Spatial Organisation of Northeast India: Colonial Politics, Power Structure and Hills–Plains Relationship

Abstract

The article examines the ideological framework and the principal concerns and interests that underline the colonial policy towards the hill ‘tribes’ of Northeast India. It elaborates on an argument that the colonial spatial ordering of the region privileges the valleys over the hills. The colonial rule establishes and maintains the structural imbalance of the region by making the plains the centres and by relegating the hills to the peripheral ‘others’, thereby perpetuating the power configuration implicit in the spatial organisation. Emphasis on paternalistic reasoning of the British policy towards the hills has clouded the stamp of indifference and insensitivity that underlay the policies. The policy also ‘excluded’ the hill peoples from access to education, engagement in modern economy, and development of infrastructures. The practice of reading the history of the British policy towards the hills appears to be essentially concerned with the elucidation of the hill peoples’ separatist attitude. By reading the history through the lens of categories such as centre-periphery, power relations and uneven development, the article contends that the colonial policy of segregation charts a historical trajectory, which is at variance with what the hegemonic discourse has established.