Perceived Illegality of the Body: Reclaiming the Space in Nagaland

Dimapur: A Site of Political Upheavals

I was at Nagaland, some kilometres away from the site on the day Syed Sarif Khan was lynched at Dimapur on 5 March 2015. The article began its investigation in 2015. I revisited the field and completed the article in 2016. The article attempts to explore the social background out of which lynching of Syed Sarif Khan emerged. What turned a registered rape case into lynching? Identity formation in places like Dimapur is a complex phenomenon with a perpetual increase of migrants because of its immediate geographical connection with Assam. I revisited the field in 2016 because almost all my respondents refused for interviews few weeks after the Nagaland Government announced a CBI probe into the case (Kashyap, 2015). The Gauhati High Court directed the CBI in Nagaland on 7 September 2015 (Kashyap, 2015), following which, hundreds of Naga youths were arrested and many had lookout notices on them. State administrators, police and government employees refused to comment on the incident.

The article reveals existing violence against women in Nagaland, shrouded under the fallacious notion of ‘egalitarian society’. The trigger of lynching of Syed Sarif Khan was a rape case. After an FIR was lodged at the police station, feminists and Naga women organisations responded by demanding an action against the visible violence against women in Nagaland. Kikon (2015) also tries to explain how the gravity of the offence was diverted to the judgement upon the character of the rape survivor:

She was called a sex worker, a liar, a college girl looking for fun, a consensual sex gone bad, blackmail of an innocent men were some of the allegations. What is important to note is that the victim went to a police station and not the mob to act on her behalf. (ibid., p. 16)

The reading of sexual violence in the event marks out the entry point in our discussion which also makes us question the justice system and punishment within a larger ‘culture’ of impunity. Sexual violence cannot be understood from a single outburst of event because it is neither a recent phenomenon nor an exceptional one because sexual violence in many forms has been embedded in the everyday life of Naga women (ibid., pp. 14, 19). Although the narratives would later shift our focus entirely to illegal immigration, a clarificatory remark is made to understand the shifts not as an overriding of sexual violence, rape, shame and trauma experienced by the victim but to understand the act of violence in a holistic sense. Writings after the lynching of Syed Khan represented the act as xenophobic, fallaciously correlating it to the Naga’s culture reinforcing the negative representation of the Nagas. Such a representation is stuck with the colonial gaze of exotic tribes as savage and primitive (Saikia & Baishya, 2017, p. 5). Thus, the xenophobic representation of the violence was imposed while shrouding the problematics of citizenship, sexual violence, security and immigration. The approaches to understand lynching encapsulate the real issues of (a) sexual violence and (b) the impasse of illegal immigrations, which were the two core layers around the event. Lynching of Syed resurrected the impasse of illegal immigration in the northeast region. Lynching of Syed Sarif Khan was not a singular spontaneous outburst of popular sentiments of the Naga community but an explosion of complex multilayered impending tensions. Although unforeseeable to Naga youths, their accessibility to the lavish violent language prior to lynching in the virtual spaces made the anti-immigrant sentiments translate into lynching viable. Narratives of local versus non-local, vilification and the construction of the ‘other’ through hostile voices and condemnations in local newspapers and Internets made the act of violence easier for those thousands of unruly mobs and youths. It served as a long-awaited event to the impending impasse of illegal immigration. On 3 March 2015, the local daily in Nagaland carried news:

the Nagaland Council Dimapur (NCD) and Naga Women Hoho Dimapur (NWHD) wrote; not only was the girl raped multiple times, she was beaten up and threatened with death during the entire episode. The heinous crime exposes our weaknesses. The organisations claimed that ‘unless all Nagas take responsibility to tackle the menace of unabated IBI (Illegal Bangladeshi Immigration) influx and their stay here in the state, crimes against our women and daughters by these people will only increase. They urged that it is time Naga landlords stop renting their vacant plots and buildings to IBIs. (NCD & NWHD, 2015)

The people of Dimapur recognised a need for gender justice for the victim, but without an inclusive vision of justice and consideration of human rights in the delivery of justice. The voice of the Nagas as a homogeneous unit to preserve the purity and tradition of the Nagas, framed as a homogeneous identity, takes a priori over the experience of rape as a grave crime (Kikon, 2015, pp. 23–24, 79, emphasise mine). Like other patriarchal society, a Naga woman’s body symbolises the traditional imagery, territorial identity and represents the community’s honour. Thus, rape here was more than a crime marked upon the women’s body and an invasion into the community’s imagined space. The crime here was penalised more because the perpetrator was the projected subject of ‘illegality’; the victim, who is a Naga woman, is the carrier of the community’s identity. The violation is then not on the women’s body alone but an act of violence on the Naga community.

