A review of Kishalay Bhattacharjee, Che in Paona Bazaar, Macmillan, 2013, Rs 399, pp. 241
Paona Bazaar lies in the heart of
Imphal, Manipur. One can describe this place by its proximity to Bir
Tikendrajit Road which had seen the infamous fake encounter case in July 2009.
In fact many of the landmarks of the town would tell a story of it being part
of a constellation of political violence. Che, I would presume, needs no
introduction here. The attempt here is to understand this curious juxtaposition
of ‘Che’ and ‘Paona Bazaar’ as seen through the lens of a media practitioner. The
book ‘Che in Paona Bazaar’ largely discusses (but not exclusively) two states
–Manipur and Nagaland - of what is unproblematically called the North-east. These
two states are not only connected by a common border but also by it falling in
the category of ‘disturbed area’. The infamous Armed Forces Special Powers Act
of 1958 has been in place in these states, it is often argued that the
enactment of this act is partly related to the peculiar and coerced manner in
which these states become a part of the Indian Union. One would therefore expect
some amount of nuanced understanding which captures the complexities from a
book that claims to deal with the region.
This work of non-fiction with a
fictional protagonist whom the writer claims as ‘not representative of any
community or culture’ is named Eshei (Meiteilon word for Song) which is a dead
giveaway. She is a typical native informant in the book that reminds the reader
of dated anthropological writings. The book is to a large extent a narrative
mediated through Eshei. The writer does not shy away from beginning the book
with racial stereotypes that abounds in the mainstream Indian imagination of
the so-called Northeast. The oldest armed group in Manipur – UNLF – mentioned
in the initial pages of the book is referred to as ‘working towards a
unification of Mongoloid armed groups’, is just one of many such unabashed
stereotypes. Comparing cultures on the
basis of exotic curiosities –for example, comparing Manipuri and Korean culture
based on the practice of putting family name before given name; comparing
Sanamahism to Shamanism. Perhaps meant to be amusing, but rather than being
funny it ends up carelessly taking down a language especially as in one
sentence the protagonist’s fetish for Moreh bras is strangely morphed into its
seeming importance among a whole community. Unbelievable as it might sound; the
author states that bra (brassiere) is an important word among the Meiteis due
to the interrogative pronoun ‘bra’ suffixed at the end of a query.
Moreh, the border town, described
as a Manipuri Malgudi in the book of course is a terribly wrong metaphor. Using
the metaphor of Moreh being a Manipuri Malgudi, the writer was not even
romanticising the town but describing the dirt, grit, ‘prostitution’ and
smuggling of drugs which is typical of many border towns in conflict zones
across the globe. The writer takes himself too seriously, if the name of the
book ‘Che in Paona Bazaar’ itself is not enough indication of that, sample
these sentences – ‘my ‘motorcycle diaries’ brought me to Paona Bazaar’; ‘I was
the Pirate of Paona Bazaar’! In the start of the book itself the writer
expresses his disdain for one of his native informant as he had to do his own research, he seem to want everything on a
platter and does not shy away from expressing this. This is one of the kinder
expressions he uses; he describes people scathingly leaving enough hints to
identify the people populating his book. Even a superficial analysis of the
choice of qualifiers used in the book reveals much. For instance, Manorama Devi
(though her name is not given it is impossible to miss out on the clues) is
described as an explosives expert but she was allegedly raped. Allegedly
raped? What about her real murder? The protests that ensued after the rape and
murder of Manorama Devi have been offhandedly described as creating ‘another
stereotype of naked protests’. One is at a loss as to what the statement is
supposed to mean. Did it lead to a chain of naked protests throughout the
country? No. Does the country recognise rape of men and women in peripheral states by the armed forces?
No. Or did he mean that yet another stereotype has been added to those
currently proliferating on the northeast? A second or a third reading does not
make this clear either.
What is worst than this racial
stereotype interspersed in the writing is the lack of any nuanced political understanding of the
region from someone who was at the helm of news from the ‘North-east’ as a
Resident Editor for a national news channel. In a rather bizarre juxtaposition he
narrates two incidents together – the protest by women who stripped themselves
outside the headquarters of Assam Rifles; and another incident six months later
where a ‘Meitei girl’ ‘made love to a young army officer’ inside the
headquarters of the Assam Rifles. The former was a protest by women, now known
as ‘nude protest’, against the rape and murder of Manorama Devi by the Assam
Rifles: a protest which also demanded the repeal of AFSPA (though mentioned
nowhere in the book). It is unsettling to see the two incidents being described
in the same paragraph –protest against a rape where the woman was killed and
had gun-shot wounds in her vagina and a woman making love to an army officer.
The lack of respect for his
subject is clear from statements like –‘Meitei homes have a confusing front and
back yard’ or referring to avoidance of eye-contact as a gesture ‘typical of
people in Manipur’ or proffering his idea that a dinner shared with two
Tangkhul cousins in Ukhrul which consisted of hot pickle is somehow the cause
of ‘their violent streak’. Sample this statement ‘In fact, there is a
possibility that every detail in this account will be challenged. That is also
quintessentially Meitei.’ What this statement attempts to do is refute any
possibility of disagreement. Prior to the disagreement being made he already
stereotypes it as a trait of a community. The style of writing is reminiscent
of dated writings on the lost innocence of the native, the only difference
being that according to the writer the natives are to be blamed for the current
state of affairs. It is rather strange that a work of non-fiction that
discusses so much on the conflict attributes the loss of personal liberty only
on civil society and ‘armed nationalist’ and does not extend the same to the
police or the army presence.
What one would have wanted was
honesty with the times the book dealt with. The book covered a series of
politically charged events and people involved. But the intention of the narrative produced
about these events seems to be ridicule rather than looking at the everyday
travails of the people. For instance, while trying to take a critical stand on
the Assam Agitation, the writer could not come up with anything better than
dismissing the leadership as an ‘uninspired bunch’ and describing the years
spanning this movement as being a time for young couples to have sex in
closed-down schools. The gaze of the writer is definitely voyeuristic. Without
explaining much, he also gets away with statements like ‘Insurgency is complex,
at the same time boring to elaborate’; calls the NSCN-IM as armed Naga
guerrillas and later qualifies his statement and calls them organised dacoits
which is a notch lower that the colonial misrepresentation of ‘Naga hostiles’. The
writer describes human rights organisations as frontal organisations of armed
groups who pick ‘up cases of army and police excesses and drumming up public
outcry against the state’. This is quite a painful erasure of the fact that police
and army excesses still continue with an alarming regularity.
The problem with the book is not
just that he sees the community as a collective without individual thought,
trait or agency: a narrative which builds upon easily into the many stereotypes
he offers on people as a whole, but also the seamless traversing from one state
to the other almost playing with the idea of the ‘Northeast’ as a chunk of
landmass conjoined like Siamese twins. It is clear whose side he is on
especially as he mentions all the players in the field of conflict and yet
conveniently refrains from referring to the State as one of the main
beneficiaries of the conflict. The reproduction of existing clichés is however
not as damaging as the superficial narration of various events that have had
far reaching consequences in the politics of the region in the guise of some
sort of social narrative.
