NORTHEAST INDIA STUDY CIRCLE
June 18th – July 9th 2011
The annual India Study Circle is for scholars, students and activists concerned with understanding the current situation in the subcontinent. The India Study Circle in 2011 will be held in different locales throughout the Northeast region, 18th June to 9th July, with Gauhati (Assam) as a base.
As the Northeast of India represents one of the least-studied (and yet most highly contested) regions in the world, this event provides the opportunity to obtain first-hand experience of how scholarship and politics is developing, as well as to establish pro-people ties with scholar-activists that do not have/seek access to traditional metropolitan networks.
The study circle will run for 3 weeks, with each week dedicated to a different part of the Northeast. It is important to stress this is not an academic conference, and it will not be taking place exclusively in a university setting (or hotel resort – as appears customary for many contemporary scholarly events). For the most part,the study circle will involve living and studying alongside scholars-activists based in the region. Most days will involve a seminar presentation and discussion, as led by established experts in their field, and/or a research site visit. There will, however, be time for extended discussions, particularly of potential research, plus, of course, time for personal leisure.
Generic topics covered will include, but will not be limited to concrete understandings of: adivasis; patriarchy; caste; class; region formations; ecological processes; approaches to historical-geographical writing. It is the opinion of the organizers that the study circle will be of interest to all concerned for the
production of empirically-substantiated pro-people studies.
The study circle will be financed entirely through registration of South Asian and international participants. No state or NGO monies
are involved.
Information on the Region
Northeast India is a region traditionally constituted by seven contiguous states: Arunachal, Assam, Manipur, Mehalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. (Sikkim only recently being included in this popular reference.) Being asymmetrically linked to the other states and centre of the Indian Union, the Northeast is often considered as a highly singular space, encapsulating within itself many unique human geographical issues. However, though the different states of the Northeast share a common cartographic location within the subcontinent, with essentially similar political and economic positions in the Indian Union, the peoples that inhabit these states nevertheless have their own distinctive histories.
Geopolitically, the Northeast of India has long been an extremely important point of convergence between the populations of the subcontinent, Southeast Asia and China. During the colonial period, the region emerged as a territory that was integral to Great Power intrigue, being conceived variously as both a 'frontier' and as a 'gateway'. Comparably, and in the post-1947 period, the concrete historical complexities of the Northeast became tightly enmeshed within the Indian Union's nation and state-building efforts. Notably, whilst today the international border in this zone extends to over 1,000 kilometres – i.e. as shared with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Nepal and China – Northeast India is nevertheless linked to 'mainland' India by a strip of land a mere 22 kilometres in breadth.
In historical perspective, the Northeast region has borne witness to some very interesting genealogies of state formation: Pragjyotishpur, the Koch Kingdom, the Ahom Kingdom, Kangleipak and the Tripuri Kingdom all having wholly indigenous origins. The processes associated with their formation can be considered as protracted, but also distinctive temporally and in their trajectories from processes in other parts of the subcontinent. The Northeast is notable in the political history of South Asia especially as these societies also initiated indigenous forms of historical consciousness and history-writing. Thus, the Tai-Ahom's not only founded the Ahom Kingdom in the 13th Century, which lasted for six centuries, but also produced a indigenous form of historical narrative, in the form of Buranji. Similarly, the Meitei's, in founding the Kangleipak kingdom in 33 AD, also produced a distinctive form of historical narrative in the form of Cheitharo Kumbaba (the royal chronicle) and Ningthourel Lambuba (the king's
chronicle).
Unravelling the various narratives associated with the Northeast can be considered significant to understanding different state initiatives in the region, whether those of such importance as the Treaty of Yandabo (1826) or, more recently, the 'Look East' policy (1991). On the one hand, the apparent 'separateness' of this space from the present-day Indian Union tends to be reinforced by the majority population identifying primarily as being either of Mongoloid or Austro-Mongoloid ethnicity, in contradistinction to inhabitants of the Indo-Gangetic plains. On the other hand, the Northeast region, as for several centuries, has attracted waves of settlers. The result has been not only the creation of a distinctiveness vis-a-vis other parts of the subcontinent, but an internally (and administratively) very complex regional potpourri. Consequently, there exist many contested claims to the lands of the Northeast, and the different conceptualisations of its past and destiny. As such, the wider area represents a hotbed of regional and sub-national politics that are still very much 'live' issues today, and far from being resolved.
