KK Suan Hausing (left) and Kannan Gopinathan (right)

This conversation took place at the annual History for Peace conference on 'The Idea of Belonging' held in Calcutta on 1, 2 and 3 August 2024.

KK Suan Hausing: I intend to flag a set of statements or some impression about the idea of belonging, engage in conversation with Kannan, and then open up the floor for Q&A to have a meaningful and constructive engagement in this session. 

When we talk about belonging, for me, the idea of belonging is not just about the legal status of defining who is a citizen or a non-citizen. The idea of belonging, in effect, invokes both the politics of inclusion and exclusion.

To define who belongs to a politically bounded community is to engage in a form of exclusion of aliens deemed not to be a part of the bounded political community that we have in mind. To that extent, belonging also has intimate linkages with a particular state of mind, an idea with multiple meanings, multiple affiliations, connections, authenticity or even the politics of removal. This becomes, I think, important for us to underscore, especially at a time in which the norms of legal status or the idea of citizen, of people, of individuals who belong to that bounded political community is primarily determined by a majoritarian project which is exclusionary and implicated in the politics of exclusion as much as it tries to construct a homogenous, monolith nation as it were. So, the politics and the idea of belonging are implicated in this multi-layered idea of affiliation, connection, authenticity and removal. 

I'd like to elaborate by invoking some of my recent personal experiences. Some of you must have followed the violence we have witnessed in Manipur since May 2023. The kind of majoritarianism at the national level has a very uncanny local resonance. This violence can be seen in the endgame of majoritarian politics, which seeks to define who belongs within a political space called Manipur and who they think should not be included in that particular territorial frame. This is a culmination of a long-drawn-out majoritarian politics, which is also profoundly uneasy, and in tension, with the national majoritarian project in two senses.

One is that it seeks to build upon the kind of connection between the national identity constructed around a religious, cultural and civilizational core, which becomes natural for the state of Manipur precisely because the valley communities are the dominant majority who profess Vaishnavite Hinduism since the early nineteenth century as an official state religion. And because of that particular connection between the national level project of constructing a national identity around a civilizational, cultural core which gives undue privilege to a specific religion, the kind of majoritarian politics can easily be reinforced in the way it tries to settle and unravels in a state like Manipur. Secondly, this form of local majoritarianism is in deep tension with the larger national majoritarian politics because it operates within a larger institutional space, which is deeply uneasy with the idea of territorial incorporation of the former princely state called Manipur.

You'll see that many of these vigilante groups now champion the cause of defining who belongs to Manipur and try to perpetuate a form of xenophobia or genocidal attack against the Kukis who are randomly projected and targeted as 'illegal immigrants' on the false pretext that majority of them are migrant communities from across the border. This kind of majoritarian agenda is oblivious to the fact that all communities, not just in Manipur but in a large part of north-east India, were migrant communities at one historical point in time. The Meiteis, for example, the dominant community in the valley areas, have deep cultural and civilizational ties with the Balinese in Indonesia, which possibly suggest the source of their migration before they settle down in the valley of Manipur. In the same vein, the historical connection Tai Ahoms have with the Shans in Myanmar, or for that matter, the Nagas, the Mizos or the Chin-Kuki groups, who have transborder ties across the Indo-Myanmar borderlands imply that they have traversed across borders in various historical epochs. To be sure the Mizos and/or the Kuki-Chin, trace their migration routes from Tibet via Southeast Asia before they settle down in their present territories. Seen in this sense, the idea of belonging as an exclusionary idea is sought to be reinforced by invoking a problematic and arbitrary timeline to decide who belongs and who does not belong. 

In the context of Manipur, one of the critical timelines sought to be drawn is the 1840s and 1850s when the then-political agent William McCulloch noted in his account, Valley of Manipur, published as a monograph, that 2,000 odd 'Khongjais' (a clan of the Kukis) were deployed in and around the valley areas as sepoy villagers to protect the valley areas from the ravaging headhunting exploits of the northern Angami tribe. The discovery of natural resources in the hill areas, not just in Manipur but in large part of Assam, and the expansion of the colonial state into these frontier areas and tribal territories have led to several violent encounters. The tribals took serious notice of the incursion into their territory, which otherwise had been their forest commons. The result was the launch of a series of headhunting raids to reinforce the non-violability of tribal territories. From the tribal perspective, colonial expansion into the regions for extracting resources was seen as an incursion. However, the colonial state saw the resistance and intermittent headhunting raids conducted by the tribals as a major source of 'law and order' problem. Not surprisingly, the tribals had since been typecast as troublemakers and not the other way round. It should not be surprising that you would come across many of these narratives built around an attempt to construct the so-called Kuki 'illegal immigrants' as if they were the only troublemakers in the recent outbreak of violence in Manipur.

