Thangkhansuan Gualnam

North-east India is a region rife with preconceived assumptions. Some hold. Others need critical re-examining. The question of gender equality is one that needs more careful analysis. It is often assumed that compared to other parts of the country, the gender gap between sexes is less in this region [Khrisna, 2001].

Most recently, in November 2020, a report published by the Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India in 2018 had many states celebrating. [arunachal24.in, 2020]. According to the report, three states in North-east India, i.e., Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland had the highest sex ratio. The Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister tweeted the state’s achievements in gender equality.

A high sex ratio indicates gender parity, but the assumption that the said societies are equal based on that alone is problematic. [Nongbri, 2003. Kikon, 2015. Sitlhou, 2015].  Feminist scholarship in the region needs to understand the emerging contradiction between the indigenous rights movement that seeks to deprive indigenous women of their rights to marry outside the community and the feminist movement’s struggle for equal gender rights. This contradiction is most apparent when one looks into the people’s relationship with land. In the following section, I will elaborate on the complex intersection of identity, gender, and land practices that marginalise women in the region.

It will be too long and arduous to get into the historical details of each North-East Indian state’s complex relationship of conflict and tension and the larger Indian state. I will regrettably gloss over that. However, it is common knowledge that the region has a long history of conflict in terms of identity and ethnicity, with the larger Indian nation-state and between communities in the region [Baruah, 2005. Fernandes & Barbora, 2009. Kikon, 2015]. The conflict further deepens in the region due to developmental neglect [Baruah, 2005. Nongbri, 2003].

The region, especially those termed by the government as Scheduled Tribe areas, have an indispensable relationship with their land [Sharma & Borgohain, 2019]. Land is intrinsically linked to the very conception of the people’s identity and has been a subject of contention between different communities of the region [Fernandes & Barbora, 2009]. The recent 2020 border conflict between the Assamese and Mizos is one example of such an instance [Saikia, 2020]. Similarly, the burning of a Kuki Village in Manipur by Armed Naga insurgent groups represents another instance of the many relating to land and its inexplicable relation to identity in the region [Sitlhou & Zamminlien, 2020].

To such a relationship, fundamental laws are the role that customary laws play in negotiating people’s relationship with land [Sharma & Borgohain, 2019]. With such an understanding, India’s Government confers special protection laws that give such customary practices precedence over state laws. In recent years, the indigenous people’s relationship with their land is transforming, and these changes are birthing new insecurities. Privatisation, industrialisation, and the surge in immigrants and governmental policy for development create a situation where local customary institutions lose control over the important land resource [Nongkynrih, 2009. Fernandes & Barbora, 2009. Sharma & Borgohain, 2019]. Within such a history, the movement for indigenous rights in the region and its strong apprehension towards immigrants needs to be located and understood. In recent years there has been a heightened presence of such conflict, whether it be the CAA protest in Assam and Meghalaya or the Chakma-Hajong conflict in Arunachal Pradesh Mizoram [Saikia, 1994. Roluahpuia, 2016]. However, the indigenous groups’ political aspiration in its anti-immigrant approach creates new patriarchal spaces of discriminating against women from their communities.

The patriarchal and gender bias of customary practices have been highlighted by many feminist scholars already. Tiplut Nongbri [2003] has examined the patriarchal nature of the matrilineal Khasi society, wherein the assumption that women have control over ancestral property is deconstructed. She argues that while the ancestral land is passed down to the youngest daughter practically, the inheritor’s brother plays a much more crucial role in its control. Patricia Mukhim [2009] elaborates on the practices further and argues that such patriarchal practices extend beyond land ownership and other society’s governing structures. Gender roles, she says, are distinctively marked and representation of women in the governing body of the society, such as Durbar amongst the Khasis, remains absent. Any suggestion for change is vehemently opposed.

Dolly Kikon [2015] looks into the culture of impunity in Nagaland and the violent consequence of such culture on women. She argues that along with the customary laws, the Armed Forces Special Power Act’s presence creates a severe problem on violence against women. She believes that the two institutions’ nexus establishes a culture of impunity for men such that seeking justice for women becomes much more difficult.

Likewise, in her essay, Hioneilhing Sitlhou [2015] examines the paradoxical nature of emancipation among the Kukis of Manipur. She argues that land rights are governed by customary laws that give precedence to male inheritor and as such women remain excluded. The coming of Christianity in some parts emancipated women from the traditional role. It gave them some power outside of their homes, but it did not question the discriminatory practice of inheritance.

