Government should take note of the signals of unease in Northeast states https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/independence-day-shillong-cherishterfield-thangkhiew-7460380/ August 19, 2021
The Shillong violence is a wake-up call. The NDA government has been proactive in undertaking development projects in the Northeast — since 2014, the outlook has shifted from Look East, a 1990s’ formulation of the then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, to Act East. It helped the BJP expand its electoral footprint in the region. While the BJP’s political outreach through the North-East Democratic Alliance has been successful, its exclusivist agenda has given a new life to the politics of polarisation. For instance, the promotion of the CAA-NRC resulted in mass mobilisations that seemed like a throwback to the days of the Assam agitation. In the best interest of the region, governments need to eschew the emphasis on singular identities and promote a politics of inclusion. That’s the warning from Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, and now Meghalaya.
https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/08/19/media-lessons-from-afghanistan-look-at-processes-not-just-events The younger generation in the rest of India, referred to by people in the Northeast as the "mainland", would probably not be aware that for decades, several states in the region were dominated by different kinds of clashes -- between the Indian government and militant groups, between different ethnic groups within the states, and conflicts between the states. In contrast, today the region appears peaceful, but only on the surface. And when something bursts through that veneer of peace, people are surprised.
several journalists from the Northeast have often complained, such processes are often ignored or cursorily reported by the mainstream media in India.
Both the Assam-Mizoram border clash and the developments in Shillong indicate that there are developments on the ground that we in the media largely ignore or fail to understand and report. Event-oriented and sporadic reporting of regions like the Northeast reinforces ignorance and misunderstanding about the people and their problems.