Illegal immigration in Northeast India is not a new phenomenon in Nagaland, but the contemporary response to it has taken new forms of violence and resistance. The article looks beyond the failure of the state in countering illegal immigration and delved on the response of the people. The narratives and past stories of violence inflicted by outsiders on the Nagas were remembered to justify the collective action. A local daily in January 2014 carried a news and the story was reposted in Facebook feeds prior to lynching of Syed Sarif Khan:

An incident of December 28, 2014, Akivito, a class X student of Christian Higher Secondary School Dimapur, was killed by Nizam Ali and mob (Nagaland Post, 2014a). Lizumi Union(LU), Kulolau Khukishe Ghami Dimapur (KKGD), expressed shocked that ‘non-local gundas’ are freely killing Nagas and dominating the New Market area of Dimapur. The incident of the boy brutally beaten to death is unimaginable and barbaric. DSSU urges people of Nagaland to contain the ‘rise of non-locals’, especially illegal Bangladesh migrants. (Nagaland Post, 2014b)

Identified as Nizam Ali, 26, son of Abdul Rafiq, Pulazazuri village, PO/PS-Borsala under Assam’s Morigaon district, was arrested in the case of killing Naga student. The accused was arrested on May 27, 2014, by Dimapur police from Ghorpatti possessing illegal 7.65 pistol and ammunitions. (Nagaland Post, 2014, May 30)

The crime here is read into the semantics of violence, security, citizenship and identity. The killing of Akivito in 2014 was reconstructed in the minds of the people and reiterated in Facebook pages days before and after the lynching of Khan in 2015. Feeds and posts relating to lynching occurred on 5 March at Dimapur were erased from the group and personal pages immediately days after the incident. Another excerpt from a local newspaper:

The Sumi Kukuputsa ¹ blog in facebook condemned the threat meted out to its administrator Jonah Achumi by an ‘illegal immigrants’ Salehk Arkhram vice president of Dimapur Muslim Public Forum. The threat was issued following an opinion shared by Jonah regarding illegal immigrants in Nagaland. Organisations such as Sumi Kiphiphimi kuqhakulu, Shena Old Tughalomi Kuqhakulu and Angami Student Union (ASU) condemned the death threat. The Muslim Council Dimapur (MCD) stated in the media that this act has definitely spoiled the image of the Muslim community. (The Morung Express, 2014)

By centralising the problem solely on administrative bottlenecks, what has been left void is a closer look at the politics of identity functioning as an apparatus of violence. Past crimes and threats used by the non-locals against the locals also resurfaced during the lynching episode. A deeply rooted antagonism against the ‘other’ is shaping the popular perceptions of crime and illegality. In concurrence to the consolidated ‘we’ Naga identities, an intersection of sexual violence and an identity of an immigrant are observed in the event. The identity of an immigrant was subjected to scrutiny rather than the religious identity of the outsider. One respondent said,

The student leaders are extra cautious so that genuine Muslims are not troubled. Everyone is quiet after the death of Khan but lynching happened because of rape. It was not communal. Muslims were not targeted in the protest. You can confirm it from the Muslim Dimapur Council. ²

A police officer in Dimapur in one of the interviews state, the ‘New Market’ area in Dimapur has been a contested space for numerous criminal activities and a susceptible space for conflicts and violence. There has been an increase in the registered crime by the Muslim community over the years. ³

The narratives reflect the paradox of cautionary as well as slippery slopes in the construction of Muslim identity. The impasse of illegal immigration is subtly contributing to a parallel construction of Muslim Identity in Nagaland. Along with the contribution of the migrants to the economy and commerce of Dimapur, the narrative shows human encounters, relationships and conflicting identities resulting in crimes and violence.

Cleansing: A Question of Survival

Few years preceding 2014, from time to time, the Ao ⁴ students’ conference (Ao kaketshir Mungdang-AKM) carried out operations against illegal immigrants in the district of Mokokchung, Nagaland. We now refer to those periods as ‘flush out operation’ or ‘Mokokchung Survival’, referring to the flushing out of illegal immigrants. ‘It was launched by the Ao students in order to take control of all business establishments by the locals’ (Nurumi, 2014).