Likewise, Sumi Krishna [2001] looking into Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram cases elaborate on traditional local recourse management practices’ discriminating nature. She argues that with transformation in governance, occupational practices, and urbanisation, these communities’ women are burdened even more without resources control.

My argument is that much of the feminist critique of the traditional customary practices stands limited by only seeking representation in local governing bodies. While representation in local governing is important and much needed, there are new avenues of patriarchal subjugation as the indigenous rights movement transforms.

The above discussion on the history of the indigenous rights movement and the current feminist scholarship is important for understanding both movements’ emerging contradiction. Within a historical context of ethnic conflict and traditional resource management practices, indigenous rights’ contemporary discourse is highlighted. Thus, it is the vulnerabilities of the indigenous people vis a vis the immigrant that takes precedence. A critical point of vulnerability that emerges in such a conflict is indigenous women’s marriage to an immigrant. Such practice is seen by many as a tool for an immigrant to encroach on indigenous people’s resources and rights. These insecurities are furthered by emerging competition problems over resource control in the region with privatisation and developmental projects such as hydro-project and industrialisation [Nongkynrih, 2009. Fernandes & Barbora, 2009. Sharma & Borgohain, 2019]. In such a context, women marrying outside the community is seen as a threat over already limited resource [Khrisna, 2001]. To resolves, such a problem, control and regulation of such practices are seen as crucial.

The only viable option available it seems is then to deny these women basic indigenous rights. In March 2020, a discussion on denying the Scheduled Tribe status to women marrying non-Arunachali was tabled, and a committee was formed to look into the matter. [Arunachal Observer, 2020]. Later, in December 2020, with the panchayat election forthcoming, the All Nyishi Youth Association (ANYA) expressed its objection to party tickets issued to Arunachali women marrying any non-tribal [The Arunachal Times, 2020].

In 2018, the Khasi Autonomous District Council – which administers Meghalaya’s Khasi Hills according to customary laws under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution unanimously passed a bill,  to deny the Scheduled Tribe status to any women marrying non-tribals and their offsprings [Saikia, 2018]. This has severe implications for these women because, without the scheduled tribe certificates issued by local authorities, these women can no longer claim their rights in terms of reservation and lose control over important land resources. Many local women’s rights groups have expressed concern over it, while some have questioned the legality of such a move [Saikia, 2018].

My central contention is that these objections and the more extensive feminist critique remain limited because they fail to ask where such insecurities emerge. The root of such a problem I believe lies in the larger indigenous rights movement. The indigenous rights movement for long has been apprehensive of any outsiders. This is rightly so in some aspect if one considers the long history of conflict and marginalisation. The most often cited justification for such an outlook draws from the case of Tripura, where the indigenous people are now in the minority [Saikia, 1994]. However, to tackle this, the larger movement paradoxically subjugates half of its people. By denying the status of the scheduled tribe to these women, they are fundamentally ostracised from the community. They lose control over the already limited rights they enjoy as tribal women. The discourse on women marrying outside the community is a new form of patriarchal endogamy practice substantiated by the larger indigenous rights movement’s insecurities. The concern of tribal identity appears exclusively about tribal men. It fails to comprehend that a woman might be as concerned as a man about the movement’s political aspiration. That even by marrying someone outside the community, she might still be very much concerned about protecting the ancestral land.

Further, the act of marrying outside the community does not necessarily empower a woman. And the new laws might further marginalise her. The woman’s choice to marry outside the community is proof of her disloyalty to the community. The larger indigenous movement has to take into consideration the concerns of a large section of its people.

A critical feminist engagement with the question of “choice” and agency becomes an important point in furthering our understanding of the patriarchal structure and its constraints on women. The existing practices of patrilineal inheritance and local governing bodies’ structure only gain from such a discourse of indigenous rights. Such a system protects all men, whether they marry within or outside their community, and penalise women for doing the same.

To conclude I would like to quote Maitrayee Chaudhuri [2016] who expresses the need to reclaim the “critical and reflexive edge of sociology” which implies that “social lives are constantly reformulated in the light of new information” I believe that it is such a sociological approach that the indigenous rights movement in North-east India needs currently.

References:

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Thangkhansuan Gualnam is pursuing an MPhil at Centre for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Email – paite.machiz@gmail.com.