- History for Peace
- 1 day ago
- 31 min read
Karen Donoghue: Reflecting on the theme of belonging is difficult, especially in a profoundly unequal world. Before I begin my talk, I want to acknowledge the privilege of being here while genocides are happening in other parts of the world and there is ongoing conflict in a neighbouring state. I am very aware of the privilege that has been afforded me and deeply grateful to Seagull, Megha, and the team for this opportunity.
Lately, I’ve become a bit obsessed with the idea of peace—how precious it is—and that makes me incredibly thankful to be here. Yesterday, Zoya asked me, ‘Karen, are you from Mizoram?’ And I was telling Kanato that it’s a tricky question to answer. To try to explain, I’ll share the story of Happy Valley from a recent oral history project titled Stories from the Valley. This community moved from Mizoram to Shillong from the 1960s onward, partly due to the insurgency in Mizoram from 1966 to 1986. In Shillong, they settled in different parts, but our work focussed on a small locality called Happy Valley. Mizoram remains the only state in India where the Union Government has bombed its own people during that time.
There’s been a lot of scholarship on the healing process Mizoram has undergone. Scholars like Sanjoy Hazarika have noted how, despite this challenging history, Mizoram has become one of the most peaceful states in the Northeast. However, this peace has come at a cost.
The Mizos call that turbulent period ‘Rambuai,’ which means ‘disturbed land’ or ‘troubled land.’ And yet, this small community, to which my maternal grandparents belong, has been largely absent from historical narratives. This project, Stories from the Valley, tells their story, and it’s very personal to me. I sometimes get emotional, but I feel it’s a way to respect the people instead of objectifying them, I’ve interviewed people, allowing emotions to be part of my scholarship.
I didn’t work alone; my friend and colleague, Junisha, a media educator and curator at the Northeast India AV Archive, was the heart of this project.
The book we created blends oral histories, lived experiences, poetry and visual interpretations. There’s a line from a poem in the book that I love, ‘All time is now. Our stories all have the same ending. We look for beauty in how they are told.’ When my mother fell ill, I found myself drawn to my roots and the stories of my grandparents who came to Shillong with nothing but the clothes on their back. There was a story about an aunty from a neighbouring village who had fled to Shillong on foot with nothing but twenty kilograms of tobacco to start a new life. Earlier these stories had been distant and enchanting, but my mother’s illness forced me to read this sense of loss and rupture from a deeply personal angle and my scholarship reflected that. Stories usually don’t find such a celebrated place in wider historiographies, so this is a small attempt to remedy that.
Happy Valley, which has fond monikers like Mini Mizoram, is in southeastern Shillong, Meghalaya. Old Khasi people call it Lusei Valley. It’s a place you go for second-hand clothes and goods from Myanmar that come through places like Moreh in Manipur or Champhai, Mizoram. The community there has a fascinating history. Many have returned to Mizoram. We interviewed both people currently residing in Happy Valley and those who had returned.
The genesis of this community lies in the insurgency on the one hand and the presence of the Assam Regimental Centre established in 1943 on the other. We received stories of many Mizo men who were taken into employment at the ARC pre-independence. The third reason why many people chose to stay on in Happy Valley was education. Mizoram is India's third most literate state and many families we interviewed chose to stay in Shillong because of the educational opportunities. Shillong is a premier location for education in the Northeast. This community has survived, thrived and become a part of the local landscape.
We structured the book bilingually in Mizo and English, with a smattering of Khasi, to make it accessible to the people whose stories we recorded. Initially I wanted to do something scholarly, but we both wondered if we were giving back to the communities whose history we were exploring. We avoided paraphrasing, striving to let people speak in their own voices, capturing even their imperfections and fragmented speech.
In the book, we share both joyful and traumatic stories. For example, one interviewee recounted how, when he was six-years-old, the firing started. He never met his brother who was killed during the insurgency. This project became more than just community history; it also explored memory, grief, trauma and belonging. I think we need to problematize belonging as a more nebulous term. I’ve found that belonging is not fixed to geography, to a land for these diasporic communities. It’s more of a process, a constant search, a becoming.
In our interviews, we uncovered moments of genuine inter-community cooperation. Although the community in Happy Valley is often discursively ghettoized in media, labelled for issues like drug use or alcoholism, we found stories of people helping each other, headmen working to secure land and inter-community dialogue. We found that the Mizoram Government was very helpful in settling the people in Shillong and continues to be invested in the welfare of its diaspora. We uncovered moments of genuine discourse between communities. These moments of dialogue exist alongside moments of conflict particularly when the flight of Manipuri refugees to Happy Valley has made the tussle over land more acute. Delving into people’s memories, their grief and trauma allowed us find these moments of inter-community dialogue.
Alongside the oral histories, there is a visual component. Junisha, a brilliant photographer, took abstract images that added another layer to the narrative. For example, we included photos of old army trunks that symbolized how these families began their lives here. We included pictures of my home now and my old home at Happy Valley.
