New Narratives from the North-East: Domestic Politics and Regional Implications

In this edition of Sambandh Scholars Speak, Jahnavi Mukul interviews Sanjoy Hazarika, International Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, on his book, Strangers No More: New Narratives from India’s Northeast, published by Aleph in 2018.

Twenty-eight years ago, Hazarika’s critically acclaimed book on India’s North-East Region (NER), Strangers of the Mist, shed light on the factors behind conflict in the region. In Strangers No More, Hazarika takes on a historical perspective to go over the key developments in the region’s politics by exploring the overarching question of the NER’s difference with the rest of India. The book has an issue-based approach, rather than a chronological one, highlighting critical moments in the NER and the effect of national politics on the region. He covers a wide range of issues, such as insurgency, life in the border towns, and ideological differences across the region. Hazarika also connects the lived experiences of people in the NER with those of people living in neighbouring countries, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Myanmar.

The book focuses on engagement and acceptance of the NER within the idea of what India is. It argues for building and strengthening connections between the states of NER as well as with the rest of India.

Divided into nine chapters, Hazarika uses accounts of his travels across the NER and conversations with people from the region to bring out the micro effects of regional and national politics. His professional experience of being a go-between the government and various political groups in the NER, and his role in the Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee (appointed by the union government in 2004 to review the Armed Forces Special Powers Act) makes the book rich in its narrative account.

Strangers No More is an important work on charting the politics of the NER. It reinforces the need to maintain peace in the region, especially given its geopolitical importance in India’s ‘Act East’ policy. It provides crucial perspectives on the value of forging connections between communities within the region which is the critical foundation to development and peace in the NER.

Jahnavi Mukul: In your book, you mention that the North-East region (NER) has “longer borders with its neighbours than it has with [the rest of] India” (p. xvi). Nearly 96% of its borders are with other countries and only 4% is with the rest of India. Given this disparity, how do North-Eastern states perceive their domestic counterparts that are geographically more distant, in comparison to their immediate neighbours situated just across the border? Is there a deeper connect with the neighbouring countries than with India?

Sanjoy Hazarika: The north-east is not very well connected even within itself. The states are linked to each other but often do not have strong relations. In the region, relationships are defined more by communities than by states. Many communities are trans-state, and they live across state boundaries. This also happens across international borders. The relationship with the rest of India has become stronger and this is changing the approach of people in the region. This is because you no longer see the region just as a geographical-political block but in terms of people with real issues. So, although you have kin across borders in Myanmar as well as in Tibet, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, these relationships are not as strong as those spanning inter-state borders. Inter-state relations are stronger due to historical, sociological, and cultural reasons. The need for land and livelihoods is among the drivers of this process.  Kinship ties are strong in these matters, as is intermarriage, migration and settlement in borderlands where communities have a shared culture and outlook.

JM: In your book, you mention a shift whereby the NER has become a “migrant-producing region” from a “migrant-receiving area” (p.276). Has this new trend helped change the states’ hostile perception of ‘outsiders’ and if so, how can it be used to improve relations with neighbours such as Bangladesh, for example by promoting people-to-people connectivity?

After decades of advocacy, Delhi closed the last gap in rail connection between Tripura and Bangladesh so that goods can move to the Chittagong port [and so] for the first time since 1965, […] people and goods from the NER can reach the sea.

SH: In my conversations with people on this topic, I have always emphasised the importance of engagement. Migration leads to engagement with the host communities. In the past twenty to thirty years, more people from the region are connecting more with (the rest of) India because they are moving for economic reasons, livelihoods and education, or marriage and other relationships. This is extremely important. However, the engagement has not been fully embraced yet. New Delhi is trying to embrace the North-East but I think that the approach of people in the region and many communities is akin to engagement. It’s a daily engagement with the country’s different cultures, languages and even food. It is a process of negotiating constant hurdles and challenges: does the autowallah or the sabziwalla fleece you because of your looks, does the landlord charge you more because he thinks you can pay more?  Do the police take your complaints seriously or do they brush them aside? But apart from that, there’s the conundrum of migration politics.

What gets lost in the rhetoric is that the current government has been pursuing policies akin to its predecessor to improve connectivity especially with Bangladesh. After decades of advocacy, Delhi closed the last gap in rail connection between Tripura and Bangladesh so that goods can move to the Chittagong port. This means that for the first time since 1965, technically speaking, people and goods from the NER can reach the sea. And Bangladeshi goods and people on visas can come to North-east India, instead of slipping over informally. This is how better economic and cultural ties can be built through people to people exchanges of musicians and artists, members of parliament, scholars, lawyers and journalists, representatives of grassroots organizations, sports teams and business groups.

