Communal Violence and Assertion of Identity - Indian Social Institute

COMMUNAL VIOLENCE AND ASSERTION OF IDENTITY 21
North-East even in the post-1947 period, the expression of “Assamese
nation” was maintained alongside the idea of “Indian nation”. One
response to the popular resistance in these regions was the re-organization
of the North-East on a linguistic basis (Prabhakara, 2009:8), which
occurred after the war with China in 1962. In response to the Naga
insurgency and the demands for Naga self-rule, the Government in
1963 established the State of Nagaland. In 1966, the Mizos of the Mizo
Hills district of Assam rebelled, in response to which the district was
converted into a Union Territory in 1972 and subsequently into a fullfledged
State. The North-east Frontier Agency, created in 1954 out of
the North-East Frontier Tracts (one of the “excluded areas” of colonial
Assam), was given its own legislature in 1969, made a Union Territory
in 1972 and subsequently established as a separate State of Arunachal
Pradesh in 1987. Today there are seven separate states in the northeast
– Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura
and Meghalaya (Pandey, 2007:57). Bodoland is now still demanding a
separate Bodoland. These steps, instead of containing the separatist
demands in these regions, have instead led to regionalism taking on
more complicated forms, where the earlier call for Indian nationalism
has now transferred itself to ethno-nationalism (Prabhakara,2009:8) .
The reasons for such separatist demands are fuelled more out of a
crisis of identity – the fear and hatred of “the other”. Today, these
tribal communities still feel alienated from India due to several reasons,
the main ones being racial differences from the dominant communities
of India and distance in physical communication. Further, economic
inputs have led to growth of cities and economic opportunities have led
to migration to these cities from neighbouring areas, especially from
West Bengal, Bihar and even Bangladesh. Tribals see this numerical
input into “their State” as a threat to their territorial and political space
and they also feel economically and socially threatened. This has led to
increasing communal violence against whom they perceive as “outsiders”.
The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has emerged as the
political voice of these demands of the ethnic communities of Assam.
Today, these demands are being politicized by local leaders, who are
inciting fear and hatred of “the other” and also emphasizing a single
basis for identity-ethnicity.