On 9 September 2014, enthused by ‘Survival Mokokchung’, Naga youths met at Mishikito village in Nagaland and formed a consolidated group named ‘Survival Nagaland’, ⁵ inclusive of all Naga tribes. More than fifty persons, Gaun buras, social activists and government servants attended the meeting with an objective to discuss ways and methods to check illegal immigration. The team had a core committee and various cells such as economic cells, public relations, right to information cell, vigilance cell and legal cell. The team resolved to assist police in Inner Line Permit ⁶ (ILP) and help them at check gates from time to time (Nurumi, 2014). The ILP system under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulations was introduced in 1873, functional till now in the states of Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. ILP aims to ensure the protection of the distinct identity, culture and tradition of the ethnic tribes inhabiting Northeast India. ILP is not operative in Dimapur, and so Survival Nagaland demands the purview of ILP in Dimapur. In my group interview with Survival Nagaland in March 2015, I observed that the team was composed of social activists, businessmen and student leaders. Most of them had acquired their higher education from metropolitan cities in India and had fair exposure to the outside world. In an interview, one of the members said:

Just for two or three hundred rupees, fake documents are being issued. Just recently one outsider (middle man) was caught in the DC office Dimapur with many fake residential certificates, driving licence. He was applying work permit for more than ten people. The biggest challenge is the easy availability of birth certificates, permanent residential certificates in Nagaland and Assam. With such proper papers the illegal immigrant becomes the legal citizen of India. The liberal intellectuals should understand the seriousness of the matter. ⁷

The investigation into the illegal immigration has been a politically sensitive ground for both India and Bangladesh. Easy accessibility to fake documents reflects state’s weak policy and commitments between Assam and Nagaland. Impediments on the hand of the law and the elusive nature of illegal immigrants make the identification process very complex. ‘Survival Nagaland’ as a movement define themselves as a socially transformative movement with dual objectives of (a) identifying, detecting and deporting illegal Bangladeshis through appropriate legislation, laws and notification and (b) to ensure the spirit of entrepreneurship and economic independence among the Nagas. ⁸ One of the pamphlets issued by Survival Nagaland writes:

After acquiring PRC they open Bank account, procure PAN card, voted ID and driving license. Present Nagaland economy has a humiliating market for the Nagas to venture or survive in our own economy. We have low ratio of Nagas in manual labour. Lack of dignity of labour is strangulating our economy. ⁹

In an incident of 24 November 2014, where a local person was attacked by three alleged illegal Bangladeshis, Survival Nagaland demanded deportation of all illegal immigrants from Nagaland on 26 November 2014. The Survival Nagaland expressed dissonance over the increased crimes by foreigners. ¹⁰ The movement commands non-interference in their economy and to protect the pride of the Nagas by defending their economy for ‘the survival’. The essence of the ideology behind the movements is enhanced by the absence of industrialisation and manufacturing sector in Nagaland. Threat to the available opportunity being stolen from them is felt more by the educated unemployed youths. Survival Nagaland organisation writes, ‘It is our birth right and our duty to protect and preserve the uniqueness of our land passed down by our ancestors’. ¹¹ The Movement demands supports from the state, Indian citizens, civil societies, NGOs, apex Naga tribal hohos ¹² and women organisations of Nagaland. Survival Nagaland movement resonates the Naga youth’s aspirations and evokes the idea of economic self-reliance. It transmits collective consciousness by reclaiming their space, economy and sociocultural values as a keeper of Naga’s heritage.

Migration, Migrants and the Perception of ‘Illegality’

Migration, which refers to crossing of land boundaries, whether national or international, has both symbolic and political meanings to any community. Whether it is permanent or a temporary movement of people, there is an undeniable taken-for-granted relationship between the host community and the immigrants. The long-standing negotiations in this relationship and the drastic change in demographic composition in Dimapur have had consequences. Large-scale migration from Bangladesh with the largest concentration in states such as Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and other states of Northeast India exhibits a weak response of Indian state. Nagaland is not connected with Bangladesh either by land or water, and its connection with Bangladesh is through Assam.

