On the road: Nagaland (I)

On of the advantages of travelling by private car and not by Sumo (the most common type of vehicle for inter-town travel) in Nagaland, is that you can stop at the roadside stalls anytime to buy fresh fruit. I was fortunate enough to be able to catch a ride with Ab. and her dad from Dimapur to Kohima exactly 2 weeks ago.

Visitors heading up to Kohima from Dimapur to attend this year's Hornbill Festival will no doubt see a few of these pineapple stands on the way.





Between Kohima and Zunheboto we also stopped outside the gate to the village of Usütomi, where some of the villagers were selling produce. (Usütomi was one of the villages I got to visit last year to do a few recordings.)





On offer were oranges, pumpkins, wild brinjals, chillis and some jungle greens.



There were also a few types of yam, as well as large ginger - the village takes it name from the kind of ginger grown there, ausü (Drop the ubiquitous a- prefix and you get usü. Add to which means 'hill', since the village is on a hilltop, like most settlements here. The mi means 'person / people' and is sometimes dropped when people talk about the village itself, not some villages seem to always keep the mi.)



Of course, having a car is no guarantee that things will go according to plan.



Our car had a flat just a few hours out of Dimapur. As is standard practice, there was a useable spare in the car. Given how hopeless I am around machines, I let Ab.'s father and their driver sort out the car business.



But with hours of travel still ahead of us (some of it through knee deep water), it was thought prudent to get the tire repaired just outside Kohima. While waiting for the tire to be fixed, Ab. and I ducked into a nearby rest stop for, surprise surprise, a cup of cha.



They're nothing much to look at, and the toilets are often pretty gross, but I quite enjoy these little rest stops.


In the end, we decided to spend the night in Kohima, given that the new quicker route to Zunheboto wasn't terribly safe to drive along at night (did I mention the car had to cross a river?)

And it was just as well, because the next day, we had another flat just a few hours out of Kohima!

Plans, programmes and projects

Generally, if I wanted to know what someone else was up to at a later point in time, I'd probably ask them, "Do you have any plans for today / tomorrow / later?" or "What're your plans for today / tomorrow / later?"

Except when I'm in India. Here, it was far more common for people to ask, "What is your programme for today / tomorrow?" Consequently, it's what I've come to ask people too.

The first time I heard the word 'programme' used in this context, it sounded as if my life was some sort of show with carefully scheduled performances throughout the day. Ironic of course, given that in my experience of India, nothing has ever run according to schedule - I was once booked to catch a train that turned out to 13 hours late. As a friend pointed out, "Back home, we'd called that train 'cancelled'.

However, the words 'programme' and 'plans' are not always interchangeable. For instance, today my host here in Dimapur was explaining to his sister-in-law that we were running late because "we had a programme at 3.30". In that particular context, I would've said "something came up at 3.30".

On a related note, hearing the word 'programme' used in this context reminded me of when I was on exchange in Lyon. One of the French professors said during orientation that in French, you didn't ask someone "Avez-vous des plans?" but "Avez-vous des projets?" if you meant 'Do you have any plans?", the French word projet being a cognate of English project. (This I believe is for a more formal register of French.) In any case, I wonder if French learners of English often mistakenly ask people if they have any "projects" on for the day...

Right to Information in Zunheboto

After a week and a half without internet and barely any mobile phone reception, I'm back online!

Last Wednesday, Youthnet and the Zunheboto Range Students Union held a Right to Information (RTI) hearing in the Zunheboto Town Hall. It was 4 hours long and mostly in Sumi, with a fair bit of Nagamese and English. The story has since been covered by all the major newspapers: the Nagaland Post, the Morung Express and the Eastern Mirror.



It's risky business here trying to unearth corruption, and I admire the brave members of Youthnet for what they do. This wasn't the first time they'd done what they call 'social auditing' in Nagaland. The process involves an initial meeting with members of the community where they are invited to voice any specific problem areas. They then visit and audit the respective departments to look for discrepancies in the way allocated funds have been spent. A public hearing is then held to openly discuss their findings with the public.

Joshua and Hekani from Youthnet addressing the crowd at the start of the hearing


H S Rotokha speaking as an observer at the end of the hearing




The turnout from the Zunheboto public for the hearing was a little underwhelming though. A few concerned citizens showed up, but most of the adults were representatives from the various departments that had been audited. The vast majority of attendees were students from two nearby schools who were asked to come to see democracy in action. It was important for them to come and see that it was possible to make a difference to how society functioned. I hope some of them got the message, though I suspect getting them to willingly sit through another 4 hours in a freezing hall is going to be difficult.

