Where are the Indigenous People?

Long many years back, during a seminar on race and ethnicity, I had asked the then President of Axom Xahitya Xobha, Birendranath Dutta why he kept mentioning the original people of Assam as tribes and not the indigenous people. Interestingly, he didn't have an answer to this most vital question. He only loosely said, "Well, some people say tribes and some say indigenous." Not a very satisfactory answer for a President of such a pretigious organisation of Assam. 

If we were to take the history of Assam, the whole place was a region covered in swamp and surrounded by hills. Mughal historian, Sihabuddin Tahlish said that "...it rained for more than 8 months in Assam and it rained for the rest four months, which was during winter...". Insects of various kinds, wild animals of all species roamed freely making it totally uninhabitable for any other people except for people of the land. 

The first inhabitants were the Khasis and the Garos of Indo-Austric origin. They came from Kampuchea, now Cambodia and also from Laos. All this occured before 2500 B.C. These people were able to tolerate extremes of everything, which Assam was famous for. 

Then came the people of Tibeto-Burman origin; the Koch Rajbongshis, the Bodos, the Kacharis and the Mech Kacharis. 

These people were the only people who could survive under such extreme conditions. Food for them was available in the wild and without any doubt, they have to be said to be the original , the ethnic, the indigenous people of the land, Assam. But where are they now? They have been marginalised to such an extent by the later settlers, that their very existence is at stake now. They live in small pockets of the state, bereft of several opportunities that a mainland Indian enjoy without a care in the world. But why such injustice? Their land has been taken from them and they are left with very little to be proud of of their ethnicity.

Today, I happened to have a brief interaction with Prof. C. Mathew Snipp, Department of Sociology, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Stanford University at the Administrative Staff College. The seminar revolved around the topic 'Immigration and Conflict Resolution'. Prof. Snipp is a person of Cherokee origin, one of the first Red-Indians of the USA and he spoke at length of this world-wide phenomenon of depriving the original people of the land. He took four countries, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the US as case studies. For each of them, he spoke of the conflict between the indigenous people and the immigrants, who immigrate to a particular country for political freedom and economic opportunity. Colonialism was another topic he spoke at length.

My question to Prof. Snipp was, "The Government of Assam and also of the 6th Schedule states of Northeast India have done a lot of injustice to the ethnic people in the garb of giving them 'a lot'. If I may mention about Arunachal Pradesh, a voter would be anxiously waiting for the election times when he will be given Rs. 10,000/- for every vote that he casts. The victory feast that follows leaves the voter unable to contribute towards his work front for more than 2-3 days. Also, on my visit to Canada, I noticed that the original inhabitants of the country, the Inuits were given everything by the Government; Free homes, subsidised food and health care. However, the government might have a hidden agenda as all these people have become unable to do any hard persistent work. They have become totally dependent on the Government. In context to Northeast India and Canada, is the government slowly trying to destroy these indigenous people?"

Prof. Snipp did elaborate on this but I was not completely satisfied with his answer. Though over lunch, he did say that he would have loved to give a better answer. 

Anyway, going by my title, I am still wondering where are the indigenous people of Assam; where are they in politics, in high-end jobs,  in the centre, in the state, in important decision-making rituals? What is their fault that are not included? Is someone thinking that they are less intelligent or not capable enough? Have they been given a chance? Will such injustice continue till they completely disappear?

Well, I know what all of you would say, "Hey, there they are calling for bandhs (forced closure) and being violent?" However, why are they violent? Do they have something to say, some frustration deep within their hearts? Do we even talk across the table on issues as vital as this? But my statement is, even in spite of the government providing them lucrative sops, which they are yet to avail of, they are a lost generation, until they help themselves. And like Prof. Snipp says, "The only indigenous community that is alive is in the museum." A sad situation indeed!