North East is a mix of rich culture and complex history. Importantly, it represents Bharat’s Easternmost corner which acts as a bridge between the rest of India and South East Asia. Its past during colonial rule is largely unknown. Now an effort has been made by Anandita Singh through her latest book ‘A Brief History of Freedom Struggle in Northeast of India (1498 to 1947). Prafulla Ketkar, Editor Organiser interacts with Anandita Singh to get an insight into North East’s past.
North East has been an enigma to many of us. We also see it from what was once called by a journalist tyranny of distance. And there is also the common narrative of the mainland and North East. What made you write this book and what was the triggering factor?
So, first of all, I described this book as a documentary study because it is merely a compilation of incidents that took place based on original records and documents, primary sources. When I talk of the inspiration for this, I have been researching the North East for three years. Last year, I decided to list freedom struggles that took place there because I refuse to believe that British or European invaders were not resisted there. So, that disbelief in my mind was the triggering point that something must have happened. Let me find out what. And when I started doing that, I went State-wise. I started with Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, and all the States. I realised that going State-wise goes against the history of the region. If we divide our study based on the present-day boundaries, we will be rendering injustice to what actually happened there because there are regions that are not a part of present-day political India. But they are very important in the history of the region and of the nation as a whole. So, this book came into existence as a non-divided chronology. If you go through it, there is no division on the basis of State. It is just a chronological listing of what happened in the entire region, made in present-day Assam, Meghalaya. That has not been factored.
Now, this work is basically about tracing the entire history of the region based on original documents. What was the striking factor that you discovered? What was the pattern of arrival of Europeans as colonisers or invaders? And what was the response of various communities, which are popularly called Scheduled Tribes now? Is there any pattern in that?
Yes, there is. When we speak of European invasion or colonisation, we have to keep it in mind that it was not just the British because usually when we talk about India’s freedom struggle, there comes an image of the British, but there were also the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch, all these European powers were not only present in India, but also in the Eastern part, that is Meghalaya, going up and in all these regions. So their presence is also very important to note down. Their licensing system imposed, they built their factories, imposed taxes that were mostly extortion of money. So when we speak of pattern, we start with just an ironing of the British or the Europeans of where they thought our resources were available. That could be a natural resource in the form of humans from whom they could extort money. So it started with a very basic survey and a very basic study of the region and the study of the land. And then there were two ways that they adopted. It was either in the form of direct expedition and direct encounter or treaty. So whenever we see there was a treaty between an Indian ruler or an Indian administrative power and the Europeans, just around two, three years before that or after that, there had been a war because people were not ready to accept those treaties. Like if one King signed a treaty, his son or his brother or even his Ministers rose up and they said no, we don’t agree with this treaty. In fact, to avoid this after a certain point of time, the British started adding a clause that this treaty is perpetually binding. But even then people rose up against the British after the treaty was signed. So treaties were never perpetual.
The popular belief even today is that there was always the spread of Christianity and tribes forgot their traditional practices because they were discriminated against and they didn’t have a say in the mainstream administration. So they were always isolated and very poor and that’s why they could easily adapt to the new religion. That is the general perception. But as your book suggests, there has been resistance to even missionaries and missionary expeditions there.
