This paper, published by the Bangladesh e-Journal of Sociology, analyses how identity politics have served to marginalise and exclude different groups in North-East India. These exclusions often assume a binary form, with oppositions including majority-minority, ‘sons of the soil’-immigrants, locals-outsiders, tribal-non-tribal, hills-plains, inter-tribal and intra-tribal. Local people’s anxiety for autonomy and the preservation of their language and culture should be viewed as a prerequisite for distributive justice, rather than dysfunctional to a healthy civil society.
North-East India is a vital and strategically vulnerable border region, consisting of the following states: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. Linguistically and religiously diverse, the region is only connected with India by a 30-kilometer corridor and has historically been cordoned off by ‘the Inner Line’. An early British colonial policy of non-intervention was followed by the spread of Christianity and education, which led to ethno-nationalism, especially from the 1930s on. The Naga movement was a model for many of the others. In the decades following independence, over 100 groups emerged to fight for various programmes of regional or tribal autonomy.
Analysis of the roots of the discord in North-East India highlights the following points:
- Indian independence, partition, an influx of émigrés into the region and a fear of linguistic-cultural subjugation have led to a so-called ‘sense of narcissistic self-awareness’ among North-East minorities. Also implicated as contributory factors are economic negligence and the failures of various political institutions.
- Some of those protesting central rule from New Delhi have worked within a constitutional framework, while others have opted for an extra-constitutional or secessionist path.
- New evidence suggests that most militant groups in the region are now terrorist entities which no longer work towards their original objectives or follow their proclaimed ideologies. For example, Assam’s United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has gone back on its original anti-Bangladeshi position.
- Security forces continue to operate in the area, at both state and paramilitary levels, although there have been several successful peace initiatives.
- Given the poor governance experienced by the region, it should be unsurprising that locals feel alienation from an Indian mainstream which has neglected them.
The following recommendations stem from these findings about the complicated regional developments from the colonial period to the present day:
- The Department of the North-Eastern Region (DONER) and the North-Eastern Council should work to combat unemployment, underemployment and the overall economic backwardness of the region. The representatives of the people should ensure that this takes place.
- Numerous financial packages and grants have been directed at the North-East, including those from international agencies such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Such provisions in future should be regulated and designed so as to assuage ethnic misgivings.
- The process of making institutional adjustments to win over hostile ethnic groups and extending special safeguards to the region is bringing positive results. Government at the national and regional levels should see that they continue.
