An argument because of cynicism

V Jayashankha

While browsing the Internet, I stumbled upon this unique site of argueindia that envisages some ‘programmes and activities that can generate notable discourses leading to the formulation of the best-suited policy perspectives through advocacy initiatives and theoretical paradigms where dialogue and dissent shall be the core defining principles.’Also it projects that ‘common knowledge that many a developmental issues concerning the region have frequently generated contesting dilemmas that imbricates with conflicts of socio-political nature and has evaded conventional resolution strategies’, resulting in ‘an unavoidable consequence of all these have been a radically challenged democratic consciousness that over and over again sought not only to displace civic modes for organising social and political life but also, and perhaps more significantly, to inhibit any dialogic interface among the contesting stakeholders.’

And here you have a research group to work on Issues concerning Democracy, Diversity and Governance; Migration, Refugees and Conflicts; Development and Conflicts; Conflict Resolution Strategies and Peace-Building; Narcotics, Substance Abuse and HIV-AIDS; Energy and Environment that we hope one day effect our policy and decision making process.

Argue India reminds me of Prof Amartya Sen’s Argumentative Indian. This particular book of essays only boosted my confidence in engaging in any argument that comes naturally to a fanatic Indian like me for whom adda is the only thing that keeps life moving.
Thank you for igniting that spirit again and for provoking me to raise certain points with regard to those six areas of academic interest. Let me admit, I am not blessed or bestowed with some huge academic or intellectual benevolence and hence can be corrected by the grace of the Indian intelligentsia.

I am from India’s Northeast, the area that is your area of concern (interest) and my home ground (by sheer self proclamation and sans any right to say so).Northeast India has its own share of problems that has got entangled with the behavioural patterns of its peoples, indigenous, non-indigenous or non-recognised indigenous like us who have been toiling here for generations and are now looking at this part with a certain degree of passion, sympathy and devoid of any meaningful action to change the course of life.

I name myself a non-recognised indigenous, because I firmly believe that I belong to a state, which is yet to grow to understand my stake which is as good as any ‘indigenous’ person from this part of the world. But, such scheme of things, polity and system of functioning doesn’t discourage me to acknowledge everything that makes this part so unique, vibrant and honest, if I can say so ‘uniqueness and vibrancy’ are much talked about attributes, but I intend to go a step forward to call them honest because their intentions are clear to the world. If they hate you, you know it; so also when you are loved, you get to know it and you can’t leave them. This is the kind of honesty in them that makes me feel more comfortable and feel at home – irrespective of my rights.
I have uncompromised regards for those who have devoted their entire lives in this part of the region and did whatever possible to make it a better place. So today, you have that Northeast, which has the guts to say – ‘we are different.’
The Northeast India is different, that we know. But could we do much in realising what makes it so different? Let me start with the first point in the list of thematic programmes that Argue India intends to take up – Issues concerning Democracy, Diversity and Governance.

Meghalaya has a very unique system of governance with village dorbars at the helm. Such dorbars or village bodies are constituted with senior members of a village as its members and a chosen one to head. This is an absolutely democratic set up that stood the test of time despite many misgivings about kingship, feudalism et cetera et cetera. I am not challenging anyone on that. But arguably, I would like to know if anyone can explain as to why Meghalaya is not getting crores and crores of rupees, or rather losing them for not just having panchayati raj system, which is paramount for availing many central schemes as per the policy of such schemes. Why the policy makers couldn’t realise that this system of governance functions much better than the panchayats in other parts of India? Why can’t we make any scheme applicable as per the systems prevalent in any state? Is it because the region was bestowed with such a beautiful democratic set up, that we don’t want to recognise? I think you can devote much time on that to find out what holds our country back from giving simple recognition to such systems.

There is an undercurrent in Meghalaya to get the Instrument of Accession (an agreement by which the then India took possession of this state, along with Jammu and Kashmir) implemented in the state. Why can’t we give them that right to manage their own roads, own water resources and some other liberties that wouldn’t pose any threat to the national security and the country’s integrity and make institutions like dorbar shnongs function? The chieftains or the Syiems of the 25 Khasi states could have been given that recognition as many rajas and maharajas of India enjoy. They are ‘non-entities’ in the eyes of Indian policy makers. If we can value that system, we only help them recognise what culture and heritage mean. I believe a new approach is required to get them involved in the system of activities instead of imposing an alien system in the form of district councils that only has created yet another power centre over and above the state government, again a locally chosen body.

This approach would help us understand its (northeast’s) ‘democracy, diversity and governance.’
The second in the queue is ‘Migration, Refugees and Conflicts’, which again requires a forthright approach. Migration is a regular phenomenon that the Northeasterners need to understand. The human mass is always floating and hence academic sessions would be necessary to drive this point home. Many communities in the Northeast, who have now become indigenous peoples of the region were alien to this land once upon a time in the history and likewise many others in other corners of the world have thus migrated and made a new place their homeland. This movement is constant and so also the strife arising out of such movements of human populace.