The settlement of the Kukis in what is now known as Manipur, preceded the historical juncture of the 1840s and 50s, when McCulloch, the then political agent, noted a wave of migration of the Kukis for establishing sepoy villages to insulate the valley areas from incessant tribal raids from Angami Nagas in the north. This problematic timeline is drawn by the majoritarian Meiteis to distinguish what they called the indigenous and the non-indigenous people in Manipur. Interestingly, a similar and contentious political discourse played out in Assam during the foreigners’ movement (1969-1974), when a deliberate attempt was made to draw a wedge between the indigenous (Khilonjias) and the non-indigenous Miyas. Under this rubric, the Miyas are relentlessly projected as the unwanted non-indigenous 'outsiders'

​​This contentious politics underpin the Assam Accord of 1985 when the timeline for determining who would be considered a legitimate citizen in Assam was fixed at March 25, 1971. This is already a well-known matter, which I don’t need to belabour. Therefore, belonging inscribed an arbitrary timeline of differentiation that attempts to create a binary distinction between indigenous and non-indigenous groups. The postcolonial practise of enumeration and classification of populations not only accentuates this binary as each category of classification entails material and economic entitlements. 

In this context, the idea of belonging becomes deeply contentious as it lays the groundwork for competitive politics of recognition. Certain tribes or communities have sought categorisation or enumeration as defined by the state at various times. As seen in the history of enumeration and classification by the state in the 1950s and 1960s, there has never been a consensus on the definitive criteria for Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. As a consequence, the five criteria evolved by the B.N Lokur Committee in 1965 in classifying communities as Scheduled Tribes, namely, primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large, and backwardness are never neatly defined but remain amorphous.  This has opened up new spaces for mobilisation by vigilante groups or non-state actors, who, in an era of majoritarian agendas, may weaponize legal loopholes in ways that racialize and communalize the definitions and determinations of these categories over time.

It bears to underscore an eminent problem in citizenship discourse in recent times which stems from the binary between ‘flexible citizenship’ and ‘precarious citizenship’. Under flexible citizenship, specific communities are deemed deserving of humanitarian accommodation. For instance, the repatriation and rehabilitation of Hindu or Buddhist Chakma refugees from the Indo-Pakistan War of 1955 or the 1971 Indo-Bangladesh War, is considered worthy of a humanitarian approach. The Chakma Buddhists, in particular, are viewed as deserving of humanitarian accommodation and as environmental refugees to be resettled in the less populated, forested areas of the Indo-China border. This was partly done as they are considered to have a potential strategic value to the Indian state, as they could serve as its ‘eyes and ears' in the geographically strategic and sensitive border.

In this context, the Indian state uses the idea of flexible citizenship to advance its nationalizing and strategic interests by rehabilitating certain communities it deems acceptable and deserving of humanitarian gestures, such as Hindus, Sikhs, Punjabis, and Nepalis in large parts of Northeast India. However, this approach has recently triggered a Pandora’s box of claims and counterclaims around defining who is indigenous and who is non-indigenous, particularly in Arunachal Pradesh. There have been recent efforts to deny certain groups the right to vote or access economic entitlements, like reserved government positions and state welfare programs. This opened a contentious political landscape where vigilante groups weaponize laws to exclude and target communities in sharp contrast to certain groups who are deemed desirable and worthy of asylum status. This paradox comes into sharp relief in the wake of attempts to facilitate a fast-track process for acquisition of Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 to 'persecuted minorities' (Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Parsis, and Sikhs, except the Muslim) from neighbouring countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who entered India before 31 December 2014.

In contrast, precarious citizenship involves arbitrary and coloured legal definitions, which are often compounded by racialized and stereotyped portrayals of certain communities. For example, the introduction of the ‘doubtful voter’ (or ‘D-voter’) category in Assam in 1997 is widely seen as problematic, as it paves the way for identifying and deporting people suspected of having fraudulently acquired voter identity cards.