Small acts, like establishing a school or giving away land, have fostered a profound sense of community and belonging. We found that this community, despite Mizoram’s patriarchal norms, was largely supported by the efforts of women. Food, too, played a central role, with people sharing produce and keeping their doors open for anyone to come in. People began to smoke meat, particularly pork and beef, and huge amounts of meat was exported to Mizoram from Meghalaya. Many would keep gardens where they would sell the produce, or share them. Through this we uncovered a profound sense of community sustenance. For example, we never locked our doors. It wasn’t because we were reassured that no one would rob us. It was to let anyone come in and eat off our table. A common Mizo greeting asks if one has had food. Similarly, a parting salutation literally translates to ‘enjoy your food.’ So, these were some of the many examples of cooperation and dialogue we found through various cultural idioms which fostered a sense of identity.
Moments of grief too play an important role in engendering belonging—like the woman who won’t leave Shillong because it’s where her son died. For diasporic communities, belonging isn’t necessarily about being tied to a place; it’s beyond a geographical imagining, it’s about the journey of seeking a place to belong. Belonging, in this sense, is an ongoing act of becoming. It exists in a liminal space.
As I close, I want to end with these words: Home is a difficult idea. Belonging is a difficult idea. For some, it is a structure or a place. For others, it is people, family, friends, a lover. For some it is the act of arriving, for some it is a destination within. For others yet, home is found in leaving. I would add that for some diasporic communities, belonging is in the act of seeking—it is a becoming, not a destination.
Kanato Chophy: Thank you, Megha, Seagull, and everyone, for inviting me to this discussion. I’m grateful to share thoughts on this topic, and I appreciate this space where people from varied regions and backgrounds can bring unique perspectives. I come from Nagaland, and as an anthropologist, I engage deeply with questions of ethnicity and layered identity—concepts that may seem theoretical. Still, they ground the very real and complex issues my community and I face. The dilemma most Nagas are faced with is being caught between annihilation or total assimilation with regard to the Indian state.
For many Nagas, the challenge lies in how we relate to the Indian state. This relationship is fraught with the fear of annihilation or the threat of forced assimilation. In the 1970s, there was a declaration – as Nagas narrate even today – from the Indian government, from Morarji Desai, to ‘trample’ every Naga under the boots of the Indian military. To add to what Karen said, the Naga fighters were bombed by Indira Gandhi too. Such words and experiences live long in the memory of our elders, fueling ongoing mistrust and defiance. For example, I often tease my acquaintances in hiding in Burma, encouraging them to come back and face this renewed Indian state, that allocates such an astronomical sum to its ‘defense’ budget. There is, however, an internal dialogue among us, the younger generation, about whether it’s time for pragmatic engagement with India, acknowledging the state’s technological and military might.
Still, this engagement raises profound concerns about cultural erasure and total assimilation. For example, our sacred landscapes, like in Khonoma village there is a cliff on a mountain, which looks like the face of a man. We understand this ‘face’ on the mountains as the guardian of the animal spirit. An Angami Naga would say that in the earlier times whenever he or a member of his tribe would want to go hunting, they would look at the expression on the face of the mountains to gauge how the hunt would be. Now these beliefs are being repurposed into narratives aligned with Hinduism. For example, now there is a narrative identifying this face as Lord Shiva. This assimilation threatens to overwrite our cultural symbols and traditions. I would like all of you to visit the Northeast and travel from Sadiya to Itanagar. You will see that there are excavations trying to decipher ancient pasts much prior to the Ahoms. However, many would try to figure this ancient past into a larger Hindu pantheon. There is myth that tries to identify the Idu Mishmis as descendants of Rukmini, and hence, label the Idu Mishmis as Hindu. I worry about our entire history being rebranded, sometimes into completely alien identities. How do we navigate this kind of total assimilation when we may be inundated by a larger culture?
Despite this, some of us, like Niketu Iralu, interestingly Naga nationalist Zapu Phizo’s nephew, who has tirelessly worked for peace, propose a path of coexistence within the Indian Constitution along the lines of Quebec and Scotland. India is a very old civilization but a very young democracy. The idea is to defer the question of Naga sovereignty to a more mature, empathetic future Indian democracy. For now, we could focus on autonomy, reclaiming decisions about our identity on our terms—rather than being dictated by policy or external anthropologists. We will decide on our own terms. We feel this could give us breathing space while preserving our culture and sense of belonging uniquely.
Continuing that thought, I recently wrote a piece for Scroll titled ‘Constitutional Indians.’ In it, I explore this very question of belonging. My argument is that I identify as a ‘Constitutional Indian.’ Culturally, I might share more with people from Yunnan or the Mekong region—I don’t trace my roots to the Indo-Gangetic Plain. But I chose to be part of India because of this document, the Indian Constitution, which serves as the connecting bridge between me and the larger Indian state. I hope this isn’t offensive to anyone here.
The Constitution guarantees equality, respect for diverse religions, freedom to practice faith, and freedom in daily choices—even down to what we eat, whether it's beef or pork. These freedoms drew me to embrace India, not a sense of cultural belonging. I bring my own culture to add to India’s diversity, but it’s this constitutional framework that grounds my identity within the Indian state.
