The landslide site in Aizawl, Mizoram. PTI photo
On 13 May, the website of a leading English daily carried a story
with the headline ‘Meghalaya landslide toll rises to 13, more bodies
likely to be extricated’. The story quotes the Press Trust of India
(PTI) from Aizawl regarding the rescue operation of the massive
landslide in Mizoram’s capital Aizawl on 11 May. An old office building
of the Public Works Department (PWD), lying vacant after a crack
developed on it a year ago, had collapsed under the impact of the
landslide and damaged nine houses.
Clearly the English daily had mixed up ‘Mizoram’ with ‘Meghalaya’.
This is not the first time that such a goof up has happened. Many a
time, the media in mainland India has done the same, maybe with no
malicious intent, but out of ignorance. There is a lack of sensitisation
about the Northeast- a land mass of 2.9 lakh sq km, where a population
of little over 40 million people live and speak 400 different dialects.
Mizoram happens to be the most far-flung in this periphery, so most
of the national media does not ‘pick up’ the landslide tragedy as it
scarcely helps boost TRPs. But even the regional media who claim to be
‘voice of Northeast’, particularly the dozens of satellite news channels
based at Guwahati, did not run the story as headlines. Apart from a
few, the regional newspapers failed to report the story or a follow up,
clearly suggesting that there is a regional disconnect within the
Northeast states as well. When it comes to Mizoram, the most peaceful
state in the insurgency torn region, this disconnect travels many a
miles.
So while Aizawl battled a tragedy last week, the rest of the
Northeast was perhaps as equally unaware as New Delhi. Mizoram is a very
blurry, distant dot in the national mind space; but it seems that the
rest of the Northeast has also failed to take notice. “Mizoram is in a
geographical isolation. I lived in Delhi for 10 years and saw how the
rest of India simply does not know that we, the Mizos, or our state
exists,” says Alan Lalthanzara, a young Mizoram Civil Service Officer.
But with the coming of the internet, these geographical boundaries are
slowly being scaled. Mizos are getting on the social network, they are
interacting with the rest of the country. Facebook and Twitter are
popular here as well, so information is now just a click away, photos
and videos can be easily shared. “I guess the national think tank does
not count a small state with a minority population. This is proved by
the way the national media ignores Mizoram. The same goes for the
regional media as well. They have to understand that Guwahati is not the
end of the Northeast,” Alan adds.
Ever since the tragedy took place, several people from Mizoram shared
pictures of the crumbling houses and rescue operations on social media.
“We shared lot of pictures, but did not see much of a response from the
rest of the country. Only people from Mizoram who stay outside reacted.
Had it happened in Kolkata or Delhi, it would have had a bigger
response on social media. But when it happens here, the nation is simply
not bothered,” says R Pachacau, a businessmen from Aizawl.
So why is Mizoram ignored? Is it because it is peaceful for three
decades, or because it is the country’s second most literate state after
Kerala where the Church has a huge domination and the people are very
disciplined and secluded? Or simply because Mizos cannot speak Hindi or
that they look ‘different’ because of which Delhi cannot relate to them?
“It is true that there is a huge regional and national disconnect
when it concerns Mizoram. Being a Christian state, they follow certain
norms which are different from even other parts of the Northeast,”
explains Rajib Chowdhury, Executive Editor of Guwahati-based regional
news channel Prime News. “The media inside Mizoram also likes to recoil
into a shell. For a regional and national channel to reach here and do a
story, involves a lot of logistical bottlenecks. You do not find well
trained human resource to cater to the national media, who remain happy
to believe that Mizoram is a sleepy peaceful state, that there is no
news there. There is also a language barrier. But having said all this, I
guess editors in Delhi always like to report about conflicts in
Northeast. They love insurgency stories. In Mizoram, they feel there are
no stories other then bamboo flowerings, the Bru refuges crisis and the
Mizo Jews. There is a stereotype about the place in their mindset,” he
adds.
It was in 1987, that Mizoram became a full-fledged state; earlier it
was part of Assam. Between 1966 to 1986, Mizoram saw a bloody insurgency
by the Mizo National front (MNF) led by Lal Denga. They first demanded
Mizoram’s sovereignty and later scaled down to a separate statehood. The
conflict ended with the Mizo peace accord of 1986, which is also
considered as one of the most successful peace deals in the history of
independent India. Post 1987, Mizoram had not seen turmoil apart from
the ethnic conflict between the Brus and Mizos in 1997- the repatriation
process of Bru refuges from neighboring Tripura is still struck in
limbo.
A senior journalist who has travelled extensively in Mizoram says on
the condition of anonymity, that it is the design of New Delhi to keep
the Northeast ‘disconnected’ with the rest of the nation and create a
scope for ‘regional disconnect’ within. The Assamese community could not
accommodate other smaller groups and thus Assam got bifurcated into
Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh while the cry for a
separate Kukiland, Bodoland, Kamtapur is still abuzz. In Manipur, the
Meiteis have not been able to accommodate the hill tribes and in Tripura
the Bengalis have dominated over the indigenous tribals. “You do not
find chapters on the history of the Northeast, its tribes, culture and
language in text books anywhere, not even inside the Northeast. So Assam
does not know about Meghalaya and vice versa. How then can a child in
Delhi know about Mizoram?” the senior journalist asks.
So until the mindset changes, very few people in this nation and the
younger generation that makes its new conscience, will ever know that
the only time New Delhi used its fighter aircrafts to bomb its own
citizen was on 5 and 6 March 1966, when the Indian Air Force conducted
air raids on the Mizo hills to flush out the Mizo rebels.
But is there a will for the rest of the Northeast or even a mainland
connect to Mizoram? Purabi Bora, an officer with the RBI at Guwahati,
feels that the vernacular media in Northeast should start writing about
different states and communities. “In the feature section of different
vernacular publications, I find stories about places in southern India,
south-east Asia and Europe. My son knows more about Bangkok and
Singapore than Aizawl or Agartala. This is not the way to protect the
culture and language of different communities”.
“But we cannot blame just mainland India, we also have shortcomings.
While there are a few national media correspondents here, our youth who
are good in English, are not a big part of the mainstream media.
Secondly, we are not fluent in Hindi and other languages. Sensitisation
should be present both ways,” says young acvitist Dororthy from Aizawl.
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