Joshua even presented a little chart about the effects of corruption for the benefit of the students.


Over the 4 hours, many issues were examined, including the lack of sufficient medical staff residing in Zunheboto, the lack of provision of the midday meal by schools, the need for a new water source to cope with the current demand. It was also found that out of 31 'beneficiaries' of the Chief Minister's Corpus Fund - a fund that provides capital to help small enterprises start up, none of them were currently in operation. Youthnet provided a list of these 31 'beneficiaries' along with the various amounts allocated to them.



One item in particular has featured heavily in my commute from Nito Mount to the main town area, as well as in many discussions I've had with people: the state of the roads in Zunheboto. The front page of Monday's Nagaland Post even had photo of a road in Zunheboto that was more sand than gravel. A year ago I saw them repaving the road in Project Colony in 'downtown' Zunheboto. One monsoon season later, and most of it has already been washed away.

Zunheboto is a major town in Nagaland, but it's clearly not the most pleasant place to live in Nagaland. The RTI hearing has caused quite a stir across Nagaland, if the local papers are anything to go by. I hope that as people start taking ownership of their town that things will get better. Then maybe there'll be enough water, reliable power and better phone reception and internet connectivity.

Diphu District Museum

I'm already in Nagaland but thought I'd post a few photos from my short visit to the District Museum in Diphu. It was actually closed the morning that Linda and I were deposited in front of its gate and told to hang around for about half an hour. There was no one inside and no lock on the gate. We walked right in and even found their electricity bill lying on a table!

One the building were the words অসম সাহিত্য সভা Asam Sahitya Sabha 'Assam Literary Society' which I presume is in charge of similar museums in other districts across the state of Assam. Again, I had to assume this was the Karbi Anglong branch.


I suppose there were enough old stone carvings for the place to warrant the name 'museum'. All of them seem to have been dated to the 10th century, which would place them as originating during the kingdom of Kamarupa. There wasn't a lot of useful information on hand, but most of the stone fragments had suitably descriptive labels.

Some labels were, if anything, just honest.

Other backward class

When I first heard the term other backward class, I thought it was a joke.

Then when I read about the creamy layer principle, I was sure it was a joke. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

On previous visits to India, I'd heard the term 'scheduled tribe' used to describe the many tribes / groups of Nagaland. I simply assumed it meant 'officially recognised tribe' (and I wasn't far off the mark with that). But the other day a friend here in Diphu was talking about how he was interviewing candidates for a job, but the job was only available to people from one of the 'other backward classes'. Then a few days later, he was talking about the upcoming local election (which has been postponed till next June) that he's working for and how 'other backward class' is an option on the form for people to state their caste. He was also saying how it was ironic that the former rulers of Assam, the Ahoms, are now considered an 'other backward class'.

After a bit of googling, I discovered that the term backward class is indeed a term used in India, along with scheduled tribe and scheduled caste, to contrast with the term forward class / forward caste. The list for each group is dynamic and calculated based on economic and social factors. However, I'm not 100% sure what factors these are, how they are measured, or even how a group is defined as being a group. The use of these groupings is supposed to be important towards 'positive discrimination' in India, whereby certain jobs and places in education are reserved for people from the 'non-forward classes' (even if these positions are usually not filled for other reasons).

Now I'm all for positive discrimination this way if it is necessary to make up for inequalities in a society (even if people in the majority don't perceive these inequalities and protest against such positive discrimination). But 'backward'? I'm used to Indian English being peppered with colonial era terms and beliefs that now in the West would be considered racist and bigoted, but to designate a group / groups as 'backward'? One might argue that it is simply another term for what others might call 'disadvantaged', but I'm sure even in modern Indian English the term 'backward' carries much more negative connotations of intellectual or physical retardation. I've also heard people in Nepal and India talk about their caste / tribal group as being 'backward' with no hope of moving up in the social hierarchy. If what they're supposed to do is simply follow the 'forward classes', then it's going to be a never-ending game of 'catch-up'.

I suppose I'm more used to the term 'minority' or 'ethnic minority' (even for groups with considerably large memberships). But even in China, the term 少数民族 is used, referring to the 'small number' of members in a particular ethnic group. Over there, certain groups may work towards recognition as an ethnic minority in order to enjoy benefits, such as exemptions from the One Child policy. In India, I'm not quite sure I'd appreciate labeling myself as a member of an 'other backward class' to get a particular job as part of the reservation scheme, but more enlightened members of such 'classes' may be able to work the system.