This stance, however, stirs up intense debate within my community. Some openly call me a ‘Nehruphile,’ and if it were the 1990s, I could have been targeted just for expressing these ideas. At the same time, I receive messages from people across India questioning, ‘How dare you say you are not fully part of India?’—reflecting the complex expectations that every community should somehow align with a single ‘Indian civilization.’
So, for me and for the Nagas, the question of belonging is complex. We wrestle with internal issues related to tribe, clan, and family loyalties. But the larger question remains: how do we find a way to be part of India, on what terms and on which grounds? We’re grappling with these big questions as we try to define our place within India’s broader framework. Thank you all for allowing me to share this with you.
Monideepa Banerjie: It’s been wonderful listening to the speakers and I’m so happy to be here with two young people from the Northeast. I've travelled to that region often for work over the past 30 years. My most recent visit was to Nagaland for an election—a fascinating experience—and I was also in Meghalaya, where, I have to say, the traffic was overwhelming! It made Kolkata feel like heaven by comparison.
They've set the stage to explore what belonging means for people from the Northeast, a region that’s hard to define within specific geographical boundaries. Over the past day and a half, we've discussed belonging from historical, geographical, and political perspectives, but today, I’d like to look toward the future. I want to understand what the rest of India can do to help you feel part of what we call ‘mainstream’ India and how you might grow a sense of belonging within this broader framework.
With that, I’d like to start by asking you, Karen, based on what you’ve said here: Where do you belong? Do you belong to Mizoram? To Happy Valley? To India? How would you describe it? And where do you see your origins?
KD: Thank you, Monideepa. Before I answer your question specifically—and Kanato, you can join in on this—I think it’s important to note that for many young scholars from the Northeast, there’s a growing frustration with binary terms that frame our relationship with the rest of India. These terms—mainstream, peripheral, centre, margin—are often used as the operational axis to interact with RoI i.e the rest of India, yet they feel limiting and outdated. Moving forward, I think we need to drop these labels. They’re not helpful when discussing belonging.
I’ll give an example. Recently, I chaired a session at my university with young scholars from IIM who spoke about Northeast representation in the media. A young Khasi PhD scholar from Boston asked, ‘What interest do we have in aligning with a country that we, as a region, have only known through trauma?’ You see, a lot of the trauma we experience is state-legitimized violence, often carried out with impunity. Even if we’re not directly affected, we share in that grief as people from the same region, which has shaped a kind of regional trauma. This shared experience binds us, making terms like ‘insider,’ ‘outsider,’ ‘tribal,’ and ‘non-tribal’ feel restrictive. These categories appear often—even in book titles—but we must be more creative when discussing belonging.
So, where do I belong? This brings me to ideas shared by Professors Aloka and Romila in their discussion yesterday about viewing belonging in flexible terms rather than fixed ones. For instance, I am Mizo in Mizoram, but if I stand for elections, suddenly, I am Vai. As a diasporic person, I feel as much at home in Shillong as I do in Mizoram, or even in Tamil Nadu, but that’s my personal experience.
Being Mizo, however, is also performative. Belonging requires performance, which we seldom discuss. To ‘belong’ as Mizo, I must participate in certain activities—attending church, engaging in community events, and fulfilling roles my community expects of me, especially as a single working woman, which they interpret as having plenty of free time. There’s a performative side to belonging and if I stop performing certain roles, my ‘Mizo-ness’ is somehow diminished in others' eyes.
So, belonging, for me, is a constant process of becoming. It’s not something with a clear, definitive answer. Kanato might have more to add here.
KC: Karen’s experience and mine are worlds apart. For Nagas, our sense of belonging feels more primordial. We trace our ancestry through generations, counting back to our grandfathers and beyond, often to the 17th or 18th generation. This depth is central to our identity and our origins are steeped in myth. For instance, an Angami, Ao, or Sema Naga would tell you that three brothers once lived together in a village and later dispersed. Whether a person is living in California or Nagaland, we all trace our lineage back to that ancestor. This shared ancestry is a powerful bond within Naga society.
But there are complexities, too. Say, hypothetically, I fall in love with a married woman and somehow end up marrying her. What about our children? In our very patriarchal society, lineage and belonging are often defined by paternal lines, raising questions about identity and belonging for mixed-heritage children. This is becoming more relevant as society changes. Similar questions arise among the Khasi and other Northeastern tribes—where do children of mixed heritage fit in?
Personally, I feel secure. My parents are from the same tribe and I’ll probably marry someone my mother approves of, which will likely be someone from my tribe. So, for me, belonging isn’t in question. But for many, it is. As people migrate, languages and traditions are forgotten. To truly identify as an Ao Naga, for example, you must speak Ao, know some folk songs, perhaps perform a traditional dance, and be familiar with our stories. Even our food habits are part of our identity—being from the Northeast, I may go to North India and insist on eating beef as a subtle act of rebellion.
It’s not just a place we belong to but a culture we carry with us: our identity and language. Yet, culture changes, people intermarry, language can be lost. So, the sense of belonging becomes a question for the next generation. This is not only true for the Nagas but also for many other tribes in Northeast India.
