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ABSTRACT
Frontier tribes, inhabiting the Indo (Naga)-Myanmar border, are at the fringe of the nation-states. They remain outside the radar of connectivity and development. The international boundary line demarcated during the colonial rule, pierces through the middle of many villages. This was reinforced by the post-colonial Indian and Myanmar States, thus deepening the contestation between state and tribal society(s). The Indo (Naga)-Myanmar borderland, elicits the case of nation-state construction as opposed to what Lefebvre posits geographical space, as ‘socially constructed’. The distortion of tribal land and territory in the forms of fencing and securitization amounts to the denial of a tribe’s agency and erasure of their shared history and social relation. The paper charts out the ramification of the colonial state making project in the contemporary frontier tribes. It unfolds the contestation, presence and absence of the state in the borderlands and posits for development with justice.
Acknowledgments
I thank the editors of Asian Ethnicity and two anonymous reviewers for their critical comments on my draft. I express my sincere appreciation to Tribal Intellectual Collective India (TICI) for giving me an opportunity to present my earlier draft at their international colloquium and valuable suggestion thereafter. I gratefully acknowledge and thank Mr Sudarshan Rodriguez for his contribution and skilfully driving motor bike in the course of fieldwork to Pangsha border village. The usual disclaimers apply.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. For details, see Chaudhury, “Northeast India gateway to Southeast Asia.”
2. Ziipao, “Road, Tribes and Identity.”
3. Reeve, Border Work.
4. Navaro-Yashin, Faces of the State.
5. Pau, “Transborder People, Connected History.”
6. Ibid., 16.
7. de Sousa Santos, Epistemology of the South.
8. Xaxa, State, Tribes and Society; Bodhi, Social Work in India; and Ziipao, Infrastructure of Injustice.
9. Ziipao, Infrastructure of Injustice.
10. Das, “Indigeneity, Borderlands and Memory of Homeland,” 52.
11. Gellner, Borderland Lives in Northern South Asia.
12. See note 9 above.
13. Bodhi and Ziipao, Land, Words and Resilient Culture.
14. Thaikho, “The Idea of Land and Territoriality in Tribal Society(s).”
15. The second phase of fieldwork which was planned to carry out in Myanmar side of the border could not be materialized. There was a restriction on mobility across the Indo (Naga)-Myanmar border post the ambushed of border police outpost (Assam Rifles camp) by insurgent at the Pangsha village in October 2019.
16. Declaration of the Naga Day Celebration on 10 January 2018 at the Kohima (Nagaland) local ground.
17. Yonuo, The Rising Nagas.
18. See note 9 above.
19. See note 13 above.
20. Elwin, A Philosophy for NEFA, 27.
21. Ibid.
22. Reid, The Excluded Areas of Assam, 19.
23. See note 10 above., 65.
24. Shimray, “Ethnicity and Socio-Political Assertion,” 3674.
25. See note 17 above., 331.
26. Data as per the actual village surveyed by Khiamniungan Tribe Council. This was also told to the present researcher by the Chairman of Pangsha Village during fieldwork.
27. See Milko, “Nagaland: a frontier, for now.”
28. Shohe, “Ground Realities of the Eastern Konyak.”
29. Madsen, “Barrier of the US-Mexico Border.”
30. Deeds and Whitelford, “The Social and Economic Costs of Trump’s Wall,” 27.
31. Stephen Lynn, “Towards a Transborder Perspective.”
32. Donna, “The Policy of Border Fencing.”
33. EagleWoman, “Fencing Off the Eagle and the Condor, Border Politics, and Indigenous People.”
34. Kaviraj, The Imaginary Institution of India.
35. Government of India, 2001 as cited in Xaxa, 2016.
36. Xaxa, State, Tribes and Society, 64.
37. Savyasaachi, “Struggle for Adivasi Livelihood,” 27.
38. Xaxa, “Coercive Development.”
39. Chakma, “Conservation Refugees.”
40. See note 2 above.
41. Srikanth, “Look East Policy,” 46.
42. Baruah, In the Name of the Nation, 99.
43. Wouters, In the Shadows of Naga Insurgency, 149.
44. Bhattacharya, Neoliberal Developmentalism, 170.
45. On 15 December 2017, the cabinet approved the North-East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS) and allocated a sum of Rs. 1600 crore. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highway plans to invest about Rs. 48,000 crore in Assam, Rs. 22,000 crore in Manipur, Rs. 20,000 crore in Nagaland, projects worth Rs. 17, 000 in Sikkim, Rs. 12, 0000 crore in Mizoram, Rs. 10,000 crore in Arunachal Pradesh, and Rs. 8000 crore each in Meghalaya and Tripura. See PTI, “States told overcome land hurdles in NE road projects.”
