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RUDN Journal of Studies in Literature and Journalism
2021 Vol. 26 No. 1 71–78
Вестник РУДН. Серия: Литературоведение. Журналистика
http://journals.rudn.ru
/
literarycriticism
ЛИТЕРАТУРОВЕДЕНИЕ. З
АРУБЕЖНАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА
71
DOI 10.22363/2312-9220-2021-26-1-71-78
UDC 821.222.1
Research article / Научная статья
The Construction of Insider – Outsider
in Anglophone Writings from Northeast India 1
Debajyoti Biswas, Rupanjit Das
✉
Bodoland University,
P.O. – Rangalikhata, Kokrajhar(BTAD), Assam, 783370, Republic of India
✉ dasrupanjit@gmail.com
Abstract. The works of three writers from northeast India, Temsula Ao’s These Hills
Called Home, Mamang Dai’s Stupid Cupid and Anjum Hasan’s Lunatic in my Head that cov-
er the problem of identity in relation to the insider – outsider politics in the region are exam-
ined. The northeast India is in many ways a miniature India because it houses people from
various ethnicity and linguistic groups. However, much of the immigration took place after
the East India Company annexed the northeast region starting from 1826. The extraction of
the resources and subjugation of the people in this region by the colonisers and later by suc-
cessive Indian governments has left an indelible mark of cultural imperialism triggering social
haemorrhage. This changing position of the insider – outsider is not only a part of the political
discourse but also the literature that is produced in this region. The analysis of the writings of
Temsula Ao, Mamang Dai, and Anjum Hasan allows to look at the problem from two per-
spectives: the indigenous population experiencing anxiety and leading various violent cam-
paigns to expel so-called outsiders, and the northeasterners facing similar racial prejudices
when visiting mainland India and being subjected to derogatory racial slurs.
Keywords: Northeast India, nationalism, subnationalism, Anjum Hasan, Mamang Dai,
Temsula Ao
Conflicts of interest. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Article history: submitted December 12, 2020; revised December 29, 2020; accepted
January 9, 2021.
For citation: Biswas, D., & Das, R. (2021). The construction of insider – outsider in
anglophone writings from Northeast India. RUDN Journal of Studies in Literature and Jour-
nalism, 26(1), 71–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.22363/2312-9220-2021-26-1-71-78
©
Biswas D., Das R., 2021
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
/
Biswas D., Das R. 2021. RUDN Journal of Studies in Literature and Journalism, 26(1), 71–78
72 LITERARY STUDIES. FOREIGN LITERATURE
«Свой» и «чужой» в произведениях
писателей северовостока Индии
Д. Бисвас, Р. Дас✉
Бодоландский университет,
Республика Индия, 783370, Кокраджхар, Ассам, п/я – Rangalikhata
✉ dasrupanjit@gmail.com
Аннотация. Исследуются работы трех писателей из Северо-Восточной Индии:
«Эти холмы, называемые домом» Темсулы Ао, «Глупый амур» Маманг Дай и «Сума-
сшедший в моей голове» Анджум Хасан, посвященные вопросу идентичности в связи с
действующей в регионе политикой инсайдеров и аутсайдеров. Северо-Восточная Индия
во многих отношениях является Индией в миниатюре, потому что здесь проживают люди
различных этнических и языковых групп. Однако большая часть иммиграции произо-
шла после того, как Ост-Индская компания аннексировала северо-восточный регион,
начиная с 1826 года. Добыча ресурсов и подчинение людей колонизаторами, а затем
сменяющими друг друга правительствами Индии оставили неизгладимый след куль-
турного империализма, вызывая социальное кровотечение. Эта меняющаяся позиция
«своего» – «чужого» нашла отражение не только в политическом дискурсе, но и в лите-
ратуре региона. Анализ произведений Темсулы Ао, Маманг Дай и Анджум Хасан поз-
воляет взглянуть на проблему с двух позиций: коренного населения, испытывающего
беспокойство и ведущего различные насильственные кампании, чтобы изгнать так
называемых чужаков, и северо-восточных жителей, сталкивающихся с аналогичными
расовыми предрассудками, посещая материковую Индию, и подвергающихся уничижи-
тельными расовыми оскорблениями.
