer who was directly accountable to the president of the
durbar, another European officer. However a large area in the north including
the Mao and Maram Naga areas and the whole of the Mombi areas in the south east
were continued to be administered from Imphal[5].
Along with these changes, the budget for the hill territory was also separated
from that of the valley. The new administrative arrangement was abolished later
on as it was difficult to find European or Anglo-Indian officers to fill the
posts of the three sub-divisional officers. The three sub-divisions were
amalgamated into two with headquarters at Ukhrul and Tamenglong, leaving the
rest of the hills surrounding the valley which were easily accessible to
Imphal, to be administered by a Manipuri officer. The government of India act of
1935 did not make any significant change in the hill administration. There was
a long correspondence and discussion about the implementation of the act
between the maharajah and A.C.Lothian, special representative of the viceroy
between 1936 and 1939 and one of the principal controversies was the issue of
hill administration[6].
Ultimately, the hill areas were put under the “Excluded Areas”.
As the demand for responsible government
gained momentum in Manipur during the 40s, the maharajah wanted to introduce
some political reforms in the state. Even when the exit of British colonial
rule was only a matter of time, Pearson, president of the state durbar,
insisted that until and unless separate hill administration regulation was
sanctioned, no new constitution would come into effect. Thus, throughout the
colonial period, the hill administration did not form an integral part of the general administration
of Manipur state. The maharaja and his durbar had little or no link with the
hill administration whatsoever. The president who was already overburdened with
the durbar works and general administration of Manipur could not give due
attention to the problems and needs of the hill people[7].
On many vital and important issues, the president did things in secret
connivance with the political agent.
The main sources
of hill administration were hill house tax of Rs.3 per household per annum and
the income on forests. The total collection of hill house tax from 1891 to 1947
amounted to Rs.3,386,522/- whereas the total expenditure for the same period
came to Rs.3,024,084/- and the balance of Rs.362,438/- was contributed to the
general administration of the state[8].
The main items of expenditure on hill administration were education,
establishment, contingencies, Naga police, relief works, etc. Regarding the
income on forests, it was accounted to Rs.1,737,459/- from 1891 to 1947 whereas
the expenditure came to Rs.276,522/- for the same period. The state got a
profit of Rs.1,460,937/-on forest alone[9].
But who were the victims? During the colonial rule particularly after 1891, the
hill forests were for the first time classified into three categories – village
reserved forests, state reserved forests and open reserved forests. The only
method of cultivation as practiced by the indigenous population was shifting
which required a vast expanse of cultivable forests. Surprisingly, the
management of forests came under the direct control of the durbar in which no
hill men were represented[10].
Normally, the president of the durbar who was a European officer authorized
private monopolistic organizations like the Bombay-Burma trading corporation (limited)
to run the business of forest products of Manipur and Burma. This is
to show that the indigenous tribal people were no longer the owner of their own
forests and their products. According to the forest act of 1927, the hill
forests continued to be administered exclusively by the state government
1:2 Well aware of the ethnic diversity of the
state, the colonial authorities wanted to exploit the situation to the maximum
for their own advantage. They wanted and actually played one ethnic group
against another. Most handy in this game-plan was the ethnic divide between the
Kukis and the Nagas. As indicated, the Kukis and the Nagas lived together in
almost all the hill districts. Initially, the British colonial policy was to
insulate British territory from any Burmese threat. When the large scale
migration of new Kukis took place in 1840, McCulloch, political agent, was
entrusted with the work of settlement of Kukis. McCulloch purposely settled
Kukis on the exposed frontiers and among the Nagas. It is said that he also
gave a large sum of money to the Kukis from his own pocket and also recruited
many of them in the service of the state. The policy of McCulloch in the
settlement of Kukis was highly appreciated both by the state government and the
supreme authorities in Calcutta[11].The
settlement of Kukis in and around the frontiers served two double purposes. The
warlike Kukis had to act as a buffer, first against any Burmese invasion, and
secondly, against Nagas or Mizos. In this way the Kukis constituted a very
strong base for frontier defense. In like manner, the British officials also
used the Nagas first against the Burmese and then against the Kukis and Mizos.