Such laws and processes lead to disturbing encounters with the justice system, as I have personally experienced. I have been baselessly framed for fraudulently obtaining my electoral ID, not due to any credible evidence but seemingly due to the discomfort of the powers-that-be with my public writings, interviews, and media interventions. The accusation was based on the specious contention that my father’s name did not appear on the electoral roll along with the names of eligible voters in my family in an electoral constituency in Manipur in 2005. For one thing, the ill-informed and ill-conceited complainants’ unusual expectation that my father's name appears in the electoral roll sixteen years after his death reveals the distorted, misleading, spiteful, and precarious citizenship discourse in Manipur. For another thing, that this complaint was readily admitted without diligent inquiry by the relevant police investigating officer and district magistrate betrays blatant disregard for fairness and due process of law. Such a process leverages unwarranted targeting and incrimination of individuals or groups simply because the deeply communal and xenophobic complainants as proxies of a majoritarian State government finds them pliable in the service of their deeply communal and majoritarian politics.

My case ended up in the Manipur High Court after I initially approached the Supreme Court. The allegation arose from an RTI request filed by individuals close to those in power, prompting the chief electoral officer to release the relevant electoral data within eight days, a very unusual speed and efficiency for those of us who are used to undue bureaucratic delay and somnolence. However, this overlooked the fact that my family was already on the electoral roll in a different constituency before relocating to Churachandpur town due to ethnic violence that displaced my entire village. Although my father passed away 16 years before the electoral list in contention was published in 2005, the admission of FIR by the police and then subsequently by the district magistrate as an act of fraud however is a telling commentary on how our law-and-order machinery and the justice system function in today's India.

Kamal Sadiq’s insights on the precarious bureaucratic practises of citizenship in the Indo-Bangladesh borderlands are pertinent here. For Sadiq, the bureaucratic documentation practices of records and record maintenance are often weak, inconsistent, and unreliable, which become particularly stark in marginalized and borderland regions. The lack of authentic, authoritative and reliable records invests vigilante groups significant power to racialize and target specific groups as “illegal immigrants,” perpetuating a distorted and misleading narrative that people like me, vocal in challenging the complicity of the State government in Manipur's violence, are fraudulently seeking citizenship.

While Sadiq’s contention that the ‘networks of kinship, bribes, and complicity,’ drives the practise of bureaucratic documentation is eminently useful as a heuristic devise to understand the complex and precarity of bureaucratic practises in the Indo-Myanmar, Indo-Bangladesh, or Indo-Pakistan borderlands, where exclusivist ethnonationalist agenda aggressively pursued by the majoritarian groups and the State government relentlessly target, and seek to exclude certain communities. Citizenship and belonging should not be seen as a simple binary of citizen versus non-citizen but as a complex social and construct which must navigate through the maze of social, cultural, economic, and material exchanges across borders. Borders are not merely exclusionary zones but points of contact linking people with shared cultural and socio-economic ties across regions.

This idea of interconnected networks challenges the rigid boundaries imposed by colonial intervention. Communities with long-standing cross-border ties find it problematic when artificial borders restrict them. Thus, it is essential to recognize that when discussing belonging or the politics of inclusion and exclusion, we should be aware of the broader implications for freedom of choice. The politics of belonging should not constrain us to singular identities, as we often hold multiple affiliations.

The freedom to choose affiliations, including the right not to belong to a specific group, is central to democratic values and culture. In times when sectional identities are being rigidly defined, we must remember that discussions of belonging invariably engage with the politics of inclusion or exclusion, depending on the frame of reference. The complexity of belonging needs to be understood in its multiple layers, and with that, I will now turn it over to Kannan.

Kannan Gopinathan: At first, I considered talking about belonging simply—not in terms of citizenship, identity, or ownership. There are so many ways to explore belonging. One question is, ‘What do you belong to?’ Another is, ‘Whom do you belong to?’ Half of Bollywood’s songs are about wanting to belong to someone, right?

Most of us find it hard to belong, and that’s where we become, as Professor Thapar said, ‘atithis’—not because of ‘a date’ but because many of us feel ‘dateless’ or without a sense of belonging. There’s an innate need to belong, whether to our parents or a family we may not feel comfortable in. We might not feel a sense of belonging to our community, school, culture, state, or anything around us and can feel completely lost.

So, my understanding of belonging isn’t just about our connection to a larger culture, state, or its mechanisms—it’s also about our relationship with those close to us. Even people on the margins belong somewhere.

It’s not that they don’t belong; they simply belong to something else. They belong within their families, to their culture, or their community. If we view belonging solely from a majority or mainstream perspective, everything else seems marginal. We think they should belong to us or our world, overlooking that they already belong—to where they feel at home.

That’s what stood out to me when I was told to ‘just share your stories.’ I realized I didn’t need to dive into the conceptual side to tell my story.