Economically, the Northeast represents a highly complex space, displaying many of the classic paradoxes of a colonial economy. Historically, shifting agriculture was – and in large tracts continues to be – a livelihood mainstay. However, the region, from the 19th Century onwards, witnessed the introduction of some of the most advanced forms of commercial agriculture. Plantations, especially of tea, became widespread, and introduced the phenomenon of indentured labour. This can be placed in a context where community-based collective labour was then – is still today – an important labour regime type. Whilst the region remains a 'low cash' economy, the plantations, together with a petroleum extraction industry, are highly capital-intensive sectors that link the region to metropolitan dynamics in a most direct way. These sites of 'modern industry' are visibly isolated from the traditional sectors of the economy, something that can be considered to have changed little even in the post-1947 period with (what might be termed) the attempt to economically integrate the region into the Indian Union by the process of artificially locating different stages of the production and marketing of regional products to other Indian states. (E.g. tea is produced and processed in Assam, though the main auction houses are headquartered in Kolkata; petroleum is extracted in Assam, though it is refined at Barauni, in Bihar.) This economic situation, notably, contributes to the (sub-)nationalism of the region.
Culturally, the Northeast is one of the most interesting zones in the entire subcontinent. It can be noted that many communities continue to practice (or of late are attempting to revive) primordial rites, with some being symbolically bound-up with (sub-)national ethnic assertions. Here, as amongst the most significant, are Sanah Mahi (of the Meitei people, Manipur), the Cult of Jadunang (the Rongmei Naga people, Manipur), Seng Khasi (the Khasi people, Meghalaya), Donoyi Polo (of different groups in Arunachal), and Me-dam Me-fee (of the Tai-Ahom people, Assam). Other communities follow religious and cultural practices that entered into the region in the early medieval and medieval periods, these being, chiefly, Tantrism (in Assam), Vaishnavism (in Assam) and Islam (in Assam and Manipur). Other cultural and ritual practices, that entered the region in the colonial period and afterwards, include Vaishnavism (in Manipur) and Christianity (across the region). Of significant interest, in this respect, is that these practices seldom exist hermeneutically-sealed from one another. On the contrary there are several cross-cultural currents in this space, both of collaboration (e.g. as mutual give and take) and of competition/conflict that have sustained a broad range of communal identities in the region.
Physically, the Northeast is an unstable region, characterised by processes of dramatic tectonic uplift and erosion. The geological underpinning of the area is a young-fold mountain range, with a topography sculpted by two major river systems, the Brahmaputra and the Barak. The perennial flow of river waters, a generous monsoon and a tropical climate means that a diverse flora and fauna is sustained in the region. The Northeast has many diverse kinds of forest (including wet alluvial grasslands, semi-evergreen forests, evergreen forests, deciduous forests and swamp forests), and several forest reserves and National Parks (e.g. Kaziranga, Manas, Pobi-tora, Orang and Keibul Lamjao). These are home to some of subcontinent's rarest species, including the hangul deer, the one-horned rhinoceros, tigers, elephants, as well as many avian species. Internationally, the Northeast is designated as a biodiversity hotspot. This natural wealth and diversity, nevertheless, has informed the latest phase of incursions in the region. Notably, bio-piracy of rare plant species, especially medicinal plants and orchids has become a major issue.
However, larger-scale developments, especially mineral-extraction and hydro-electric power schemes has attracted the interests of corporate houses both global and Indian; several hundred dams are currently planned for construction across the wider region. Such developments are introducing new dimensions into the (sub-)regional politics of the region, and interesting debates are emerging, whereby, for example, 'development' is pitted against 'ecology' and 'displacement' against the 'preservation' of livelihoods.
- Information for Prospective Participants -
To be considered for participation, please contact Simon Chilvers, Department of Geography, York University, Toronto, Canada (416 276 0570 / chilvers@yorku.ca) and provide some details of your work/studies and why you are interested in the study circle.
Those interested in the Northeast India Study Circle may wish to visit the Indian Formation Research Society's webpages, at
www.IndianFormationResearch.org/home. This website has some details on, and photographs of, the 2010 India Study Circle, held in Madhya Pradesh.