On inclusion of NE in textbooks
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: September 20, 2013 -

The suggestion put forward by panellists and participants for inclusion of histories telling the role of the Northeast in India's freedom movement in the school curricula across the country during a panel discussion on 'Role of India's Northeast in India's freedom movement' organised by North East Media Forum, Delhi at the National Capital on Wednesday has taken us back to that time when the entire people in the region located beyond the 'chicken's neck' rose in unison to demand justice over the mysterious death of Richard Loitam in Bangalore, the murder of Ramchanphy Hongray or Reingamphi Awungshi in New Delhi, the suicide by Dana Sangma, and other such incidents from time to time.

After every such incident, there were endless round of discussion and questioning at various forums on how the Northeasters are being racially discriminated and seen as outsiders in their own country.

But all these discussions and questionings took a back seat after sometime when the dust seems to have been settled and the life goes on as if nothing really had ever taken place.

But the same dust is always raked up when similar incidents of death or discrimination took place again somewhere in other parts of the country.

Now, the question is, can the inclusion of the histories of Northeast's role in the freedom movement of India in the textbooks really help in waking the consciousness about the Northeast in the rest of India?

The freedom movement and the heroes who sacrificed their lives in the struggle against the British that most panellists have talked and quoted about most profusely during the panel discussion belonged to an era when India as a Nation was yet to be born at the stroke of midnight of 14 August, 1947.

So, how the inclusion of histories of the heroes of that era is going to help in bringing the region closer to the rest of the country, when most people in this same rest of the country still do not know that North East is a part of India, is confusing?

Forget about the common Indian men and women on the streets and homes, a survey conducted sometime earlier by North East India Image Managers (NElim) among the working professionals at Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore and not hailing from Northeastern part of the country, has revealed that 87 percent of them can't even name all the seven states of North East India (now eight with inclusion of Sikkim) and 52 percent of the respondents have a negative perception about this region as the 'most unsafe', 'most underdeveloped " or "people with weird food habit and alien culture".

Inclusion of lessons on Northeast India in the school syllabus across the country is a must today.

But it should not be based on a disconnected past which would be of no help in shedding light on the present problem.