| We start with the identification of language, caste and creed and then add little mental notes. For example, a Shukla's probably vegetarian, Butt may be a teetotaller, Banerjee likes fish and rice, Reddy enjoys chicken 69, D'Gama drinks Feni, Chakrapani's daughter learns Odissi, Atwal doesn't smoke and so on. |
| The profile is a cartoon cultural stereotype and quite liable to be wrong. Atwal's daughter might be learning Odissi and Banerjee might hate fish while Shukla might eat anything that moves. Yet, knowing the stereotypes prevents a faux pas. |
| A non-vegetarian Pandit, or an imbibing Muslim will rarely be offended if it's assumed they are respectively vegetarian or teetotal; the other way around, there could be a problem. |
| Try using familiarity with names as a thumb-rule test. The next time the subject of national integration comes up, run a quiz. Ask people to place a few names like, say, Laisram, Fancon, Longkumer, Barthakur, Brahma and Lalrualzhina. |
| Most times, the reaction will be blank. If there's a graduate from Delhi University around, he might triumphantly respond, "Chinks!" as one St Stephens-educated, IPS officer of my acquaintance did. The inbred racism of that "profile" typifies India's basic problem with the north-east. |
| Indeed, all those names hail from the north-east "" from communities as diverse in their languages, beliefs and practices as any other sets of Indian communities. Laisram is a vegetarian Vaishnav from Manipur. Fancon is from Meghalaya and likely to be a Christian from any of several denominations (property descends on matriarchal lines). Brahma is a Bodo. Longkumer is a Naga and he may be an animist though he's much more likely to be Christian. Barthakur is a meat-eating Assamese Brahmin. Lalrualzhina is from Mizoram and may belong to several different churches. |
| The instant we move into second-degree assumptions, we're dealing in stereotypes. Any given member of any of the above communities may have unusual personal preferences that don't fit the cartoon profile. |
| But Indians from the rest of the country don't even know enough to create the basic stereotypes. The best they can do is to categorise vast, diverse groups as "Chinks". And then they appear puzzled when the people concerned complain that they are excluded from the mainstream. |
| I am not an expert on the north-east but I do have some ties to the region. The Public Library at Sanjenthong, Imphal is where I first read William and Biggles, during a three-year stint in the early 1970s. |
| I've bummed around Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya as an adult and done one memorable drive up the Assam Trunk Road all the way from Kolkata to Margherita (where the cocktail was invented for the lady for whom the local tea estate is also named). |
| I've travelled enough to know that there is no single "expert" and there cannot be. The north-east is a huge melting pot, just like the rest of India. Each state has different problems, just as Gujarat's hassles are different from problems in Punjab and Kerala. |
| We all know about Punjab water-disputes but how many people could trace the origins of the border disputes between Nagaland and Assam? Or explain the infiltrations into Mizoram in terms of conditions in Myanmar and cross-border ties between locals? |
| The one thread that links residents of the Seven Sisters and Sikkim is the sense of alienation from mainstream India. Yes, there are separatist groups and there are human rights violations by security forces. There are huge ethnic tensions with complicated origins. There is widespread corruption and poverty, fuelling rage. |
| These things, unfortunately, exist elsewhere in India. The sense of alienation doesn't. Until the alienation goes, the other things cannot be dealt with. Maybe the LBS Academy could make a start by asking its students to place names pulled at random out of north-east phone directories? |
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