Even the previous or the early British documents refer to this region as the Eastern Frontier of Bengal, not as the North East. It is absolutely direct that the North East actually starts from the North East of Kolkata. And when we speak of isolation and them being separate from the so-called mainstream narrative, that is 70 years’ old narrative. Because before the formation of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, there has been a geographical continuum. We look at the map of India today and we think that, oh my God, reaching Mizoram, or reaching Tripura is so difficult. But when I remove the international boundaries, when Bangladesh becomes a part of India in the physical map, it’s very easy to reach Tripura. And then, maybe Mizoram, so this geographical continuum was rendered by the landmass of present day Bangladesh and that brought with it cultural continuum. So there was never an isolation of the society, because we believe in just three terms, Nagarwasi, Gramvasi, wanvasi. So of course, if we have to give it a term, we can say wanvasi because they were more in sync with nature. For as dwellers. They were more in sync with nature. That does not mean that they were primitive or they were poor or they were savages as has been described by the British. It is absolutely appalling that these terms have been used even after Independence for so long, because this region has a very fine system of trade and a very well developed network of trade routes. They traded in products like gold, silver, wool and the natural products. What happened with the advent of the British was that they came in with their white-man. Whatever did not occur to their norms, whatever was not fitting in their framework and their structure was labelled as savage and uncouth. That narrative has continued today. When we speak of Church and Christian cultural colonisation as you termed it, we have had cultural resistance to that. The St. Cassie movement in the present Meghalaya is nothing but a resistance to the Church and its domination and the Churches insult of our culture. Whatever form their atrocities took, our resistance occurred. We started with war, we started with battles, we went on to Satyagraha and political organisations. Then when INA came in, we went back to war, but the resistance never stopped.
While understanding history and freedom struggle, there is a pattern about periodisation. So mostly people, while talking about 1857 to 1947 and even before that generally have a tendency of going to 1757, Battle of Plassey. So if I or some researcher who would like to take inspiration from your book decides to go ahead with some kind of research, what would you suggest?
If you have to talk about the freedom struggle as such, as per this book, it is from 1498 to 1947. Why 1498? Because Vasco da Gama came to India in 1498. He landed at Calicut. And that in my opinion was the onset of the parasite of polarisation in India. So I prefer, or I suggest that we start our freedom struggle from 1498, coming to the North East. If you have to speak about the North East of India, we start with the year 1516. That was when the Portuguese came to Chittagong. And Chittagong, as I have already explained, there are regions that are not a part of the present day but they are very important for history. So they came to Chittagong and from there they started their expansion towards Myanmar, Burma, Dhaka, all the regions. So we start with the Portuguese presence. Then we moved on to the Dutch who came to Dhaka in the 1650s and they established their factories there and they were present in the region till 1825. The British came in between in 1685. They attacked Chittagong. It was a naval invasion. Then in 1793, they attacked the Aum Kingdom. So if we have to go very broadly, we can say 1516 to maybe 1826 was the period of pre-British, European colonisation. And then 1826 became a very major landmark because of the Treaty of Yandabu, which gave the political power over Assam and Manipur to the British. But we should never take that as the starting point of British colonisation in the region, because the British were present way before 1826. In 1761, they had a battle with Tripura.
We don’t remember what was Khasis resistance or what was Janthier resistance or how Manipur Kingdom actually fought against the British or what was the role of Manicah dynasty in not just fighting against the colonial rulers but even mobilising resources during the Second World War. Most of the things are now coming out that the so-called Nagas who are supposed to declare their independence and you know they were standing by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. So what happened to this in last 75 years?
When we look at the British documents, they are the only source of information. So we can definitely pick up our information from those documents and from those books. What needs to be done is to have faith in our own people is to know that these people will not have given up very easily. They must have resisted that this faith needs to come there and that plays a major role because I read the same documents that somebody who will write Mailman Gevars is not used to they are all right. We both of us will read the same books; there’s a cluster of books that is very regularly referred to. So I refer to the same books they will refer to the same books what the difference is of the vision and I have faith in my people in my ancestors that they would not have given up. There is no way they would just surrender to a foreign power and with that came an understanding that if British are saying that the Lushai community raided Kachar region there has to be a reason behind it and the reason was BFR that stopped their movement stopped their traditional trade that disrupted their traditional roots. So, of course, if a foreign power comes in and tells me what to do in my own house in my own land I will resist that. So unless researchers have this faith and they have this vision of understanding what the British did what their notice of brandy was what they were trying to achieve if you believe that the British gave us railways you can never find the true history of what happened. You will never be able to understand that railways were built by resources of India using Indian labourers the tax was levied on the Indians to construct railway tracks but it was used for the transportation of their goods and to finance their economy. n
Comments