On different occasions, such as the invasion of Mao Nagas in north Manipur, the
Suktes in south Manipur and the Naga uprising in Kohima in 1879, the British
army officers effectively used the Kuki warriors and this was perhaps the time
when the first seed of enmity was sown among the two ethnic groups[12].
During the Kuki rebellion, 1917-1919, the
Kukis raided 19 Naga villages and killed about 193 persons in 1918 alone[13].
As a retaliatory move, the British officials set up the Kuki punitive measures
and recruited mostly Nagas to suppress the rebellion. Again during the
Zalengrong rebellion under the leadership of Jadonang and Gaidinliu, the
British mobilized mainly the Kukis in their efforts to suppress the movement.
In this way, one ethnic group was used against another just to ensure their control
over the people and the security of their frontier defense.
1:3. Religious
difference was another factor which led to the segregation of the people in the
hill. The Meiteis had accepted Vaishnavite Hinduism as the state religion and
the hill people still followed some kind of animism. As a result of this
religious difference, the people tended to form cysts of social
incommunicability around themselves. Since the Meiteis had imposed upon
themselves restrictions of caste and ritual, they began to adopt a
holier-than-thou attitude towards the hill people. This attitude naturally
embittered their social relations. Finally doubts and fears centered round
entirely different sets of situations and quickly developed into blind alleys
in mutual communication. The British understood the whole social anomaly and it
was their unconcealed policy to use the Hindu orthodoxy as a powerful
instrument for keeping the population divided at the roots.
When William Pettigrew, (a missionary from
Arthington Aboriginal Mission who latter on joined the American Baptist Foreign
Mission) commenced his work at Imphal on 6 February, 1894, he thought that his
call was among the Meiteis. No sooner had he settled at Imphal than he made the
necessary preparations for advancing western education through Christian
proselytism To Christian missionaries, western education formed prepaeratio
evangelica. But the Meiteis interpreted Pettigrew’s activities as a deliberate
attempt to teach them the ‘government religion’. Maxwell, on his return to
Imphal after furlough, took an alarming view of the situation and immediately
wrote: “bearing in mind the extreme care in which the Manipuris (Meiteis) hold
to the tenets of the Hindu religion bordering in fact almost to fanaticism, I
can easily conceive the trouble which will arise as soon as we place the raja
(Churachand Singh) in charge of his state on reaching manhood”[14].
He therefore concluded that to give license to Pettigrew to preach among the
Hindu Manipuris would mean to wage war against the state religion. What was
most supreme to the colonial officials was political stability. Given the
choice between political stability and Christian proselytism, they definitely
preferred the former. The peculiar position in which the British were put to administer
the state on behalf of the minor raja for some years, did not allow them to
interfere with the religion which occupied so much of their (Meiteis’) time and
attention. More important, the policy of British India
towards the princely states after the revolt of 1857 was apparently
‘non-interference’ or ‘strict neutrality’ particularly in matters of religion.
Any departure from such policy, according to C.J. Lyall, the chief commissioner
of Assam, would very likely be seized upon by Hindus in Bengal and elsewhere as
a ground for an attack upon the government and also be construed as a breach of
so-called neutrality[15].Thus,
in so far as the Hindu Manipuris were concerned the British decided to maintain
the status quo and Maxwell had to serve the ultimatum that Rev. Pettigrew leave
Imphal or stop his missionary work as no preaching was to be permitted any more
among the Hindu Manipuris.
Where Christian proselytism was considered
to sustain colonial occupation, for instance, in the hill territory, the British
recommended William Pettigrew to work among the hill tribes. The officials
would not only grant lands but also help in the day-to-day administration or
functioning of the mission schools. Maxwell, once in one of his official tours
in the hills, went to the extent of warning the Naga chiefs and elders that if
their boys were found absent from school on his return, he would have them
severely caned or sent to jail[16].
But the missionary was often over-zealous and wanted to extend his activities
oblivious of political consequences, whereas the colonial officials very often exercised
political caution. As a result, there were sometimes clashes between the
over-zealous missionary and the politically cautious officials. When conversion
of only a minority section of a conquered people was encouraged, it inevitably acted
as an instrument of segregation of the minority people from majority
population. In one sense, Christianity had broadened the outlook of the tribal
people; but in the context of Manipur, it was made to create a sort of barrier
which prevented the smooth cultural interaction between the tribal people and
the people in the valley.