Ключевые слова: Северо-Восточная Индия, национализм, субнационализм, Ан-
джум Хасан, Маманг Дай, Темсула Ао
Заявление о конфликте интересов. Авторы заявляют об отсутствии конфликта
интересов.
История статьи: поступила в редакцию 12 декабря 2020 г.; принята к публика-
ции 9 января 2021 г.
Для цитирования: Biswas D., Das R. The construction of insider – outsider in anglo-
phone writings from Northeast India // Вестник Российского университета дружбы народов.
Серия: Литературоведение. Журналистика. 2021. Т. 26. № 1. С. 71–78. http://dx.doi.org/
10.22363/2312-9220-2021-26-1-71-78
Introduction
In Post 1947 India, when the idea of nationalism came to be wielded as
an imposition of cultural homogeneity, it naturally met with the dissention of
the masses because it directly confronted with the aspiration of the people inhabiting
in the northeast region of India [1; 2. P. 6; 3]. The Northeast India is a cartogra-
phic construct which existed as a frontier area in the official discourse of the Bri-
Бисвас Д., Дас Р. Вестник РУДН. Серия: Литературоведение. Журналистика. 2021. Т. 26. № 1. С. 71–78
ЛИТЕРАТУРОВЕДЕНИЕ. ЗАРУБЕЖНАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА 73
tish administration and later in Indian administration [4; 5]. The region is also
the house of tribal people, mostly of mongoloid origin. However, with the nation-
alisation of space, the region was strategically peopled at regular intervals since
1826, thereby saturating the tribal population with the non-tribal [6; 7]. This cre-
ated resentment among the indigenous population who felt that not only the out-
siders overwhelm their numbers but also the valuable resources are extracted by
the government of India [8; 9]. Consequently, a sense of protest and resistance
gave rise to the feeling of sub-nationalism in the entire northeast India over a pe-
riod of time. This sub-nationalism emerged by drawing its impetus from the local
culture, myth and sense of an alternate history of the people and eventually it be-
came deeply jingoistic in nature something similar to the ‘extremist style of poli-
tics’ as pointed out by Partha Chatterjee while explaining the problems of Nation-
alism in Asian context [10. P. 9]. This sub-nationalism is not only a resistance to
pan-Indian nationalism but it also excludes the participation of the people who
have migrated to this region in different phases [11]. It is with this background
that the northeast region becomes a fertile ground for ethnic conflicts, communal
clashes and secessionist demands by rebel groups [1; 12; 13]. These conflicts give
rise to the politics of insider/outsider binary that is used as the yardstick in deter-
mining privileges [14]. The prevailing socio-political scenario, therefore, clearly
brings into question the involvement of at least three agencies: the tribal who are
claiming their rights, the state, and the immigrants. As such these conflicts and
issues find expression in the literature produced in this region. Whereas, there has
been no political solution to the problems hitherto, the intelligentsia who have ex-
perienced the shockwaves of these problems tend to voice it in their fictional
works which automatically become a discourse that bridges the lacuna created by
the lack of representation and political rejection, as Temsula Ao writes in These
Hills Called Home, “I have endeavoured to revisit the lives of people whose pain
has so far gone unmentioned and unacknowledged” [15. P. 9]. This paper propos-
es to examine the how the position of insider/outsider changes and influences
identity formation as one can see in the literary works produced in this region.
The three texts, Temsula Ao’s These Hills Called Home, Mamang Dai’s Stupid
Cupid and Anjum Hasan’s Lunatic in My Head, chosen for this study informs the
reader of this conflict pertaining to identity and belongingness.
The dynamics of insider – outsider
Temsula Ao’s These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone, is a col-
lection of ten short stories which recount the countless ordeal faced by the Nagas
during their secessionist struggle to free their land from Indian union. The title of
the short story collection too justifies the aspirations of these people. These hills
are the homes of the Naga people, which have shaped their culture, their identity,
and their history and they are so intricately entwined that they cannot be separated
from each (people and place). The intrusion of outsiders into this region was pas-
sively resisted for some time when it was under the British administration, and
those times were termed as ‘old days’; however in the present day, the Naga peo-
ple cannot stand to bear the presence of ‘outsiders’ in these areas and such pres-
ence is only considered as trespassing. The British allotted the Assamese, Bengali,
Biswas D., Das R. 2021. RUDN Journal of Studies in Literature and Journalism, 26(1), 71–78
74 LITERARY STUDIES. FOREIGN LITERATURE
Bihari, Marwari and Nepali settlers the lands, which were never theirs, and so this
tradition if continued would make the Nagas outsiders in their own homeland.