KD: I just want to clarify—I feel like I might be doing a poor job of representing the Mizo community because, in a way, I've been speaking more on my behalf. Mizos also have a sense of primordial belonging, tied to myths like the origins from the Chhinlung cave. So there is that ancestral element, too. But when I answered your question about where Karen belongs, that was a personal response. I wanted to make that clear.
MB: Thank you for clarifying. I have a question: being from different places, do you ever ask yourself where you belong?
Aloka Parasher Sen: I relate to this question deeply. People like me, who belong to lands now part of another country, often wonder what ‘belonging’ means. For example, we speak of villages like Baddokin Gosaian in Gujranwala, places we've never seen but feel connected to. And I agree with Kanato—in cultural and civilizational terms, this question of who we are is intimate and powerful for all of us, Mizos included. But then there’s the question of boundaries.
Take, for example, Kanato’s point—besides tribal identities like Lotha, Changaza, or Angami, religious association also shapes belonging, like the church. If he marries someone from a different tribe, say, a Changaza, she might then be expected to join a Sema church. So, belonging is rooted not just in land or ‘Nagaland’ as a place but an identity. And these boundaries of identity can be flexible, which raises questions for the future.
Also, you mentioned the Constitution—this idea of belonging as assimilative or even annihilative. But there’s something in between. When I’ve travelled through Nagaland over the years, I’ve seen a kind of ‘soft culture’ that’s entered, like Bollywood. Everyone’s singing Hindi songs, even when we’re trying to speak in English. This isn’t just about being Indian citizens or taking jobs in other parts of the country; it’s something else, this soft cultural exchange that goes beyond formal identity. There’s an unspoken intrusion happening that’s hard to pinpoint.
MB: Does anyone else want to share about identity and where they feel they belong? Yes, Radha, would you like to share?
Audience Member 1: I’ve had the privilege of living on this earth for almost 50 years now; Of those years, 28 have been dedicated to learning to be a teacher and an administrator. The question Monideepa raised is one I’ve pondered my entire life. As a teacher, I’ve explored this question through my work and travels and for me the idea of belonging is deeply tied to location.
In my school, I hold one identity; beyond it, my identity changes. My profession and education shape a significant part of who I am. When I went to the USA on a Fulbright scholarship, my identity shifted—I was simply Indian, regardless of the Indian states' distinctions. But here in India I’m seen as Bengali or even identified as being from ‘Eastern India’ in other places.
Being a teacher, I strongly feel that students need to understand the perspective of belonging. Belongingness and identity evolve with the spaces we occupy. We experience open-mindedness and acceptance at this conference but this isn’t the case everywhere. So, I believe that both belongingness and identity adapt to our environment.
Audience Member 2: I agree entirely that belonging can shift depending on where you are. But I also think there’s another layer to it—whether others feel you belong. I was born and raised in Bengal and have always identified as Indian, comfortable in Bengal. But one day, I was called a ‘abangali’ (non-Bengali) in Bengal, making me question everything.
Until then, I felt secure in my sense of belonging. But I wondered where I truly belonged when that label was placed on me. This happened when I was 32, and was the first time I questioned my place. So sometimes, belonging isn’t just about where we feel comfortable but also how others perceive us. That perception can shake or affirm our sense of belonging.
MB: Absolutely. That reminds me of a conversation I had with my brother recently. He’s a former army officer, and since we lived outside the state, he can barely read or write in Bangla. I asked him, ‘Are you Bengali?’ He insisted that he was, but I challenged him—he can neither read, write, nor fully speak the language. He eats fish and lives in Kolkata for now but is that enough to make him a Bengali? He was really troubled.
Kirti Kaul: This topic is deeply personal for me as a Kashmiri Pandit who’s lived in Delhi for 30 years. I think, sometimes, we resist the idea of belonging. I spent my first 18 years in Kashmir, where I’ve always felt I belong. Moving to Delhi, I was told that Delhi was an ‘aggressive’ place and for years I rejected the idea of considering it home.
But over time, I met people here who made me feel accepted. Delhi has embraced us as much as Kashmir did. So, while Kashmir will always be my home emotionally and spiritually, I now feel I belong in Delhi too. Karen’s words about ‘home being a difficult idea’ resonated with me—sometimes you find home by leaving it. Despite its aggression, Delhi has offered us a place to belong and I’m grateful for that. So, belonging isn’t singular; it can stretch across places, people, and experiences.
MB: Thank you Kirti, for that heartfelt reflection. I’d love to hear reactions from the group. Radha, would you like to add anything?
KD: Thank you, Kirti; that was moving. The notion that ‘home is found in leaving’ strikes a chord. As a Mizo, these experiences of belonging are complex and evolving. I want to share something with all of you.
My aunt is the principal of Mizo Modern School in Shillong which has welcomed students displaced from Manipur. My friends working there have shared heart-wrenching stories of these students who leave the address section blank or cry when filling out forms. This reflects the reality that we, as educators, grapple with. In regions where there is ongoing conflict, or even in the absence of an overt, visible oppression, peace is precious.