I come from Kerala, where I lived until I finished 12th grade. After that, I went to Jharkhand for engineering, where I always felt like a guest, like an atithi.

After four years in Jharkhand, I moved to Noida as an engineer at Motorola Semiconductors. Again, I questioned my sense of belonging there. I started teaching kids in a nearby slum after work every day, which was interesting at first. The kids were very warm and welcoming, but one day, one of them asked, ‘You’re with some NGO, right? You must be making a lot of money. Why aren’t you giving us any? Where is the money going?’ This kid was only seven- or eight-years old, and it took me by surprise.

I was putting in time after work, every evening from six to nine, trying to make a difference and yet here was this question: Where is the money? It hit me hard. At that point, I called my girlfriend and told her, ‘I’m done with this. I don’t feel like I belong here.’

She asked, ‘Why did you go in the first place?’ I told her it was because the kids weren’t going to school—they were primarily working as ragpickers—and I thought they needed help. Then she asked, ‘Has that need changed?’ I said no, and she replied, ‘So you're stopping because your pride is hurt, right? That’s what’s really bothering you.’

It made me think about how we perceive belonging. As long as you blend in, everything’s fine, but as soon as you assert yourself, even a little, you suddenly feel out of place. That’s when I realized that my ego shouldn't stand in the way if something is truly for the public good. For my own sake, I might put my ego first, but for others, I needed to set it aside.

So, I went back to the kids. I shared a story with them about an old man pushing a cart full of apples daily to sell. I asked if they’d ever thought to help him, just a little. ‘Try it,’ I said. “On the first day, he’ll be grateful. By the third day, he might get suspicious, wondering, ‘Why is this kid helping me every day?’” We aren’t used to seeing acts of goodness every day; when we do, we start feeling suspicious. I told the kids that’s why they questioned my intentions—it’s natural to wonder why someone keeps showing up to help. But trust builds over time.

Eventually, I married my girlfriend, who’s from Haryana. I kept travelling across the north, exploring a sense of belonging. Teaching in the slum, we realized that real change might require entering the system rather than just helping from the sidelines. Interestingly, when we tried to enrol those kids in a school just 50 meters from their slum, they were treated as outsiders. They were made to clean dishes, sweep floors, and weren’t allowed to sit in class. It was clear they weren’t seen as ‘belonging’ there, even though they lived so close.

That’s when I realized that belonging is constantly shifting. We gain and lose it as we move through life. Everyone belongs somewhere, somehow, even if it’s not where they stand at the moment.

My wife urged me to take the civil service exams, so we joined a coaching institute. She took the dating part seriously and I took the studying part seriously. I passed and was placed in the AGMU (Arunachal-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories) cadre. Delhi was an option, but I thought, ‘India is my country; I’ll go wherever I’m sent.’ That’s how I ended up in Mizoram.

When I first arrived in Nathyal, near the Myanmar border, I was the only non-Mizo, non-Christian person in my office. People would come, open the curtain to my office, take a look at me, and leave, thinking, ‘This guy doesn’t belong.’ It happened every day. Eventually, I found someone in the office who spoke some English. I’d hold up two dictionaries—English-Mizo and Mizo-English—and say, ‘Please speak to me; we’ll figure it out together.’ And that’s how I began learning Mizo.

Looking back, I believe that a sense of belonging isn’t just about being accepted; it’s about feeling empowered to make a difference and fight for justice for yourself and others. If you feel that you can intervene when something’s wrong, even as an outsider, that’s when you’ve truly found a sense of belonging.

In Nathyal, I began learning Mizo. When you try to learn a language as an adult, you have to approach it with a childlike openness, which requires letting go of ego because people will inevitably poke fun at your mistakes. You’ll fumble, mispronounce and sometimes say the wrong thing like a child learning to speak. My Independence Day speeches were a prime example—people would crowd around just to see the spectacle of me trying to deliver them in Mizo. It became a whole subdivision event, people perched on rooftops, chuckling as I stumbled through.

But learning a language beyond words is about dissolving preconceived notions. Often, we assume that we know what’s right and that others need to align with that ‘right.’ But, through this experience, I realized I had to discard that judgmental lens and meet the local culture with genuine curiosity.

In Delhi, the bureaucracy had ingrained a whole different dynamic. All you need to know there is ‘sir’—repeat it enough and you can communicate just about anything in official spaces. It’s a hierarchical world where deference is expected. But in Mizoram, that system didn’t apply. When I first travelled to Nathyal, my driver asked if we could stop for food. I wasn’t hungry and said, ‘No, let’s keep going.’ But half an hour later, he pulled over anyway. When I protested, he simply said, ‘You may not be hungry, but I am.’ That encounter was jarring. In Delhi, if the officer doesn’t eat, the driver certainly doesn’t. But here, hunger didn’t recognize class or status—it was equalizing.

