Mainstreaming shame

We’ve all grown up hearing about the stratospheric ideals of ‘unity in diversity’ and ‘Incredible India’ but hardly few of us actually embrace it in its true spirit. We have been calling South Indians as Madrassis and North Easterners as Cheeni for a long while now. We consider ourselves as living in that imaginary cocoon wherein only North India is the heartland and the rest is a foreign land. This mental construct of ours is deplorable. On the contrary, on a dinner table, we are also deeply unsettled with the word that sounds like RACISM. We take it rather personally when an Australian beats up an Indian or when David Cameroon visits Amritsar and doesn’t apologize for the Jalianwala bagh massacre. What does one call that in plain English? Hypocrisy. We Indians are hypocrites.

Recently, the death of a young Arunachal guy named Nido Tania and rape of a Manipuri girl in the capital have spurred the double standard issues that we have. Why are the north easterners not given their due? Why are they treated like foreigners in their own country? Why are boorish comments on their hair style and dressing sense so common? The problem is much deeper than it seems on the surface. Right from the elementary level, the school curriculum doesn’t include much about the north east. It is only at the exam time when mothers make their kids mug up the capitals and dance forms of these seven states. Children are not given even the slightest of knowledge about anthropology which could make them cognizant of the fact that it is just the face of a mongoloid race which makes them that way but in spirit, they are still the same as any other Indian. There is also no interaction among the students of the north east and the rest of India that can possibly reduce the strangeness between them which could aggravate into aloofness in the future.

A lot has been said about ‘mainstreaming’ the north east so that they can be active participants in the growth process of India but what has actually been done? The students of the north east are driven by the lack of opportunities for higher education and jobs to the mainland of India where they have no option but to face the feeling of being an ‘outsider’. Delhi is in fact a mini India and thus rightly a melting pot. But what infuriates me is the fact that Delhiites are not receptive and welcoming enough to people from other states. There are some folks who are just six feet from the edge and they vent it out on other people who are already feeling like ‘outsiders’. Yes, the north easterners dress differently and they talk differently but aren’t we supposed to respect that? They own Delhi as much as we do.

Those seven sisters have a border with the foreign countries, some of whom are aggressive too. People there face competition from the infiltrators from Bangladesh and others just because the Indian government hasn’t been able to stop infiltration in all these decades since independence. Trafficking of drugs is a normal issue there. Connectivity still remains a humongous problem as these seven states are connected to the mainland only through the chicken corridor which if closed, would cut the northeast from India. If this was already not enough, the Kokrajhar incidents happen too. After all this, the question remains, have we after all, given the north east as much attention as we should have? Answer to this question also lies in the difference of reaction of the Indian government to the fast that Irom Sharmila is sitting on since 14 years to repeal the Armed Forces Special Protection Act(AFSPA) and Anna Hazare’s fast for anti corruption bill. I can bet if Irom Sharmila was doing this fast in Delhi, even the media would cover it well. What to talk of a fast if cognizance is not taken of the different time zone that our North Eastern region is in. There is a difference of about 2 hours between IST and the time standard that NE should have. This deprives them of the daylight hours which could be used productively and also distances them further from the happenings in the mainland of India. Just imagine about the prime time at 9 news which comes here at 9 pm in the night would actually come at 11pm in  Arunachal. Enough sensitivity has not been shown to their plights and we talk of ‘mainstreaming’ them. Such a sham!

And if it were not for Digboi, Naharkatia and the gas pipeline from the north east, can we think of our energy demands being fulfilled? Or can we think of India without the Brahmaputra or the Manas wildlife sanctuary? The point is that north east is way too important for us to ignore and its people are our brethren. I say, exemplary punishment must be given to the people who mistreat them and immediate actions should be taken. Simultaneously, the mindset of the people needs to be changed and the children should be made more sensitive about the diversity that India possesses. It's time that India  showcases how ‘incredible’ it actually is.