(A musical celebration of indigenous peoples: a concept paper)
The United Nations Declaration of 1993 as the International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is the outcome of the long and perpetual struggle of the Indigenous peoples across the globe in asserting their rights to co-exist as a people or equal partner with the rest of the peoples. Following it the UN declared 1994-2004 as the decade of indigenous peoples under the theme ‘partnership in action’. The inadequate addressals on the serious issues pertaining to the Indigenous Peoples within the first decade has necessitated further declaration of second decade from the year 2005.
Indigenous Peoples are those who inhabit a country or a geographic region at the time when peoples from different cultures or ethnic origin arrived. They are characterized by ‘to a determination to preserve, develop and transmit future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity as the basis of their continued existence as peoples’. Over the past more than 500 years, Indigenous peoples throughout the world have been devastated and oppressed by the colonial powers. The past century has witnessed the reinforcement of this trend especially through the State governments and multinational corporations, witnessing severe cultural and environmental destruction through the intrusion of these exploitative forces for extraction and development of their territorial space. The impact of globalization on the indigenous culture and resources has further sharpened this dilemma and has threatened to obliterate the historicity of the claims of indigenous/tribal peoples.
Despite the magnitude of the problem, for centuries the indigenous peoples could not articulate and project their grievances to the world due to prolonged period of voiceless suppression. In many cases the defenseless indigenous peoples had no choice but to succumb to a situation that was unacceptable to them. However the last two decades of the twentieth century has seen some measures of international and legal projections for Indigenous Peoples. With the declaration on the first and the second decade of the Worlds Indigenous Peoples launched on December 10th 1994 and subsequently on 10th December 2005, it has ushered in a new hope of credence to the struggle and aspiration for a better life to over 300 million indigenous peoples in as much as 70 countries. It also provides opportunity for boosting stronger relationships between the UN and the Indigenous Peoples all over the world.
Over 80 million of the 300 million Indigenous peoples in the world live in India. This makes India a country with the largest Indigenous/tribal population in the world. North-east India is known as the region of tribal / indigenous peoples. This region comprises of the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, and Sikkim. Geographically they share common boundaries with Myanmar, China, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. The people of NEI are racially, ethnically, and culturally quite distinct from the rest of the mainland India. The NEI, endowed with abundant natural resources is also known for its rich cultural heritage. While to some, it is known only for the remoteness or underdevelopment or unrest and insurgency movements.
The past decade has witnessed intense peace building processes in India’s North-East region. Civil society groups in the state too has been putting in their best effort to reach out to different political groups, civil society organizations, and to other like minded groups in the country and around the world. The organizers believe in seeking effective participation of the people by taking the process beyond the table, which seeks to democratize the process towards achieving sustainable peace and justice. However, it requires a detailed and comprehensive strategy so that all our activities and relationships can be done in a way that seeks to move from negative to the positive, from inaction to action, from reaction to proactive responses, from injustice to justice, from relation of domination to relation of partnership and from conflict to peace.
The theme envisage to pool in the unity of culture of the tribal peoples in the northeast region as a platform for development of their cultural resources for bringing peace and sustainable development.
Through this cultural event, it seeks to strengthen networks amongst different indigenous cultural groups in the region through creative conversation and collaboration of indigenous music leading to promotion and preservation of the region’s rich cultural heritage. It also seeks to generate a sustainable process of constructive social and political change that will promote and safeguard the indigenous way of life. The event further seeks to promote understanding between the various communities through dialogue, cultural exchanges and interaction.
Finally, this interaction through exhibition of the unique cultural heritage of worlds indigenous peoples, will seek to protect, promote and strengthen our capacity to ensure more understanding, facilitate mutual respect and respecting peaceful co-existence with the other neighboring communities.
Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights
