The best physical spaces in human civilization are reserved for the elite and the dead. I’m not discounting the fact that our rural areas, and villages enshrined within them, aren’t absolutely gorgeous. But if the elite or the dead got access to these, I have no doubt that the best spaces within those places would be delegated to them. Think of all the palaces, religious institutions or cremation sites nestled in el paradiso. We, in ‘third world’ economies, have come to call this organization. We will make the worst possible habitable spaces for the masses, architecture will be forgotten, garbage will be stuffed down our chutes, schools will be jokes and public hospitals will suffer the same fate. Left with no choice, shoddy housing will be accepted in the name of homes, while the top of the hill will be reserved for either the mayor’s bungalow or a cemetery.
My discontent finds crop in the Kohima War Cemetery and its serene absurdity. It is the only ‘public space’ within the confines of a city/town that clamps down on existence with its labyrinth of long thin staircases leading to tightly packed housing, each breathing into the other’s window. While common in large urban poverty havens like Mumbai, I have not seen anything of the sort in hill cities. The war cemetery, on the other hand, though lies right in the middle of the city, is placed heights above the road. It overlooks the city and the surrounding clouded hills and even if its ghosts are unable to drown out the noise of the city, the cemetery’s stretch is perfect for the 1275 spirits to smell the soft grass their memorials are placed in. It is also perfect for lovers and those interested in catching a sigh from the claustrophobia they are made to live in- political and spatial. So goes the story of the Imphal War Cemetery- you feel like you’re in another city where military tanks don’t figure, and heaven is real.
The other place that I didn’t visit in Kohima, but heard amply about, was the ‘secretariat area’. Situated on flattish land overlooking the city, it is the(e) place for drunken evenings, young love and bonfires. Secretariat: a group of offices meant for administrative functions of the government aka the elite forum.
To be clear, I am not against the dead. But I am against trapping the living into coffins. It’s not just the loss of public space, but also the eventual segregation of the young middle to upper class of kids from political and historical space by making collectivization impossible, except in bars and clubs. They are forced into a space that allows only individual course of action—take a walk in Dimapur to see Ducatis and Land Rovers made for 5-lane highways, raising contradictions written about last week.
The Anna Hazares and Irom Sharmilas have already decided the fights for this section of the populace; they are denied the means to examine their history independently and the mind to think if and how they fit into those fights. This is not so much the result of the lack of data as is the flooding of information that aims to sandpaper thinking, majoritarian politics as well as immediate ancestors trying to part ‘modern’ ethos. Education systems don’t sharpen political maturity and the lack of public libraries or even spaces to take a walk in are glaring. In the absence of dire poverty, the middle class youth doesn’t even have electoral politics to get fooled by. In such a vacuum, demand for sovereignty, representation for women or other positive discrimination, nullifying of the right to life, bills with their little texts, peace or parliamentary processes make no sense to them. Power has been transferred to money and when that doesn’t buy a solution, there is confusion (or banality, depending on how much this bothers you). Hardly a surprise then that the elite (Hazare) or the dead (Gandhi) make better use of political and physical space.
Last week I was stuck in traffic as an ‘anti-corruption’ procession in Dimapur poured out cries and sighs for Anna against corruption. Hundreds of people (monickered here as ‘plains people’) walked with candle lights in myriad states of quiet to jovial. Not a single Naga was involved. Standard phenomena in a scenario where ‘plains people’ are alienated from the history of the Nagas, and the Nagas see themselves separate from the Indian polity, yet they’re expected to be entwined. Another good example of such classical rejection of history is the increase in Indian tourism to Kashmir, who can be seen strutting around on ponies around the Dal Lake all the while bowing to the Indian army, blind to the burning apple orchards in another Kashmir.
With the current move towards revolutionizing class participation, rejection of peoples’ histories of the sub-continent as a result of political alienation is happening real-time. In India, what corruption has placed people in positions of power based on illegitimate methods, creating an ‘elite’ citizenry that doesn’t deserve to be. On the other hand, it has taken away power from structures of law and governance, instead placing the responsibility of such on the individual who is susceptible to manipulation or pressure. It is a wretched political strategy to keep people away from dissention and real political participation by also teaching mongrel histories, or ignoring them altogether.
In Nagaland, the increased co-option of the young into an alien government bureaucracy has forced young minds into contradicting their own history. On the other hand, an increasingly corrupt revolution gave the youth little measure for faith. Even if the shift is towards repairing the damage, a capitalized society has already taken root in which collectivized thinking and moving towards common political goals is difficult. It’s enticing, then, to invoke the nostalgic value of the dead or the greatness of the elite because the present has nothing on offer except a mish-mash of histories and difficult political definitions. Here comes the role of processes that gives back power to existing structures, or makes new ones. Instead of being cynical, we can now take added interest in the intricacies of these processes and be involved locally by looking closely at history, giving less power and space away to the dead or the elite.
Aheli Moitra is an independent researcher. She travels to document conflict in personal and collective spaces. Her write-up will be featured on the Saturday issue of The Morung Express. (Contact: aheli.moitra@gmail.com)
My discontent finds crop in the Kohima War Cemetery and its serene absurdity. It is the only ‘public space’ within the confines of a city/town that clamps down on existence with its labyrinth of long thin staircases leading to tightly packed housing, each breathing into the other’s window. While common in large urban poverty havens like Mumbai, I have not seen anything of the sort in hill cities. The war cemetery, on the other hand, though lies right in the middle of the city, is placed heights above the road. It overlooks the city and the surrounding clouded hills and even if its ghosts are unable to drown out the noise of the city, the cemetery’s stretch is perfect for the 1275 spirits to smell the soft grass their memorials are placed in. It is also perfect for lovers and those interested in catching a sigh from the claustrophobia they are made to live in- political and spatial. So goes the story of the Imphal War Cemetery- you feel like you’re in another city where military tanks don’t figure, and heaven is real.
The other place that I didn’t visit in Kohima, but heard amply about, was the ‘secretariat area’. Situated on flattish land overlooking the city, it is the(e) place for drunken evenings, young love and bonfires. Secretariat: a group of offices meant for administrative functions of the government aka the elite forum.
To be clear, I am not against the dead. But I am against trapping the living into coffins. It’s not just the loss of public space, but also the eventual segregation of the young middle to upper class of kids from political and historical space by making collectivization impossible, except in bars and clubs. They are forced into a space that allows only individual course of action—take a walk in Dimapur to see Ducatis and Land Rovers made for 5-lane highways, raising contradictions written about last week.
The Anna Hazares and Irom Sharmilas have already decided the fights for this section of the populace; they are denied the means to examine their history independently and the mind to think if and how they fit into those fights. This is not so much the result of the lack of data as is the flooding of information that aims to sandpaper thinking, majoritarian politics as well as immediate ancestors trying to part ‘modern’ ethos. Education systems don’t sharpen political maturity and the lack of public libraries or even spaces to take a walk in are glaring. In the absence of dire poverty, the middle class youth doesn’t even have electoral politics to get fooled by. In such a vacuum, demand for sovereignty, representation for women or other positive discrimination, nullifying of the right to life, bills with their little texts, peace or parliamentary processes make no sense to them. Power has been transferred to money and when that doesn’t buy a solution, there is confusion (or banality, depending on how much this bothers you). Hardly a surprise then that the elite (Hazare) or the dead (Gandhi) make better use of political and physical space.
Last week I was stuck in traffic as an ‘anti-corruption’ procession in Dimapur poured out cries and sighs for Anna against corruption. Hundreds of people (monickered here as ‘plains people’) walked with candle lights in myriad states of quiet to jovial. Not a single Naga was involved. Standard phenomena in a scenario where ‘plains people’ are alienated from the history of the Nagas, and the Nagas see themselves separate from the Indian polity, yet they’re expected to be entwined. Another good example of such classical rejection of history is the increase in Indian tourism to Kashmir, who can be seen strutting around on ponies around the Dal Lake all the while bowing to the Indian army, blind to the burning apple orchards in another Kashmir.
With the current move towards revolutionizing class participation, rejection of peoples’ histories of the sub-continent as a result of political alienation is happening real-time. In India, what corruption has placed people in positions of power based on illegitimate methods, creating an ‘elite’ citizenry that doesn’t deserve to be. On the other hand, it has taken away power from structures of law and governance, instead placing the responsibility of such on the individual who is susceptible to manipulation or pressure. It is a wretched political strategy to keep people away from dissention and real political participation by also teaching mongrel histories, or ignoring them altogether.
In Nagaland, the increased co-option of the young into an alien government bureaucracy has forced young minds into contradicting their own history. On the other hand, an increasingly corrupt revolution gave the youth little measure for faith. Even if the shift is towards repairing the damage, a capitalized society has already taken root in which collectivized thinking and moving towards common political goals is difficult. It’s enticing, then, to invoke the nostalgic value of the dead or the greatness of the elite because the present has nothing on offer except a mish-mash of histories and difficult political definitions. Here comes the role of processes that gives back power to existing structures, or makes new ones. Instead of being cynical, we can now take added interest in the intricacies of these processes and be involved locally by looking closely at history, giving less power and space away to the dead or the elite.
Aheli Moitra is an independent researcher. She travels to document conflict in personal and collective spaces. Her write-up will be featured on the Saturday issue of The Morung Express. (Contact: aheli.moitra@gmail.com)