Situating the history of migration in Dimapur, the Jains were the earliest non-Naga migrants to Nagaland, as early as the 1880s. The contributions of Jains in the making of Dimapur as early migrants and settler is evident today in the business expansions made by the Sethi and his brothers, S.D Jain Charitable hospital, the popular S.D Jain college and S.D Jain school in Dimapur. The later migrants of Dimapur are mainly from Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Manipur, Rajasthan, Punjab and Bangladesh. Major businesses in Dimapur are still controlled by migrants. ¹³

The decade 2001–2011 saw an outrageous leap in urban population by 2.2 lakhs, a decadal increase by 67 per cent, and Dimapur recorded the highest urban population with 52.2 per cent in 2011. According to the Census of India (2011), 40.87 per cent of the total population of Dimapur are not Scheduled Tribe. It implies that nearly 41 per cent of the population in Dimapur are non-Nagas. The 40.87 per cent constitutes the Marwaris, Bengalis, Jains, Sikhs, Biharis, Mohammedans, Bengali Muslims, and so on. ¹⁴ It can be deduced that most of the 40.87 per cent of migrants in Dimapur arrived at a later stage (Eastern Mirror, 2017). The article draws our focus to the knowledge gaps, people’s perception and its overall impact on identity, land and livelihood.

Dimapur, as a site of human interactions, partially has not been able to draw its pride from its diverse character. Eviction campaigns, survival objectives, operation flush outs continue to be a method of reclaiming the space in Nagaland. Lynching of Syed Sarif Khan has inscribed Dimapur as a space that carried prejudice and hostility. Dimapur as a commercial site is very dynamic that is never constant but keeps changing. It has been accused of being a site that has witnessed the demise of morality, tradition and order. The city celebrates not only the new urbanised image, status and prestige but also its cultural revivalism in contemporary forms. The city signifies deteriorating monocultural space and a continuous amelioration of economic prosperity. The labour market is dominated by the migrants, and the expansion of trade, commerce and business has generated a competitive market creating adversaries. The construction of Naga masculinity and male honour has found its new place in the economic progress and has aligned itself to security, dignity and upward mobility. Central to the violence of Dimapur lynching is the frustration of unemployed Naga youths and their grief over the demise of their self-worth, honour, dignity and respectability.

Migration or immigration of people into Nagaland is a voluntary movement of people for better livelihood and economic opportunities rather than a forced movement (Garg, 2016). One of the pull factors for the immigrants from Bangladesh is the availability of manual jobs, domestic works and construction works in Nagaland. This pull is perpetuated by the Nagas aversion to manual labour jobs. Lack of entrepreneurial skill and aspirations, aggravated by the perception of manual work as lowering of one’s prestige and status among the urban Naga middle class, creates vacuum in the labour market. One respondent said,

Unfortunately this vacuum is comfortably filled by the illegal Bangladeshi immigrants (IBIs) and their services are undeniably favored because of their cheap labour and skills’. ¹⁵

In 1986, Hokishe Sema (1986) wrote,

There is shortage of labour. The scarcity of land has not been felt much. Import of labour from outside has started, knowing very well the dangers faced by the neighbouring states of Tripura and Assam where original inhabitants became minorities in a few decades. It has started creating social and political tensions which will definitely defeat the very goal of economic development and grant of political status. (p. 175)

More than three decades since 1986 and revisiting what Hokishe Sema (ibid.) has said, scarcity of land is now felt more by the people in urban areas. What has remained constant over the years is the fear that Nagas would become minorities. On 5 March 2015, lynching reignited half a century old impending issue of illegal immigration in Northeast inspired by the idea of economic control. Unified resistance against illegal immigrants was expressed through different voices, organisations, student unions, popular media and Internet. Fear of losing one’s voice and land is reflected in the narratives:

Nagaland is headed towards the fate of Tripura. It is at present asking for repatriation to Mizoram for tribal reangs ¹⁶ who are residing in North Tripura. We will become minority in our own land. ¹⁷

For ordinary people, the need to differentiate between a voluntary migration, economic migration and a forced migration does not make much sense. Reangs would fall under the forced migration, usually referred to as refugees (The Hindu, 2016), whereas most of the migration in Nagaland so far are voluntary and are economically motivated. Information from the media is consumed, and comparisons are done without any conceptual clarity. The protected and un-intruded economic and social activities of the Naga tribes are now a thing of the past, and such social nostalgia is embedded in the uncertainty and fears of the Naga people. All migrants are outsiders for the Nagas, but the illegal immigrants are ‘double outsiders’ for the Nagas. The complexity of the problem is aggravated by the economic resurgence of Naga youth who are returning to the state to start an enterprise, business. There is an unsettling idea of citizenship and governance in Northeast India. Far beyond the intellectual debates on who are the immigrants and whether we are all migrants at some point in history lies the presence of the idea of ‘illegality’ in the memory of the people. To make sense of the idea of ‘illegality’ is to understand the emergence of identity movements and violence inherited from it, which has superseded the idea of integrative society. On Gandhi Jayanti, 2012, the Nagaland Council Dimapur launched a non-violent campaign against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. On this day, both Nagas and non-Nagas inked their signatures under the slogan:

I pledge that I shall wholly and steadfastly boycott illegal Bangladeshi Immigrants socially and economically. I shall boycott all the business establishments of illegal Bangladeshis who control the economy of our state and patronize the Nagas as well as our fellow Indians. On August 2012, the Naga Hoho called upon all the states of Northeast states to flush out illegal Bangladeshi immigrants from the region. (E-Pao, 2012)

The voice of Naga Hoho, the apex body of the Naga society, clearly indicates that the local institutions have filled the void created by the state. Economic security is a serious concern to various tribal organisations in the region, the parochial guardians of Naga tradition, customs and identity. Their collective voice valorises the idea of ‘being a Naga’ with a clear territorial definition of who is included and who is breaching it.

Voices of the Muslims

On 5 March 2015, lynching clearly identified and retaliated against the perceived ‘illegality’ of the body. The voice of the Muslims emerged as a clarification to the communal readings and writings of Syed Sarif Khan’s lynching. The Muslim Council of Dimapur (MCD) clarified:

Although All Assam Students Association claimed that Muslim shops were looted and Muslims could not come out of their house, there was no particular target on the Muslim Community. The students returning from the protest agitated and randomly vandalized shops and physically harassed some non-Naga pedestrians in New Market and Hazi Park. Shops of people from different communities felt pray to the angry protestors and not just the Muslims. With regard to the rumours spread to other parts of India that the Historic old Jama Masjid of 1906 at Hazi Park is vandalised by the mob, the Muslim Council Dimapur took up the responsibility to inspect the site and posted photos of the Masjibi in their MCD page in facebook with a caption ‘Masjid is untouched’. ¹⁸

A caveat drawn out from the voices of the Muslim community elucidates that Syed Sarif Khan was not lynched because of his Muslim identity. Although it was not a communal clash, the informal circulation of rumours in political milieu compelled the MCD to caution the communal interpretations. This is significant in order to understand the historical point we are in, pertaining to the question of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Nagaland. In the aftermath of lynching, on 18 March 2015, a letter from the office of the Muslim Council Dimapur, Nagaland reads:

The handling of the IBI issue by different Organisation in different ways has created more confusions and the MCD is worried that the upcoming generation in Nagaland might be made to believe that all Muslims are of Bangladeshi origin. The MCD wants the Muslim Community to live with dignity and honour as well as maintain harmony with the Nagas—President MCD. ¹⁹

Certainly the 5th March lynching created panic and fear among the Muslim community in Dimapur. Right after the lynching incident in Dimapur, one of the pamphlets ²⁰ issued by the Muslim Council Dimapur revealed that many people belonging to Muslim community left Dimapur for safety, although there were no arrests or deportations imposed. The narrative points out the danger of branding of Muslim identity into one homogeneous unit by the upcoming generation in Nagaland. The letter indicates that similar to the stereotypes faced by Muslims around the world, ‘being a Muslim’ could create an object of mutual ‘suspect’ if the problem remains unresolved for long. There is a fear among the Muslim community in Dimapur that their regional and linguistic differences could be disregarded (Gossman, 1999, p. 3, emphasise mine). What is more cautionary is the construction of Muslim as illegal immigrants, which could fuel communal conflicts in the future Nagaland. But it is still a hasty reaction to give a communal overtone to the lynching at this point in history. ²¹

Rethinking the issue of illegal immigration in the context of Nagaland, it is important to consider the history of the Muslims in Assam since Nagaland has no direct border with Bangladesh and all migrants and immigrants flow through Assam. Muslims, such as Bagh Hazarika, Rupai Goriya and Sardar Zulfikar Barua, served the Ahom kings (Saikia & Baishya, 2017). The Muslims constitute diverse social, linguistic and cultural groups across Brahmaputra and Barak valleys. Ambiguity exists as a hurdle in the distinction between Muslims and Bangladeshi immigrants. The Bengali Muslims of Barak Valley are today represented as miya or Banglaseshi and the goriya or ‘Native Musalmans’, in the words of Mohini Saikia who constitutes the smallest group of the community (ibid, p. 119). According to Saikia and Baishya (2017),

