The Camera as Witness. A Serial History of Mizoram, North east India.
Author: Joy L.K. Pachuan and Willem van Schendel. Publisher: Cambridge
University Press Release.
“A picture speaks more than a thousand words”. This adage is eloquently proved by this book on the social history of Mizoram.
For
generations, many historians have treated images as lesser sources of
evidence about the past than words and figures. But today, visual
collections increasingly provide the central evidence for entire
historical arguments. Photographs are of particular interest because
they were created exactly at the time when the events or conditions
occur, whereas other primary sources (such as letters, memoirs,
autobiographies or oral histories) are usually recorded later.
Photographs thus provide instantaneous eyewitness (or rather
camera-witness) accounts.
Majority of these images
collected by the authors over the years are photographs — over 17,000 of
them, covering the period between 1860s and the 2010s. A quarter of
them can be found in archives in the United Kingdom, but most of them
come from well over 100 private and some official collections in India.
The selection reflects both the authors’ decision to highlight certain
historical processes and the limitations that image quality imposed on
their choice. This effort made it possible to reveal little known facets
of Mizoram’s history and to demonstrate how photographs can alter the
historical narrative we construct.
In the south of
the Himalayas, a crescent of steep mountains acts as the boundary
separating South Asia from South-East Asia. They are the Naga Hills in
the North, the Mizo, Chin and Chittagong Hills in the Centre and the
Arakan Hills in the South. For many years, social scientists and
historians have overlooked the communities in these hills. Many myths
and misunderstandings about these societies continue to swirl around
public discourse and policy-making at national and international levels,
whilst local voices are largely unheard, if not actively silenced.
This
book presents in detail the services of missionaries in changing the
attitude of the indigenous people towards dress codes, customs,
education and hygiene amidst many adversities. Today, the people of
Mizoram pride themselves on inhabiting one of the most literate regions
of India. In fact, the districts of Aizawl and Serchhip are the most
literate in the entire country.
By its use of visual
sources, this book emphasises how ‘indigenous people’ in Mizoram have
used cameras to produce distinct modern identities and represent
themselves to themselves, consistently contesting outsiders’ imagination
of them as isolated, backward and in need of uplift.
The
pictures become a testimony to the cultural development achieved by the
Mizos during this period. A link between education in the European
style and European dress was established early on, and it has persisted.
This is notable in a sense, because in other parts of British India,
the emergence of anti-colonial nationalism, especially since the
Swadeshi movement of 1905-1908, expressed itself in the revival of
traditional clothing among the educated. This adoption of the European
dress marked the emergence of a new elite in Mizoram and a new way of
signalling elite status and it distinguished the wearer from the
uneducated.
Mizo nationalism
This book also
brings out, through pictures, the rise of Mizo nationalism following New
Delhi’s inadequate response to the famine in 1960-61, which resulted in
widespread suffering as well as indignation throughout Mizoram. The
famine changed the political landscape with the Mizo National Front
(MNF) demanding complete independence from India for its failure to
fulfil the assurances given to the people of Mizoram at Independence.
The
retaliation of the Indian State, its army and its forced resettlement
measures drove the MNF to take up arms. The insurgency lasted from 1966
to 1986, a period during which violent and less violent periods
alternated. The rebel government functioned from Burma, China and
Bangladesh as the situation demanded. With the Mizoram Accord signed in
1986, the Hills entered a new phase.
Apart from the
Mizo nationalist struggle, the present volume also chronicles the issues
faced by minorities — issues of economic rights and cultural identity
that were compounded by political exclusion. While the Chakma were
awarded an autonomous district in 1972, another minority section, the
Bru, were left in the lurch. Threats forced tens of thousands of Bru to
seek refuge in neighbouring Tripura. The discord between the Mizo state
elite and the Bru minority is far from over.
The book
is a major contribution to understanding the uniqueness of the North
East, more particularly Mizoram, by offering a fresh approach to issues
afflicting the region.