46. Bociaga, “Naga Tribes of Myanmar.”
47. Bodhi and Bipin posited that ‘engaged governance is where peoples are perceived not only as equals but as capable for self-governance without being anti-state. The engaged governance framework is premised on mutual respect, effective safeguards, shared responsibility, peace, non-intrusive relationship and equitable partnerships in development (2019:12).
48. Misra, Becoming a Borderland.
49. Ministry of Home Affairs, Annual Report 2018–19, 41.
50. Arora and Ziipao, “The Road (Not) Taken.”
51. Ziipao, “Deepening Critical Infrastructure in Northeast India.”
52. Larkin, “The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure.”
53. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed.
54. They are the Chang, Konyak, Sangtam, Phom, Yimchunger, and Khiamniungan tribe.
55. As my journey on this dirt road progresses, I am constantly reminded that this road would make a perfect track for dirt road bike rally which take place across the globe.
56. Government of India, Census 2011.
57. Government of Nagaland, Vision 2030, 82.
58. Ibid.
59. Government of Nagaland, Vision 2030 (emphasis added).
60. Ibid.
61. This implies that they were not under the British rule and maintain their status quos as a village republic with their own set of governance system based on their customs and tradition.
62. See “The Land of Anghs: Mon District.”
63. See note 57 above., 82.
64. Ezung, “The Politics of Indo-Myanmar Cross Border Trade,” 328.
65. Ministry of Home Affairs, Annual Report 2018–19.
66. BADP aim to meet special developmental needs and wellbeing of the people living in the remote and inaccessible areas situated near the international borders and to provide essential infrastructure through convergence of the central/state/BADP/local schemes through participatory approach. The funding pattern for North-eastern state is in the ration of 90:10 (Government of India, 2019).
67. Dalakoglou, “The Road,” 146.
68. India-Myanmar has a free movement regime agreement to ease local connectivity. Hence locals can commute upto 16 km without any visa. The Kembo BK125 comes with a price tag of Rs. 45000 – Rs. 50000 when it is deliver to Indian side of the border.
69. See note 50 above. (emphasis added).
70. NSCN-K stands for National Socialist Council of Nagalim-Khaplang. This is the Naga army led by Mr. Khaplang who was from Myanmar side of the border after the group (NSCN) split in 1988.
71. Two days after our departure from Pangsha border village, the local newspaper reported that NSCN-K ambushed the Assam Rifle Outpost at Pangsha. Thankfully, none was injured during the fire-fight.
72. They extended brotherhood and expressed that hardly Naga scholars comes to their villages for research.
73. Walkie Talkie procured from Myanmar with a cost of Rs. 8000 – Rs. 10000 is commonly used by villagers to communicate with each other since there is no other reliable cell service in the village.
74. See EMN, “ENPO censure Panghsha border fencing.”
75. See Rutsa, “Nagaland steps up drive against border fencing.”
76. See Sing, “Khaplang faction of NSCN and NSCN-IM oppose fencing along Indo-Myanmar border.”
77. Schendel and Erik, “Asian Borderland.”
78. The school is located barely 50 meters from the Assam rifles check gate within the Longwa village.
79. See note 19 above.
80. See note 43 above., 149.
81. As cited in Bodhi and Ziipao, Land, Words and Resilient Culture.
82. Ibid.
83. Lefebvre, The Production of Space.
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Raile Rocky Ziipao
Raile Rocky Ziipao is an Assistant Professor of Sociology, Central University of Punjab. He was the 2017-18 Raghunathan Family Fellow (Post-Doc), Harvard University. His research interest includes socio-anthropology of infrastructure, sociology of development, indigenous/tribal studies, and social policy. Ziipao is the author of the book Infrastructure of Injustice: State and Politics in Manipur and Northeast India (Routledge: London and New York, 2020).