I’ve witnessed rising fault lines, shifts toward saffronization and the increasing divide among communities in Shillong. These divisions impact our sense of belonging and shape the future. This underscores the importance of pushing against rigid, fixed ideas of belonging. We must create space for those who can’t even write down a ‘home address.’
MB: This is getting quite emotional. Let’s focus on some hard facts. Tell me, both of you, since it’s been brought up, how do you see the Manipur situation?
What does the idea of belonging mean in the context of what’s happened in Manipur over the last year? Who belongs? The Meitei, the Kukis, the Nagas?
KC: I’ve been speaking and writing on this issue and though I wanted to avoid it, I can’t. Most ethnic conflicts or violence arise from struggles over resources—land and resources—and that’s what we’re seeing in Manipur. There’s this underlying danger. I’m a Naga and ‘my people,’ as they’re called, are spread across Myanmar, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. And we’re asking for a “Greater Nagaland,” which has been a major concern for the Indian state.
The question is really about land and resources and history comes into play here. When we say a piece of land belongs to us because we were born there, it draws on a history that legitimizes our claim. The issue of free movement complicates things further.
I come from a privileged Naga class where we’re considering whether dual citizenship could be an option for our people living in Myanmar. Could they belong to both Myanmar and India? But neither the Indian nor the Myanmar state seems mature enough to handle this—they just want to close the border. We must remember that people lived here long before India gained independence in 1947. Take Longwa village for instance; the chief’s kitchen is in India, but the other half of the house is in Myanmar. How do we navigate issues like that? Immigration has been happening for generations.
However, the problem among Nagas was that we spread this false narrative, labelling others as immigrants when the porous borders have always allowed movement in both directions. We could sit here and blame the Meitei, the Kukis, or the Nagas, but it doesn’t help. The real danger is this narrative, pushed by both the Indian state and the dominant Meitei community, that all Kukis are immigrants from Myanmar and are ‘narco-terrorists.’ That’s a recipe for genocide.
This mindset of ‘you belong’ or ‘you’re an outsider’ becomes dangerous. ‘You’re from Myanmar, go back to Myanmar, this land belongs to us’—that’s the same attitude among some Nagas too. The ability to move freely and interact across cultural zones is essential in the borderlands.
As far as Manipur is concerned, the conflict has simmered for a long time. But now, labelling an entire community as outsiders is deeply problematic. That’s my take.
MB: I was in Aizawl before the Manipur situation blew up and there were hundreds of Myanmarese refugees living there in challenging conditions. But the then Chief Minister was very supportive. He refused to send them back despite pressure to do so. The people there told me, ‘They’re our relatives across the border. We’ve always been able to come and go.’ So, how could they refuse to shelter them? There’s a logic to that and there’s even an agreement allowing travel within a sixteen-kilometer range. It seems the government plans to build fences like the Indo-Bangladesh fence, which is entirely porous anyway.
I met a young girl in ninth grade, living in a shelter and I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. She said, ‘I want to be a journalist.’ I was moved by that—a journalist in a country where reporting is so difficult. I can’t recall the last time I saw a real, ground-level report from Myanmar. So, that’s Aizawl for you. I’m glad your people sheltered the refugees. But now they’re also sheltering Kukis from Manipur. It’s becoming an incredibly complex, messy situation, isn’t it?
KD: It’s an unfolding situation, and no one really knows where it’s heading. Conflict spills over, especially in the Northeast, which is why the situation in Manipur is so concerning. And the lack of public discourse on Manipur is troubling. Broadcast journalism is effectively dead here; there’s just deafening silence.
Kannan and I have spoken about this and we’ve noticed that for people in the heartland, the population in the Northeast is too small to make a difference. But then, what’s the point of belonging to India? The concept of a modern nation-state—Benedict Anderson’s imagined communities, the idea of India—are relatively new constructs. Ethnic ties have always crossed boundaries and political or geographic divisions have existed long before an idea of India, as we know it, was solidified. Mizoram only formally became a state in 1987. These issues extend beyond borders. For instance, people on the Bangladesh border often have fields on one side and homes on the other. We can’t ignore these complexities.
Kanato and I feel fortunate to have the gift of hindsight in our communities, which is invaluable. In classrooms, I encourage students to think about moving forward. As Kanato mentioned, history is important, but scholarship should be productive.
What matters now in a region scarred by trauma, ethnic violence, and state-sponsored violence is working toward a dignified future where peace is central to our vision. Theory is one thing, but at the end of the day, it’s about the child who has no address. Scholarship must go hand in hand with creating a dignified future. I’m very passionate about that.
MB: ‘Constitutional Indian’––maybe that’s where the answer lies. You mentioned it briefly, Kanato. What does the Constitution mean to you and the younger generation in the Northeast? What could it mean to them and how could it change their lives?