But hang on, there's also a catch: the reservation scheme doesn't apply to you if you're a member of an 'other backward class' who's from a well-off or educated family. In that case, you're part of the creamy layer (not quite what you thought I was talking about, right?), and according to the 'creamy layer' principle, you "do not require the protection of reservation" (read an article from The Hindu here). However, it has been argued that this 'creamy layer' concept goes against the Indian Constitution.

I'm not quite sure if and how this 'creamy layer' principle is applied, but it's one of the things about India that as a foreigner, I can't help but find somewhat absurd.

Eating silkworms

I'm actually really surprised I hadn't had silkworms until this week. I'd seen them on skewers in Beijing but never dared to try them. This despite telling people that I eat anything. Well, there are certain things I don't eat, like dog and cat, but in general, I eat most things that are laid in front of me.

So at the guest house when I was given ingki ok, the Karbi name for this delicacy, I happily ate them. (By the way, ok in Karbi means 'meat', and is found in compound nouns denoting more usual meats, e.g. phak ok 'pork' (lit. 'pig meat') and lang ok 'fish' (lit. 'water meat').

But this was just the 'finished' product on the plate. It wasn't until a few days later that I got to see where the ingki came from. The mum of one of our Karbi friends makes traditional Karbi clothes and bags, and buys (from I don't know where) large quantities of the silk cocoons, as seen below. The silk looks a bit rough, but the threads are very strong I'm told.

The worms come in two colours: green and yellow.

I'm a little glad I got to eat some before I'd seen the live ones wriggling around in a basket. I think it's something about the wriggling motion that sets off my feelings of disgust and revulsion.

In any case, the verdict: I was expecting the little worms to be bitter and mushy inside, but they were firmer and tastier than I expected. I told my friends they tasted like chicken (like most strange 'meats'). I'm not sure if I'd ask for them willingly next time though...

On the importance of writing

In light of this week's post about a certain person who shall remain unnamed (lest he receive any more publicity), I thought I'd mention that when I started this blog last year, I made it a point not to turn it into a personal online venting ground. Rather, it was meant be a way of keeping in touch with people back home while I was in Nepal and NE India. It has since become a place where I share interesting things about the places I visit, the languages I come into contact with, and language in general.

In this blog, I try to be as positive as possible, even after spending 3 hours standing on a train or 10 hours on a bus suppressing the urge to throw up because of food poisoning. My little outburst this week was actually many weeks coming, having read some of the idiotic comments this person had been making on Twitter and in articles featured on The Age. The final straw was when he launched a ludicrously personal attack on a colleague who had written a rather lengthy criticism of him. (While I disagreed with some of the original criticisms, the reply was quite disproportionate.) The comment that this person posted on this blog was also equally idiotic, and never even addressed the discrepancy I had tried to point out.

In fact, his style of argument reminded me of a religious fanatic who, in the absence of any good evidence, has to resort to making assumptions about the personal character of the people they're arguing with to make a point. I suppose I got off easy - if I had been any more vehement in my criticism, no doubt he would have called me a 'chronic under-achiever' (as he did my colleague) or something to that effect.

Now the thing is, why did I even bother addressing this person, when most people would probably just sit back and wait for him to disappear into obscurity. My friend who's working out here in Assam even asked me how and why I was able to devote so much time and energy to maintaining a blog. I said there was a point to all of this, beyond the simple narcissistic pleasure of broadcasting one's thoughts.

Recently, my friend Lauren (who has a personal blog lozguistics and also maintains the linguistics-related blog Superlinguo) attended a writing workshop at the University of Melbourne. The main point of the workshop seemed to be to encourage academics to write for a more general audience. There are a number of reasons to do, including the potential for a career change. I suppose one reason I see the need for this is that, at least in Australia, research at universities is largely funded by the government and taxpayers want to see what their money is getting them. Of course this doesn't mean that all research should, or needs to, have immediate recognisable and tangible benefits - knowledge itself is a worthy pursuit. However, as purse strings tighten in a world dominated by a GFC, it is becoming increasingly important for researchers to be able to 'justify' the value of their research in order to remain being funded, whether it's by producing results or by simply creating interest in the general public.

I certainly don't think my little blog comes anywhere to doing this but it's my small way of sharing the knowledge I have with others. Keeping a blog is also good writing practice for me, since I'm also not a great writer and often struggle to write in a concise and engaging manner.

Finally, returning to he-who-shall-not-be-named, I think part of my frustration with him has also been that there are people in my department who are so much more qualified to comment on the things that he has been talking about. The lesson here is not to wait for people like him to come and 'steal' the limelight with their misinformation (based largely on personal views), but to find ways to engage the public with the knowledge that we do have.
(Incidentally, I was told that if you google 'his' name, my post appears on the first page of results!)