Fixation on Territory
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: November 26 2015 -

The Government of India’s necessity of physical inclusion seems to be driven by the idea of “protecting the frontiers” and this contrasts itself sharply with the absence of the Northeast from the popular imagination.

While political assertions for inclusion were made, the process has also brought in different conceptualization of territories.

The fixation on territory has further reinforced the process of creating “difference” within and outside, without realizing that the motion was set by those who shaped or constructed the destiny of the nation state.

Imagination of territories rooted in colonial India had been perpetuated as a legacy in mainstream Indian “nationalist” imagination with high-pitched sentiments in the post-colonial period.

The tradition has consolidated the idea and practice of “frontier” governance vis-à-vis the Northeast and also spawned territorial assertions within the region.

Here, it is crucial to understand the manner in which colonialism and imagination of territories intersect since both are imprinted with the knowledge required to exercise domination.

Colonial imagination has been manifested in introducing administrative cartography or lines like the Radcliffe Line and the MacMohan Line which demarcate the Northeast and also create international borders.

The very fact that these lines were allowed to act as the physical boundaries even after the British left India says a lot about the mindset of those in the business of running the affairs of the states.

Judicious political observers have noticed that a large tract of the Northeast region still remains the “frontier” and the idea of the Northeast is supposed to encompass the eight states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Sikkim.

A singular mindset has been responsible for the “exclusion” or the “absence” of the region in the standard histories of ancient, medieval and modern India in the post-colonial times.

Non cognizance of difference and non acceptance of the “imagination” of the existence of a different historical experience underscore the conflict inherent in the minds of the people.

The phenomenon of fixation on territories rather than the people have had its own share of discomfort despite efforts on integrating the region as a whole.

However, static notions as perceived by the external world have indeed made the region remain a hostile or alien space inhabited by communities often termed as “tribes” and “backwards” who need to be integrated to the mainstream.