Carte Blanche - Arup Dutta
‘....the creation of East Pakistan during Partition has indubitably been the heaviest of these burdens’
Northeast India is burdened by the weight of recent history which those unaware of or untouched by it can hardly appreciate — precisely why only the politically naïve had expected Manmohan Singh’s visit to Bangladesh to bring about some positive gains for this region.
Ushering in an era of isolation for the Northeast, and consequent alienation from the rest of the nation, the creation of East Pakistan (later reincarnated as Bangladesh) during Partition has indubitably been the heaviest of these burdens.
The political barriers which operate today have imparted an element of insularity to the Northeast’s geographical location.
With Bangladesh being driven like a wedge between it and the Indian mainland, and the Northeast tenuously strung to the latter by a narrow “chicken’s neck”, this insularity is pronounced when we look at the current map of South Asia. But the isolating shift had not occurred even till India’s Independence from British rule.
On the contrary, the ethnologic, social and cultural evolution of the region bears clear testimony to the centricity of its geo-anthropological location in the past, vis-à-vis China, Burma (Myanmar), South-east Asian nations, Tibet, Bhutan and mainland India.
The seemingly impassable mountain ranges hemming it in from three sides had been porous since time immemorial.
The hills on the north, east and south had routes linking the Northeast to Myanmar, Indo-China, China, Tibet and Himalayan kingdoms. China, Myanmar and Indo-China could also be reached via Cachar and Manipur in the southeast and Patkai ranges from the east. Tibet was approachable through passes from the eastern extreme of the Northeast, while passes called Dooars existed to Bhutan and Nepal. The Ganges-Brahmaputra link as well as land-routes across the wide Bengal plains could be used to enter the Northeast from the western flank.
Given this centricity, it is no wonder that a unique, amorphous conglomeration of communities evolved in the Northeast. On one side lay western China, which anthropologists call the great repository of Mongoloid races, from where people fanned out in prehistoric eras to settle on the Himalayan plateaus and slopes as also Southeast Asia.
On the other side lay the Indian sub-continent, with its own pattern of ethnic conflict and assimilation. The Northeast, being strategically placed, witnessed waves of migration from all directions through existing inlets, taking in people and cultural traits. Broadly speaking, the Caucasic elements entered from the west and Mongoloid from the east, north and to some extent from the south. These complemented the Austric and Dravidian elements already present, brewing up a cultural identity and ethos not to be encountered elsewhere in the sub-continent.
As Suniti Kumar Chatterjee writes in his The Place of Assam in the History and Civilisation of India (1970): “Assam (viz. undivided Assam) has thus to meet all tribal movements from the east, involving the advent into India of Tibeto-Chinese speaking Mongoloids; and it was in Assam primarily that this great element in the formation of the Indian people became largely Indianised.…This can be looked as Assam’s great contribution to the synthesis of cultures and fusion of races that took place in India ….The Indian man as the result of the fusion of the Aryan and Dravidian, Mongoloid and Austric came into being at the end of the Vedic period (by 1,000 BC).”
Accompanying the ethnological evolution was cultural and religious transference from the age-old civilisations of China and India, resulting in an involute cultural scenario. The centricity of the region contributed to the richness of the cultural mosaic which also incorporated elements from Myanmar, Indo-China and Tibet. In the kingdom of Bhaskarvarman, for example, Hiuen Tsang in 638 AD had heard a particular song and recognised it to be a Tibeto-Burman version of a Chinese song celebrating the triumph in 619AD of a Chinese prince over some rebels, a telling illustration of the cultural closeness of the two regions.
If the Northeast in the past had been economically self-sufficient and commercially vibrant, it was primarily due to the openness of communication between neighbouring areas. Salt, for instance, was brought on horses by Bhutanese or Tibetans, or transported upon boats from Bengal over the Brahmaputra. The westward Brahmaputra-Ganges route to the Indian heartland was a natural outlet, while the sea was accessible to the south through the Meghna. John M. Cosh in 1837 speaks of three traditional land routes used by traders, all passing through present Bangladesh. William Robinson in 1841 wrote that “Tibet is open to travellers on foot from the extreme east of Assam — from Sadiya to Bhaloo, first town met within Tibet, takes 16 days”.
The most romantic of all these outlets from the valley, an extension of the Ganges-Brahmaputra link, was the ancient “silk-route” to China.
“There is an open road from Upper Assam into Burma, and thence into China, by which a considerable trade in Chinese and Burmese manufactures was at one time carried on,” wrote Robinson.
The line of trade, after leaving Sadiya, passes by Bisa, across the Patkoye range of mountains, and through the valley of Hukung to the town of Munkung, situated on a navigable branch of the Irawatti, called Namyang.
Merchants proceeding from Munkung to Ava at once descend via the Irawatti to the capital, while those to China ascend the Irawatti for many miles to a place called Katemow, where they disembark their goods, and thence convey them on mules over a range of mountainous country into the Chinese province of Yunan.
In fact, a section of archaeologists opine that trade between Rome and China over this silk-route had been carried on since as far back as the 1AD. Today, primarily because of political changes, most outlets from the Northeast to its neighbours have been closed. A region which had been a meeting-ground for ancient cultures and strategically positioned for economic prosperity and cultural development has been reduced to an eastern outpost boxed in from all sides, at the periphery of India.
The unkindest cut of all has been the creation of East Pakistan/Bangladesh, which has severed a vast swath of communication routes with mainland India, thereby exacerbating the feeling of being cut off from the mainstream and consequent alienation.
There had been two major railway lines, the Assam Bengal Railways and the Eastern Bengal Railways, connecting the Northeast to the rest of India as well as Chittagong and Calcutta ports. The Partition overnight amputated these as well as the numerous land routes so that, ironically, travellers from say Tripura, Mizoram or Cachar, who had earlier been able to travel directly across Bengal to other parts of India, have now to take a far longer and circuitous route.
The river passage had remained clear till 1965, when the war with Pakistan saw the closure of this historic outlet. The commercial setback this caused can be gauged from the fact that till the Indo-Pakistan war almost 90 per cent of Assam tea had been transported through the river route. There has been no tangible effort to revive this outlet or introduce speedier water transport system in keeping with modern times.
It is astonishing how a few strokes made by erstwhile colonialist masters can alter the destiny of an entire region. Bangladesh, indeed, has been the heaviest historical burden that the Northeast carries.
Yet, far from undertaking negotiations so as to try and lighten this burden, our politicians, diplomats and bureaucrats are busy carrying baskets of goodies to curry favour with that country. Of course, that Manmohan Singh and his entourage kept absolutely mum on the issue of illegal influx is another story altogether!
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