Aheli Moitra
While the heated topic of discussion at the moment is the influx of migrants into the North East region, let us bring focus on the indigenous peoples of the North East who migrate out of the region for education, scholarship, jobs, matrimonial alliances, mission work or other reasons.
Each year, August 9 is commemorated as the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in recognition of the first meeting of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva in 1982. This year’s theme is “indigenous peoples’ migration and movement.”
It gives us an additional opportunity to look at migration from the North East to various parts of the Indian Union.
In his seminal work on migration from the North East to New Delhi, Duncan McDuie-Ra looks at the economic opportunities created by a globalised Delhi that attract North East migrants for specific labour needs; this movement is facilitated by citizenship and English. His book entitled ‘Northeast migrants in Delhi – Race, Refuge and Retail’ (2012) combs through the lives of migrants settled in Delhi who forge multiple identities to survive an exclusionary life and work environment, creating new boundaries in the heart of a nation state their ancestors have refused to be part of.
As villages and fields back home are emptied of young people, the older generation finds new ways of packing meat pickles for their culturally isolated children bound for often-militant-vegetarian cities. In a new book entitled ‘The Flavours of Nationalism – Recipes for Love, Hate and Friendship’ (2018), Nandita Haksar discusses the depletion of the Naga diet over the years. With the labour required on jhum fields migrating to far away cities, the biodiversity that characterized the Naga food plate is slowly dissolving into hard pressed fixed forms, perhaps even altering the plurality and ethos of Naga society.
Between 2013 and 2016, anthropologists Dolly Kikon and Bengt G. Karlsson set out with photographer Andrzej Markiewicz to trace indigenous migrants from the Northeast to South Indian cities. Their project entitled ‘Wayfinding: a photoethnography of indigenous migration’ will be showcased in Stockholm University as part of the European Association of Social Anthropologists conference next week. As the young are leaving villages – no longer interested in cultivating the field – the scholars ask what the future holds for the indigenous communities of North East India. What are the new aspirations of the indigenous youth that make them seek new careers in cities that may be hostile to them? How do they break barriers of strong identity stereotypes that don’t sway in their favour?
The works of each of the scholars demand detailed study and also tempt us to ask what happens to the North East region as more young people migrate out. What happens to those who stay? Who will work the fields in this cultivator society? What happens to the battles over land and sovereignty, for good governance, against corruption? Will political solutions enable migrants to come back to become pioneers of industries they are labouring for in Indian cities? On International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2018, we can reflect on some of these questions.
Migration experiences can be shared at moitramail@yahoo.com
