[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here is a weariness that has crept in towards the news of the levels of violence that is dominating the media space for the past several decades. In recent times the degree of atrocities only seem to be getting worse. While this is true of the events around the world, it is worrying to know that the situation is no better in the north eastern region. In fact the vulnerability of the population who live amidst gun totting men whose philosophy is violence is worrying. Militants shot a 35year old woman six times in her head before her children and husband and today militants again gunned down a Superintendent Police of the Assam Police Service. The incidents occurred in two different places. The former in the Garo Hills in Meghalaya and the latter in Hamren division of Assam’s Karbi Anglong district , one which Nagaland has many an issue to resolve. However one might wish for this kind of violence and killings to end ( Nagaland not excluded) … like the cold blooded murder of Muslims in Assam’s Bodoland at the height of the recent Lok Sabha election campaigns, these in images stick and they define us to the world outside.The irony here is all these actions are explained away as the larger end to attaining self determination to bring about peace.
Violence begets violence. This is what we must remind each other …each one to as many individuals that he or she can. There can be no denying at the same time that ‘exploitation’ of the regions’ rich natural resources is what has been carrying on over the decades and contributed to the growth of the shadow of insurgency. It has gripped the landscape of the Eastern Front of India as it emerged as a ‘jewel’ in the crown of post colonial India. The region falls within the top ten bio diversity hotspots in the world and so much more reason why emphasis on studies and research institutes and sustainable industries should have been promoted. Whether we talk about the oil and tea industry of Assam or its wondrous forests no industry worth its name has ever come up, no pharmaceutical industry nor educational institutes, nor state of the art centre for music and dance and theatre , or filmmaking or design or architecture, or institute of languages … the list can go on.
Impoverishment of the land, to my mind is intricately linked with the impoverishment of the soul. And that is a dangerous hell to govern life from. The time has come to heal, the land. There is so much that the ‘northeast’ (the eight sister states are collectively referred to as) has to offer not just the rest of the country but to the world. Nobody will understand our situation better than us. And here our political leaders must step in to fill up the wide chasm that exists between the states. It is imperative that the leaders of the state’s meet regularly and visit different states within the region.
Encourage businessmen,students, scholars, through ingenious schemes to learn about each other’s culture and traditions. Our socio economic challenges are interlinked and likewise solutions to them will also be found within. But this can only happen where there is ‘understanding’ not information alone.
At the moment every state in the ‘northeast’ is straining towards becoming an island, yet the region is always clubbed together, both for convenience and from ignorance of those who have never set foot east of Kolkata.
The future lies in how the leaders of the region will manoeuvre the politics of their respective states individually and collectively and define the region and not be defined.