KC: It goes both ways. If you ask any Naga whether they'd prefer to be with India or China, they’d say, India. That’s how messed up it is! Despite the flaws in our democracy and the state of our nation, people still believe in India’s democratic system and the protection of rights through the Indian Constitution, which provides some sense of freedom. This is quite fascinating.
But it goes both ways and there’s a danger in this. Personally, I’m thinking of leaving, not coming back to the mainland—perhaps only to visit. As people of India, how are we handling something as sacrosanct as the Constitution? The more I try to understand it, especially issues of equality and the rule of law—where everyone, regardless of caste or gender, should have rights—the more crucial it becomes for us.
Another issue is the freedom to profess religion, which needs to be discussed and is a point of dissatisfaction among Nagas. These are things the younger generation is talking about. As I mentioned in Professor Aloka’s comment on popular culture, my nephews and nieces speak fluent Hindi, while my own Hindi is... well, lacking. They’re watching shows like Doraemon and Shin Chan.
A great example of this is Angami Kevichusa, a Naga nationalist leader’s granddaughter, Andrei Kevichusa, who acted in the Bollywood movie Anek. She speaks good Hindi. This shows how soft culture and change impact us.
Aloka Parasher Sen: This brings us to the question of borders and regions. Just as I’ve argued, the very name ‘India’ is of recent origin, as is the concept of a nation-state. There are boundaries in the West that are of recent origin, too.
In the Northeast, communitarian identities are fluid, as we’ve seen. People move from one region to another, but physical boundaries are fixed. Take the British in 1885, when they tried to create political entities all over including in the Naga Hills and beyond. Grierson, for example, in his Linguistic Survey of India, noted that borders were often bilingual despite the presence of a core linguistic area. For example, for a long time my father did not know whether they would write in Gurmukhi or in Urdu.
In the Northeast, especially in Nagaland, the linguistic diversity is huge. Within each tribe, there are many dialects. Bilingualism here is a challenge and the boundaries we now have are artificial. For example, we might go to a hill in Nagaland and find that just across the border is Manipur. So the problem, as I understand it, is the creation of these artificial boundaries. Would you agree?
KD: Every boundary in the Northeast is contested. Even in Mizoram, within the community, there are divisions. As you said, the colonial construct imposed rigidity on what should be fluid, and this has caused many problems.
However, many Mizos were grateful to the British for introducing the alphabet, medicine and other things, but the oppressor, in our case, is seen as the Indian state. The insurgency in Mizoram wasn’t against the British—it was against the Indian state. The issue is that when rigidity is imposed on something fluid, like putting a dam across a river, it causes problems. The same applies to our region.
I also want to mention the Khasi-Jaintia community, which has a beautiful cultural mechanism of belonging. There is a ritual called Tangjait. When a man marries a non-Khasi woman, their offspring can be assimilated into the community through this ceremony, where they take the surname Khar. This shows how cultural belonging can adapt and accommodate others.
However, in places like Shillong, there have been recent incidents of violence against migrant labourers. These aren’t sudden outbursts of hate—they stem from resource conflicts, as Kanato rightly said, that rears its head in ugly ways. The sense of belonging is taking on violent, ugly forms in the Northeast, and we need to be cautious. Perhaps instead of assimilation or annihilation, we should consider an accommodationist approach—a middle path in our way forward.
KC: Let me just finish the point you're talking about. Thank you, Professor Aloka. Professor Zoya will be pleased if she hears this: the fact that the Nagas had one, useless, um, well, I apologize—one ‘not useless,’ but rather a fine gentleman, an MP from the Congress Party for the past twenty years. And then suddenly, one fine day, a Naga said, ‘No, no, today we'll forget our ethnic and tribal lines. Everyone should come together and throw out this government.’
One of the reasons the Nagas rebelled was that they felt the central government was infringing upon their constitutional right to freedom of religion. The concept of a ‘constitutional Indian’ is not important just because we want to belong, but the question is bigger––is India as a nation developing a healthy, functioning democracy, or are we willing to uphold a Constitution that truly works? This remains a significant problem. As I mentioned, the question of being a ‘constitutional Indian’ becomes significant because it gives us space to be a part of India on our own terms.
But at the same time, while the idea of the Constitution is relevant, one of the reasons violence has been much less in Manipur than it could have been is because some people believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, like ‘turn the other cheek.’ These teachings cannot be denied.
So, what I am trying to assert here is that this idea of the constitutional Indian doesn't only apply between a Naga and the mainstream, but even within the Nagas themselves. Are we, as citizens of India, providing space to each other as the Constitution enshrines?
Are we, as Nagas or people from other communities, giving space to one another in line with the Constitution? It will take time for a Naga society to develop this worldview, but it’s not too late to start. That’s why some of us are saying, let’s just talk about the Constitution and we could be shot for something as harmless as that. People have been killed for having such ideas. But we hope this can be a way forward for Nagas to be part of India, under the Constitution, but on our terms.
Gulan Kripalani: Yes, thank you both for your very moving presentations. I want to apologize in advance because what I say may sound incredibly naïve or like a utopian idea. But I believe that if we say something can’t happen, it’s a failure of imagination. Anything can happen.
