TOO MANY SMART OPERATORS HAVE CAPITALISED FROM A WHOLE RANGE OF ISSUES THAT HAVE BEEN DEFTLY CRAFTED INTO SEXy RESEARCH
CAPTIONS IN THE UNIVERSITIES OF THIS COUNTRY, OF EUROPE AND THE USA. NOW THE FATIGUE IS SHOWING, WRITES PATRICIA MUKHIM

The North-east is a perplexing region. Many of us here suffer from narcissism — we love ourselves too much! By now the region should have earned the dubious distinction of being the most analysed, the most researched and most written about in the country. A quick study by a group of retired bureaucrats around the late ’90s led to the creation of the Union ministry for development of the North-east, which today is a huge white elephant living in the corridors of power in Delhi that doesn’t make a perceptible difference to anyone&’s lives except that of the minister in charge of this monolith and some bureaucrats who believe they can wield power over the eight states by using their pens to pass files or reject them.
The North Eastern Council was unceremoniously ousted from its former position of influence. After Doner was created, funds galore have flowed into some sectors of the North-east, not necessarily in order of merit but depending on how well palms were greased in the ministry concerned. There was a minister who literally asked his henchmen to charge a 30 per cent tax on all schemes sanctioned. If this sounds vulgar, there are other worse-case scenarios.
Not a single day passes without some conference, workshop or debate happening around the theme of the North-east in New Delhi or even in international locales.
A group of Delhi-based intellectuals has become experts at packaging themselves as sole mediators of the region. Their hearts bleed profusely at the misery it faces and they are so articulate that international donor agencies are taken up by the idea of supporting their NGOs. This has become the reason for their continued weeping at the mention of North-east India. You read of so-called “national workshops on the North-east where representatives from all seven states are present”, but the facts speak otherwise. Those invited are people who are unlikely to present dissenting voices. So only a few hand-picked individuals from some states are invited. That the states should be dissected and discussed without anyone being there to defend or deny the wrong premises on which some of the studies have been based is, to my mind, an outrage.
Tomes have been written on the region by scholars spread across the world, India and the North-east itself, without these having any visible impact on life as it is. While some scholars like Beng Karlsson and Duncan Mcduie, amongst others, have done seminal work on the region and have given us an outsider&’s perspective of the ground realities, thereby helping us to understand ourselves better, others, mostly our domestic scholars, are guilty of seeing the region almost like a vulture looking upon its prey. It is a region that can be milked academically. And, sad to say, most people take their thesis at face value, despite the defective research methodologies.
I was shocked by a certain research presentation on Tripura at a recent conference in Delhi that sounded more like an episodic narrative of a journalist. There were no case studies presented, hence the extent of the problems faced by the tribals in Tripura was hardly documented, as it should have been done after robust research. The objective of most studies is to come up with a way forward — a sort of advocacy document for the state to take action upon. Otherwise, research in and by itself is a meaningless exercise and will only end up in some library somewhere.
Advocates and promoters of the North-east come in various shapes and forms. While some have done and continue to do commendable work in certain sectors of governance, in films, artwork, the food and beverage industry, etc, there are others who have perfected the art of short-term promotional work. Like event managers, these people have turned the very idea of the North-east into a blitzkrieg of sorts in the national capital. The so-called national media is invited to such extravaganza and a few North-east icons are thrown in for effect. And voila! You have an event where publicity-hungry chief ministers of the eight states are turned into poster boys!
I salute the chief minister of Tripura and a few others for not falling for such stunts! Normally, it is the tribal chief ministers who are lured by such publicity gimmicks. In any case, what is the use of promoting North-east India when many of the states are not even tourist-friendly? Would tourist-friendly states ask for an archaic instrument like the Inner Line Permit, a la Manipur and Meghalaya? The states of the region are yet to figure out what they want for themselves. They are insecure and afraid of their own shadows.
They see visitors as potential exploiters and are not sure who is a fellow Indian and who an illegal immigrant. All who don’t look like us are termed the “Dkhar” by Khasis, “Mayang” by Manipuris, “Vai” by Mizos and the general term “outsider” elsewhere in the region. Coexistence is not our strong point and even within the region we are divided by ethnicity and class. There is, as yet, no collective voice on the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. I have yet to see a woman from Nagaland standing in solidarity with a Meitei sister from Manipur to make common cause over this Act. Can the promoters of the North-east, therefore, romanticise the notion that the region is a cohesive, homogeneous unit, thinking together for a common cause?
Why do you think the North Eastern Council has failed and, after it, Doner? It&’s because there is no alignment in the thinking of the chief ministers of the region, leave alone the people.
It is, therefore, my contention that those who claim to promote the North-east are actually promoting themselves and their organisations. The whole business of promotion has itself become a source of bread and butter. Academics have learnt which side of the bread is buttered. For them, the resolution of conflict in this region would mean a loss of livelihoods through research into the much-maligned subjects of conflict and peace. For the security forces, peace is anathema for they would not be able to use their secret funds for private gains. It is to their advantage that conflict and violence continues and that the arms are recycled within the region.
For think tanks in Delhi and the region that have thrived on studies of conflict in the North-east and the vacuous notion of peace-building, the cessation of conflict might lead to the end of the thinking process because the tank itself might become empty. So who really has a stake in conflict or the end of it? Maybe we need to study and critique these NGOs and think tanks now and see what&’s in it for them in the abiding conflicts here.
It is high time that people of North-east India got out of the victimhood mould. Too many smart operators have capitalised from a whole range of issues that have been cleverly crafted into sexy research captions in the universities of this country, of Europe and the USA. Add to them the smart promoters who have also got on the gravy train. It is time to get real and take charge of things. We can only be victims for a while. Now the fatigue is showing. The game is up for charlatans!
THE WRITER IS EDITOR, THE SHILLONG TIMES, AND CAN BE
CONTACTED AT patricia17@rediffmail.com