This openness to learning also became a survival skill. After hearing about a lynching in Tamil Nadu I decided to learn a few essential phrases in as many languages as I could: I don’t know the language; I’m hungry; Don’t hit me. These became my lifelines—ways to navigate wherever I went in India, whether in Bangla, Khasi; I even learnt it in German!

Over time, I recognized that Mizoram’s culture was egalitarian, the opposite of the hierarchical systems I’d known in Delhi. This difference became especially clear in 2015 when the government declared December 25th as Good Governance Day which many locals saw as a disregard for Christmas. During a public gathering, the local MLA gave a speech criticizing this, and everyone turned to look at me—the only Hindu in the crowd. I felt singled out, an outsider. But that experience pushed me to shift my perspective. I reached out to understand what the people wanted and found ways to include them more fully.

There was also an event called a ‘Vai Bandh’ (here vai means an outsider) in Aizawl, when I was the District Commissioner, to protest attacks on Mizos outside the state. During a Vai Bandh outsiders were asked not to leave their homes. For me, these situations underscored the fragile balance between belonging and exclusion and how simply existing in a space can make one an outsider.

This journey was filled with such realizations. Belonging isn’t always straightforward; it’s fluid, shaped by empathy and the willingness to see from another’s viewpoint. Through these experiences, I understood that to belong genuinely, you must first respect the lives and ways of those around you.

I used to feel like I belonged so much that I never considered myself an outsider, a ‘vai.’ One morning, I went out for a walk as I often did, sometimes covering half the city. I started my walk and there’s a funny story people still share each year about what happened. A woman saw me walking, grabbed my hand, and took me to her home, saying, ‘Are you crazy? Today, you’re not supposed to be out—you're a vai! You could get into trouble for being outside.’

After a couple of minutes, she asked who I was. I told her, ‘I’m the DC (District Commissioner) of this district.’ She was shocked. She later posted on Facebook about how she had pulled the DC into her home.

Moments like that make you feel a sense of belonging, but others make you feel like an outsider. Once, during a large student protest, I thought I could easily walk in, talk to the students, and help open the office. I went in quickly, leaving my PSOs (Personal Security Officers) far behind me. I joined the centre of the protest and started discussing with the students, insisting, ‘You have to let the office open.’

Suddenly, I heard them chanting slogans about me. They were saying, ‘We don’t need an outsider DC here.’ After all my efforts, I felt like I was suddenly seen as an outsider. After the protest, the SP (Superintendent of Police) and my PSOs escorted me away.

The next day I went to the Chief Secretary and asked, ‘Sir, please transfer me. I don’t want to serve in a place where I’m made to feel like an outsider.’ I was okay with criticism, being called ineffective or corrupt, but I couldn’t accept being treated as an outsider. I never considered myself one.

The CS, a wise and mature man from Mizoram, surprised me. He said, ‘Kannan, I’m disappointed. I thought you had more maturity.’ He said that he would’ve been disappointed in the students if they hadn’t shouted those slogans. I was shocked because it felt like he was taking their side. But he explained, ‘They were protesting and you came in, attempting to unsettle their protest alone, trying to dismiss all of them. To unsettle you, the simplest thing was to target your identity.’

He continued, ‘If these students aren’t smart enough to protest then why are they even here? They didn’t target you personally; it was just a way to unsettle you. When you’re in a position of power, you must understand that sometimes things are said not out of deep hatred but to achieve an immediate goal. These expressions may be hard to accept, but as a leader, you need to tolerate them, as this tolerance can prevent conflict.’

After serving in various regions like Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Haryana, the Northeast for three years, and later in the West—Daman and Diu—I learned a lot. During my UPSC interview an interesting question came up about Indian foreign policy. At the time, there was a situation in Sri Lanka involving the government and the LTTE. A UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka was being discussed. Though India usually didn’t support country-specific resolutions, they did so under pressure from Tamil Nadu’s political parties, the AIADMK and DMK.

I was asked if the Tamil Nadu parties' pressure on Indian foreign policy was appropriate, that Indian political parties were holding foreign policy hostage. I responded, ‘There’s no question of holding foreign policy hostage. If five crore people from Tamil Nadu feel a certain way, Indian foreign policy should reflect that. Foreign policy isn’t created in a vacuum; it’s based on the people's will.’