1:4. Colonial experience fashioned the notion
that the indigenous population was living in primitive ignorance and lethargy
and was suitable only for forced labor. In colonial Manipur, there was an
obnoxious system called pothang (pawtthak).
The pothang was of two kinds – pothang bekari and pothang senkhai. According to pothang
bekari, the people were under compulsion to carry the goods or baggage, to
make bridges and clean roads or build new make-shift bungalows for officials who
were on tour. If the condition of road was not good, the white man was
sometimes carried in a bamboo palanquin. According to the second system of pothang senkhai, each household in the
hill was to subscribe cash, chicken, egg or any domesticated animal as the case
might be to feed the touring officials free of cost. The pothang was abolished in the valley but vigorously enforced in the
hill areas of Manipur.
The colonial system of indirect rule usually
recognized the ruling chiefs who were believed to hold their people in loyalty
to the British rule. The main concern of colonial rulers was to control
frontier troubles so as to ensure the smooth collection of hill house-tax.
Through the tribal chiefs and their councilors, the colonial officials enforced
revenue collection and forced labor. Immediately after the conquest of Manipur
in 1891, the government made new projects of road construction which was to
connect the Brahmaputra valley with Burma
through Naga hills and Manipur[17].
Landsdowne, viceroy, in his letter on 22 December 1894 observes thus: “It was
avowedly undertaken not in the interest of the Manipur state, but for our own-
other considerations wholly apart from Manipur were among the reasons given for
its construction”[18].
Thus keeping in view the interests of imperial power, the road constructions
were undertaken through enforcement of forced coolies. Maxwell in his report on
October, 1901 writes: “Coolies for road making, for transport, for survey, for
the police and for the military have been supplied by the hill tribes.
Tangkhuls were forced to serve in the Chin hills
in 1893. The Naga tribes who inhabit the hills traversed by the Cachar road,
work in the cold weather on the road repairs and provide postal runners
throughout the year”[19].
Customs of the hill people no doubt support the use of unpaid labor for the
common good and this most probably furnished the colonial officials a precedent
for using compulsory labor on public works or major road constructions. In most
cases, the hill coolies were given salt as their wages.
During the First World War, 1914-1919, the
government of Assam
asked the maharajah of Manipur through the political agent, H.W.C.Cole to supply
coolies to work in the labor corps. The maharajah successfully raised at once
1200 Tangkhul Nagas, 500 Kukis and 300 other Nagas with the help of William
Pettigrew and G.C.Crozier, the two missionaries in Manipur at that time. Though
the maharajah and his durbar had no direct control over the hill tribes, the
maharajah promised to recruit another 2000 coolies from Kuki tribes,
surprisingly not from the plains men[20].
This was one of the causes of the Kuki rebellion in 1917 which could be
suppressed only through the joint efforts of the governments of Assam, Manipur
and Burma. Thus separation, exploitation, discrimination and marginalization
were the hall marks of British colonial policy towards the hill people of
Manipur during the whole historical period. The distortions that were created
in the social fabric of the indigenous tribal peoples - underdevelopment,
marginalization, ethnic antagonism, tribalism, etc., are thus the direct fall
out of British colonial rule.
2
The Post-Colonial Experience:
2:1
Empty Self-Governing institutions in the hill areas:
Following immediately the end of
colonial rule was the enactment of the Manipur State Hill peoples
(Administration) Regulation, 1947 which divided the whole hill territory into
circles. In each village of tax-paying 20 households or above, there was a
village authority consisting of chiefs and elders. Above the village authority,
there was circle authority comprising one circle officer appointed by the
government and a council of 5 members elected by the village authorities
falling within the circle. To encourage people’s participation in the local
administration, the Manipur (Village Authority in Hill Areas) Act was passed in
1956 which introduced for the first time election of members of village
authority on the basis of adult franchise by repealing the earlier regulation
act of 1947. When Manipur attained statehood in 1972, the Manipur (Hill Areas)
District Council Act, 1972 was passed by the state government. Unlike their
counterparts in Assam,
Meghalaya and Mizoram, no provision under Sixth Schedule was extended to the
so-called autonomous district councils in Manipur. The district councils solely
depended on the financial support of the state government. They had no judicial
and legislative powers. Because of public demand for extension of the
provisions of the Sixth Schedule, the district councils were dissolved since
1988. Even though the 7th Manipur Legislative Assembly had passed
the Manipur Hill Areas Autonomous District Council (Amendment) Bill on 25th
July, 2000 again without Sixth Schedule provision, there is no plan for
election to the councils.
