NortheastIndia Can we keep thinking of Northeast India as a site of violence or of the exotic Other? NortheastIndia: A PlacerfRelations turns this narrative on its head, focusing on encounters and experiences between people and cultures, the human and the non-human world,allowing forbuilding of new relationships of friendship and amity.The twelve essaysin this volumeexplore the possibilityof a new search enabling a 'discovery' of the lived and the loved world of Northeast India fromwithin. The essays in the volume employa variety of perspectives and methodological approaches - literary, historical, anthropological, interpretative politics, and an analytical study of contemporary issues, engaging the people, cultures, and histories in the Northeast with a new outlook. In the study, theregion emerges as a place of new happenings in which there is the possibility of continuous expansionof the horizon of history and issues of currentrelevance facilitating newvoices and narratives that circulate and create bonding in the borderland of South, East and SoutheastAsia. The book willbe influentialin building scholarship on the lived experiences of the people of the Northeast, which, in turn, promises potentialities of connections, community, and peace in the region. Yasmin Saikiais Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies and Professor of History at Arizona State University. Amit R. Baishyais Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Oklahoma. Northeast India A Place of Relations Editedby Yasmin Saikia Amit R. Baishya 11�1 CAMBRIDGE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One LibertyPlaza, 20th Floor, New York,NY 10006, USA 477 WilliamstownRoad, Port Melbourne, vie 3207, Australia 4843/24, 2nd Floor, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, Delhi-110002, India 79 Anson Road,#06-04/06, Singapore 079906 Contents Cambridge UniversityPress is part of theUniversity of Cambridge. It furthersthe University's mission by disseminatingknowledge in the pursuit of education,learning and research at the highestinternational levels of excellence. www-.cambridge.org Information on this title:www.cambridge.org/9781107191297 vii List Fi res © Cambridge UniversityPress 2017 of gu viii List Boxes This publicationis in copyright.Subject to statutory exception of ix List Tables and to the provisions of relevant collectivelicensing agreements, of xi no reproductionof any part maytake place without the written Acknowledgments permission of Cambridge UniversityPr ess. 1 First published 2017 Introduction Printed in India Yasmin Saikia and Amit R. Baishya A cataloguerecord far this publication isava£/able from the BritishLib rary Definition Section I - ContemporaryPolitics andIssues of Libraryof Co ngressCatalogi,n g-in-Pub/icationData east' as a Racial Names: Saiki.a,Yasmin, editor. I Baishya,Amit R., editor. 1. Solidarity, Visibilityand Vulnerability: 'North Title:Northeast India : a place of relations edited by Yasmin Saikia,Amit 27 I in India R. Baishya. Category Other titles:Northeast India (Cambridge UniversityPress) DuncanMcDuie-Ra Description:Delhi, India : Cambridge UniversityPress, 2017. I Includes without a Take-Off? 45 bibliographicalreferences and index. 2. India and its Northeast: Another Big Push Identifiers:LCCN 20160482531 ISBN 9781107191297 (hardbaek) I ISBN SanjibBaruah 9781316641880 (paperback) in the Subjects: LCSH: India, Northeastem--Social conditions. f India, 3. (Un)natural Disasters and the Role of the State Northeastern--Ethnic relations. I India, Northeastern--Politics and ra Valley,Assam 68 government I BISAC: HISTORYI Asia/India &SouthAsia. Brahmaput Classification:LCC HN690.N6 N68 2017 I DDC 306.0954/1--dc23 LC reeord Mitul Baruah availableat https://lccnloc.gov/2016048253 ISBN 978-1-107-19129-7 Hardback SectionII - CreatingPresence ISBN 978-1-316-64188-0 Paperback 4. Bonnie Guest House: Fieldworkand Friendshipacross Borders 93 CambridgeUniversity Press has no responsibilityfor the persistence or accuracy Bengt G. Karlsson ofURLs for externalor third-partyinternet websites referredto in thispublication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, 5. The Muslims of Assam: Present/Absent History 111 accurateor appropriate. Yasmin Saikia of Floods: 6. lchthyonomics, or Fish and Humans in the Time 135 Rethinking Speciation in Assam vi Contents SectionIII - Knowing throughE xperience 7. Dismembered Lives: Narrating History's Footnotes in 161 Aulingar Jui Amit R. Baishya 8. Freedom and Frustrated Hopes: Assessing the Jadonang Movement, 1917-1932 181 List of Figures ArkotongLongkumer 9. Celebrating a New 'New Year' in Tripura: Space, Place and Identity Politics 201 R. K Debbarma 3.1 Map ofMajuli (Map by Joe Stoll, Syracuse University CartographyLab) 74 SectionIV- Rethinking Politics 3.2 Embankments in Majuli 78 10. DifficultLoves: Purityand Hardship 225 4.1 Author with BanlumBlah in Shillong2015, photo by DollyKikrm Andrzej Markiewicz 108 11. Politics of Differencein the Northeast: A Feminist Reflection 244 4.2 Bonnie Guest House in 2015, now expandedto a four-storey PaporiBora building with more than 30 rooms 109 12. Robes, Rivers and Ruptured Spaces: Hydropower Projects in 5.1 Map of Assam 113 West Arunachal Pradesh 262 6.1 A view of the devastation caused by flooding in Mayong. 