[T]here are four groups of Muslims- i) Assamese, ii) Bengali, iii) up-country (from UP, Bihar and even as far away as Peshawar and Kabul), and iv) Immigrants or so called Bangladeshis.’ Similar to the situation in Assam, Nagaland may perhaps be progressing towards identification of Muslim migrants as a contentious category. (ibid., pp. 111–116)

The inability to distinguish Muslims in their historical trajectories spills beyond the state boundary of Assam and enters Nagaland with much more ambiguity and suspicion to the ordinary people. Assam being the bridge between Bangladesh and the rest of the Northeast state perhaps needs to be very careful in deciphering Muslim-Assam adherence and sensitivity; whose past is construed as illegal and whose past it validates, for Assam to be called their home (ibid., p. 131, emphasise mine).

In the collective memory of the Nagas, the only prominent outsiders were the Britishers and the missionaries. Traders migrating to Nagaland mostly locate themselves in an unrecorded post-colonial relationships and encounters. The parochial politics between Hindus and Muslims present in other parts of India is absent in Nagaland because both Hindus and Muslims are outsiders for the Nagas. But the Muslims, especially the Bengali-speaking Muslims, could be a ‘double-outsider’ due to the suspicious historicity of illegal citizenship. There is no language of pollution and defilement based on caste or religion in the context of the Nagas. Thus, one cannot communalise the issue because operation flush-outs do not resonate any religious adherence but rather finds its resonance in the idea of homeland, security, citizenship and economic resources.

Producing and Reproducing the Idea of ‘Illegality’: Citizenship and Territoriality

Illegal Bangladeshi migrants have been part of the labour landscapes of the Northeast for a long time. They contribute to the capacity of both skilled and unskilled workers, but more often as the latter. The land and buildings mostly belong to the Nagas in the state, but more than 80 per cent of the business is dominated by the migrants in Dimapur. ‘Aren’t they the go-to-man for all the works that we don’t want to do?’ said Hanneng in one of his pieces (Hanneng, 2017). Unlike Mizoram, in Nagaland, almost all semi-skilled and unskilled jobs, such as cobbler, tailoring, barbers, construction work, coolies, and so on, are all catered by migrants from other parts of India and migrants from Bangladesh (Ezung, 2015).

Illegal immigrants are present in the state, but all migrants are not illegal immigrants, and especially all Muslims are not illegal Bangladeshis. Why then does the ambiguity on ‘illegality’ resurface time and again in Northeast India? How do we locate the relationship between state and citizens? Cleary, lynching of Syed Khan is not one single event, and the paper is suggestive that citizenship law and the reproduction of ‘illegality’ need to be relooked at. The word ‘illegal’ has its origin in the (a) the partition of India, the East Bengal/East Pakistan, ²² (b) Assam Accord, which states that those who came prior to 1971 are Indian citizens and (c) Citizenship Act, 1955. In Section 2:

2. [(b) ‘illegal migrants’ means a foreigner who has entered into India.

(i) Without a valid passport or other travel documents and such other document or authority as may be prescribed by or under any law in that behalf: or

(ii) with a valid passport or other travel documents and such other document or authority as may be prescribed by or under any law in that behalf but remains there in beyond the permitted period of time]. ²³

Law, governance and regulations have the authority to change the landscapes of legality and illegality. What is legal becomes illegal and what is illegal becomes legal along the amendments in the citizenship laws. With the new citizenship legislation introduced in 2016, the word has acquired new meanings with an oxymoron of inclusivity and exclusivity. Unpacking the new citizenship legislation bill introduced on 19 July 2016, as an amendment to some provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955, we find religious markers shrouded under the citizenship law 2016 (Garg, 2016).

The bill enables citizenship by naturalisation to Sikhs, Parsis, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who have fled from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh without valid or expired document. The object of the bill is to remove the tag ‘illegal immigrants’ from such citizens and give them citizenship rights. However, the bill has been accused of being biased and restrictive because it does not include the refugees in India from among the Muslim community and persecuted minorities (Survanarayan & Ramaseshan, 2016). Law on migration or citizenship has historically struggled to detach itself from vote banks and political power. The restriction to the Muslim community further pins down the idea of illegality to a particular community in a secular India. The bill in all its prejudice may now be implicitly making the subject of ‘illegality’ more lucid. If the bill gets passed, it can translate into communal ramifications, and what is contested about the perception of ‘illegality’ would not be contested anymore since the law would reaffirm the exclusivity of the Muslim community and relieve the people from defining the subject of the illegal.

