The "North East" India
A sumptuous country like India, steeped in both geographical and demographical opulence , is but natural to be coloured by cultural extravagance. The nation since its inception has seemingly taken pride in its multiplicity; Unity in diversity has been its rallying point. The concept, while at one hand, acknowledges multicultural existence, on the other, disseminates the idea of binding the numerous cultural communities under one "unity"- the state.
The terms North India, South India, Western India, Central India and North East India have dominated the regional descriptions of the country. The terms have been historically used to connote not only location but cultural specificity also. They carry a notion of a "way of life" of a particular people. Given that these terms have been around within the day to day interactions and exchanges since a very long time, they have been swathed with idiosyncrasy, creed and stereotypes. Among all the idiom "North East" India has been the one which has carried most weight, in terms of defining the geography and the people.
Difficult terrain, exotic people, unrelated culture have been some of the notions that rest of India generally holds about the region. "Northeast India refers to the easternmost region ofIndia consisting of the contiguous Seven Sister States, Sikkim, and parts of North Bengal(districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, and Koch Bihar). Northeast India is ethnically distinct from the rest of India and has strong ethnic and cultural ties with Southeast Asia, with strong ethnic cultures that had escaped Sanskritization in the ethnic groups of Kuki and some other tribes. Linguistically the region is distinguished by a preponderance of Tibeto-Burman languages" is what Wikipedia describes. The People of India project conducted by the Anthropological Survey of India (ASI), a government of India initiative that began in 1985, has identified 115 ethnic groups in Assam alone. The Austroasiatic are considered to be the earliest settlers, followed by Tibeto-Burman, Indo-Aryan and the Kradai speakers. Forty-five languages are identified to be spoken by different communities, including three major language families: Austroasiatic (5), Sino-Tibetan (24) and Indo-European (12). Three of the spoken languages do not fall in these families. Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Animism and Buddhism are recognized as the major religions here.
Considering the existence of such a wide diversity in one state alone, the entire zone termed as "North East" definitely houses much more multiplicity. Geographically, politically, economically too the various states have their own specific concerns. In such a situation, it is evident to ask if clamping all the unique states under one head "North East" is an useful imagination.
Unlike the other regional terms which specify locations in India, the term "North East" has a unique lineage. Developments in the political fronts have played crucial role in engraving social and cultural imagination about the region. The North East Council (NEC) was formed in 1971 to ensure "economic and social development" which had been shunned under disparate colonial conditions. This concretized the idea of the eight states as an unit. Likewise, North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd (NEDFi) was incorporated in 1995. Following this the Ministry of Development of Northeastern Region (DoNER) was set up in September 2001. Administrative and political exigencies defined the views regarding the characteristics of the region. The unit "North East" seemingly assumes the land mass comprising of 262,230 Sq. km (101,250 sq miles) to be a homogeneous body with similar economic and political concerns calling for singular resolution.
The socio-cultural imagination of "North East" India avows much to the political moves to govern the region. In such a situation it is imperative to ask if political expediency determines the social and interpersonal interactions.