For two days, we’ve heard so much about identities, conflict, pain, and grief. I just want to take a few minutes to gather my thoughts because we are talking to young people—teachers, parents and those who nurture the next generation. What are we teaching them? Both Karen and you have mentioned, ‘What is the future?’
We teach them things are how they are, but they will change. Governments will fall. Perhaps we may even be bombed out of existence before we know it. But while we are here, there is a beautiful idea that we all know about: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. For those who don’t know, it means ‘The world is my family.’ The world is my family—not just North-East India, Kerala, Gujarat, or Germany. The world is my family. And while our identities are wonderfully, marvellously, joyously different, something also connects all of us. We need to focus on that, not on what divides us.
I celebrate that each of us is unique and should be celebrated. Diversity, like nature, is essential. I told a friend earlier that we need each other to survive—forget about everything else. Nature needs the worm just as much as it needs the elephant. We need each other in every country, every profession, every language, every gender, every sex, every locale. Everywhere.
There are two ideas I wanted to mention. The first is the interconnectedness of human beings. What connects us is emotion. When you grieve, what you feel is the same as what I feel when I grieve. If I can connect with your grief, then that’s the connection. I don’t care if I don’t speak your language and you don’t speak mine. That’s just a detail.
The important thing is: Do I feel empathy? Do I feel part of a whole? Do I feel part of a world that is all mine? Can we teach our children that? Because God knows we’ve made a mess of things by focusing on our identities. Could we start thinking beyond the boundaries of maps, languages and nations? Can we take the idea of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam to the world and celebrate our interconnectedness?
MB: I want to ask, how many of you are school teachers here? Okay, and I know you all are from across the country. How many of you are even focusing on teaching your students about this? Forget Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam for now. In a school setting, what are you teaching youngsters? Even in my time, we weren’t taught much about broader philosophies like sharing, belonging, or anything. Are you teaching your students about it?
Audience Member 1: Yes, I think my answer lies in what you just mentioned, but I’d like to throw this out there for others who may want to contribute. I’m really moved by what you just said.
I’m glad that history textbooks are finally talking about the Northeast, which had been neglected for a long time. But when we introduce the topic of the Northeast, the title is often ‘separatist tendencies.’ Immediately, we unconsciously communicate that there is a group that doesn’t want to belong, which conflicts with the image of the nation we have built.
We’ve already categorized people as wanting to separate, which oversimplifies a complex issue. This is where my challenge lies. I would like to talk about these difficult histories and be sensitive about them, but what I say in class often contradicts what is written in the textbooks. There also isn’t enough literature available for children to access, as it hasn’t been made available to them. I can’t expect everyone to Google research papers. How can we help students gain access to this information? Do you have any suggestions?
KC: I am just giving you an idea, exchanging ideas and learning from one another will be constructive. We still have a very negative portrayal of the Northeast, portraying it as a dangerous place where people do things like eat raw meat. While doing my anthropological studies at Delhi University, I came across some classmates who still thought we wore banana leaves.
I can be honest about this. I can’t blame them, as this imagery is often spread. But this problem—travelling to learn about the Northeast—is something only the wealthy can afford. One international school in Bangalore sends students to Khonoma every year to learn about the indigenous way of life, culture and the history of the Northeast. So, this is how things are starting to happen at the school level.
KD: I'm a third-generation teacher, as I mentioned before. My grandmother was a teacher, my mother was a teacher, and I am one as well. Our textbooks have significant issues—especially in my state, where their condition is appalling. This is a good starting point for discussion, but I’m unsure how to mobilize for change. This issue profoundly concerns me. If anyone here is involved with NCERT or SCERT, you’d know there are political pressures at play. I remember my then 8 or 9-year-old niece, for example, trying to memorize Sanskrit terms in her history books. She’s half Naga, half Mizo, and it's hard for her to pronounce these words. For real change, we need to rethink our approach to pedagogy in this country. I don’t have a simple answer, but I appreciate this question because I don’t look for easy, superficial solutions—I want the right questions, even the tough ones. Your question is critical, so thank you for raising it.
Another point: generally, people from the Northeast, tend to be shy and speak less. In a classroom of 100, if you have a couple of Northeastern students, they might be hesitant to speak up; there’s often a feeling of ‘what I’m not good enough.’
In my capacity, I’ve been visiting colleges, encouraging students to start by documenting family histories rather than aiming for grand narratives. One of the things that concerns me about the Mizo community is that many of us, myself included, can’t trace our ancestry beyond the fourth or fifth generation. Unlike the Kukis or Nagas, we lack mechanisms to track our heritage. So, I encourage writing, even if it’s simple. I suggest students maintain blogs or document their communities and localities. Not every Mizo or Naga person will become a scholar, but democratizing knowledge production is crucial. We can ensure reliability through basic checks and validations. This is a small step, but I hope it contributes to something significant over time.
