Via WhatsApp, Arun C shares (via a second cousin) some wonderfully detailed thoughts which deepened my understanding of some issues:
Arunachal Pradesh is very diverse, as cited by the author. While fairly wide ranging, the article has left out a few aspects.
1. Many portions of the Northeast have link languages from outside the group. In Nagaland, it is Nagamese, which is a pidgin form of Assamese. Nagamese is to Assamese roughly what Bombay Hindi or Hyderabad Hindi or Chennai "Urdu" is to UP Hindi/Urdu. It dispenses with many verb conjugations associated with gender, number and class but is still completely comprehensible to an Assamese. My feeling is that erudite Shudh Assamese may prove difficult for rural Nagas to understand although on our recent visit, our crew was entirely Assamese and they did not seem (to me) to have any trouble in getting themselves understood by even the most remote, forest dwelling Nagas.
In Manipur, the link language is Meiteilon so it is interesting that tribes that overlap the border, such as the Zeliangrong, use different link languages, although they can communicate with each other using their own language. Reminds me of the Konkanis and their scripts. Those from Maharashtra use Devanagari. Those from Goa use the Roman Alphabet with Portuguese pronunciation. Those from Karnataka use the Kannada script and those from Kerala use the Malayalam script. But they do intermarry and all can speak Konkani even though each version may be slightly influenced by its home state language: Marathi, Portuguese, Kannada, Malayalam. But a Kannada Konkani husband cannot write a letter to his Kerala Konkani wife, unless both write in say, English.
To revert, the Hindi in Arunachal Pradesh varies sharply in quality over region and age of the speaker. In some areas, like Idu Mishmi, we found the Hindi excellent. On asking, we were told that the GOI had arranged for teachers from UP and Bihar during the formative years, hence the excellent Hindi. But this comes at a price as Sheila and I discovered at the museum near Roing, where we came across a very attractive Idu Mishmi girl, who spoke excellent Hindi and English but not a word of Mishmi, despite having studied at schools in Roing. More importantly, she did not feel any sense of loss. She thought that learning Mishmi was a waste of time and served no useful purpose given that ALL Mishmi speak Hindi, as do the rest of Arunachal, while the rest of the world uses English.
The bit on religion in the article has been abridged. The original religions varied from Tibetan Buddhism, near the border with Tibet, Theravada Buddhism in the lower hills and plains. The Tai Khamti, Singpho are predominantly Theravada and a sizeable chunk of Tangsa also are (Eg. Bela Tikhak is herself a Tai Khamti Buddhist but was married to a Tangsa from the Tikhak clan, who was also a Buddhist). The rest followed tribal animist and shamanistic religions for the best part, till recently. One of these religions, followed by the Adi, Apa Tani and some other tribes ( not sure exactly which), is Donyi Polo. Donyi Polo literally means Sun Moon and it is a Pagan religion. Major inroads have meanwhile been made by Christian missionaries with at least one major tribe Nyishi (or Dafla), being majority Christian today. In an attempt to stem the conversions to Christianity, it appears that the BJP and RSS are trying to popularise Donyi Polo amongst the non Buddhist tribes. Also, if we are not careful, we may see communal riots erupting in the near future because of a number of explosive demands, such as the denial of Scheduled Tribe status to Christian converts and its provision only to adherents of local religions. There are many other strains on view now. One, that we saw in considerable evidence, was the open discrimination practised against non Arunachali tribals, such as the tea tribals, derisively called "Adivasis". Also demands in the Miao/Vijaynagar area for the expulsion of all "outsiders" even though some, like the Nepalese settled by the GOI, arrived at pretty much the same time as the Lissus did from adjoining Burma and China. If care is not exercised now, Arunachal could become a problem area in the future.
Insofar as the racism faced by the people of Arunachal are concerned, I have heard a lot about it but never really seen anything major happen in my presence.
In the boarding school where I studied, I recall four Arunachalis from different tribes (which I only discovered in Miao from Bela), namely Hage Lodor, many years my senior, who Bela told me was from the Apa Tani tribe, Modo Ango, also many years my senior, who Bela told me was probably from the Galo tribe, Wang Lin Lowang Dong, Supreme Chief of the Nocte Tribe and Khanwang Lowang Dong, a cousin of Wang Lin. Wang Lin was two years my senior and Khanwang was one year my junior. All four were excellent in sports, Hage Lodor and Modo Ango in long distance running, Wang Lin in javelin and Khanwang in soccer. As a result, all of them were well liked. All of them too were friendly, except Wang Lin to an extent, who was reserved, possibly weighed down by his status as Supreme Chief of his people.
In Delhi Univ too, in my time, I didn't see any open racism but I acknowledge that reportage of racism has become a lot more common in the past 20 or 30 years.
I see Arunachal at the crossroads today, with pulls and pressures pertaining to religion, tribal identity and some other factors beginning to rear their head. The one thing that does not seem to be a problem...... is Hindi!!!
Good information on the other AP. The NE just gets clumped together. Only today I realised there are 8 states, whereas we are still stuck with 7 in our heads. Even when counting we do not seem to notice. Strange how our brains work. Very interesting to learn about the link language.
Thank you, the link language aspect really blew my mind. In school we were taught about 7 states so I had to re-train my mind to think about 8 states. Even now it's a struggle!
Thanks for the article. I have only visited Meghalaya and saw a vast difference in the city people (Shillong) and the people who stay in villages. I feel like visiting Arunachal Pradesh after reading your post. Gives a new lens while traveling
Via WhatsApp, Arun C shares (via a second cousin) some wonderfully detailed thoughts which deepened my understanding of some issues:
Arunachal Pradesh is very diverse, as cited by the author. While fairly wide ranging, the article has left out a few aspects.
