TO much of the world and even India, the Northeast conjures up the idea of a region, which is more or less unitary – culturally, ‘racially’ and linguistically – it grows tea and rice, its forests are home to a great variety of wildlife, and some of its people are ‘primitive’ and ferocious. Many bureaucrats treat a posting in the Northeast as a kind of punishment. This idea of a unitary Northeast is now, of course, being gradually replaced by a more realistic notion of its variety of cultures, languages histories and traditions of governance.
But how is this variety to be understood? On one kind of count, there might be about fifty languages spoken in the Northeast and, on another kind of count, there might be close to a hundred. Considering the intimate connections between a language and a form of life or a culture, this is an extraordinarily interesting point if one is talking about the culture of Northeast India or even the cultures of Northeast India. Language ‘lights up the world for us’, and different languages light up the world for us in different ways. But while obviously there is truth in this, it cannot possibly be claimed as a truth with rigid boundaries; else we would have had a Northeast with myriad visions of the world, each enclosed within the limits to which its own light reaches.
Of course, it is through language that the human infant gets gradually inducted into the life of the community – its rights and wrongs, good and bad, fair and foul and yes, its true and false. But the important point is that a language, while it is in a certain important sense complete in itself, its boundaries are never precise – they frequently merge into the boundaries of other languages, and conversations between them are not only possible, they have frequently taken place and have made, in many cases, a great deal of difference to each other.
About the languages in the Northeast I would like to say the following:
1) Each of them is complete in itself in the sense that everything that can be said in it can be said with clarity and precision – it is never the case that what can be said in it can be said better in another language, that it is an inferior version of another language.
2) But many things cannot be said in a particular language – to take an extreme example, the language of high theoretical physics cannot be a part of conversational Khasi; in such cases borrowings from another language have to take place, and the history of languages is replete with such borrowings.
3) In the Northeast, languages live so close to each other that, in many cases, one gets inducted into the life of the community not just through one language but several languages, so people grow up as naturally multilingual beings.
4) Multilingualism within a community is, therefore, a perfectly natural phenomenon; in switching from one language to another, and ‘mixing’ up different languages in one’s natural conversation, one doesn’t move from one vision of the world to another in a kind of schizophrenic frenzy; but one is, as it were, a native citizen of a multi-visionary world.
One of the ways in which the Northeast has been profoundly misunderstood by the rest of the country, and even by people whose home is the Northeast, is by ignoring this fact about the Northeast. Most people in the Northeast live in multi-visionary worlds. And while a particular community may be firmly established in whatever might be the ‘core of its vision’ – always a difficult thing to articulate even when we live by it – there is, even in it, a substantial, but wholly natural, appropriation of elements of other visions. One cannot, for instance, think of the Assamese culture except in this light.
The domain of meanings that is a culture is not an enclosed domain, just as the variety of meanings that a word might have is not predetermined. Different domains of meanings frequently meet and make more or less subtle differences to each other.
In our own country, the domains of meanings have during the course of history interacted with each other, conversed with each other and made surprising and creative differences to each other. It is for this reason that it is not at all unreasonable to suggest that these domains form a family of their own with family resemblances crisscrossing in innumerable and complex variety of ways. Let me hazard the suggestion that our strength – I don’t mean physical strength, but moral and spiritual strength – lies in just being such a family. Any attempt to shrink this family by herding its members into a single, unitary domain is an attempt to enfeeble us – to strike at the very roots of our moral and spiritual life.
What, then, about the value of allegiance to a culture, to a community in my sense? Frequently, we specify our identities in terms of the overriding character of such a value – that is, in conceiving our identity we allow the value of such allegiance to override all other values. Suppose, I ask myself the question, ‘Who am I?’ and answer it by saying: ‘I am a Miri tribesman above all else?’ This means that my being a Miri tribesman defines me in a way which no other description of me can – descriptions such as ‘I am a teacher, a tennis player, an occasional writer of philosophical articles, an admirer of western classical music, a bird-watcher’ and so on. To be deprived of this identity is for my being – my human being – to be eroded in a way profoundly different from the way in which the non-availability of any of the other descriptions might possibly erode my identity.