In the valleys of Manipur, modern
panchayat system was introduced since 1960. For the gram panchayats and nagar
panchayats, there was the state finance commission which made a comprehensive
study for the improvement of funds and resource mobilization. Again for the
panchayat bodies, there was also consolidated fund directly funded by the state
government and the central government. The district planning committee under
panchayats initiated planning right from gram panchayats. But the district
councils, when in operation, had to make planning in consultation with the
planning department of the government. What is conspicuously absent in the
district councils and village authorities was women participation. Under the
panchayat bodies, not only 36 per cent seats are reserved for women, but
specific quota of pradhans and up-pradhans in the gram panchayats and
adhyakshas and up-adhyakshas of zilla parishad are also reserved for elected
women. Altogether there are 22 women in the 4 zilla parishads and 2 of the 4
adhyakshas are women. Of the 1556 gram panchayats, 567 are women and of whom 55
are pradhans. But women participation is completely absent both at the district
and village level administration in the hill areas.
On the whole, the level of
operation of panchayats is much higher than the district councils. Even if
Sixth Schedule provisions are extended, the district councils can manage
primary schools and dispensaries, whereas the panchayats are entitled to
exercise control over higher secondary schools, hospitals and those long list
of powers under the 11th schedule of the Indian constitution. In the
final analysis, while the district councils are under constant threat of the
Democle’s sword of the state, the panchayat bodies have been undergoing a
liberalization process of federalism and democratization at the district level.
Besides, the adhyakshas, up-adhyakshas, pradhans and up-pradhans are entitled
to monthly salaries and the members of the zilla parishads and gram panchayats
also get sitting allowances. The village authorities in the hills do not have
such allowances, not to speak of salaries. Deeply aware of the deficiencies in
the constitution and functioning of the district councils and village
authorities, the advisory committee on social policy (1995–1997) made several
recommendations and nobody knows when these are going to be implemented.
2:2
Manipulation of Land ownership:
To whom the land belongs?.
Self-rule was the basic ethos of indigenous peoples. With the coming of
colonial rule followed by the demarcation of Manipur boundaries, there was
wrong notion that the whole land both in the valley and in the hill belonged to
the state. The land holding system in the valley of Manipur
was developed by the Meitei kings in the pre-colonial period. Those tribal
areas which acknowledged the influence of the Meitei kings were believed to
have rendered some kind of tributes to the Meitei kings. But the land taxation
system which was prevailing in the valley was never extended to the hill areas.
This was so during the colonial period too. The British officials introduced
regular land revenue system in the valley to maintain their administrative
costs. But in the hill areas, they did not introduce any land tax. Of course,
they did introduce hill house tax as it has been indicated above instead of
land tax. While patta system was introduced in the valley on the patterns in Assam,
no patta system of land ownership was ever introduced in the hill areas.
J.Shakespeare who once served as
political superintendent in Mizoram, came to Manipur in 1905 as political agent
and took up the task of demarcation of tribal lands as land dispute was very
common in those days. Shakespeare started issuing boundary papers in the name
of Manipur maharajah to all the tribal chiefs. This is wrongly interpreted as
the recognition of chiefs’ right over the village lands. In post-independence
period, on the patterns of the abolition of privy purse, the state legislative
assembly of Manipur also passed the Manipur Hill areas (Acquisition of Chief’s
Rights) Act, 1967 on 14 June, 1967 which authorized the government to acquire
the rights, titles and interests of chiefs in and over land in the hill areas
of Manipur. The chiefs were to be compensated on the basis of the following
considerations: 1. the area of land under chief; 2. total number of households
within the chiefdom; and 3. whether compensation was to be given in installment
or lump sum. The truth of the matter is that those boundary papers are not
pattas. Whatever was done by the colonial officials could also not be accepted
as a biblical truth. Among the Nagas in Manipur, the hereditary chiefs were not
necessarily owners of land. Only in those villages where settlement was made
with the permission of the state, ownership of land was granted to those
particular villages in their collectivity.