Creating the Illegal Child: Sumiyas

Electoral politics and political campaigns have persisted in planting fangs in citizenship, casting certain categories as illegal. Political rhetoric has further entrenched the idea of ‘illegality’. On 9 April 2004, Neiphiu Rio, the then Chief Minister of Nagaland, while addressing an election rally attacked the Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi for allegedly issuing land rights to illegal immigrants and in response to his statement, Gogoi responded that not a single Bangladeshi was staying in Assam while addressing an election rally in Hailakandi, Assam on 8 April 2014. Nagaland government informed the Union Home Ministry about the formation of an underground outfit, namely Bangla Border force, by the illegal immigrants in the Merapani area of Assam and cautioned the union about the possibility of Northeast becoming a breeding ground for terrorism if the illegal influx is not abated (Dholabhai, 2004). In 2014 election campaign, the BJP campaigned that ‘illegal immigrants from Bangladesh would leave the country if the party is voted into power in contrary to the previous governments who have dealt with the issue with little success’ (Bhattacharjee, 2014). As I refrain from an intellectual dishonesty of denying the presence of unauthorised immigrants, ²⁵ I do not refrain from arguing how these political rhetoric have insinuated a trojanic enemy within the country. This creation of the ‘alien other’ in the political milieu fought against by the political parties as their duty, on behalf of the citizens validates the very idea of illegality. The idea is kept alive every electoral year through political campaigns, pamphlets, political speeches and party manifestoes. In the initiatives of the Indian state in addressing illegal immigration (from arrest to deportation and construction of thousands of kilometres of border fences ²⁶ along the borders and land swaps ²⁷ ) is the unaddressed identification processes of who the illegal is? The question remains whether the idea of illegality would dissipate even if the issue of borders and people were to be resolved from an administrative vantage point.

Shifting culpability, among the Naga tribes, ²⁸ between political parties, between the neighbouring states and between the centre and the state, helps us construe what evokes the idea of illegality? What keeps it going? Around the year 2002, a political category sumiyas emerged in Nagaland. In Amarjeet Singh’s (2009) work, the term sumiyas refers to ‘the children of the immigrants who marry local girls’ ²⁹ which is an incomplete definition. The term Su-mi-yas is actually a compound word and derives its meaning from two words: (a) Sumi refers to the Sumi tribe of the Nagas and (b) the word miyas is a pejorative slang, refers to the outsiders in Nagaland. There is reverse racism prevalent in Nagaland. The subject miya, which signifies a distinctiveness of race, has a high probability of being an illegal immigrant in the social mind of an ordinary Naga, and it is pivotal to understand how this ‘perceptive possibility’ is getting weaved into the identity construction. The word sumiya has more specific meanings; Sumiyas refers to the children born out of intermarriages between women specifically belonging to Sumi tribe and a miyas father. The second clarification is that the word sumiya is not strictly referred to a marriage with illegal immigrants but is also applicable to children born out of an intermarriage with outsiders or migrants from adjoining Assam areas, especially who are employed in the paddy field, construction works, domestic servants, manual labours and in general who belongs to lower strata of the society. Miyas are subjects of suspect, if not absolute the probability of miyas to be an illegal immigrant is high in the social consciousness of the Nagas. According to oral history, the Sumi tribes were one of the earliest tribes to inhabit Dimapur area and has remained to be one of the predominant tribes in Dimapur. The number of intermarriages between sumi and non-nagas has been considerably high in Dimapur and adjoining villages, although the intermarriage of other Naga tribes with outsiders is not absent. Binational marriages or interstate marriages are common in border states around the world, but what makes this intermarriage a political category is the point of analysis here. The word Sumiyas carries a negative connotation and is not free from political culpability. The Sumi tribe has been accused of hosting illegal immigrants as their domestic servants, labourers and agriculture labourers; however, on the contrary, the field view suggests that almost every household in Dimapur, irrespective of the tribes they belong to, enjoys the service of the so-called miyas. The derogatory term Sumiya is loaded with racial underpinnings because the term insinuates that such intermarriages contaminate the pedigree of Naga blood. The identification process for such children is done mostly through their non-mongoloid features, darker skin tone and the impure accent of the Naga language they speak.

