WHY DO THE HILL TRIBES LEARN THEIR HISTORY THROUGH THE MEDIA?

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- Suanmuanlian Tonsing

Source: colourbox.com



Since April 2020 there has been considerable discussion in media on the construction of the controversial Chandrakirti Memorial Park at Chivu in Churachandpur, Manipur. The issue was contentious. It was perceived very differently by the dominant Meiteis in the valley and by the Zo people of the hill. This issue was widely covered by regional newspapers such as Sangai Express, Manipur Express as well as in the electronic media in Manipur.

There were broadly two themes in the newspaper discourse. One view highlighted the fact that the state government which was controlled by the dominant Meiteis have attempted to undermine the history of Zo hill tribes through the construction of the park[1]. The other lauded the role of the government in its construction and inauguration of the park.[2]

The construction of the controversial park has to be understood in its historical context. During the year 1871-72, the British led an expedition called the Lushai Expedition. They were assisted by about 2000 men of the Manipur Contingent under Maharaja Chandrakirti Singh. This contingent acted under the orders of Brigadier General Willian Frost Nuthall. While this contingent was authorised to march southwards of Manipur to prevent any alliance between the Kamhau-Suktes (another ethnic group of the hills) and Lushais they went as far as Chivu, along present-day Indo-Myanmar Border. The Manipur Contingent under Maharaja Chandrikirti Singh was ordered not to invade or attack the Lushai hill tribes as the expedition was only meant as a demonstration of power and intended threat. (Carey & Tuck 1896, pp. 17-20). The British-Lushai Expedition ended by March 6, 1872.[3]

During this expedition, a stone inscription was laid by Maharaja Chandrakirti Singh at Chivu which, today is claimed by the dominant group (Meiteis) as a sign of their victory over the Lushais. The dominant Meitei government backed by the elites argued that this expedition is that of the Meities against the Lushais. The hill elites argue that the Meiteis are attempting to distort tribal histories in order to annex hill people’s land through legitimate means. 

My contention is that since the contending histories do not form part of the mainstream educational curriculum, people of the region have to depend entirely on the rapidly growing media for any information of their past. 

This media attention on this issue leads to a couple of developments. First, the hill people came to learn a ‘little’ more about the British-Lushai expedition of 1871-1872. It had been widely circulated in the print media and online portals such as Zogam.com, epao.net and others.[4] Second, Maharaja Chandrakirti Singh who was barely known to the hill tribes now became a familiar figure, albeit in a controversial manner. In the absence of accounts of their own histories in textbooks, the media becomes the only source for acquiring ‘popular’ information and knowledge about their own past. 

This is a contentious situation for often the dominant elite version of history, as evident in the media, distorts and excludes the hill people’s own accounts of their past. Mainstream media usually is a crucial site for the production and reproduction of elite knowledge that ensures hegemonic control. The questions that then arise are: “What about the educational curriculum?” “Or is that too a site for the production of the ruling section’s interests and perspectives?” 

The educational curriculum in question 

The question that this essay seeks to highlight is why is there no understanding of the hill tribe’s own history in a context, where over 82.34 percentage of the entire hill tribe’s population in Churachandpur is literate with formal schooling and college? The problem is rooted deeply in the educational institutions, be it at the central and state level,[5] which functions as the apparatus for the reproduction of the ideological hegemony of the ruling sections. 

Michael Apple’s observations may help make sense of what was being played out in Churachandpur. 

….the structuring of knowledge and symbol in our educational institutions is intimately related to the principles of social and cultural control in a society... our fundamental problems as educators and as political beings, then, is to begin to grapple with ways of understanding, how the kinds of cultural resources and symbols schools select and organise are dialectically related to the kinds of normative and conceptual consciousness ‘required’ by a stratified society. (Apple, 1990, p. 2)[6]

The educational curriculum has no space for the representation of hill tribes. At both the central and state level, the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) is authorised to construct educational curriculum. It is supposed to release new or revised curriculums after every five years. The latest Curriculum Framework was released in 2005. It is not that educationists were not aware of this exclusion. Indeed, the Preamble of the NCF 2005 mentions explicitly that: 

A matter of serious concern is the persistence of stereotypes regarding children of our marginalised groups…Some learners have been historically viewed as uneducable, less educable, slow to learn, and even scared of learning… 

The interesting point is that even when a special attempt was made to address the lack of or distorted representation of the North-Eastern region; there were serious lapses. To cite an example of how Northeast is represented in the curriculum, Social Science textbooks in Class 9 and Class 10 standards offer some key insights[7]. The textbooks briefly contain narratives ‘only’ on Assam from the Northeast in the entire textbooks. The syllabus has no content on the ‘histories’ of the Northeast tribes. For the most part, where ever Assam is mentioned (apparently understood as synonymous of the North-eastern states), it seems to contain knowledge about ‘what’ should be known of the North-eastern people. It can shape the entirety of the reader’s perception of the people as ‘uncivilised’, ‘tribal’ or ‘unruly’. 

The need for representation of scholars from all sections cannot be overemphasised. As Apple argues there is a need for the “…the creation of the conditions necessary for all people to participate in the creation and recreation of meanings and values”… not as something uniform, but for the creation of possibilities of “free, contributive and common process of participation in the creation of meaning and values” (Apple 1990, p. xiii). 

It is ironic that while there are 59 schools registered with BSEM in Churachandpur, syllabuses in Social Sciences under secondary education, (even when the history of Manipur is taught), it is the story of the dominant group that is taught. The histories of hill tribes are rendered invisible. Significantly certain ethnic groups in Churachandpur managed to include their histories as part of the curriculum till the 1990s, which was later removed on the ground that learning their (hill tribe’s) own histories could cause ‘communal disharmony’. 

It is due to this exclusive and hegemonic nature of the curriculum that the media perforce play a significant role in disseminating information and producing knowledge. Stuart Hall had argued many decades earlier how dominant perceptions (or ideology) are “reproduced” through mediated discourses. [8] This is just one example of that reproduction of a mediated discourse. 

Notes:





[5] At the state level in Manipur, curriculums in primary education (from Class 1-8) and secondary education (Class 9-10) are entrusted to Board of Secondary Education Manipur (BSEM) established by an Act of Manipur Legislative Assembly in 1972. New syllabus for classes 9 and 10 has been prepared in line with the NCF-2005 and introduced in class 9 in 2008 and class 10 in 2009. The first High School Leaving Certificate (HSLC) Examination under this new syllabus was conducted in 2010. The syllabus for Class 1-8 has been prepared in line with NCF-2005 with effect from 2011. https://bsem.nic.in/about_us.html




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The author is an MPhil Research Scholar at the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics (DSE), University of Delhi. 



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