1. Many portions of the Northeast have link languages from outside the group. In Nagaland, it is Nagamese, which is a pidgin form of Assamese. Nagamese is to Assamese roughly what Bombay Hindi or Hyderabad Hindi or Chennai "Urdu" is to UP Hindi/Urdu. It dispenses with many verb conjugations associated with gender, number and class but is still completely comprehensible to an Assamese. My feeling is that erudite Shudh Assamese may prove difficult for rural Nagas to understand although on our recent visit, our crew was entirely Assamese and they did not seem (to me) to have any trouble in getting themselves understood by even the most remote, forest dwelling Nagas.
In Manipur, the link language is Meiteilon so it is interesting that tribes that overlap the border, such as the Zeliangrong, use different link languages, although they can communicate with each other using their own language. Reminds me of the Konkanis and their scripts. Those from Maharashtra use Devanagari. Those from Goa use the Roman Alphabet with Portuguese pronunciation. Those from Karnataka use the Kannada script and those from Kerala use the Malayalam script. But they do intermarry and all can speak Konkani even though each version may be slightly influenced by its home state language: Marathi, Portuguese, Kannada, Malayalam. But a Kannada Konkani husband cannot write a letter to his Kerala Konkani wife, unless both write in say, English.
To revert, the Hindi in Arunachal Pradesh varies sharply in quality over region and age of the speaker. In some areas, like Idu Mishmi, we found the Hindi excellent. On asking, we were told that the GOI had arranged for teachers from UP and Bihar during the formative years, hence the excellent Hindi. But this comes at a price as Sheila and I discovered at the museum near Roing, where we came across a very attractive Idu Mishmi girl, who spoke excellent Hindi and English but not a word of Mishmi, despite having studied at schools in Roing. More importantly, she did not feel any sense of loss. She thought that learning Mishmi was a waste of time and served no useful purpose given that ALL Mishmi speak Hindi, as do the rest of Arunachal, while the rest of the world uses English.
The bit on religion in the article has been abridged. The original religions varied from Tibetan Buddhism, near the border with Tibet, Theravada Buddhism in the lower hills and plains. The Tai Khamti, Singpho are predominantly Theravada and a sizeable chunk of Tangsa also are (Eg. Bela Tikhak is herself a Tai Khamti Buddhist but was married to a Tangsa from the Tikhak clan, who was also a Buddhist). The rest followed tribal animist and shamanistic religions for the best part, till recently. One of these religions, followed by the Adi, Apa Tani and some other tribes ( not sure exactly which), is Donyi Polo. Donyi Polo literally means Sun Moon and it is a Pagan religion. Major inroads have meanwhile been made by Christian missionaries with at least one major tribe Nyishi (or Dafla), being majority Christian today. In an attempt to stem the conversions to Christianity, it appears that the BJP and RSS are trying to popularise Donyi Polo amongst the non Buddhist tribes. Also, if we are not careful, we may see communal riots erupting in the near future because of a number of explosive demands, such as the denial of Scheduled Tribe status to Christian converts and its provision only to adherents of local religions. There are many other strains on view now. One, that we saw in considerable evidence, was the open discrimination practised against non Arunachali tribals, such as the tea tribals, derisively called "Adivasis". Also demands in the Miao/Vijaynagar area for the expulsion of all "outsiders" even though some, like the Nepalese settled by the GOI, arrived at pretty much the same time as the Lissus did from adjoining Burma and China. If care is not exercised now, Arunachal could become a problem area in the future.
Insofar as the racism faced by the people of Arunachal are concerned, I have heard a lot about it but never really seen anything major happen in my presence.
In the boarding school where I studied, I recall four Arunachalis from different tribes (which I only discovered in Miao from Bela), namely Hage Lodor, many years my senior, who Bela told me was from the Apa Tani tribe, Modo Ango, also many years my senior, who Bela told me was probably from the Galo tribe, Wang Lin Lowang Dong, Supreme Chief of the Nocte Tribe and Khanwang Lowang Dong, a cousin of Wang Lin. Wang Lin was two years my senior and Khanwang was one year my junior. All four were excellent in sports, Hage Lodor and Modo Ango in long distance running, Wang Lin in javelin and Khanwang in soccer. As a result, all of them were well liked. All of them too were friendly, except Wang Lin to an extent, who was reserved, possibly weighed down by his status as Supreme Chief of his people.
In Delhi Univ too, in my time, I didn't see any open racism but I acknowledge that reportage of racism has become a lot more common in the past 20 or 30 years.
I see Arunachal at the crossroads today, with pulls and pressures pertaining to religion, tribal identity and some other factors beginning to rear their head. The one thing that does not seem to be a problem...... is Hindi!!!
Good information on the other AP. The NE just gets clumped together. Only today I realised there are 8 states, whereas we are still stuck with 7 in our heads. Even when counting we do not seem to notice. Strange how our brains work. Very interesting to learn about the link language.
Thank you, the link language aspect really blew my mind. In school we were taught about 7 states so I had to re-train my mind to think about 8 states. Even now it's a struggle!
Great insights! Arunachal has long been on my bucket list. Your post has added to the reasons to expedite the visit.
Thanks man. It's on my bucket list too! Definitely want to see the eastern Himalayas too!
Thanks for the article. I have only visited Meghalaya and saw a vast difference in the city people (Shillong) and the people who stay in villages. I feel like visiting Arunachal Pradesh after reading your post. Gives a new lens while traveling
Thank you Alwira! I haven't been to Meghalaya either, it's high on my list. (And so much travelling to do!)
Definitely want to visit the state now. I've heard it's beautiful! Thanks for this comprehensive article!
Thanks :) I too haven't been. It's on my list!