Volume 1, July, 2016
by Juri Baruah
Introduction:
In a cold morning of
January you are standing in front of the Morong ghar and listening to the story
of ‘Dalimi’. Dalimi fell in love with Godapani, an Ahom prince during his exile
in the Naga hill. Dalimi was also known as Watlong who accompanied Godapani at
the time when he returned to his kingdom. She fell sick during this journey and
died in the place which is known as Naganimora, present sub-division of Mon
district. The oral history of the villagers reflects that the people who came
with her did not go back to their original place. They stayed in the place
Cheng-phan; present day Sripur. Then they shifted to the bank of Hatigharia
Bill. Finally the Gosain of Moiramora Satra converted them to Neo-Vaisnavite
religion and settled them in this village. Yes, you are now in Ting Ya village
dominated by the Konyak Naga tribe. The village is also known as Naga Gaon
Model village which was established in 1775.
Fig.1: From the field...
When we used to talk about a geographical location, including
frontier or border, we refer to its location. So, the naming of a location also
depends on the space which we occupy for interpreting that location. That space
is a kind of relationship perceived as a centre from where such directional
viewing takes place. This directional view not only includes the geographical
positioning but also cultural and political attitudes. So, when we are talking
about North East India it is not only a geographical expression. It is a
frontier of a country with not so friendly neighbours along with its borders. As
the frontier is fragmented from the viewpoint of the political centre there is
always a force of coercion to find a different identity for the region like the
metaphoric representation of ‘Seven Sisters’. From this perspective the
questions like ‘are you an Assamese or an Indian?’; ‘are you a Naga or an
Assamese?’ confronts the ‘cosmetic federal regional order’[1].
Frontiers are creation and recreation of new spaces of political
power. In relation to the state, they are akin to layers of geographic
imagination as well as diplomatic arrangement. In this case local and regional
cultures are negotiating with both insiders-outsiders demarcation. There has
always been a tension between the fixed, durable and inflexible requirements of
national boundaries and the unstable, transient and flexible requirements of
people. If the principle fiction of the nation-state is ethnic, racial, linguistic
and cultural homogeneity, then borders always lie to this construct[2].
Nagaland as a historical and contemporary frontier is not simply lines
drawn on maps but is a geo-political source where one political authority ends
and another begins. Frontiers in this sense are institutions as well as
processes established by political decisions. They are also the spaces with
powerful images, symbols and traditions. In the city when we are discussing
about the constant border conflict held between Assam and Nagaland;
interpreting the situations only from the point of the centre without
confronting the construction of new political spaces; the significant question that
often arises: “is there any ‘place making strategy’[3]
that contested to the ‘mainstream’ social and political forces”. Feeling
Nagaland from the frontier space to national space, it is quite interesting
to note down some significant metaphors negotiating the b/order in terms of Ting Ya and Monai Ting Naga villages to better understand the context of
society and its counter balance to the state.
Hill and Plain debate:
Leo Rose writes with
reference to Bhutan, “British policy along with the whole of the Himalayas was
based upon the general principles that all independent hill principalities
should be deprived of whatever plain areas they controlled at the foot of the
hills”.[4]
As Sanjib Barua pointed that the British considered the foothills “the natural
boundary between India and the hill principalities, and that all plain areas
belonged by right to whoever ruled northern India”.
According to William van Schendal borderland is therefore more than
a political ‘earthquake’, the sudden product of the movement of ‘political
tectonic plates’ that ‘create fissures known as international borders’. Different
imagination of power and space are connected with the term ‘border’. Colonial
geography cleared how the metaphor of nation was formed and reformed
historically distinguishing the terms ‘hill’ and ‘plain’. In this case an Inner
Line treating the Naga areas as an excluded area also reflect the restriction
between the Nagas and the Assamese. The pre-colonial economic and social
connections with the local ideas of space, place, power and cultural difference
indeed form a discourse in context of colonial borderland.
But there is a series of historical evidence of the relationship
between the Nagas and the Assamese in terms of economic, social, cultural as
well as political dimensions. The oral history which portray Dalimi as a
symbolic representation of the historical evidence in Ting Ya village thus not
only direct towards creation of ‘socially produced space’; but also defines
‘spatiality’ in the form of ‘the meaning of geography’. No doubt it is related
to the epistemological approach of space introduced by Soja. He makes the point
that “space is never given. It is never an ‘empty box’ to be filled, never only
a stage or a mere background”. The projection of Dalimi as a third space i.e.
as a lived space through the spatiality of the village is a kind of
assimilation of the Naga and the Assamese culture.