They pressed, ‘But what about the principle that we never support country-specific resolutions? Isn’t that hypocritical?’ I replied that principles can stem from strength or weakness. For example, if I’m secure in my relationships, I can say that domestic violence is a public issue and take action against it. But if I’m insecure, I might dismiss it as a private matter. So, I in all my naivety, said India’s stance depends on how confident we feel about our human rights record. When we weren’t as confident, we avoided country-specific resolutions. If we’re confident in our human rights policy in India, our policy should evolve to address human rights violations worldwide actively.

In Mizoram, I saw the aftermath of horrific anti-insurgency operations that lasted over 20 years. There were still unresolved issues, like rental compensation for private lands occupied by the army during that time. As part of my duty I met with people and tried to arrange payments. One person asked if there was compensation for personal injuries. It hurt to think this could happen in India in the 1970s but not in 2010 or later.

India has changed. Our institutions—civil society, media, judiciary—are strong. Even when governments exhibit authoritarian tendencies, these institutions provide balance and resilience.

After my time in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, I witnessed the aftermath of Article 370’s revocation. During that period Jammu and Kashmir endured a 20-day shutdown where communication, transportation, and basic freedoms were stifled. Politicians, including MPs and former chief ministers, were detained. It was an emergency without the official label. My wife, puzzled by the restrictions, asked, ‘Can this really happen? Can anyone just be taken away? Can the state do whatever it wants?’ I reassured her, explaining that institutions would check the state, but what I saw afterwards troubled me deeply. The judiciary, which should have acted as a counterbalance, seemed complicit, making comments like ‘Why would you want to visit Kashmir? It’s cold.’ Institutions that I’d once believed in as bulwarks of rights now appeared to be taking an anti-rights stance. I had joined the service believing that, while there may be individual lapses, our system would maintain an overarching balance. But at that time, even raising a voice against this meant risking being labelled ‘anti-national,’ ‘jihadist,’ ‘urban Naxal’ and the like. It felt stifling, and I realized I could no longer be part of this system.

People told me resigning was a mistake and that I could have made more of a difference within the system. But it was crucial to resign then, to disagree openly. I left and went to Bangalore, unsure of what to do. Calls for speaking engagements came in, but initially, I resisted. I thought, What’s the point? My cousin reminded me I had to speak if I truly stood by my beliefs. So, I went to Chennai, where I spoke with people from different backgrounds, including Kashmiris, who challenged me despite my resignation in protest. They asked why I avoided discussing self-determination. I told them honestly, ‘I may not agree with it, but you have a right to express it.’ Theory falls short when people are suffering—they don’t want platitudes; they want clear answers.

A young girl from West Bengal whom I met in Chennai expressed a fear that resonated with many: What if I’m declared not to be Indian after all these years? I realized then how deeply uncertain people felt about their citizenship. Later, in Maharashtra, I shared this story with a Muslim colleague. Tears came to his eyes as he showed me his WhatsApp groups where people discussed what documents they’d need to prove their nationality. He told me his grandfather had fought with Subhash Chandra Bose’s INA. Still, he worried about lacking documentation. I told him, half-jokingly, to burn the documents if he found them because other Muslims wouldn’t have the same proof. He responded gravely, ‘That’s easy for you to say. You don’t need to worry about these things. You are not aware of what we have to do.’ His words hit me hard. For some, it’s not about making a statement—it’s about survival. He said, ‘If you want to help, find a way to stop this. Don’t lecture me about principles.’ Those conversations have stayed with me, reminding me of the very real stakes for so many in our country.

That’s when I decided to leave my position in Maharashtra and began travelling across the country—Kolkata, Hyderabad and beyond. I visited 70-80 districts, covering half of them before the larger movement even started, speaking with people about the looming NRC.

Around that time a junior colleague gifted me Art Spiegelman’s Maus. At first, I wondered why she’d give me a cartoonish-looking book. But it’s a graphic novel that says powerful things in simple ways. Later, I visited Lucknow, and a headline in The Times of India struck me: a maulvi (cleric) advising Muslims on what documents to keep for the NRC. It mirrored a scene from Maus where a Jewish character instructs others on what papers they’d need. The parallel was chilling.

From there, I began speaking at various institutions, especially IITs, because my background was in engineering and the IAS gave me access. I posed a question: Are we waiting for ‘gas chambers’ before we start responding? Or do we act now, before the worst happens? Those conversations fueled a journey that, I believe, needs to continue.