KC: Just a quick thought. I’m a bit pessimistic about this issue. The reality is that if someone starts to write or document, there can be a reaction. For example, the village of Khonoma, sacred to the Angami Nagas, is now sometimes compared to images of Lord Shiva. For tribal communities, certain landscapes hold ancestral spirits, yet others interpret these as sites related to apsaras or Hindu gods. This can create tension. There’s a history of ideology in interpretations from the ‘mainland.’ People from our region are cautious and guarded because of this. If NCERT can make mistakes in representing Indian history, then who can we trust? At the same time, it is true that we need to write and it’s up to us in the Northeast to increase our output so our voices are heard. We need to write more and ensure our perspectives are represented.
Audience Member 3: Can I quickly add a point? Films have had an important role in shaping how we view the Northeast, like the movie Axone. It was a great start for me in the classroom.
MB: How many of you have seen Axone? It's available on Netflix—if you haven’t watched it, I recommend it. It showcases Northeastern culture and Bollywood could potentially have a unifying effect. I’ll give you an example. I was asked to talk to some people from all over the world on Indian media. Half the time we spoke about journalism and the media and the other half we were talking about Bollywood. This gentleman from Ethiopia showed me a clip from a Hindi movie dubbed entirely in Ethiopian. This was also true for Kenya, Armenia, etc.
KD: Growing up, Mithun Chakraborty was a household name among Mizos. He also has a Mizo name which translates to ‘you better win my dear boy.’ Bollywood has fostered cultural connections, but there’s a cautionary side. For example, whistled language is used in a Meghalaya village Kongthong. where each person has a unique whistled name. This has been adopted by a BJP MP in the past year or so. The whistled tunes are becoming Bollywood tunes now. We desire connection but don’t want to lose our authenticity to assimilation. We have to ask where does it become insidiously assimilative.
Gulan Kripalani: It’s true. Accommodation is better than assimilation; assimilation suggests erasure of identity.
Kannan Gopinathan: If movies and series were the way I think that the Northeast culture might become Korean before Bollywood. Bollywood may play a minor role, but political identity often overrides cultural influence. When the India-China skirmishes were going on, Indians were happily watching C-Dramas on YouTube and commenting on it. Political identity can overwhelm the cultural side and in some ways cultural influences find their way of still making their presence felt. For example, Kanato, did Alia Bhatt influence your take on the ‘constitutional Indian’?
I have a question: Do you want Northeast to be represented in the media more than what it currently is. Secondly, if I were to label you, Kanato, as Ao Naga and not Angama Naga and a Catholic not a Baptist, would that offend you? How are greater cultures treating little cultures within the same state? Lastly, how much of the identity question is governed by geopolitical factors?
KC: The idea of a ‘constitutional Indian’ relates to the goal of a dignified, peaceful future. Growing up, I saw my father humiliated by the Indian army, an officer slapped my father in front of me, which is a difficult memory for a Naga man, given our warrior heritage. Our hope is for a halfway path where both Nagas and the Indian state can find common ground. The idea of sovereignty can be reserved for the future.
The media’s representation of the Northeast is often broad and lacks nuance—Anek, for example, is beautiful but doesn’t fully capture the unique challenges of each state. The media also often falls prey to exoticization of the Northeast which also complicates things, but sometimes we also engage in it because it serves tourism.
Geopolitical factors also impact identity and it is very complex. For example, I was supposed to go to Myanmar in March but I did not go because the coup happened in February. Border issues with Burma affect Manipur and Nagaland, problems in China affect Arunachal Pradesh as migration and unrest complicate identity. Borders pose challenges that call for sensitive negotiation and respect for regional histories, that demand peace.
MB: This is no small task. Thank you all for engaging in such a meaningful conversation. These discussions can bring us closer to a peaceful, if complex, resolution.
Karen Donoghue presently teaches in the Dept. of Journalism and Mass Communication, NEHU Shillong. Her PhD is focused on media representations of Northeast India on mainstream Indian media and her research interests include Media Representation, Media and Gender and Oral History. She has just completed an Oral History project titled “Stories from the Valley” in collaboration with Ms. D. Junisha Khongwir of the NEIAV Archive, funded by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Japan that looks at the community history of the diasporic Mizo community of Happy Valley, a locality in Shillong. A book by the same name was also produced.
Karen enjoys reading, playing the guitar and listening to music, loves long walks with her dogs and writes poetry occasionally.
G. Kanato Chophy is a native of Nagaland who writes extensively on the history, politics, and cultures of North-East India. His research mostly focuses on ethnicity, religious change, political anthropology, and borderland studies. He currently teaches Social Anthropology at the Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh, Assam. His most recent work is Christianity and Politics in Tribal India: Baptist Missionaries and Naga Nationalism (State University of New York Press, 2021).
Monideepa Banerjie is a Kolkata-based journalist reporting on contemporary politics in West Bengal, in fact, the most familiar face of Kolkata on national TV, having covered everything east for India’s premier news channel NDTV for the last twenty-eight years. In those twenty-eight years, she has seen the dramatic fall of the Communists and the meteoric rise of Mamata Banerjee. Monideepa began her career with The Telegraph, was one of the earliest journalists in the country to transition to television and is a Chevening Scholar (1997) and a Fulbright Fellow (2001).
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