The traditional land holding system
among the indigenous hill peoples in pre-colonial era was based on the
principle of communal ownership with a clear understanding that the chiefs and
their elders (councilors) were simply the custodian of the village lands.
Almost all the villages in the hill areas had been in existence for centuries
or from time immemorial. One fundamental fact which distinguishes the
indigenous peoples from other peoples is their emotional attachment to the land
where they live. Modern legal niceties cannot be applied to them. Land contains
their history and sense of identity; and it ensures their economic viability as
an independent people. The statement of the vice president of the World Council
of Indigenous Peoples clearly reflects the true position of the indigenous
peoples in relation to their land: “The earth is the foundation of indigenous
peoples. It is the seat of spirituality, the fountain from which our cultures
and languages flourish. The earth is our historian, the keeper of events and
the bones of our forefathers. Earth provides us food, medicine, shelter and
clothing. It is the source of our independence; it is our mother. We do not
dominate her; we must harmonize with her” (Julian Burger: Report from the
Frontier, London, 1987:14). For the indigenous people, their oral history is
more important than anything else. Go to Tipaimukh, you will come across many
standing tombs of our forefathers on the way. Those are the living witnesses of
our ownership of land. They are our documents.
In the name of development, there
have been consistent attempts for the alienation of tribal lands. For instance,
the Manipur Land Reform and Land Revenue Act, 1960 (MLR) which was amended from
time to time has been introduced piece meal in some plain areas of hill
districts like Chandel and Churachandpur. The act provides that when a land is
to be transferred from the tribal to the non-tribal the permission of the
deputy commissioner of the concerned district is necessary. There has been
consistent demand for the extension of the act over all the hill areas too. At
the same time, there is also a popular demand for the introduction of a
separate land law for the hill areas of Manipur. As it is mentioned before, the
Advisory Committee on Social Policy (1995-1997) had already made a conceptual
draft of land law (for hill areas).But nothing has been in this regard till
today.
Concluding
remarks:
Changes began to take place among
the hill peoples as a result of their contact with colonial officials and
Christian missionaries along with the introduction of modern education, their
exposition to out side world and technological developments. What was not changed was however the sense of
belongingness to a separate ethnic group with all its basic elements –
language, religion, social and political systems, moral values, beliefs,
legends, customary laws, economic systems, art, clothing, music, dance and so
on. Naturally when political consciousness dawned upon the indigenous peoples
during the 40s of the 20th century, these different ethnic groups
began to assert their ethnic-based nationalities, such as Kuki nationalities,
Mizo nationalities, Naga nationalities, Khulmi (Zomi) nationalities, etc. Even
when the Indian nationalist movement reached its zenith under the leadership of
Mahatma Gandhi, its wave never crossed beyond the Brahmaputra
valley and failed to cover these small nationalities which may be called as marginalized nationalities. They were
called so because their integration with the core nationalism (Indian
nationalism) had taken place only in the immediate post-colonial period.
Prasenjit Biswas prefers to characterize them as ‘nations from below’ and the
term ‘nation’ here is defined in ethnic terms[21].
Sanjay K. Roy also contends that ‘nations from below’ in the North East India
are formed on ethic lines (mostly a tribe in a geographical area, with one
name, common heritage, common language, common culture and therefore one
identity), an identity formed in countering other identities and expressed in
democratic movements, in anti-state armed struggle, in ethnic cleansing and
similar actions[22].
In colonial India,
we have already witnessed the emergence of consolidated nationalities which
include Assamese, Bengali, Bihari, Gujarati, Kanadiga, Konkani, Malayalee,
Marathi, Orya, Panjabi, Telugu, Tamil, etc. They are called so because they
were well interconnected in some way or the other in the historical past. Their
unity was further strengthened by British colonization. As a result, they could
or actually had evolved common social structure, common religion, common culture
and common historical experience and their merger into the core nationalism was
automatic and spontaneous.
The consolidated nationalities were
at a certain point of time in history were not well integrated. But right from
the time of Ashoka, the process of the integration of these nationalities had
started and this was further consolidated during the nationalist freedom
movement of the country. The basis of these consolidated nationalities was
pan-Indian identity. But the basis of the marginalized nationalities was
regional identity based on ethnicity by claiming institutional authority in the
form of greater autonomy or even sovereignty in some extreme cases. They had
emerged only in the immediate post-colonial period.