This is, of course, not to say that one’s identity cannot be articulated in terms of a very different ordering of values. It certainly can and frequently is. All I would like to say is that allegiance to a culture can be – as we all know – a very powerful force and this has, in our country, as in many others, led to intractable moral and political predicaments. These predicaments are compounded by the fact that it is never easy to articulate with any degree of clarity and authenticity one’s, what I might call, ‘core’ identity.
This is true also when I claim that the core of my identity is my allegiance to my community or culture. Very often emotions becloud any possibility of clarity or authenticity. When this happens, my ‘cultural identity’ becomes an instrumentality, which may have little to do with any genuine allegiance. It becomes a tool to be used for purposes more or less external to it. My guess is that the more external the purpose, the more the likelihood of its being associated with violence and coercion. My guess is also that the greater the depth and authenticity of my articulation of my allegiance to my culture, the more likely it is for me to come up against difficulties which are not easy to surmount – against what I have called the argument about itself that the culture must contain. It is in situations of this kind that communications of the kind that I have described above between domains of meanings may lead both to greater clarity and to a sense of emancipation.
Frequently, we try and understand the cultural scene in India by using the two supposedly dichotomous notions of ‘main stream’ and ‘marginality’. These concepts are natural allies of the view that if India is a nation, then it must be unicultural. And since India is a nation, then in some, as yet, invisible, but profound sense, it must also be unicultural.
It is inappropriate and potentially dangerous to understand cultural India in terms of the metaphors of ‘main stream’ and ‘marginality’.
Take the main stream/sub-streams (tributary) metaphor first. The place of origin of a sub-stream is frequently different from the place of origin of the main stream, but sub-streams flow into the main stream and become one with it (but do they really?) It might be thought that difference in origin is not really important, as long as eventually they become one. In many matters this may indeed be so. But in the case of the main stream and the tributaries which flow into it, the latter’s place of origin does, in fact, literally make a great deal of difference to their natures, and when they do flow into the main stream, the main stream is not what it was before either.
Take the marvellously different natures of the tributaries of the great river Brahmaputra and the difference which is made to them by the sources which keep them running, and the difference each of them makes to the nature of the great river itself. The river Brahmaputra would certainly not be what it is, but for its tributaries.
What, then, is the main stream culture of India? Many would be tempted to say that it is what is now known as the Hindu cultural tradition. Suppose, we accept this answer. Is the question where it originated important? For some at least, it is an extraordinarily important question. They think – even if perhaps in not so many words – that if it did not originate in the land now known as India, somehow the very core of its claim on India will dangerously diminish. This surely is the main reason why there is so much desperation in some of the debates surrounding this question. But suppose it did originate in India, are there not other cultures which originated in India too?
Those for whom the question of origin is important, not just as a matter of historical curiosity but in forming an adequate conception of Indian nationhood and the unitary nature of its culture, might answer the question thus: most ‘major’ cultures other than the main stream culture, and some ‘minor’ cultures which now form part of Indian life originated outside India; there are, of course, other ‘minor’ cultures which might have originated in India, but these are really somewhat murky pre-Hindu cultures which became fossilized in their pre-Hindu state; there are still other cultures which branched off, in the course of history, from the main stream Hindu tradition, but continued to be nourished by the main stream.
What happens then to the main stream/sub-stream (tributary) metaphor? It seems a non-starter: have the cultures which had their origin outside the land of India, for example, Islam, flowed into the main stream, or are they likely to or ought they even aspire to mingling? They might have mingled and formed strong sub-currents in both, but despite such mingling they have retained their independent course. Some of these sub-currents became independent themselves (perhaps Sikhism)! What then about the so-called pre-Hindu ‘fossilized’ cultures? There might be a powerful temptation to say that they have ceased to flow anyway and their future lies in being submerged or drowned in the mainstream.