Although Temsula Ao does not explicitly mention the cause of this turmoil in the
late nineteen fifties, it becomes evident during the course of the narrative. Further,
the narrator not only justifies the rebellion of the Nagas but also gives it a hue of
romanticism:
“These young people were caught, as it were, at the crossroads of Naga his-
tory. The wave of dissidence and open rebellion was heady wine for many of
them and they abandoned family, school careers and even permanent jobs to
join the band of nationalists to liberate the homeland from forces, which they be-
lieved were inimical to their aspirations to be counted among the free nations of
the world” [15. P. 10].
Whereas, on the one hand the rebels (undergrounds) are projected as natio-
nalists who have taken the onus of liberating the nation from the Indian govern-
ment; the Indian administration, on the other hand, seems to be given a colonial
makeover. The situation depicted in the short story Soaba brings a similar scene
from Ngugi’s novel A Grain of Wheat, where the detainees (the native villagers)
are grouped and sent to camps under colonial administration. They have experi-
enced the most inhuman torture under colonial administration. In addition,
in Temsula Ao’s depiction of the Indian administration we find a parallel of that
brutality. The villages, which harboured the underground rebels/militants or
showed sympathy to them were the target of the Indian army:
“…whole villages would be dislodged from their ancestral sites and herbed
into new ones, making it more convenient for the security forces to guard them
day and night... It was the most humiliating insult that was inflicted on the Naga
psyche by forcibly uprooting them from the soil of their origin and being and con-
fining them in an alien environment, denying them access to their fields, restric-
ting them from their routine activities and most importantly, demonstrating to
them that the ‘freedom they enjoyed could so easily be robbed at gunpoint by
the invading army’ ” [15. P. 11].
The writer strongly advocates the Naga cause which informs the readers
across the world about the atrocities meted out against Naga people. The stories
fully centre round the lives of Naga people and their exploitation, and the inci-
dents are narrated from the point of view of a Naga, which is only a partial pic-
ture. If Temsula Ao sees and analyses it as an insider, Anjum Hasan sees it as
a forced ‘outsider’. In spite living in Meghalaya for generations, the non-tribal is
still designated as an outsider or as the Khasi people prefer to call them “Dkhar”.
It is because the land, which gives the tribal their identity, is only a land of oppor-
tunity for the outsiders, the El Dorado, for the first generation of immigrants.
They do not associate themselves with the land as the second generation does.
Land, which plays a pivotal role in forming the identity of the tribal, plays
the same role in the formation of identity of the second generation non-tribal.
The ‘dkhar’ has long been uprooted from their ancestral land and they have come
to live in the land of the Khasi people; and since the former can never claim their
affinity with the land, it naturally alienates them from the politics of nationalism
fomented by the tribal. These outsiders will continue to be outsiders even if they
Бисвас Д., Дас Р. Вестник РУДН. Серия: Литературоведение. Журналистика. 2021. Т. 26. № 1. С. 71–78
ЛИТЕРАТУРОВЕДЕНИЕ. ЗАРУБЕЖНАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА 75
live there for several generations. Although the socio-political reality is different
for these two groups, the emotional attachment to the land is not much different.
A Khasi may not suffer from identity crisis in his/her homeland; however, a non-
tribal constantly suffers from this problem as evident in the three principal charac-
ters in Lunatic in My Head. They have to go through acceptance and rejection,
love and hatred, friendship and animosity of the tribal people. The plot of Lunatic
in My Head is situated in Meghalaya, a tribal state in Indian hinterland where
the conflict is not between the rebels and the government forces but between
the ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’. The conflict is between the Khasis and the ‘Dkhars’.
This is why Dr. Moondy, a doctor by profession, tells his son, Aman:
“Shillong has no future. In my time, things were different. One could make
a life here. There were opportunities. People were open minded... sab khatam ho
gaya. That time has gone. Now people, boys, you know, boys half of your height,
barge into people’s shops, into offices, and demand money” [5. P. 65].