Bangladesh is the land for business opportunities, it has a bustling economy, and it has seen the fastest growth from low to middle-level economy countries. Bhutan is too small and Myanmar is always either in a crisis or shut to the world. There is a lot of rhetoric and politics over Bangladesh and Bangladeshis, especially in Assam and other parts of the region. Nonetheless, engagement is crucial to promote connectivity and change perceptions. There’s a simple fact: you can’t wish seemingly inconvenient neighbours away. You have to figure out how to engage with them and mutually profit from that engagement.

“[The region’s] engagement [with neighbouring countries] is crucial to promote connectivity and change perceptions.

JM: Given India’s renewed focus on its eastern neighbourhood through policies such as ‘Act East’ and the NER’s proximity to these neighbours, how has New Delhi’s perception of the region changed from the ‘Look East’ policy of the 1990s to the ‘Act East’ policy now, especially since your last book ‘Strangers of the Mist’ came out in 1994? Have such policies by the Union Government, which elevate the role of the NER in India’s foreign policy, translated to any substantial changes in dealing with the region beyond its mainland gaze?

SH: New Delhi’s perception may have changed but the NER’s perception of New Delhi is still fundamentally similar to what it was years ago. I think there’s a point to be made here, which is that perceptions are made by policies and changes to policies as well as what is applied on the ground.

There are changes on the ground, such as infrastructural changes but not all of it is benefitting the region. Decisions are often taken which are sought to be rammed down the throat. For instance, the concept of palm oil plantation. This would benefit only an elite population and lead to high damage to ecosystems. These are not very nuanced in their approach. Whether it is one party in power or another, some of the approaches are similar. For example, the concept of big is good. Big infrastructure, big dams. These do not take into account the voices of the people.

Unless you involve people [from the region] and include them in the process of growth, they will continue to look upon these developments as something that does not involve them.

I think that is where a lot of the problem continues to arise, develop, and stay. Unless you involve people [from the region] and include them in the process of growth, they will continue to look upon these developments as something that does not involve them. The one size fits all approach does not work. For example, even in the Himalayas, there is so much difference. Uttarakhand is so different to the Eastern Himalaya. The communities are different, the cultural and political context is different as is the social and economic context.

If you look at ‘Act East’ and ‘Look East,’ these are phrases and visions. How does one ‘Act East’ if their neighbour does not want them to come? Since February [2021], there is a virtual lockdown in Myanmar due to the coup. In that case, there is not a lot that can be done. Your success also depends on your neighbours.

Policies also depend on internal context and what drives growth and relationships internally. Take border clashes between states in the NER, for example: Assam and Mizoram. This sends a signal to anyone who wants to come in and invest in the region. The supply chains are global. The impact might be local but is also felt beyond it. When there is a lockdown in one place, it blocks the supply chains right down the line. Even after it becomes functional, you have still lost a number of days, if not lives.

[T]he ‘Act East’ policy needs to have the north-east states working with each other, within the region.

Therefore, I think the ‘Act East’ policy needs to have the north-east states working with each other, within the region. There have been several seminars and workshops which have been going on since the 1990s, and there is some implementation on the ground. However, you are stuck at the borders, certainly on the eastern front with Myanmar. In Bangladesh, the relationship is much better than in the past, but now Bangladesh has a reaction to what is happening over here. Ideas are not closed by borders. Ideas leap across borders. You can give it any name or any policy, but ultimately it comes down to how inclusive it is and how much is possible to strategize and move at any particular time.

JM: With a new focus on cross-border connectivity projects, investments and developmental projects are pouring into the Northeast and transforming its physical and socio-economic landscape. This also brings many challenges that accompany development, such as the loss of indigenous wildlife and environmental degradation. These concerns are shared by other developing countries in the region undergoing fast-paced development often difficult to sustain, including Bangladesh. In what ways can north-eastern state governments work with their counterparts in neighbouring countries to solve these common regional challenges?

SH: Environmental issues are a huge subject. Let us take the issue of river waters. There is something called the International River Waters Convention, which is not a binding treaty, but a convention. None of the countries of South Asia or even China are party to that convention. There is an element of sharing in river waters, especially in the NER. The Brahmaputra is the largest river, and it goes to three countries: Tibet in China, North-East in India, and Bangladesh. However, there are close to fifty rivers that flow into the Brahmaputra. These are big or medium-sized rivers. None of these are small. They cannot be classified as tributaries either. They are rivers on their own. For example, Teesta, Meghna, Lohit, and Dibang. This water flows to the sea and the only thing governments can seem to do with it, whether it is in India or Bangladesh and China, is to build dams.

