Indigenous Movement of the Zeliangrong Nagas in the North

Nagas Identity and Nationalism: Indigenous Movement of the Zeliangrong Nagas in the 50 North East India Aphun Kamei Contents Introduction ...................................................................................... 908 Conclusion ....................................................................................... 922 References ....................................................................................... 922 Abstract Today, more than ever, the need for economic development and progress is felt much stronger by any group or community. This means that all groups or communities enter into direct or indirect competitions and conflicts at all times. As a result of this, each community is compelled to search for new technology and new cultural practices in order to acquire more wealth and prosperity. The widespread education and the process of modernization accelerates the economic growth and prosperity which ultimately connects every culture through circulat- ing global markets, and this process helps people to come closer and increasingly found interlinked with one another. However, in such process, we see either a community being merged with the “mainstream” losing its identity or in the course of time assimilating within that same community. Therefore, this chapter deals with a particular community in the quest for economic progress and search for sustaining its identity and in the process leading to identity crisis. Major factors such as migration, colonialism, religious conversion, Meitei expansionism or “Meiteization,” modernization, and globalization are identified for the causes of identity crisis which ultimately led to the emergence of distinct and indepen- dent ethnic identities such as the Zeme, Liangmai, Rongmei and Inpui from a generic identity known as the “Zeliangrong.” A. Kamei (*) Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 907 S. Ratuva (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2898-5_75 908 A. Kamei Keywords Ethnicity · Identity · Migration · Colonialism · Meiteization · Religious conversion · Modernization globalization Introduction Today, all human societies have become increasingly interlinked with one another through global markets and the spread of a universal consumer culture. The need of development, which probably every country faces, creates a search for modern technology. This makes possible the development of the backward societies and accumulation of material wealth, and more importantly this process results in an increasing homogenization of all human societies, regardless of their origin or cultural inheritances. This process dictates inescapable unification of education pattern and replacement of traditional institutions like tribe, clan, or family by new economic units, in some cases resulting in progressive modernization or westernization of many societies (Saraswati 1996, p. 83). But, in this process of modernization and global markets, it is unfortunate to witness some societies or tribal groups being merged with the mainstream or consequently, losing their cultural identity. Therefore, it is pertinent to know what identity is and how it is formed. Identity formation is a process through which people are made conscious of their distinct characteristics and group loyalty is established on that basis (Upreti 2001, p. 15). This formation is found in all societies, but the dominant cultural streams usually could not assimilate various smaller cultural groups within the majoritarian cultural streams. The smaller cultural groups fear their submergence in the larger culture. Hence, they try to assert on the basis of their distinct cultural identities. Such is the case in Pakistan, where Muhajirs have been struggling for their distinct cultural identity. Likewise in Sri Lanka, the clash of Sinhala and Tamil cultures has thrown the country in the vortex of serious ethnic conflict. In Bhutan too the problem of Nepali migrants emerged with the imposition of “cultural code” based on Drukpa culture on them. In Nepal, the hill people have been considering themselves as the repository of Nepal culture while Taraians as outsiders. This has brought the two communities, having distinct regional identities, into sharp conflict. The Nepalese ruling elite followed policy of “Nepalization” of the Tarai region: which is often seen as the cultural hegemony of the hill people over the immigrant Tarai people. The Mongolians are also resenting against the Hindu cultural domination. The Tribal communities in South Asia, on the other hand, have also asserted their distinct identities. It is strange that while these communities aspire for modernization and development at par with other regions of the country, they do not want to lose their distinct cultural identities. The Baluch and Pakhtoon movements in Pakistan; Naga, Khasi, Mizo, in India; movement of Chitagong hill tribals in Bangladesh; “Limbuvan,”“Kiratavan,” and “Magarantik” movements in Nepal; etc. are such tribal cultural assertions (Ibid., pp. 18–19). 50 Nagas Identity and Nationalism: Indigenous Movement of the... 909 Any scholarly attempt to understand identity cannot ignore the works of Erik H. Erikson. As Ernest Hess rightly pointed, “Erik Erikson has been the person most responsible for bringing the concept of ‘identity’ and ‘identity-crisis’ into the common parlance.” (Hess 1991, pp. 22–23). Erikson’s concern centers mostly on the psychological aspect of an individual identity formation, but he relates “per- sonal” identity closely with “cultural” identity recognizing the dynamic impact of the society on the individual’s identity formation. Identity formation, Erikson said, “deals with a process ‘located’ in the core of the individual and yet also in the core of his (or her) communal culture (Erikson 1968, p. 22). Though his psychological definition aims at an individual’s identity formation and development, his definition is helpful in comprehending the essential features of group identity as it provides us with a framework to devise the patterns and characters of group identity formation. Identity is, therefore, complex since it requires one to ask, initially, questions about the “self” and the “other.” It means covering a whole range of variables and definitions: the notions about the self-individual and collective and the cultural “other” in terms of whether one referring to economic, social, or cultural dimensions. These debates are very active in the contemporary societies where development and progress has taken deep roots. Unlike the concept of community, identity has not been a major preoccupation with mainstream western sociology. Among the classical theorists of sociology, it is perhaps in the writings of Mead and Cooley that one finds detailed references to the question of identity. However, they too approached identity in a socio psychological manner rather than a politico-sociological one. They talked about identity while trying to understand the formation of an individual self in a collectivity through the experience of meaningful interactions as part of the socialization process (see Cooley 1962; Mead 1934). The most crucial point that Mead and Cooley made in their discussions on the subject was the significance of “others” in the formation of an individual’s self-identity. Later sociologists emphasized that it was not sufficient for an individual or a collectivity to merely assert an identity. It also needed to be validated (or not) by those with whom one had dealings (Jenkins 1996, p. 210). Barth, in his classical work on ethnicity, insisted that sending a message about the distinctiveness of one’s identity was not enough. The message to be accepted by significant others before an identity could be said to have been “taken on.” Identities were therefore to be found and negotiated at the boundaries of the internal and external (Barth 1969, p. 23). It was only in the 1970s and 1980s, with the rise of “new” social movements, including those by women and the subordinate ethnicities, that the question of “identity” acquired a political status in the western societies and academia. While it was in the 1970s that the west experienced what Anthony D. Smith called the “ethnic revival” (Smith 1981, p. 11), it was in the 1980s that the questions of identity and ethnicity came to acquire the center stage in Indian politics (Jodhka 2001, p. 20). The two most significant political movements that brought this about were the “crises,” experienced almost simultaneously, in the northeastern of Assam and the northwestern state of Punjab. A separatist’s movement in the border of Kashmir and the rise of a pan-Indian Hindutva identity followed soon after. 910 A. Kamei Following Stuart Hall, one can identify two different ways of thinking about “identity.” The first position defines cultural identity in terms of one, shared culture, a sort of collective “one true self,” hiding inside the many other, more superficial or artificially imposed “selves,” which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common (Hall 1990, p. 223). It was within this framework that, until recently, the question of identity was thought of in many public and academic discourses on culture In reply to India. There is also a second and what Jodhka calls it “open-ended view of culture” that approaches community identities not in the primordialist or substantivist perspectives but

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