'Us' and 'Them': A standard measuring of who we are
- Part 1 -

Kh. Ibomcha *

Manipur on India Map

"If they are dictating food habits and a dress code, it is cultural imposition." -Kiren Rijiju, MP from Arunachal Pradesh.

The Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju's comment was a reaction to a booklet, nonsensically christened as "Security Tips for North East Students/Visitors", reportedly published by Delhi police (West) in July 2007. It was not merely a protest but a correct affirmation of our uniqueness as a group of people (we-group), completely different from Indian mainlanders not only in terms of racial attributes also in terms of cultural components.

Doubly loaded with racial hatred and discrimination, the booklet with contempt hollered at the people hailing from this part of the world (read WESEA as claimed by Nationalists) which has always been excluded from the minds of main land Indians when they imagine India as a nation-- dictating what we should eat and what shouldn't.

More than that, it also gave us a strict dress code to wear, so that we could look like more civilized when mingling with the people from the mainland India , profiling us (read north easterners) as a group of people not having any social or moral standards to behave in a way not unacceptable to other people.

It provoked the ire of northeasterners, not barely a day after the release of the book they raised the banner of protest calling the dictate "a cultural imposition"- another attempt indoctrinating Indic values. The protest questioned who Indians were dictating terms.

The booklet advised girls from the region to avoid wearing any "revealing dress" and had suggestions about cooking "smelly" food without creating "ruckus" in the neighborhood especially to the Delhites. If you look up and down the booklet you will find it instructing you not to eat "Ngari-Hawaichara."

This episode can also be viewed as a conflict of two different cultures. And, within the conflict, if we closely observe, we can see our identity popping out crystal clear. Not only a question of whether you can eat ngari (fermented fish) or not. Far from it, it is rather a question defined by power relations. In the relation lies a conflict of two forces: one being represented by mainland India and the other by the people of north east, who are literally outside the geo-body of India (imagined by mainlanders).

In the power relation, we evidently see Mainland culture making consistent efforts to take over the peripheral culture, while the peripheral culture fights back against the mainlander's cultural imposition trying to maintain their own distinctive identity- the self.

It is more than clear that, from the clashes between the two cultural groups throw up two distinctive mutually exclusive people: one is the one who loves Ngari (fermented fish) and the other is the one who hates Ngari.

It can be taken as one of the many ways to understand a group and can also be used as a parameter to define a nation in terms of differences. A sharp retort made by North easterners to the question "who are we ", protesting against the racial-profiling-like exercise of Delhi Police.

There might be lack of lucidity in outlining "who we are" or "what Kangleiness is" with a degree of precision; but we cannot fail in imagining the imageries of others, that is the image of the people who do not belong to us- the other people. From within this very perception of otherness would spontaneously come out the characterization of us (Kangleiness), i.e. a response to the specific question of "who we are".

Last year, as we had witnessed persistent furor in social networking sites predominantly on FaceBook and twitter on Bollywood actress Priyanaka Chopra's donning the role of Mamgte Chungneijiang Mary Kom in the film Mary KOM. The social media brouhaha centered on the debate why Chopra could play the Kanglei pugilist better than a Kanglei actress.

Pointing fingers to racial phenotype, the some opined that Priyanka playing the role of Mary Kom was like letting Gitanjali Thappa to play the character of Lata Mangesker in a biopic honouring the latter. Or it is like painting the portrait of Imoinu looking at the face Sushmita Sen.

Here, we should mark the misplaced socio-cultural representation of Kanglei life by mainstream Indian life that stands completely alien to Kanglei people.

We, the lay-men of Kangleipak, need to define Kangleiness in black and white even if identities are dynamic not constant. Nobody can represent us better than ourselves. The efforts to define ourselves by what we are not will not bring any useful results but only bring out the irreplaceable uniqueness of Kangleiness.

At one level, such understanding with its philosophical nuance can be equated to how Thongchai Winichakul, a Thai scholar defined Khwampethai or Thainess in his Book "Siam Mapped: A History of Geo-body of a Nation. In the book he writes, "If the domain of what is Thainess is hard to define clearly, the domain of what is not Thai-that is, un-Thai-is identified from time to time." This wasthe way of identification helping Thais to define the domain of Thainess from the outside.

Likewise, on the basis of negative identification of "who we are", we can define ourselves. This very identification, I believe, could be used as a parameter that may help us in characterizing Kangleiness.

To be continued...