The nation-state was created long
before the absorption of the marginalized nationalities into it. In other
words, the marginalized nationalities felt that they participated neither in
the creation of the nation-state nor in the working out of its purpose. As a
matter of fact, the marginalized nationalities had not joined the nationalist
freedom movement and had not contributed anything to the attainment of independence
in 1947. Nor could the national leadership devise any ethos which could break
the barrier created by the colonial rulers between the masses of the people in
the hills of North East India and the people in mainland India (H.K.Sareen,
Insurgency in North East India, New Delhi,1980:3) The anti-British movements
like the Kuki rebellion,1917-1919, Zeliangrong uprising , 1930-1932, etc are
not integral parts of the nationalist freedom movement of the country.
The marginalized nationalities felt
that they were excluded from power and state resources and therefore failed to
develop sense of ownership in the supreme decision-making processes of the
country. They may have one or two representatives in the central assembly (Lokh
Sabha). But what is one or two among the 500s? The boundaries of the
nation-state were curved to serve the interests of the erstwhile colonialists
with scant regard for the wishes of the marginalized nationalities. For
instance, construction of identities like Zo/Kuki people cutting across the
Indo-Myanmar boundary and also the insisting demand for greater Naga homeland including
those Nagas in the neighboring states in North East India and Myanmar are cases in point.
The nation-state claims and
includes those marginalized nationalities from a distance and from a position
of strength for the fact that the latter also happened to be under the same
colonial rule. It debunks the similar claim of sovereignty or
self-determination on the ground of inviolability of the Indian constitution
and indivisibility of the country. In this connection, Prasenjit Biswas again
makes a very illuminating comment thus “This mode of positioning of an ethnic
community is a symbolic negation of the superiority and primacy of Indian
nationhood, which positions a state above all claims of sovereignty and
independence. Indian nationalism in its statist form blocks the space for
alternative claims of sovereignty and thereby produces resentment among the
ethnic communities in NE India”.
The crux of the problem of nation
building in post-colonial India
is the problem of adjustment of the claims and counter-claims between the
marginalized nations (nations from below) and the ‘nation from above’. The
direct opposition between ethnically rooted political aspirations and the
nation-state produces a sense of marginalization and apprehension among the
marginalized nationalities. The articulation of their grievances often takes on
a variety of forms such as threat of secession or demand for the right of
self-determination. There is therefore an urgent need to reconstruct the post
colonial nation-state on the basis of a new social contract whose references
are to be self-determination, equity and justice in the context of ground
realities of social existence.
[1] Richard Morrock :
‘Heritage of Strife: The Effects of Colonialist “Divide and Rule”
strategy upon the
colonized peoples’, in Science & Society, Vol.
XXXVII,
No. 2, Brooklyn/New York,
1973, p. 129.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Gina Shangkham :
British Colonial Rule in the Hill Areas of Manipur, 1891-1947,
Unpublished
PhD Thesis, 1988, p. 147.
[7] F.D. Ext. A. :
August, 1907. op.cit.
Gina
Shangkham. op. cit. p. 185-188.
[9] Ibid : pp. 190-193.
[10] Ibid : p. 194
[12] Laba Yambam :
Kuki – Naga Conflict; An Insight, Imphal
(unpublished article).
[13] Gina Sangkham :
op. cit.255.
[14] Lal Dena :
British Policy towards Manipur, Churachandpur, 1984, p. 40.
[15] Ibid :
p. 41.
[16] Ibid :
p. 42.
[17] Ibid :
p. 36.
[18] Ibid :
p. 15.
[19] Ibid :
p. 16.
[20] Gina Sangkham :
op. cit. p. 248
[21] Prasenjit Biswas :
‘Nations from Below’ and Rebel Consciousness’ “The New
Subaltern” Emergence of North East India,
in R.R. Dhamala &
Sukalpa
Bhattacharya, Human Rights and Insurgency in North East
India’, Shipra New Delhi, 2002, p. 140.
[22] Sanjay K. Roy :
‘Conflicting Nation in North East India’.
Economic and Political
Weekly,
May 21st 2005, p. 2176.
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