Unheeded Hinterland

Identity and sovereignty in Northeast India

Dilip Gogoi

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138667549
• eBook ISBN: 9781317329206
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

This book presents a comprehensive account of the debates on sovereignty, self-determination and nationalist upsurges in India's Northeast, especially Assam. At a deeper level, it analyses how multi-ethnic societies engage with the nation state. Based on the framework of international relations and geo-politics, the volume locates internal tensions and contradictions among different ethnic groups, alongside the complex interrelationships between the centre and the region. It also proposes a new structure of 'Common Ethnic House' to resolve persistent inter-ethnic tensions among different communities and the impasse between the Northeast and the centre.

This book will interest scholars and researchers of politics and international relations, sociology and social anthropology, area studies, peace and conflict studies, especially those concerned with South Asia and Northeast India.

Part I

Locating the problem

1 Sovereignty and national identity

The troubled trajectory in Northeast India

Dilip Gogoi

The post-colonial Northeast India represents a land of claimed multiple sovereignties. With fractured histories, multiplicity of ethnicities and peculiar geographical location, the region has been grappling with multiple political crises – from ethno-nationalism to the demand for territorial sovereign homeland. The protracted history of exploitation, denial of rights of self-determination and systemic discrimination against the ethnic communities living in the region by both the British India and the postcolonial state, coupled with a primordial ethnic consciousness, have encouraged separatist sentiments and movements, leading to variety of violent radical liberation movements headed by groups like National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) for independent ‘Nagalim’, United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) for ‘sovereign Assam’, National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) for ‘independent Bodoland’ and others in India’s Northeast.¹ This development exposes that there is a disengagement between the Indian nation-state and ethnic people living in the peripheral borderlands. This dichotomy has brought severe disenchantment among the people of periphery, thereby subsequently giving birth to several independent armed groups as well as popular protest movements directed against the Centre. The radical groups are extremely uncomfortable with the idea of India as the nation-state and are constantly resisting the Indian civic nationalism² by espousing ethnic nationalism.³ In fact they believe that India is a multinational state and every nationality has the right to decide their own destiny through exercising the principle of self-determination. This contradiction between Indian civic nationalism (political nationalism) and ethnic nationalism remains perennially unresolved in the region with ample scope for the rise of sovereignty-based ethno-nationalists’ armed movements. Notably, the sovereignty-based armed movements across the world witness some disturbing trends: the past evidence suggests that conflicts are exceedingly difficult to resolve, second, these types of conflict frequently give rise to terrorism; third, they often involve massive human rights violations and finally, the existing international legal norms and principles are often practically less relevant for resolving these conflicts (Williams and Pecci 2004:1–3). These trends are equally reflected in the ethno-political crises afflicting the present Northeast India.

Unheeded Hinterland tries to reflect on the interconnectivity of national identity and sovereignty with a historical perspective and its subsequent implications for modern nation-state, especially in the context of post-colonial states to understand the present problem of sovereign ethnic homeland question, particularly in the backdrop of the ULFA’s radical armed movement for ‘sovereign Assam’.