Wherever I went, I realized something essential about belonging. To belong doesn’t mean losing yourself or being entirely subsumed. You might have to surrender parts of yourself, but it’s possible to retain who you are and still belong. True belonging requires a foundation of authenticity. Professor Apoorvanand was telling us about what separates ‘being’ and ‘belonging’, however, I don’t think they are exclusive; they depend on each other. Only when you are fully yourself can you genuinely belong.

So, my message is this: be and belong. Thank you.

KK Suan Hausing: Thank you, Kannan, for sharing such a vivid account. I hope the audience gains a lot from your insights. One point that resonates from your time in Hnahthial, near the Mizoram-Myanmar border, is the notion that hunger erases the usual class distinctions between officers and subordinates. It struck me because I recently had a similar experience. My brother-in-law, who is in the army, was recently posted in Secunderabad. While hosting him a luncheon on his stop over to his new posting, I noticed that his driver hesitated to join him with us over the luncheon due to the ingrained military notion of hierarchy—even though, in many ways, belonging involves hierarchy, too. However, in tribal areas or supposedly ‘egalitarian’ spaces, these hierarchies are not as strictly reinforced as in North India or other regions, where the sense of hierarchy feels much stronger.

This touches on the layered nature of ‘to be’ and ‘to belong.’ For example, I had a personal experience that highlights how belonging can be complicated by prejudice. During my first time in the U.S. as part of my Fulbright postdoc, I encountered the surveillance state directly because of my middle name, Khan. This was in September 2012, when I landed in Philadelphia airport. Homeland Security officers politely informed me that due to my middle name they would have to conduct a background check. It took two hours and Dim Sukte, the person from my community who was patiently waiting to pick me up in the airport not only had to undergo the ordeal of a prolonged wait, but was compelled to pay extra for parking. It is a reminder that belonging can become suspect when tied to certain identities.

Another example—following the violence in Manipur is the mindless possibility of becoming a ‘D-voter’ if the justice system were to finally accept the alleged fraudulent charges pertaining to the acquisition of my electoral ID. It raises questions about how easily belonging can be called into question, especially when linked to broader majoritarian political agendas. This resonates with what happened in Jammu and Kashmir, where a prolonged internet shutdown was used to suppress counter-narratives from the hill regions of Manipur as powerful social forces, in complicity with the State government, pushed a majoritarian narrative. In this way, belonging and identity get entangled in political agendas subject to forces that can shift with the shifting landscape of power.

So, I would love to hear your thoughts on this complex relationship between being and belonging.

KG: I see belonging as an ongoing transition, a continually shifting identity where we both gain and lose connections. In this sense, privilege allows one to belong to multiple places or communities; it’s not limited to just one social group or identity. Privileged people often want to belong to something local and familiar but also to something more significant and different. Yet, as society changes, we frequently overlook the sense of loss that accompanies these shifts.

Take, for instance, a traditional woman who believed in a specific place in the home and who thought caste defined everything. Then, suddenly, social change challenges this—she’s told that this sense of belonging is wrong or outdated. There’s a real loss for her here, even if it aligns with broader progress. Social change has winners and losers; it’s not about being right or wrong, but we often fail to acknowledge those who lose something significant in this process.

This can also be seen in cultural traditions, like the Holi celebration. Campaigns to conserve water or avoid firecrackers during Diwali, while well-meaning, create dilemmas for people whose sense of identity and joy were tied to those practices. They’re left feeling either irresponsible or distanced from something they used to love. Similar shifts are seen with traditional practices in Kerala, like using elephants in festivals; as awareness grows, some lose a cherished part of their cultural belonging.

As social norms evolve, we’re often told that prior beliefs or practices were wrong. This can be hard to accept. I remember that until college, I was never explicitly taught respectful conduct toward women—our main focus was on academics. Then, a female friend pointed out my behaviour, and I realized, after looking up the term she used, that I was exhibiting all the signs of misogyny. It wasn’t that I was inherently bad, but society hadn’t shown me any different until then. When young people are suddenly told that everything they previously believed is now unacceptable, it can be destabilizing, making them feel judged for what they didn't know.

This is also relevant to migration. For example, Chakma migration in Mizoram has caused shifts in belonging; people in both groups experience gains and losses. And when we talk about belonging in relation to the state, I find it more empowering than when it’s tied solely to communities. Communities have been negotiating roles and power dynamics for centuries, but it was during the independence movement that people learned they could question those in power, that they could ask for change. This negotiation between citizens and the state has often empowered people with rights like education or information.