142 Swargajyoti Gohain 6.2 Forestofficers and a crowd ofonlookers from BurhaMayong and neighbouringvill ages observing a rhinocerosseeking shelter from Glossary 277 143 About the Contributors 281 the floodingin Burha Mayong village in September 2012. Index 285 6.3, 6.4 Photos ofthe same pond inFigure 6.1 taken during the flooding season in 2013. 144 6.5 A sieve jal(also known as a tongija{) is often used forcatching fishin floodwater. 149 6.6 A bamboo gate (another 'sieve') meant to let water but not fish through. 151 9.1 First modern picture ofTripura, 1928 205 9.2 A Picture in Progress, 1931 206 12.1 Rough Guide Map ofTawang 264 12.2 With ChaksamBridge Poster 268 10 DifficultLoves Purityand Hardship � DollyKikon I know how to walk the walk I know how to talk the talk But when it comes to Anguish The language I cry in Gives me away - SentiToy, TheLanguage I Cry {2005} Introduction Often the relationship between citizens and the state is perceived through the lens of governance and regulation (Chatterjee, 2004; Gupta, 1995; Sivaramakrishnan and Agrawal, 1997). It was certainly myintent to see the · state in this way. I arrived in the foothill border of Assam and Nagaland to pursue an ethnographic study about state violence and resource conflicts. However,I realized that accounts fromthe foothillborder increasinglytook the formof narratives of a very specifictype. One of the most popular expressions in which foothill residents told theirstories was by invoking morom, a broad term for love and affection in N agamese, the lingua franca spoken in the foothills of Assam and N agaland. Do!!yKikon 226 DifficultLoves 227 Morom captures multiple emotions and relations, and is not limited to the father, mother and their son. Allthe other children had left. Some were romantic love or affection. It refers to relations of patronage between servant married and had settled in neighbouring villages,while others had left forthe and master; bonding between friends; attachment and care between parents city to pursue their studies and seek employment. I was given a room that had and children as well as the relationship between the state and the public, or belonged to one of the childrenwho had since left the house. It was the end lust, attraction and adoration between lovers. In addition, mercy, gratitude, of November and the nights were cold, so I added my shawl to the blanket sympathy, grace, compassion and charity are allencompassed as acts of morom. that was given to me to keep warm. I looked around the room and my gaze I met lovers and spouses who shared stories of abuse and violence, but layered lingered on a dressing table linedwith old albums, emptycream and powder their tortured lives in the language of sacrifice, and came across names of containers and small plastic decorative pieces. The dogs were howling on the places and landmarks identified as sites of love. street, as I lay in mybed tired but unable to fall asleep. What is distinct about the expressions of morom is the manner in which all 'Myheart will be empty without you.' A heart shaped plastic decoration kinds of attachments and affectionsare incorporated. Expressions forlust and hanging on the wall caught my attention. Along with plastic flowersand other physical attractions are categorized as 'bha!' or 'good/like,' which is also used items such as empty containers and photo frames, this slightly faded plastic to expressdesire for inanimate objects like clothes or sensory tastes pertaining stand stared at me.· I wondered who had been given this piece - which child? to movies and food. Sexual intercourse is expressed as 'bia kamlleterakam' or Was it at school? Was it a giftfrom a first love? And then I began to wonder: 'bad activity/dirty activity.' The same expressions are used to describe rape · howwouldit be to fall in lovein a place like this? This question partlystemmed and violation since there is no word for 'rape' or sexual abuse in N agamese. My from my frustration, exhaustion and the bitter cold, but it was more frommy point here is to emphasize how morom is not isomorphic with the English word experience of this town. 'Where is everyone?' I wondered one afternoon as I love but resonates with everydayarti culations and declarations of affections. entered the town. There were no signs of lifeon the streets, except forthe street In this chapter, I examine how everyday experiencesof residents in the violent dogs barking and chasing each other around. All the shops were shut down and unstable Assam-Nagaland foothillborder shapes what actions constitute and everyone was indoors. 'These are bad days,' my hosts whispered as they morom. Such an understanding will allow us to connect how politics of insttucted the driver to keep his eyes and ears open and to guard the jeep in territorialityand assertions for pure histories drives social groups to establish which we travelled to the town.