Northeast India

Book Review

Title: Northeast India: A Political History

Author: Samrat Choudhury

Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2023

Pages: 385

The Northeast of India is a world in itself. 160-odd different tribes live in the eight states of the region. 200 to 400 different languages are spoken in that world alone with none of them having any relation to Hindi, the putatively common language of India. Most of those languages belong to the Tibetan-Burman family. Assamese is the only language belonging to the Indo-Aryan family. The Khasis of Meghalaya are still more unique with their Austro-Asiatic language.

Many of the tribes in those hills were quite savage until about a century ago. The Nagas, who are composed of many distinct tribes with as many as 30 different languages or dialects, were the most savage perhaps. They were head-hunters and very proud of being that too. Mary Mead Clark, wife of the missionary E W Clark, wrote in her 1907 book, A Corner of India, about her encounter with a group of Naga men whom she asked, “We hear that you take up heads there.” The man answered instantly, “On yes, we do,” and then he seized a boy by the head and gave Mary “in a quite harmless way an object-lesson of how they did it.”

The Meads and other missionaries brought civilisation to those hills where no one from the Indo-Gangetic plains would dare to tread.

The Lushai tribe of Mizoram was deadlier perhaps. In 1890, the British Captain Browne and his entire team were just tied to a tree by these tribesmen and “chopped to pieces with a hatchet.” [quoted from On Every Hill by Rev J Meirion Lloyd, 1952]

The British missionaries took great risk in going to those hills armed with the Bible, education, and medicines. As a result, the Northeast became largely Christian and also civilised.

A rather hilarious paradox is that the region is governed mostly by the right-wing Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party today. There is nothing very surprising about it, however, if you know the people of the region. Money can buy their votes without much trouble. Christianity didn’t seem to have given them much by way of ethical convictions, at least in political affairs.

A Khasi household in a Meghalaya village - photo I took in c 1990

If you wish to get to know these very interesting people more with clear insights into their history, Samrat Choudhury’s book is an ideal choice. It has one chapter each on every state of the region. Choudhury has gathered as much historical information as he possibly could. In fact, the region was inaccessible and the people were hostile until quite recently and hence it is hard to get any reliable history that goes beyond the 18^th century.

As the subtitle declares, the book is a political history. Hence, the drawback is that it doesn’t give us any peep into the infinitely interesting cultures of the region. The people are extremely talented in music and other arts. The book doesn’t look into those areas at all. The author does mention an amusing incident when the Lushai men stopped firing shots at the British troops when the latter sang songs.

As a political history, the book is an excellent guide for anyone who wants to understand the region clearly. As the author says in the Preface, “The diversity of the region makes it night impossible for a single volume or author to chronicle the entire past of every community in detail.” He is absolutely right. He has succeeded eminently in his objective of providing “an accessible introduction to the political history of Northeast India.”

The book deserves to be read by all Indians who think of India as a Hindu fiefdom. Here you will meet hundreds of tribes whose original religions had nothing at all to do with Hinduism at any time.

Moreover, in the context of the violence that has been plaguing Manipur for years now without any attempt from the Central government to bring peace in the region, the book deserves an added promotion. Instead of the summary executions of the Congress days, says Choudhury in conclusion to his chapter on Manipur, “there are only summary arrests (now), with people being thrown into jail under charges including sedition for Facebook and Instagram posts criticising the state’s BJP chief minister.” The Nagas, Kukis and the Meiteis keep killing one another. Choudhury’s last sentence on the state is: “Manipur remains suspended in an uneasy peace, prone to descending into fraternal conflict just as it was a thousand years ago, in the days when clan warred against clan and tribe against tribe.”

The latest 'Caravan' mag has its cover story on Manipur

PS. The quotes in the review are taken from Choudhury’s book and I haven’t read any of those original works of the missionaries.