Today, however, I see two kinds of negotiations happening. One is between communities, often between majority and minority dynamics. The other is between citizens and the state, and we’re seeing the latter diminish as the state increasingly erodes citizens’ power. This is happening across the board, whether in Kerala, West Bengal, or Uttar Pradesh.

In some cases, these negotiations overlap, like in Manipur, where the state might align itself with the majority in conflicts. But consider when a house is demolished—it’s not a Muslim’s house or a Hindu’s house; it’s a citizen’s house. It’s a message from the state to all citizens about the power it holds. And I think this distinction needs deeper examination, as it’s separate from community tensions.

Despite criticism, I believe that politics empowers more than it disempowers. Political identities are often more fluid than caste or cultural identities, which can be rigid and exclusionary. Politics has the potential to be flexible, to change, and to offer a more inclusive form of belonging. So, in my view, political identities and affiliations, while not without their issues, are often more empowering than other forms of identity. That’s my perspective.

Question and Answer Session

Audience Member 1: As a sociologist, I often focus on assimilation policies and their impact. We’ve discussed exclusion, so my first question is: how do assimilation policies, which usually promote a singular national identity, affect inclusivity for minority groups?

Additionally, I often think of the ‘minority will,’ which emphasizes that profound change often comes from those who are marginalized or unconventional. How can this idea be applied to contemporary state policies to foster more inclusive approaches to citizenship and belonging?

Audience Member 2: My question is for Kannan. Thank you for your candid remarks. It’s refreshing to hear someone say they took a stance, realized it was wrong, and then changed it. My question is about that process: as an activist who wants to make a positive impact, how do you reflect and re-evaluate when the facts or outcomes reveal your initial stance might have been off-track? What is your process for knowing when you’re on the right path?

Audience Member 3: I don’t have a question; I just have a comment. This is the second time I’ve felt deeply moved at this conference—after Mr. Meghwanshi’s speech yesterday. As someone raised in an upper-middle-class Indian household, I was socialized to view activists as either fringe elements or emotionally unreachable. Hearing you and Mr Meghwanshi speak with such clarity has shown me how understandable and practical your approaches are, contrasting with what we’re often taught. I just wanted to say thank you for that.

Audience Member 4: I’m a UPite married to a Keralite Christian and I’ve often felt the question of belonging. In Kerala, I’ve felt incredibly welcomed despite language barriers. My only Malayalam phrase after 10-12 years is ‘evvede palando’ because everyone wants tea and we’re always out of milk! Yet, they’ve always helped me despite my limited Malayalam.

As you mentioned, I believe maturity is essential at an individual level—setting aside insecurities and understanding that people’s perspectives differ. My question is: how can we foster a sense of belonging among its diverse population in a multicultural society like India? How can people feel valued and connected while also preserving their unique identities?

KK Suan Hausing: Thank you for your questions. On the topic of assimilation, I see it as an elusive ideal that does not work in complex and diverse societies. The German model, for instance, sought a homogenous nation-state and led to the Holocaust, rooted in Aryan supremacism and xenophobia. Walker Connor, a major thinker on nationalism, argued that forced homogenisation in diverse societies often end up destroying the nation, far from building one.

In places like the U.S., which once prided itself as a “melting pot,” a political historian like David Hollinger observed that “durable ethnics” resisted assimilation and this is a reminder that homogenisation policies often fail in deeply diverse societies.

For countries with deep diversity, valuing diversity as a durable good, not merely for strategic interest and convenience, is essential. Societies that embrace diversity have better chances of promoting peace and stability, as seen in Spain and Scandinavian countries which have navigated their religious and cultural divides.

In India, valuing diversity publicly and genuinely is vital. Otherwise, assimilationist or majoritarian politics can lead to instability, division and violent conflicts. I appreciate your kind words; they mean a lot.

KG: Thank you for the questions. About knowing if you’re on the right track, I used to engage on Twitter, even with people who insulted me. Often, if I reached out privately to understand their perspective, they apologized. These conversations remind me that people don’t see themselves as ‘bad’—they believe they’re acting rightly, even if mistaken.

Whether we agree or disagree, I believe in the power of conversation—not to change minds necessarily, but to connect. It’s easy to hurl abuse on social media, where interactions are impersonal. Personal connection, however, changes the tone entirely.

Scholarship, too, has become more contested. It’s not enough to rely on past credentials; continuous engagement and openness to different perspectives are necessary.

Belonging, whether in a family, community, or nation, is a continual claim and re-claiming process. It’s never static. If you believe you belong, you do.