Notes from a 'mainland North-easterner'

The Eastern Gate

Author: Sudeep Chakravarti

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Pages: 399

Price: Rs 899

A review of a book such as Sudeep Chakravarti’s The Eastern Gate warrants the use of such disconcerting terms as “mainlander” and “North-easterner”, primarily to tell the difference between writers who, having been once ignored by cliquish north-eastern communities in the mainland, would prefer to, in turn, to ignore forever, and those who, having been ignored, would like to know why, proceed to familiarise, travel and learn and relate their stories. To be able to dedicate his book then to his Naga sisters and nieces, to have found family here in the north-east, is an achievement rarely found among self-proclaimed “north-east experts” who parachute in only to self-extract out of a designated war zone, or writers who have based their research on somewhat convenient, uni-directional, single-family “contacts”.

The north-east is a Surtsey — the volcanic island that rose off the coast of Iceland in the sixties — that continues to rise through a sea of ethnic and cultural clashes, based on a determined fight for the recognition of cultural identities. This churn is essentially a continuation of a strife that the mainland had once sparked by dividing India on the basis of language, which, here in India’s “Far East”, changes every few kilometres. By that measure (and should one be able to see beyond unabashedly biased terms such as “dialect”), Angami, a language of Nagaland, and not Assamese, would be on top of the list of languages that indicate the denomination on Indian legal tender. Adi, from Arunachal Pradesh, would top Angami, to cite just two of the scores of languages that this region speaks in its hills and plains. The projected “national language” of Hindi would rarely figure on that list in the north-eastern psyche. The struggle through generations to protect this identity is never-ending, complicated and has, more often than not, drawn blood.

Add to that this region’s history, geography, and a very genuine and bona fide fear of being swamped by prospectors from both outside the region, and neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh and Nepal, and it would provide an essential insight into the strife that has come to symbolise the north-east. It is this strife that has given rise to a variety of forces opposing the mainland, with confused writers employing a multitude of terms for people who comprise that opposition: Rebels, militants, undergrounds or UGs, insurgents, extremists, freedom fighters fighting an “occupation force”, terrorists…. These terms are adopted mostly to suit each writer’s convenience and depend on which side of the fence they sit or would like to be seen. 

Mr Chakarvarti, too, uses a number of these terms but with a difference: His is a narrative that analyses, the geo-politics and emotions that create the strife, the local economies, a historical timeline with a statement of the turning-points, discussing the hows and whys and the reality of the conflict, and the possibilities of conflict resolution — as opposed to “conflict management”, which like a good drought is often a lucrative industry.

Unlike chroniclers whose books will line the shelves of many a policymaker in Delhi, Mr Chakravarti is a rare reporter-chronicler, a skill that is essential to such an undertaking. Having been a hands-on reporter and editor, his story is, thus, well-told and well backgrounded, covering most facets of the crisis in this region and explaining why it continues to fester.

Replete with anecdotes, The Eastern Gate provides an all-encompassing view of the troubles of the north-east: The legislative measures adopted by government after government, the accords such as those with the Nagas that have been laid to waste on the wayside, the merciless military retaliation under provisions such as the Armed Forces (Special) Powers Act, or AFSPA, of 1958, the hoodwinking, the buying of time by either side in an endless conflict, the casualties and the “collateral damage”. More significantly, The Eastern Gate provides a study of the issues within, often from a “national” perspective, successfully pulling a string of continuity through developments elsewhere— whether it is updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC), an issue that has its roots in Assam but gained momentum countrywide in the same way that the agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) began in Assam before it spread to the rest of India. Mr Chakravarti’s study of the region and its peoples, and his growing familiarity with native tongues and those who speak them put in perspective the massacres that have occurred in the north-east, beyond the “communal, xenophobic, tribal” argument that has been used by many who pontificate on a region about which they know little. This book successfully establishes the fact that the problems that plague the “north-east” aren’t issues that can be seen in isolation, issue-wise, state-wise, or region-wise.

Whether it is the gun-running in the region, or the flow of drugs, Mr Chakravarti’s reportage and his analysis of the situation is crisp and successfully takes the reader across the difficult terrain of the north-east, an ancient land that is home to fiercely independent-minded communities across its mountain tracks, rivers, highways and international borders. The Eastern Gate is a report well done, and equally well told.