Sovereignty and national identity

Sovereignty – the supreme authority within a territory – which is a common notion of political authority in modern times has been inherited from the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 which concluded among the European powers to end the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48). Under the Westphalian system, an ultimate authority was established within the territorial limits of the state and sovereign authority was exercised by an absolute monarch with divine rights to rule its subjects rather than political community within the state. In Westphalian sense, the citizenship fundamentally consisted of subjecthood, defined by the territory of the state. Under the divine rule, the monarch was empowered to exercise its authority within the territory by confirming his religion as the religion of the state. Thus, Westphalian peace treaty had brought substantial changes in the political system and provided the ground for emergence of the territorial states in Europe. In fact the national identity had no space to express its collective will and was subservient to the state and to the monarch who ruled on the basis of divine rights. However, the rise of nationalism in the West along with the American and French Revolutions in late eighteenth century had galvanised the national consciousness which subsequently redefined the relationship between nationalism and the absolutist state⁴ drastically. It also signified the end of the feudal absolutist state and rise of modern European nation-state through the articulation and exercise of popular sovereignty⁵ by the respective national groups. Consequently, the authority of the state radically shifted from the single absolutist monarch to the collective will of the people. Earlier the sovereignty of the state was inherently linked with the monarch with the territory being under his control. Under the absolute state system, people within the territory were treated as subjects, subservient to the monarch. With the emergence of the nation-state, people and territory were increasingly linked with the nation in Europe. Hobsbawm, who defines nationalism as ‘invention of tradition’, observes, ‘Each people is independent and sovereign, whatever the number of individuals who compose it and the extent of the territory it occupies. This sovereignty is inalienable’, and ‘the equation nation-state-people, and especially sovereign people, undoubtedly linked nation to territory, since the structure and definition of states were now essentially territorial’ (Hobsbawm 1990:19). Thus, nationalism binds the people, territory and sovereignty of state together by national identity within the framework of nation-state. Therefore, the creation of national identity was vital to realise popular sovereignty, belonging to all and exercised by the citizens within the collectivity. As popular democracy became the ultimate form of governance, national identity through the idea of nation assumed more significant role in European nation-state system in collectivising sovereign will and upholding the rights of the national people. As a result, feudal Europe was disintegrated completely and replaced by modern nation-states with ‘national’ idioms and symbols such as national flag, national army, national borders, national currency etc. The national identity and nationalism gave a degree of permanence to the European nation-state system. However, this experiment did not succeed outside Europe especially in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century colonial world, although European colonial powers introduced an expanded definition of ‘national identity’ to include their colonies through the imperialist agenda by maintaining loyalty and allegiance from the occupied colonies. On the other hand, colonies had also developed a sense of unified identity despite the deep-rooted racial, linguistic, cultural, religious, ethnic differences to stage a freedom struggle under the common nationalist leadership against the rule of colonial powers. The unified identity assumed significance as national identity in course of the independence struggle as the nationalist leaders successfully established a link between the territory and sovereign right of the oppressed people through the ‘imagined’ (Anderson 1983) or ‘invented’ (Gellner 1983) nation. In fact, the very concept of nation-state, which primarily originated from the Europe, came to occupy the imagination of the colonial world in the form of ‘derivative discourse’ (Chatterjee 1986). Partha Chatterjee in his Nation and Its Fragments further observes two aspects of nationalism which shaped nationalist discourse, i.e. material (which replicates the statecraft, economy and technology of the West) and spiritual (which espouses the inner sphere as bearer of cultural identity) in the context of anti-colonial nationalism with reference to Asia and Africa. This was a significant development in the world of sovereign nation-state system in the non-Western world. But the problem remains once the post-colonial nation-states increasingly decided to pursue the nation-building process through constructing single national identity with majoritarian principle with the over-centralisation of the bureaucracy and monopolisation of the national resources. This affected the rights of the minorities of ethnic and other cultural groups causing widespread dissatisfactions among the intelligentsia of victim nationalities with an upsurge of a host of sovereignty-based self-determination movements in the line of renewed national identities across the post-colonial world. Thus, the practice of the European nation-state system, which was highly successful in relatively homogenous societies, has been challenged by most of the post-colonial heterogeneous societies, questioning its relevance and sustainability in the non-Western world. The armed insurrections for sovereign homeland in Northeast India, especially in the present-day Assam, could be seen through this inimitable prism of thought and realism.

The unheeded hinterland and the essays

The Unheeded Hinterland is an attempt to explore many hidden issues grappling Northeast India with the prime focus on the present state of Assam and the Assamese nationality since its assertion as a distinct national identity. The book attempts to analyse the complexities engulfing the Assamese nationality from a theoretical and an empirical perspective. The ULFA’s endeavour to establish a sovereign Assam, or Swadhin Asom, has not only led it to wage war against the Indian nation-state but also brought to the fore the question of sovereignty as an issue being projected as a binary concept: either one is for sovereignty or against it. However, apart from a few stray, isolated attempts, the question of sovereignty and self-determination – as envisaged by the ULFA – has not been elevated to the status of an academic debate.⁶ To that end, questions arise such as: How has Assamese national identity and nationalism originated? Why does it contest with Indian nationalism? Has the idea of Swadhin Asom emerged out of such contestation? What is the basis of such claim and implications for a multi-ethnic state like Assam? Is such claim legitimate as per the principle of self-determination and also relevant in the changing context of sovereignty? How are public discourses on sovereignty formed? What are the geo-political realities of such claims? What are the implications and possible conflict resolution of such demands, especially in the context of a nation-state such as India?

However, the interest to bring together a group of scholars to examine the issues of national identity, self-determination and question of sovereignty in Northeast India with a special focus on Assam arose in my mind for a variety of reasons, some of which emerged as a result of my personal observations, some as a result of a continual academic interaction with the realisation that the hinterland in which we live and work is an unheeded constituency. But, has the Indian nation-state heeded the cry of her hinterland? This question is subjected to the deeper scrutiny. The volume argues that challenges to the Indian nation-state from Assam and the Northeast primarily came out of the continuation of the same colonial legacies, a form of ‘colonial constitutionalism’ (Baruah 2010) maintained by the Centre. The question of sovereignty and the upsurge of nationalist movement which has characterised the situation in Assam are a direct result of exploitation and domination of colonial in form and nature. Unless properly addressed, under such circumstances, identity politics and multiple nationalisms are more likely to be manifested in the region with proliferation of newer challenges. As ethnic identity is a collective cultural identity, it has the potential to take the shape of political nationalism. As Plamenatz argues, nationalism is primarily a cultural phenomenon, which often takes a political form (Plamenatz 1976). In this context, it has to be reckoned how ethnic identity transforms into a violent nationalist upsurge in Assam. These crucial and contentious questions are analysed to understand the ongoing complexities of Assam. It is pertinent to note that historically Assamese nationalism, which is primarily an ethnic nationalism, bonded by common language and common inheritance, predates to the Indian civic nationalism (formed after the formation of independent India as territorial political community). However, the Assamese nationalism has never been evoked so strongly during the time of India’s Independence as it happened in the 1980s. It cannot be denied that the armed organisations like the ULFA in Assam and others in the rest of the north-eastern states have been able to highlight the fault lines of Indian nation-state in ways more than one.