Sanjib Barua interpreted the Nagas and the Assamese relationship
with the medium of the ‘Nagamese’. He admitted, “Perhaps the most powerful
reminder of the historical connection is the dialect called Nagamese that is
alive and well. He added a positive point here by introducing that the “Nagas
use it as a lingua franca among various Naga groups that speak different
languages as well as in their interaction with the people from the plains”. [5]
After understanding these ties, the British administrators used it for their
own benefits. As the British officer Alexander Mackenzie notes that the Nagas
“occupying the low hills to the south of the Seebasaugor district have been a
close connection with our local officers ever since the first annexation of
Assam”[6]
The new arrangement of b/order between the Nagas and the Assamese
starts from the course of the ‘pacification’ of certain Naga areas in the 1840s
with the introduction of Inner line, excluded areas etcetera. Introduction of
the new mapping of the area is nothing but highlighting the difference of
language, race or religion in a more modular way. The border spaces play the role of plurality
of ideas of space, nature and sovereignty with the character of space
making.
If we see the arrangement of India’s North East and the spaces of
Naga inhabited areas inside the other states through the nationalist
imagination; those spaces are representative of some hybrid nature based on
difference. Partha Chatterjee implied that “the most powerful as well as the
most creative results of the nationalist imagination in Asia and Africa are
posited not on an identity but rather on difference with the ‘modular’ forms of
the national society propagated by the modern West”. Indeed “with the evidence
on anti-colonial nationalism” he said “how can we ignore this without reducing
the experience of anti-colonial nationalism to a caricature of itself?”
Partha Chatterjee’s claim on anti-colonial nationalism based on
“sovereignty within colonial society” linked to political negotiations. When he
pointed towards the material and spiritual practices on the benchmark of social
institutions; it creates the identities of ‘within’ and ‘outside’. For instance
the Ting Ya village though they are converted to Vaisanavism or staying in
plain houses; their rituals are confined to the Morang Ghar; they speak in
their dialect and wear their traditional dress. The spiritual sphere interacts
with ‘cultural identity’ and is regarded as inner domain. The material
construction in this case is the dependence of the economy of Ahoms which was a
superior construction of the hill-plain relationship during that period.
Fig.2: Monai Ting Naga Gaon Baptist Church
Though the colonial state is not included in the ‘inner domain’ to
represent the national culture, but the spiritual sphere creates some space in
relation to colonial intervention. For instance, the Nagas in the Monai Ting
village following Christianity is the example of another spatial intervention.
They possess the cultural dynamics within the heterosexual spaces provided by
the colonial powers. The locality is negotiating between the Assamese, the tea
tribe and Naga community along the border of a tea estate. The names like
Stephen Dutta reflects how a Christian dominated Naga community through sharing
of similar spaces creates multiple identities.
Importance of Space(s)
Fig.3: Uses of Space(s)
Space consists of “socially constructed world that are
simultaneously material and representational”. It is the general idea people
have of where things should be in physical and cultural relations to each
other. From that point of view the interpretation of a space is the
conceptualisation of the imagined physical relationships which give meaning to
society. Following the material and the spatial dimension of space given by
Edward Soja, we can understand the imagination of the two Naga villages towards
Nagaland is on the basis of b/order. Meanwhile it carries the nature of
‘spatiality’. Soja is arguing that “spatiality is a substantiated and
recognizable social product”. The transformed and socially contested spatiality
of the two Naga villages in this sense socializes and acquire both physical and
psychological spaces of the locality.
The perceived space or the first space is here basically concrete
spatial forms. Though they can be empirically mapped, for example, the settlement
pattern; but at the same time they are socially produced, for instance the
religious activities performed in the two villages. So, these spaces are
relatively accurate but their descriptions are concrete.
On the other hand, the conceived or the second spaces holding by the
two villages are constructed on the basis of ‘cognitive’ or ‘imagined form’.
Language plays here an important role. Language in the form of symbols and
signs dominated the power and ideology of the particular localities. In their
imagination Nagaland is a different state but this difference is not because of
the sentiments; the hill-plain differentiation creates here interstate debate
which is political.