This entire region, which is seen as a land of opportunity (a capitalist expan-
sion), brought the immigrants as traders and professionals. But Aman felt unlike
his father:
“This town, he thought, longingly. Concordella lives somewhere in this
town. He loved Shillong the way he loved her – shyly, hesitantly, not sure if he
was entitled to” [5. P. 65].
His love for Concordella is conflated with his love for Shillong, the place
where he was born. And like Concordella, the place is unattainable, so somehow
he has to get out of Shillong. However, this feeling of leaving Shillong for good
has been indoctrinated by the older generation into the new generation but Aman
is caught in this dilemma for some time until he actually leaves Shillong. Whereas
for the first generation Shillong was the land of opportunity, for the second gene-
ration Shillong is their homeland. This made the relation between land and
the people intense and unaffected. Much like Aman, Firdaus Ansari too imagines
Shillong as her homeland. To foster a sense of belonging she fancied the idea of
marriage between tribal and non-tribal.
She privately liked the idea that Mr. Nivedita, as she thought of him, was in
love with a tribal girl. It made her happy to think that connections were still being
established between people from opposite sides of that invisible, yet palpable, line
that divide people in Shillong [5. P. 16].
She privately rebels against the idea of marrying a devout Muslim’s son to
appease her grandfather. On the contrary, she not only eats pork, but also delibe-
rately falls in love with Ibomcha, a Manipuri youth. She is enchanted by Shillong:
“The beauty of it, she would think as she walked, the beauty of it. Firdaus found
that she longed for Shillong even as she lived there, even though she had lived
there all her life” [5. P. 101]. This desire to be accepted as a Khasi comes from
the rejection and humiliation that one has no face for not being a Khasi. Sophie,
like Aman, has numerous encounters with Khasis that belittles her dignity for not
being Khasi. Whereas, Aman was physically abused, Sophie underwent the psy-
chological humiliation of being ignored. Precisely, they are unwanted. The feeling
of Sophie Das, as narrated by Anjum Hasan, comes from a sense of belonging-
ness, from the desire to be accepted. Anjum Hasan shares with us her experience
of being a non-Khasi in Shillong through Sophie Das. The stigma of being a non-
Biswas D., Das R. 2021. RUDN Journal of Studies in Literature and Journalism, 26(1), 71–78
76 LITERARY STUDIES. FOREIGN LITERATURE
Khasi, the other/outsider, despite of being born there haunts Sophie Das that she
starts living in her fictitious world. This sense of belongingness and the fear of
rootlessness at the same time run throughout the novel and it becomes the peren-
nial issue with all the principal characters – Firdaus Ansari, Sophie Das and Aman
Moondy. Whereas this conflict exists within the characters, it also becomes visi-
ble in the external conflict: the constant animosity between the tribal and non-
tribal. The attacks on the non-tribal people are frequently mentioned in the novel,
the gap between these two groups seem to be growing despite the efforts of
the local people like Ribor and David Rockwell. There will always be people
like Ribor’s brother, Max, who will keep telling, “You Fucking Dkhar... Go home
Dkhar” [5. P. 240].
Whereas the setting of these two works is the Northeast region, Mamang
Dai’s novel goes beyond the regional boundaries and is set in Delhi, where
the tribal people from Northeast becomes the ‘outsider’ within the same national
space. The stigma of rejection and alienation becomes evident in the various
encounters between the people from northeast and mainland India. Adna,
the narrator is a city-bred girl for whom real life is only in Delhi. Her close
friend Amine, originally from Jammu, although brought up in Shillong because
of her father’s association with ONGC in Assam, does not seem to encounter
the difficulty that Adna faces because of her tribal features. Adna, who hails
from Itanagar, ventures as a female entrepreneur by establishing ‘Four Seasons’,
a small hotel-apartment bequeathed to her by an aunt. Far from the hills of Aru-
nachal, she is captivated by the posh life of the city dwellers and struggles to
establish herself in the hotel business with the help of her relatives and Amine.
Adna is at once aware of the differences when she says, “Oh, the North-East is
a different country altogether” [16. P. 13], and she also longs for an acceptance
that she is equally an Indian. She says:
“There were so many of us in the city now, from Mizoram, Meghalaya,
Nagaland, from Arunachal, Assam, Manipur and Sikkim, and we mingled with
others from every small town and settlement of the country” [16. P. 13].