The Unheeded Hinterland focuses on the emerging state–society conflict dynamics primarily concerning Assam in the north-eastern region of India with a conceptual view point on the issue of nationality and sovereignty that grapples the region over the decades in the introductory part of the volume. In the second part of the book, Situating the Debate: Interface of Sovereignty and Self-determination, Åshild Kolås explains the changing contours of sovereignty and contemporary practices from the perspective of theoretical traditions. She argues that the sovereign state is increasingly being challenged by the non-state actors vying for secession, autonomy or self-government. At the same time, the notion of sovereignty has been undergoing a major transformation at the aegis of globalisation. Drawing inference from case studies in other parts of the world, she argues, the old notion of sovereign state and practice of sovereignty is slowly getting disengaged and this development is equally reflective in the context of the sovereignty debate in Northeast India as the claimants and stakeholders have begun to look for alternatives to secession, including frameworks for non-territorial forms of self-rule. Reflecting the changing circumstances, Rubul Patgiri examines the contradictions and contestations revolving around the application of the principle of self-determination in a multi-ethnic state. He highlights the contradiction that while there has been increasing demands for territorial form of sovereign rights and self-determination by social groups within state, on the other hand there has been equally strong resistance on the part of states and international community for such demands. Considering the changing realities and practices, the author tries to assess the legality and justifiability of self-determination claim for the people of Assam. He further observes that notwithstanding the various objections against the self-determination movement for Assam, any genuine attempt to resolve the current problem must address the outstanding grievances of people of Assam. Pushing the debate further, Uddipan Dutta elaborates on how public discourses play a very important role in shaping the nationalist upsurge in vernacular narratives. Earlier, the idea of independent India was crystallised with similar discourses with pan-Indian nationalism as the narrative of popular national consciousness. Serious challenges, however, came to this pan-Indian nationalist discourse in a form of armed insurrections from the Nagas, the Manipuris, the Mizos, the Sikhs, Kashmiris and of late a segment of the Assamese with an ideological mooring for a ‘sovereign Assam’. Even though there are rich bodies of writings on the issue, the author has chosen three published texts in Assamese to represent the three distinct discourses on the issue of ‘sovereign Assam’. The legitimacy of the issue of the sovereignty raised by ULFA is central to the radical nationalist discourse advocated by Parag Kumar Das through his writing Swadhinatar Prastab. Kanaksen Deka represents the constitutional status-quoist discourse, legitimises the rule of the Indian state and invalidates the claim of a sovereign Assam through his writing ULFAr Swadhin Asom. The discourse of radical federalist, initiated by Devabrata Sharma through his writing Sarbabhoumo Asom Aru Anyanya Prasanga: Raktakta Der Dashakar Dalil, questions the legitimacy of the Indian state as well as the claim of ULFA with a possible answer in the federal restructuring of India; however, the idea of a ‘sovereign Assam’ has not been discarded altogether. These viewpoints have quite often been debated in the public space of Assam, both oral and written, for resolving the nationality problem in Assam. Interrogating the basis of ULFA’s claims for sovereign Assam, Shubhrajeet Konwer raises territorial dissonance of the ULFA’s sovereign Assam and invalidates the idea as it is not feasible in a multi-ethnic Northeast India in the light of overlapping territorial claims and counterclaims by leading contending groups such as NSCN and NDFB in the region. He also emphasises the role of the extra-regional forces in destabilising the region which can further complicate the fragile peace process in the state.

Part three of the book explains the complexities arising out of immigration and its subsequent impact on identity consciousness and nationalist upsurge among the indigenous people of Assam under Migration, Contested Citizenship and the Assamese Identity. It questions the ambivalent role of the Indian state which is often held responsible for the crisis of Assamese nationality. The part comprising two chapters highlights the fallout of immigration in specific ways. Chandan Kumar Sharma traces the root causes of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Part I Locating the problem
• Part II Situating the debate: interface of sovereignty and self-determination
• Part III Migration, contested citizenship and the identity
• Part IV National consciousness: the role of students and literary bodies
• Part V Civil society, Indian state and conflict resolution
• Glossary
• Index