The lived space or Soja’s third space which consists of actual and
spatial practices connects the two villages to the immediate material
experience and realization. Lived space though overlays physical spaces of the
two localities but it also portrays the symbolic use of its objects. Indeed by
using the lived space including the experience with other communities, events
like performing bhona and inter caste
marriage as well as political choices like casting votes or favouring a
particular party the users directly perform an insider perspective role. Here,
the real and imagined spaces work simultaneously and the people are more
sensitive towards their lived spaces.
Conclusion
Wallman pointed the division of boundaries in terms of space initiated
in the structural or organisational form which is socially constructed. The
social boundary “marks the edge of a social system, the interface between that
system and one of those contiguous upon it”. On the other hand boundaries are
also for the members of these systems; how it marks the members off from non-members
as well as the role that they played on the basis of their identity. So,
borders can be characterised by an interface line between inside and outside
with the identity line between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
From the social matrix boundary, the identity of the two Naga
villages and their interface can be seen as a consequence of the various
possible relationships on both sides itself. The meaning of the boundary as
Cohen argued is ‘the meanings that they give to it’[7].
No doubt the border conflict spread the fear towards using space in
frontier areas. Nationalism as a kind of
imagination also makes these spaces as fragmented in nature. The state
basically epitomizes the belief in the homology between culture, identity,
territory and nation. The homology is here a structure of power. Boundary
making or breaking within and between states is a political exercise in the form
of support or oppose that structure. Power rests on the everyday social
practices in the form of concrete relation in between the governing and the governed.
From that perspective b/order is not only related to changing law but
performing space. These relations are not only social but in reality they
explicitly dominated the political. Third space is here a radical
interpretation created by the effect of a changing culture and spaces of
transition. This transition is hold by localities of the two villages over
time. With the socio cultural transformation the people of the villages holding
cross cultural characteristics. Locally they feel the indigenous nature of Naga
in the sphere of Assamese. This is a symbol of peace and harmony for both the
state. In the mean time it is also a strategy to visualize new spaces not only
from the discourse of nationalism but also from the ethnic ties that creates
the mosaic of culture beyond state-centrism.
References
- Agnew J. (1999). Regions on the mind does not equal regions of the mind. Progress in Human Geography, 23, 91-96
- Anderson B. (1983). Imagined Communities. London New York, Verso
- Anderson B. (1998) The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World , London, Verso
- Barua S. (2001). India against Itself. Oxford University Press
- Barua S. (2005). Durable Disorder. Oxford University Press
- Baud M, van Schendel W. (1997). “Towards a comparative history of borderlands. Journal of World History, 8, 211-242
- Behannan. P (1967). Introduction, in P. Behannan and F. Plogs (eds). Beyond the Frontier: Social Processes and Cultural Changes. New York. The Natural History Press.
- Brenner N. (1999). Beyond state-centrism? Space, territoriality, and geographical scale in globalisation studies. Theory and Society. 28, 39-78
- Chatterjee P. (1993). The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. New Jersey, Princeton University Press.
- Cohen. A P (1985). The Symbolic Construction of Community, London. Tavistock Publications.
- Gledhill. J (1994). Power and Its Disguises : Anthropological Perspecties on Politics, London. Pluto Press.
- van Schendal (1992). The Invention of the ‘Jummas’: State Formation and Ethnicity in South Eastern Bangladesh. Modern Asian Studies, 26 (1), 95-128
- van Schendal Willem. (2002). Geographies of Knowing, Geographies of Ignorance. Environment and Panning D: Society and Space, 20, 647-668
- Wallman. S (1978). The Boundaries of Race: Processes of Ethnicity in England. Man, 13(2), 200-17.
- [1] . Sanjib Barua, Durable Disorder, p. 37
- [2] . Horseman and Marshall, After the Nation-State
- [3] . Derived from Amy Muehlebach (2001)
- [4] . Sanjib Barua, India Against Itself, pp. 28
- [5] . Sanjib Barua, India Against Itself, p. 32
- [6] . Mackenzie 1979, p. 91
- [7] . Cohen. A P (1985). The Symbolic Construction of Community, London Taviastock Publications
Author's Bio- Note:
Juri at present, is a Research Scholar, at Tata Institute of
Social Sciences, Guwahati and she can be reached at juribaruah33@gmail.com for discussion and information.
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