And there are cultures such as some in the Northeast which, even by a large stretch of the imagination, cannot be treated as ‘pre-Hindu’, and which indeed might have originated outside the land of India? The hope is that they are so ‘small’ and so ‘simple’ and inarticulate that they will, under pressures of various kinds, fade away for all practical purposes.
It is clear that the metaphor of the main stream is a powerful hindrance to the understanding of India, especially for those who set great store by the idea of one nation, one culture. Many of our cultures, particularly our tribal cultures, and some of the major religion based cultures (this is not to say that religion is not a part of tribal cultures; quite the contrary in fact; tribal religions are much more Durkheimean than we realize, and are, therefore, inseparable from their cultures) have retained their autonomy and constitute distinct forms of life.
This, of course, as I have suggested earlier, has not precluded mutual conversations among them, nor, of course, mutual influence. Such conversations might occasionally have produced a new light or a different light within a particular culture, (for example the light produced by Sankardeva’s Vaishnavite movement among some of the tribal cultures of the Northeast), but this light has enriched them in their independent being rather than blind them into walking into the Hindu embrace. And this was a good thing too.
The metaphor of a text and the ‘space’ beyond its margins distorts the reality of our nationhood, in some ways, even more drastically; but it may sometimes be a helpful metaphor in understanding the reality within a particular culture. To begin with, the idea of a margin suggests a condition beyond the limit, beyond which a thing ceases to be possible, or simply does not exist. Does this picture at all help us in understanding the cultural situation in India? If we take it seriously, cultures other than what we might call the ‘Indian culture’ proper with its own proper margins (frame) will have to be obliterated from our view, will become non-entities; they will be the empty space – nothingness – beyond or below these margins. Can an image of India be more distorting than this?
There are many cultural texts, and perhaps subtexts, which together constitute the complete text of Indian culture, unbearably unwieldy, as this text will be. These texts may have boundaries, which as I have mentioned earlier, are fluid and frequently messy (mixed up, imprecise). None of them has margins in the above sense; nor does the ‘complete’ text of Indian culture have any margins. It perhaps has boundaries, but if it does, these boundaries can never be precisely delineated. And, this is, of course, just as it should be. The margin metaphor as an aid to understanding the culture of India should, therefore, be abandoned as quickly as possible.
But within a particular culture, the margin metaphor may be a fairly useful tool in understanding the particular way of being of that culture. Take the traditional caste system within Hinduism. Of course, it will be claimed that things have changed radically, and that not only does the system not exist any more in its pristine, original form, it exists, if at all, as providing grist to the mill of political power game, and not a culturally hierarchic or divisive force.
The truth of this claim is, of course, doubtful, to say the least. But think of the situation in the country even a hundred years ago. The caste system in many parts of the country did draw margins. People beyond these margins were, as though, nothing. They were ‘nothing’ to the text of the culture. They might have had extremely useful functions in providing infrastructural services towards the physical well-being of people belonging to the culture, but they themselves were cultural non-entities. They were indeed perhaps human beings, but their human existence was without a meaning, except the meaning given to it by the culture – and the meaning given was devoid of any cultural content.
There is, therefore, no question of a cultural assertion or a revival – even if ‘romantic’ – of the culture (folk culture) of the ‘outcastes’. They have no ‘memory’ of a self-sufficient, autonomous culture to which they can return and regain depth and dignity. As somebody said of the Jews trying to come to grips with the romantic opposition to the European Enlightenment: the community had ‘no “illusions” of its own to go back to. It only had the recollection of the ghetto, which by itself was not a sufficient community or culture at all, but an unromantically specialised sub-community of wider world within which it was pejoratively defined’ (E. Gellner, Culture, Identity and Politics, CUP, 1987).
