(From right to left): Dr Yengkhom Jilangamba, Kalpana Sharma, Tungshang Ningreichon and Xonzoi Barbora during the dialogue of peace held during the first day of Cultures of Peace Festival 2018 on November 9. (Morung Photo by Soreishim Mahong)
Morung Express News
Dimapur | November 9
North East India is best known for its infinite wealth of the cultures that breathes the region.
With this as intellectual nourishment, activists, writers and scholars on Friday saw active discussion on the ways in which the North East region's cultures have traditionally and contemporaneously communicated with each other, with 'mainland' India and other neighbours. Can there be a meaningful conversation between cultures that helps in making way for a broader notion of peace?
The event- Zubaan’s annual festival celebrating and highlighting culture, art, literature, media from the North East was held in collaboration with The Morung Express and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, India at Tetso College, 5th Mile Dimapur on the theme ‘Cultures of Peace.’
The panelist at the discussion include Kalpana Sharma, an independent senior journalist, columnist, writer based in Mumbai; human rights activists, Tungshang Ningreichon, Xonzoi Barbora, Dean, School of Social Sciences and Humanities at TISS Guwahati.
Opening the discussion, moderator Dr Yengkhom Jilangamba, Assistant Professor, Guwahati campus TISS said one of the aspects of culture is to do it together, to understand culture in the context of the recent past where culture is closely related to religious mobilization and political usages.
Sharma shared that coming from the mainland, she looked at culture from a different perspective. “When I think of culture in the context of mainland, it is a very narrow concept because it is not something seen clearly in terms of art, literature and those things,” she pointed out.
According to her, the issue of linking culture to region is a problematic one and therefore not so simple. “The problem in India is we don’t question enough. The teaching and learning is based on obedience everywhere. We need to develop the inculcated questioning culture. There is the need to think and discuss about the global culture.”
Giving her insight on Nagaland and its culture, Sharma felt that the most valuable thing Nagaland has is environmental sustainability that is built into the manner in which the society operates and which goes beyond any division. “We are talking about something that weaves us together,” she added.
Coming to the present generation, Sharma observed that technology has been able to establish a far more connected society, a connectivity which can possibly build a shared future. Therefore the value and use of technology should be to be used as a tool of shared connectivity irrespective of caste, class, region. Shared concerns can be highlighted that transcend all differences, she stated.
Ningreichon felt that the immediate challenge of different communities is in the art of interacting with neighbors and other cultures. “I am looking at the complexities, the multi-culture with every changing circumstance and realize that we need to find collectively answer that leads us to the direction of a shared future,” he posited.
One solution, according to Ningreichon would be to build a vision of a shared future which is “so Naga but at the same time able to embrace every identity and culture.”
“We need to think about new ways of looking at the world,” Barbora said while pointing out that culture is not about going to the museum but trying to understanding everything, trying to find something common in the reading, in the experience and interaction with other people and in the discovery of becoming the person in the process.
“We can do better for a shared future when we speak a common language and radio station can be a tool to help the multi-linguistic cultures to communicate easier,” Barbora added.