The word sumiya carries three fallacious underlying assumptions: (a) In such intermarriage, most usually, the father is a miya; (b) only Sumi tribe marry illegal Bangladeshis and (c) it is the mother (and not the father) who belongs to sumi tribe. Such assumptions draw its source from the cultural constructs of the Nagas’ lineage, which flows through the father’s line and thus leaves these children outside the imagined territory of the Nagas. This illegal child provokes the idea of ‘illegality’ a priory over the administrative definition of legal or illegal citizens. The origin of the word carries political constructions embedded in the modern tribal politics of Nagaland. In 2002, S. C. Jamir of Nagaland, the then Chief Minister of Nagaland, stated:

I said illegal immigrants are mostly found in Dimapur and Niuland (Sumi village adjoining Dimapur city). Some Bangladeshis had married Naga women and vice-versa, thereby making the whole matter complicated. The assumption that I am insulting a certain tribe is unfortunate and uncalled for. ³⁰

While the word Sumiya eventually travelled to the academia, scholars have used the term without carefully breaking down the teeth. The shifting blame among the Naga tribes on the issue of unabated illegal immigration moves inwards rather than outwards. A mechanism operates in the internalisation of such blame ethnic conflicts. With such political apparatus, there is a continuous formation of a narrow understanding of ‘illegality’ which poses a great vulnerability towards violence between tribes and also towards outsiders in Nagaland. Not only has these political insinuations penalised a particular tribe (Sumis) for their non-allegiance to the Naga blood, but it has also produced a correlation between the unsettling ideas of ‘illegality’ with the Sumi Naga tribe. It is at this point where the body and the blood borne out of mixed unions meets the idea of the illegallity.

Sumiya is not just a mere racist subject, but the political category indicates that Naga’s social order lies on its own flesh and blood. Sumiya, an intermarriage, has inscribed itself with racial discrimination, social mockery and exclusion ‘articulated around the stigmata of otherness and the need to purify the social body and to preserve one’s own identity from all forms of mixing interbreeding or invasion’ (Balibar & Wallerstien, 1991, pp. 17–18). In the case of Sumiyas, the ambivalence of the identity brings forth the paradox of how in a place called ‘home’, both identity and memory are intertwined; that the birth into a place may not necessarily be truly home for those who do not fit into those memory and identity. Mixed marriages in the borders of Assam and Dimapur are increasing just like other intermarriages in the borderlands around the world, but this intermarriage Sumiya has become a cautionary site for illegality—a marriage to be exposed and monitored by social apparatus in order to protect the identity of the Nagas.

Conclusion

The article brings out the way the Nagas have defined ‘survival’ economically, spatially and socially. The article begins with the pre-existing sexual violence against women in Nagaland, and it also questions whether the crime rape was the sole trigger of violence of lynching at Dimapur on 5 March and revisits it as a naive assumption. Violence as a political characteristic was displayed through the processes of identification, group loyalty and an expression of an impending social insecurity. The attempt is not to imply that it is wrong to protect one’s cultural and ethnic identity but the pertinent question it poses is: when does it go wrong in a democratic space?

Issues on migration and citizenship across socio-geographical and political boundaries in the borderlands continue to be a central concern, influencing and reshaping the idea of illegality in Northeast India. One key discourse brought out in the article was the way in which illegal immigration and identity conflicts affect the lives and perceptions of the people. The massification of violence at Dimapur on 5 March flared across class, gender and tribes, indicating the rise of collective consciousness in the anti-immigration movement. The narratives unpacked the historical backdrop of lynching of Syed Sarif Khan, while trying to understand the production and reproduction of the idea of ‘illegality’. The effort here is not to rewrite or overwrite the presence of illegal immigration in the region. Although some of the narrative points towards the fundamental question on the failure of the state, to comprehend illegal immigration as a neatly cut-out law and order problem is an incomplete assumption. To construe ‘illegality’ is to understand the nuances of identity movements and their effects on economic and sociopolitical life of the people. Reiterating Khan’s location in the article, he was not killed because he was a Muslim but there are many Syed Sarif Khans residing in Northeast India who are the ambiguous subject of the perception of ‘illegality’. Challenges are usually focused on the state’s mechanism, but the real challenge is in the negotiation of the prevailing idea of ‘illegality’ in the everydayness of the Naga society. India needs to rethink over its citizenship laws in times of identity and political upheavals in South and Southeast Asia. The impasse suggests that the immigration issue between India and Bangladesh is about ‘real’ boundaries as well as ‘imagined boundaries’.