The predicament of the dalits, therefore, is extraordinarily cruel. Do they lose themselves in the main stream of Hindu culture (where there is no guarantee that they will be allowed to); or do they remain in the emptiness of the marginal space; or do they try and merge themselves in some other self-sufficient cultural entity where there is a chance that they might be allowed such merger? Marginality, therefore, is a powerfully appropriate metaphor in understanding the dalit predicament. It had also been a potently active force in the Hindu’s self-definition of his culture.
It is doubtful if such marginalities exist in other cultures of India. Take the tribal cultures – at least the ones I know something about. Although for many, a sense of marginality has been created by larger and more powerful cultures so that a merger or an amnesiac identification with the larger cultures becomes easily possible, many of them, miraculously perhaps, have retained a sense of both functional and moral-spiritual autonomy which provides, as it were, the springs of action for them. Such autonomy is, of course, continuously under threat, but the very fact that it has survived shows that they do not assign a marginal status to themselves; and they can have fairly authentic romantic ideas of a ‘once flourishing’ cultural being.
Such cultures do, of course, have boundaries, but beyond these boundaries there is not cultural nothingness, but other cultures, other ways of being. Within such cultures, individuals, for example ‘slaves’ might have, in the self-definition of a culture, a marginal status, but never an entire section of people.
The main stream/sub-stream (tributary) metaphor is wholly unhelpful in understanding either the nationhood of India or its cultural specificity. In the articulation of the relationship between our diverse cultures, it is not of much use. It distorts rather than represents our cultural reality.
How then does the great diversity of our cultures fit into the idea of an Indian nation? (i) Diversity does not, as I have tried to suggest at various points, imply mutual exclusion. Our cultural boundaries are fluid and ‘messy’. (ii) There are inevitably large similarities between our cultures, similarities in what might be called their ‘cores’ and their ‘peripheries’. Similarities also result from the fact that conversations, primarily at a non-theoretical, intuitive level, have always taken place among our cultures; such conversations open up new bridgeheads between cultures. (iii) The plurality of our cultures has undoubtedly frequently generated mistrust, suspicion, conflict and violence, but it is also largely true to say that there is a powerful, if somewhat inarticulate, sense of Indianness, which is what forms the basis of emotions such as pride, shame, love, joy, sadness, hope which Indians feel when they think of their country.
The nationhood of India must be articulated in and through its great diversities. To be an Indian in the deepest sense of the term is to be able to acknowledge these diversities and see one’s country as a natural home to them; to be able to find one’s way about in the maze of differences with a degree of surety and naturalness that may be quite astonishing to an outsider. There is also loving patriotism such as that of Gandhi’s – a patriotism that is totally open to the other; just as there is pathological nationalism, such as that of Savarkar’s. But democracy and the spread of democratic practices have ensured that it is the Gandhian variety of patriotism, whether at the local community level or at the national level that has prevailed. They have also ensured that emancipatory movements have a legitimate place in the life of the nation.
All this is not to say that India’s nationhood has been unshakably established. Its fragility is obvious enough. The threats to it are both internal and external. The internal threats arise from two sources: (a) majoritarian blindness of one kind or another at various levels of national life and (b) the ever deepening divide between the rich and the poor. The external threat comes mainly from forces which – for reasons of different kinds – would present India’s diversity as rigid differences across which there can be no meaningful communication.
The external and internal threats are obviously not mutually exclusive; quite the contrary: they feed on each other. Majoritarianism invites external encouragement of division; the powerful external forces guiding the fortunes of globalization have further deepened the rich/poor divide within the country. Given the volatility that prevails in the world today, and the increasing power of a few countries to impose their will on the others, it is impossible to envision the India of even fifty years from now. Meanwhile, whether or not India will survive as one nation depends much on whether we have found sustainable solutions to the problems posed by what I have called internal and external threats to its nationhood.