Due to its geophysical conditions, the Northeast became the first destination of the Hindu refugees from East Pakistan after the partition. It’s not a game plan that saw us through this transition; it’s the cruel joke of socio-political set up that India was having that time. It was an undesirable movement of one group of people which was forced to leave one territory for another unknown.
There was not much academic discourse on this issue as the general intelligentsia was divided into two distinct groups – one definitely against such movements for keeping their comfort zones protected, while the other largely victims themselves chose to remain silent lest their integrity comes under questions.

I can be a little more frank without mincing words or getting the real point sunk in jugglery of words. It’s precisely the case that most of the so-called learned and knowledgeable lot took least interest to understand what it means to be a refugee? What makes these refugees become refugees or rather what pains when one has to remain in camps leaving their homes and hearth and huge landed properties in some other territory for some destructive political decisions by vested interests?It was not for an economic reason or better income and better living that this mass movement took place. It was all under compulsion; but with the larger group of people remaining indifferent to their woes, insensitive towards their pain for not having a piece of land, which they had and above all for having been labelled as refugees, ‘...so deceitful’, ‘so strategists’, ‘so they are clever’, ‘…as they had to survive on a foreign land, they became so’.

It’s not something unique in the Northeast alone. Not to accept people from outside is a general trend across the world. Palestinians also do have to put up with such disrespects elsewhere in the Middle East, where despite their common religious background, they are unwanted.But such treatments from people who otherwise believe in the philosophy of ‘Vashdhaiba Kutumbakam’ (universal brotherhood) (sic) are somewhat surprising.

I was having a heated debate with a friend of mine from The Statesman on the general state of affairs in the Northeast. It was quite natural for him to drag the issue of Northeast’s ‘diabolic’ stand on India’s position as a nation state. General bandhs during the National Days here also came up for discussion and there I asserted saying that I feel as much as any Indian from Kolkata when it comes to our ‘national pride’ and patriotism.

And in the course, I caught him on a wrong foot. I have been defying bandhs and coming out during the bandhs on every National Days (undermining the all ‘no no’ from my parents and friends) just to prove my point as an individual and my right to liberty. I told him, I am a non-recognised Meghalayan but a rightful and genuine Indian citizen, a status which I enjoy and he doesn’t, simply because he belongs to West Bengal first and then to India. That’s another issue that my friend is from South India but got equal rights in just ten years, which I didn’t get even though my family has been living in Meghalaya for three generations now.
I was furious enough to nail him down questioning the (pseudo) universalism displayed by the Bengalis there would embrace Nelson Mandela as their own or name a locality after Ho Chi Min to exhibit their superiority. But this is a complexity that can be quashed by this simple argument – a person having a little accent is a Bengali from the other side for a native Bengali from West Bengal – and there they are – the so called intellectuals and academicians. Universalism doesn’t succeed ignoring the people of one’s own community.

On the other hand, another section of learned people from the Northeast largely come from the then East Pakistan, or at least have their connections to that country, the way I do. This connection logically makes us refugees – a tag that we don’t want to carry and hence, those intellectuals deliberately skip talking about anything in favour, fearing that such a stand may make them untouchables among the Indian intellectuals.

I feel that addressing the refugee issue along with migration is wrong because of one reason – a refugee mostly becomes a refugee for unfavourable political set ups, while migration takes place for economic reasons. One is compulsive and the other is optional – the choice by which I am in the Middle East today. So, to believe that taking up migration, refugee and conflict on the same platter and seeking a solution is a wishful thinking and far from reality. We need to understand this from within and not as an outsider. A true academic approach would be to call a spade a spade. There is nothing good or nothing bad. It could be either correct or wrong. To be forthright is a good approach for me and I see no wrong here.

Development and Conflicts or Conflict Resolution Strategies and Peace-Building come one after another and need a cohesive measure to get addressed. But would I be putting it out of context if I ask you this – NEHU came into being in 1971 and from then on we have such research scholars working on various issues, including the social ones that make this place so unique, yet how many of them have actually found out the cause for insurgency in Meghalaya? What is HNLC, how does it function, which section of the Khasi society is more close to the outfit so on and so forth? Do we still have answers for those? Probably our intelligence would have a few answers; but these answers would be dumped simply because the seekers (academicians) believe that the collectors (intelligence people) are acting on behalf of a state and not people. I endorse this whole-heartedly. But, if we continue dumping them without doing anything ourselves – resolution of conflicts would remain a far-fetched dream.

I may sound cynical here; but what I understand about ‘research’, ‘study’ and ‘analysis’ is nothing but a kind of job that one is doing for the sake of survival. Unless we rise above and seek answers within, such attempts would always prove futile. I am among those argumentative Indians (nay an unsuccessful cynical?) that Prof Amartya Sen referred to and I stand to vindicate that.