RICHARD KAMEI: Listen Indian liberals, you know nothing about North East India!
NB: Richard is right to protest the ignorance of many Indian intellectuals as regards the North East. He is also right to protest the generalisations employed by xyz journalists. However, he should kindly reflect on the use of the term 'Indian liberals' - which is as much of a flimsy abstraction and stereotype as 'the Hindus' and 'the Muslims'. It's best to converse without indulging in blanket condemnation. That goes for all of us. DS
Citizenship Amendment
Bill (CAB) after it lapsed in Indian parliament early this year, BJP promised
to bring it back in its manifesto. As promised, the bill got reintroduced in
December 2019. The centre this time resorted to a tactic of favouring
sentiments of north-east states by extending Inner Line Permit (ILP) to Manipur
and Dimapur district of Nagaland, in addition to assuring exemption from CAB to
areas in North East covered under Sixth Schedule. This still leaves out major
parts of Assam and Tripura which are most likely to be affected by CAB. Despite
these assurances, all the northeast states continue to protest against CAB.
Northeast people are
the only groups who were protesting against CAB earlier this year, and they
continue to protest against CAB around this time again. On this regard, people
in mainland India look upto protests in northeast against CAB while they
register their dismays against CAB for not being secular. Echoing similar
sentiment, senior journalist
I responded to him by
agreeing with his views on northeast leaders who support CAB but pointed out to
him that showing empathy, and condemning racism are basic duties of every human
beings which should not be reduced to as a form of transactional duty. He
agreed to this, yet his tweet stays gaining huge traction from his followers. I am pointing out
these tweets for the kind of tone and caricatured understanding it implies
towards northeast. As for Sreenivasan Jain’s tweet, it is reflective of
Indian liberals outlook towards the people of northeast India. It is also
imperative to point out that their consistent inability to grasp the voices,
realities and histories of northeast people may also be because their media
houses do not have employees from northeast region.
The liberals tend to
view protective mechanism for northeast people as a favour being done to them.
The existing autonomous units (including Sixth Schedule) and ILP are very much
a feature of the Constitution to protect and preserve the interests, aspirations
and concerns of tribes/indigenous people of North east region. On that line,
the protests in northeast keep alive the secular and democratic ethos of pan
India (if that’s what they are searching for in northeast).
If these existing
provisions in northeast are still considered as exceptionalism in liberal
ecosystem, it might be worth their time to deliberate on Armed Forces
Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to clean up their liberal lens view of
northeast to help make up their minds on whether northeast people are still
treated as equal people. Liberals are aghast on
finding out that northeast don’t toe their Indian Liberal consensus. It is also
quite a frank admission by liberals that they have been lazy all these times to
wage protests and are using ‘northeast protests’ as a prop to passively advance
their protest credo.
The fear and
insecurity of northeast people is valid considering the history of
acculturation, demographic change and colonialism in the region. In the words
of Sreenivasan Jain, “universal inclusion of illegal migrants” is incongruent
to indigenous people and their lands across the world. The Maori of New
Zealand, indigenous people in Canada like Inuit, Metis and the rest, in South
America, USA, etc. consider ‘settler colonialism’ and ‘racism’ as curse
inflicted upon them from the past.
The Indian liberal
ec(h)osystem needs to deal with the kind of ‘racism’ it enables against the
tribes. Why is it so hard for Indian Liberals to understand that CAB is both
anti indigenous people, and anti secular? To label the protests in northeast as
a call for “everyone kicked out” and xenophobic is simplistic and historically
ignorant when there are ways to seek solutions without the need of
inconveniencing, traumatising, and harassing people who do not belong to
indigenous people.