Rivers need, like human beings, a certain equanimity, a certain basic survival level. If you construct dams on rivers, you will kill them. This is because a dam is just humans trying to control the river and by extension, nature. If China and India continue to build hundreds of dams, it affects lives downstream. Not just human life, but the life of all creatures living side-by-side. This is something we are unable to understand well. There are sudden surges and sudden bursts in the rivers. This will continue to get worse. Communities do not understand how the government is dealing with this. In their own way, they are trying to adapt to a very difficult situation.

It is certainly difficult to work on with Myanmar because they are not doing anything there. In Bangladesh, there is an opportunity to work together, particularly to enable better river flows. The construction of dams affects Bangladesh in the end. If India builds dams in Arunachal and the Chinese build dams in Tibet, it will impact Bangladesh, the last on the line before the water flows into the Bay of Bengal.

India and Bangladesh need to work together, particularly because we have good relations. We have constructed a polluting set of power stations, in Bangladesh in the Delta, which is impacting the mangrove forests and the tiger population there, apart from the human population. There is a need to walk the talk. These issues are far greater than just a dam here or generating energy security for one nation. It is about how countries live together by taking care of their part of the world, in more ways than just generating power and making sure that they are okay while the environment is damaged very deeply.

If you look at the North-East, it is a place where there is an exploitation of natural resources, human resources and an extraction of opportunities for growth that lie within the region.

JM: You played an important role as an intermediary between the Union Government and various local political groups in north-eastern states, for example, to facilitate peace talks between the former and National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) in Nagaland, and your work in the Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee. Given your experience, what are the stakes for New Delhi to help resolve the current conflict in Myanmar, particularly given its proximity to states in the NER? Are there any lessons it can draw from its past role in mediating conflict between domestic states in the NER?

SH: I do not think New Delhi can take a mediating role in Myanmar because the Burmese do not like interference in their internal matters. We have been connected to various insurgent groups for many years. They have been our listening posts for Burma and its domestic developments, as well as for China and Chinese interests in Burma.

India would much rather have a stable Burma which is not necessarily democratic. I think that is frankly how it is because stability in another country matters more than the types of freedoms we speak of.

Peace and stability do not necessarily mean the restoration of democracy. India dealt with the military government in Myanmar for many years before Aung San Suu Kyi came to power. It will continue to deal with another one, no matter how brutal it is. The important thing about the recent Myanmar exodus into the North-East is that it is from the border states of Myanmar into the region. Few from the interior regions will cross into India. It is primarily those communities that have kin on the other side, in terms of natural affinity and connections, shared heritage and geography, which will come.

The union government gave the direction that people should be turfed out of the region. However, the Chief Minister of Mizoram said these are our people and if we are a democracy, we must welcome them and take care of them on humanitarian grounds. More people have come in the past few months because there has been a surge of refugees. Mizos and people on the Manipuri border are being very generous in addressing these issues. They reacted to the union government’s edict not to allow Burmese refugees in by opening their homes, setting up camps and providing food, provisions and shelter, and raising funds locally for their succour and sustenance. In other words, they stepped in where the government failed to respond with humanity.

We saw the same story in Manipur. The Mizoram Chief Minister wrote to the Prime Minister that his government was not going to turn people in distress away and that India as a democracy should welcome them in a humanitarian gesture. The state stood up to New Delhi for the rights of nationals of a different country. That is an amazing act of moral statesmanship and leadership that bigger states, who are picking on poor and vulnerable groups and individuals, would do well to heed. Often the union government does not show the same generosity to people who are suffering such as the Rohingyas, over a million of whom have taken refuge in Bangladesh and only approximately 20,000 – a much smaller number – are registered with the UNHCR here.

People who live in the region or have a stake in it are interested in living peacefully and with goodwill towards each other in order to prosper. I think there has been so much ill-will caused by conflict in the state and communities or movements and suspicion between people. There is now scope for this goodwill and for efforts to reduce this prejudice which we see even in other areas. I think that needs to be the priority for all of us in terms of the region and its connection with the mainland.

About the author:

Sanjoy Hazarika, human rights activist, scholar, author, journalist and filmmaker, is currently International Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), New Delhi. He is the author of several books, including most recently, Strangers No More: New Narratives from the North East (2018), a successor to his acclaimed, Strangers of the Mist (1994). He is a columnist and commentator on rights issues, conflict, migration and development-related issues in the North East and its neighbourhood.

He is currently working on two new books, including a travelogue. Earlier, he was Founder- Director of the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research at Jamia Millia Islamia and has launched C-NES which pioneered the boat clinics on the Brahmaputra. Hazarika’s documentaries include river journeys, films on the endangered Gangetic Dolphin, and the impact of conflict on women in the region.