Aliens in India

Empathy and sympathy: two words which are often misunderstood by many. Rather, the former is often misunderstood as the latter, probably because they both sound alike. They however convey different meanings, infact much more different than it appears at first. Empathy, to take definition from one of the dictionaries, is intellectual identification with feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of others. Very few know when to sympathise and when to empathise. One of the key differences is that suffering or pain is the sine qua non for sympathy, but not empathy. Sometimes one needs to look beyond the obvious to empathise and then act accordingly.

You might be wondering that what has empathy to do with aliens? And when did aliens come to India? Or are they planning to come to India?

The next few sentences talks about issues beyond the obvious meaning of aliens. It talks about the not-so-often-obvious pain of not being from the mainland India and more importantly the pain of not being recognized and treated as 'other' Indians. It tries to look into India and Indians from the eyes of those who are increasingly considering themselves to be less Indian than ever. It talks about the potential danger which India and Indians might have to face if they continue to remain oblivious of something which will in sometime appear very apparent. It talks about what is lacking in all of us.
It talks about the need for empathy.

There is nothing as painful as being alienated in your own country, among your fellow citizens, fellow brethren. This is the same pain which becomes the root cause of disenchantment with the system and which often ultimately leads to demands of rebellion (or autonomy, or freedom).

This article is about people from the states of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and to some extent Assam and Tripura. I could have 'saved my energy' by using the ubiquitous phrase "north east" or " N.E.", but I deliberately chose not to do so. I believe that when one tries to bring different cultures, different people, different languages all under one umbrella (to save time or whatever), one does an injustice with them. Each state has its own unique identity and if we try to convey the message that they all appear same to us ( which unfortunately is what the uncontrolled use of phrase has led us to believe), we are being insensitive to them.

The best thing about India has been its diversity, its uniqueness of assimilating these diversities to bring out the commonality between them- Indian-ness. This uniqueness has to be respected and to be taken with a sense of pride. Unfortunately we have been culprits of not doing enough for identifying and respecting the same for the above mentioned states and their people.

They find minimal mention in media, and when they do, it is more to do with some unrest, or some blasts. How many of us, the "mainland" Indians ,know about the uniqueness of each of states mentioned above? Or how many of us can even speak five sentences about any of the  above states? We are highly ignorant about our own people and we believe that this ignorance is bliss ! This ignorance is the reason why we often end up thinking about people from these states differently and often this thinking gets reflected in our actions. Articles related to biases faced my people from these states are few in number, but it does not mean that that biases faced by them are less in number. Rather it shows how indifferent, we and the main stream media are towards their issues. We may not be aware of the fact but this indifference of ours is slowly accumulation in the minds of some and hearts of few. And when issues reach heart and have an effect on the emotions, it means the condition is serious !

This is an issue for which we cannot blame the Central Governemnt in the same manner as we do for other issues. This is an issue for which we are equally to be blamed, in fact at times more than the Government.

Those cursory glances, those loose talks, those stereotype notions, those subtle differences in our attitudes towards them, we are guilty of these. and much more These may appear to be quite trivial for us, but these are the same things which touch them at the place where it hurts the most : the heart.

Some of the most beautiful places and breath taking sites are in these states, but how many of us know about them? And how many of us have actually been to those places? If nothing else, tourism does bring people closer. This is what is needed at this moment : to bring them closer to us, to make them feel that this is as much their country as is ours, and to make them aware that even if the media does nto give them space but we have given them space in our hearts.

We might be unaware of the fact that insurgents in Manipur have banned Bollywood movies from reaching Manipur. The result- Korean movies have taken the place of Bollywood and this has led some people, especially youth to believe that they are more similar to Koreans in their thinking, culture, and physical features. Now, this may look quite innocuous at this stage : so what if our movies don't reach there? But  we forget that it will require only a flicker of activity from a pervert mind to blow this issue out of proportion and play with the emotions of people and create hatred against India and Indians.

In the district of Darjeeling, the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha agitation led to such an extent that they stopped flow of goods from West Bengal and instead resorted to flow of items from Nepal. Luckily, the issue did not deteriorate further and things appear to be somewhat stable now, but it presented an ideal case for someone to create further disturbances in India.

Voting patterns in some of the recently concluded media events showed a similar pattern. Contestants from Sikkim and Meghalaya went on to win the events and the main reason behind it was the support they received from the people back home. For these people it was a chance to bring pride and glory to their state and they were successful in it, to some extent.

The above illustrations are not exhaustive and only indicative of the fact that this phenomenon of "alienation" is existing in our society. We may choose to continue ignoring them but that will be at a serious cost to the fabric of our nation. Now when we acknowledge its presence and when we start acting on it is something which will decide that fate of this alienation. Whether the graph of alienation continues to increase or its trend is reversed is up to us to decide and control.

As of now we indeed make them feel as aliens in their ow country- India !