Aheli Moitra
The end of last week and the start of this one were marked by the official peek of autumn on the Indian sub-continent, also called as the Durga Pujo; that this celebration here is almost as old as Nagaland State itself was a surprising discovery.
Discovery because this was the first time that I made an effort to find out more about the Bengali community in Nagaland. Surprising because secularism is not something I relate with the Naga notion of political space. These two blind spots were deliberate and inadvertent developments respectively—one to shield myself from caste recognition and the other through over indulgence in Naga exclusivity.
Let me delve on the first reason first. Being in the Naga areas, in the midst of the Naga people, is to be free of caste. The Naga polity is one of the rare few in the Indian Union that is defined by social segregations that are stark in their dissimilarity to the rest. While Naga people are always keen to find out which community I belong to, given the inherent puzzle in my name, curiosity is satiated once the Naga-non Naga distinction has been made. I am exempt from the brackets of caste or clan. Having come from a social set up where hierarchies are ingrained in names and even skin tone, I became freed of my caste identity among the Naga people—no one recognized me on the level of the food chain.
And then Durga Pujo happened in 2016 when I walked into a pandal in Dimapur with a friend who had Bengali friends. Almost as soon as I was introduced, that dreaded question was repetitively up on the wall—Brahmon naki? Are you Brahmon? What are you? Brahmon? Here, let us see your name, they said, as they peeked through my silence into my name inscribed on the receipt of the small donation leaflet. And there it was, despite my desperate attempts to escape it - the glint of recognition and judgment as my caste fell into place defining my subjective treatment. Put in conjunction with my facial features and profession (‘caste’ is defined both by birth and profession), I came in a recognizable package to be met with concurrent treatment.
Why was I not asked if I were Dalit? Because, it is Brahminism that comes with exclusivity, superiority and entitlement—a sense that give or take of respect and adulation depends on which rung of the caste analysis you were inadvertently born into. One would think that more than 50 years of Durga Pujo celebrations in the Naga areas and mingling with Naga society may have created new social norms among the minorities who inhabit and share space with the Nagas. Not really, as it turns out; which brings me to the point on exclusivity. The space was never ‘shared’ as much as silently ‘put up’ with. Much like the Naga society and polity—and there are wonderful exceptions—I thought my work concerned only Naga people as though in today’s world any polity is defined by exclusive blood relations. Having been on the receiving end of generous hospitality and tight friendships, I was disillusioned into a ‘time immemorial’ void of believing that Naga people(s) are only defined by their relation to other Naga people(s), not non Naga minorities.
This is the same disillusionment that has led to disharmony, violence and tyranny in ‘Indian’ society. Entrenched post colonial notions of caste, unclear development of secularism and an inability to love beyond exclusive social brackets has created a self defeating endogamous society to an extent where our legal freedoms are laid to naught. In becoming exclusive, we had forgotten to share our spaces, freedoms and participate with each other in each other’s socio-cultural spaces, thereby creating the foundation of harmony.
Is this why we have been unable to set each other free?
To help me find an answer, please write to moitramail@yahoo.com
