Creating borderland myths! By Aheli Moitra Myths are constructed with oft repeated imagery. This imagery is often fixed depending on who propagates it, creating myths that come to define who we are. Home Minister of Nagaland, G. Kaito Aye, while commenting on the border issue, declared that the Government of India (GoI) is to blame for the issues as it did not demarcate the border between Assam and Nagaland clearly “when Nagaland state was carved out” of Assam. Oh sure, but the minister may be assured that the GoI will not only not own up to this, it will not come to the rescue of the people spread across the border of Assam and Nagaland either. But when the minister, as well as many other reports from the region, suggests that the land issue at the border is a product of Nagaland being “carved out” of Assam, it contributes to obscure the problem. It suggests that the history of the Naga people and their Axom neighbours began with the construction of the States. Neither Axom, nor Naga history began in 1960. Nor did Naga history begin in 1929 when the memorandum was handed over to the Simon Commission. It did not even begin in the 1800s when the British started writing about the Nagas. Even if we know not of when it transformed from migration to settlement, Naga history started with the people of these hills interacting with the people they encountered on the land or its outskirts when they arrived. From a minor study of monoliths found in the Naga areas, archaeologists suggest that this history goes back beyond these dates. Land dispute existed, and was resolved, much before the Nagas were first written about. Land has entirely different connotation here. It is demarcated through the same principles that govern its ownership, more moral and religious, entwined with the community, than for personal use attached to a market value. The idea of the State is based on the latter. To wait for the State, that gives little importance to this connotation of land, to resolve the issue through its laws is rather dusty an idea when it must be done at the level of the people—land negotiations need the Axoms and the Nagas to be involved, not the State of Assam, Nagaland or India. For this, one needs to go beyond hankering about Nagaland being created from Assam. The Nagas have maintained that they are a unique polity and people, attempting to collate a system of governance that rethinks the narrow, getting narrower, idea of the State. The Naga hill districts existed as a part of Assam as a negation of the Naga right to self determination. Its history began with India’s recent history. Nagaland state itself was not given as a favour from India; if it exists at all, the national movement is to be credited for it—an ongoing exercise in establishing sovereignty. To suggest that peace or conflict in the recent borderlands of the North East is an off shoot of this recently restructured jigsaw is as blasphemous as suggesting that India was created by the British. Thus, when Kaito Aye suggests that Nagaland state stands for an out-of-court settlement, he is absolutely right in concluding that existing legal frameworks cannot resolve the issue, but is bereft of a premise on which the conclusion is arrived at. Instead of hacking at the root by propagating the imagery of people defined by States (by blaming the GoI, for instance), land disputes are better resolved by going to those roots and applying progressive people-to-people solutions. *For feedback and ideas, please write to moitramail@yahoo
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 06:47:59 +0000
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