The exodus is thus a reverse trend from the hills to the plains, which in
some way points to us the success of the government to create a sense of pan-
Indian nationalism. However, the difficulty lies at the grass root level, and most
often, the people from the northeast have the bitterest experience in such en-
deavours of assimilation. Jia, a cousin of Adna narrates one such experience in
her encounter with a Delhite, when the lady screams at her, “Hey you! Jao! Jao!
Go back to your own... DESH!” [16. P. 52], to which Jia retorts:
“How dare you say such a thing? Do you think I’m Chinese, huh? I am Indian.
Do you know where I come from? Do you know where that is you idiot woman?
Moreover, I bet you are not even from Delhi. You must be from some lousy
backwaters! Jao! Jao! Hah! In addition, even if I was Chinese you have no right to
say such a thing to anyone! It’s people like you who create hatred, you know that?
You scum! And then she spat into the cab!” [16. P. 52].
Mamang Dai narrates numerous instances of such unpleasant experiences to
highlight the fact that the problem of acceptance and rejection are not limited to
one place, but is seen as a strategy to maintain the homogeneity of a community at
one place. She also narrates how the Indian government has carried on develop-
Бисвас Д., Дас Р. Вестник РУДН. Серия: Литературоведение. Журналистика. 2021. Т. 26. № 1. С. 71–78
ЛИТЕРАТУРОВЕДЕНИЕ. ЗАРУБЕЖНАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА 77
mental works in northeastern India, which resulted in the creation of new settle-
ments in the hill areas by non-tribal people who came as employees to work
in those projects [17]. Mareb’s father is one such man who “was one among
the breed of gypsy men of mixed antecedents who travelled far and wide in search
of adventure and fortune, and who now toured the frontier speaking the language
of the communities and marrying into the tribes” [16. P. 36].
The restructuring of the backward tracts and change in governmental poli-
cies concerning developmental works have occurred in a sequence which has
made a very deep impact in the lives of the people living in this region. Unlike
Temsula Ao, Mamang Dai believes in pan-Indian nationalism despite cultural dis-
parities between tribal and non-tribal people. Whereas, the existence of customary
law in hill region, which allows polygamy to a man, might sound shocking in
Delhi, the idea of buying bottled water sounds equally shocking to Jia when she
visits Delhi. Therefore, the writer attempts to strike a balance by purportedly un-
derscoring tolerance and togetherness.
Conclusion
The problem posed by Temsula Ao, Mamang Dai and Anjum Hasan conti-
nues persisting in the face of Capitalist exploitation and cultural rejection both in
the context of Northeast India and Mainland India. The pre-modern society, which
had the capacity to assimilate people whoever migrated from whatever places,
was a more receptive society. However, the modern society after the beginning of
colonisation not only made the cartographic boarders rigid but also created invisi-
ble cultural borders through its practice of exploitation and cultural subjugation.
The identity crisis faced by the various characters discussed in the fictional world
above informs the reader about the insider/outsider politics because in a modern
world with limited resources there is a stiff competition in all the important sec-
tors of the society. Be it possession of land rights or a job vacancy, the limited
availability has created a closed circuit which tries to create a false consciousness
of belongingness based on ethnicity. This problem can only be overcome by ade-
quate representation of people living in the frontier states in mainland India, and
knowledge about the cultures of frontier states. On the other hand, the indigenous
people living in northeast India should also be willing to accept the non-tribal
people who have lived here for centuries. To conclude an inclusive social culture
is the requirement of the time.
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Bio notes:
Debajyoti Biswas, Assistant Professor of the Department of English at the Bodoland
University. E-mail: deb61594@gmail.com.
Rupanjit Das, research scholar in the Department of English at Bodoland University,
Assistant Professor in the Department of History, GLC College, Gauhati University. E-mail:
dasrupanjit@gmail.com.
Сведения об авторах:
Бисвас Дебаджьоти, доцент кафедры английского языка Бодоландского университета.
E-mail: deb61594@gmail.com.
Дас Рупанджит, научный сотрудник кафедры английского языка Бодоландского
университет, доцент кафедры истории колледжа GLC Университета Гаухати. E-mail:
dasrupanjit@gmail.com.
