ARUNACHAL

Demography

Arunachal Pradesh is the largest and least developed hill state of the region. It covers the mountain ranges of the eastern Himalayas and is located to the north, east and south-east of Assam. Its neighbours besides Assam include Tibet (China) to its north and east, Myanmar to its east, Bhutan to its west and Nagaland to its south-west. Its 2001 census population is 10,91,117.

It has well over 100 ethnic groups of which 20 are considered to be major tribes. The demographic profile of its 20 main tribes is:

• Adis (Padam, Minyong, Pasi, Pangi etc) 27%, (inhabitants of Siang and Dibang)

• Nissi/Dafla 22%, (inhabitants of Subansiri and South Kameng)

• Wangchoos 8%, (inhabitants of Tirap ethnic lineage akin to Nagas)

• Monpa 8%, (inhabitants of North Kameng and a few other areas on Tibet border)

• Mishmi 7%, (inhabitants of Lohit lineage probably a mix of Bodo and Naga

• Nocte 7%, (inhabitants of Lohit lineage somewhat akin to Nagas)

• Tagins 6%, (inhabitants of South Kameng and parts of Subansiri)

• Tangsas 4%, (inhabitants of Lohit)

• Apatani 4%, (inhabitants of Subansiri)

• Miris 2%, (inhabitants of Northern Foothills of Brahmaputra valley)

• Sulungs 1%. (again inhabitants of the foothills)

• Khamptis 1%, (inhabitants of Changlang Lineage a mix of Naga and Bodo)

• Others (includes migrant Chakmas, Tibetans, Nepalese, Bangladeshis) 3–4%. (Tibetan refugees who fled on Chinese occupation of Tibet and Chakma migrants who fled Bangladesh have been settled on the plains of Lohit and Changlang. […]

MEGHALAYA

Demography

Meghalaya is a hill state with Assam to its north and east and Bangladesh to its south and west. Its population is 23,06,069 as per the 2001 census.

Its demographic profile is:

• Khasis/Jaintias/Garos 68%,

• Dimasa/Hmar/Kuki/Karbi/Lakher/Hajong/Mon/Naga 10%,

• Mizo 4%,

• Others (including Bangladeshi and Nepalese migrants) about 18%.

The Khasis, Jaintias and the Karbis are of Austric origin whereas the Garos, Dimasa and Hajongs are of Bodo origin.

History

Historically, Meghalaya was excluded from the Mughal, Ahom and Burmese invasions on account of its inaccessibility. The British annexed it in 1835 and decided to set up their headquarters at Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, for control of the north-east (undivided Assam), on account of its salubrious climate and relatively easier access. They therefore set up a more effective administration, while allowing limited autonomy. This area was not therefore given a segregated ‘Excluded Area’ status as was done for Nagaland and Mizoram and was amalgamated into the Assam administration. The British set about civilising the tribals through conversion to Christianity. As they were not segregated and there was greater interaction with other communities unlike the other hill states, they progressively accepted their merger with the Indian Union more gracefully, whilst maintaining their culture modified by Christian and western influence. Political Awakening Independence brought political awakening; demands for a separate state started from 1949. In 1952 the Khasis and Mizos led the demand for a separate tribal identity as they felt the Assam government was neglecting them.

KEY ISSUES AND STEPS TOWARDS RESOLUTION

Necessity for Review of Political Structure

The north-east has more than 500 different ethnic groups, many of whom feel neglected in some way or the other. Since it is a nation's chief responsibility to ensure the security and well-being of its people, it is the government's duty to ensure a socio-political structure that meets the aspirations of all. Provisions for this have already been made in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution wherein it is stipulated that adequate measures may be instituted where necessary, to apply a suitable political structure based on existing tribal and local structures in the north-east with a view to protect the values and culture of the people of the region. We have however unfortunately faltered by foisting an alien and unworkable political model on the north-east.

Balkanisation – A Mistake

Firstly, we must understand it is next to impossible to keep balkanising the existing states of the nation to meet demands of the numerous ethnic groups. The redrawing of state boundaries on so called ethnic lines, in the manner as has been done repeatedly, has been a major error as it has given further impetus to splintering the already fragile pluralistic civil society structure. It contributed to the creation of extremist groups like the ULFA, NDFB, NSCN, a number of Manipuri and Arunachal insurgent organisations and an upsurge in insurgency in the north-east.

Nonlinear studies, by and large, have emerged in a variety of disciplines such as physical, chemical, biological, social and technological sciences, and in particular, differential equations. As trends go, there is every likelihood that an undergraduate curriculum in areas of mathematics, science, technology and even social sciences should start reflecting a qualitative approach, mainly through differential equations. Hence, this book is intended not only for students of mathematics, but also for a wider readership.

The genesis of this book can be described essentially as an outgrowth of my postgraduate teaching. I am especially confident of the content, thanks to the classroom notes my students assiduously took down over the years and later passed on to me to structure this volume.

I must confess, I have had the privilege of sitting through the valuable lectures of leading personalities, such as Prof Rene Thom, Delegue de l'Academie des Sciences, France, Prof E C Zeeman, Warwick University, UK, Prof D J Chillingworth, University of Southampton, UK and Prof Michael A B Deakin, University of Monash, Australia, on catastrophes and bifurcations, at the Jadavpur University, Kolkata. I must also mention about my own exposure and interactions with the faculty at ICTP, Trieste, Italy, under the leadership Prof E C Zeeman, on a course on ‘dynamical system’.

Problems have been set in the book with a view to engage students' creativity as well as exercise their mental prowess.

In the preceding chapters, we had an overview of the region and all the states, including major problem areas that need to be addressed. In this chapter, I will familiarise the readers with certain little-known facts related to the role of servicemen (SM) and ex-servicemen (ESM) of the armed forces, Para Military Forces (PMF) and Central Police Organisations (CPOs) in nation-building in their respective regions.

DEMOGRAPHY OF SERVICEMEN/EX-SERVICEMEN

Ukhrul District of Manipur

This district, the heartland of the NSCN (I&M), has a 2001 census population of 1,40,000. Of this, about 7500 are ESM with another 500 SM from the Army. In addition, there are about 1000–1500 SM and ESM of the Assam Rifles and other PMF/CPOs, totalling to about 9000–10000. When one considers the SM/ESM as a family unit (father, mother, 3 or more children), we have a population of about 45,000 or about 30% of the total population of the district. All these are people for whom the parent organisations – the central and state governments – are duty-bound to look after and provide for in terms of pensions, healthcare, priority for education, canteen services, payment rations and for problem resolution. When one expands the family sizes to individuals that the SM/ESM can directly influence, i.e. his brothers and sisters and their children, the family unit size increases to about 10 or about 90,000 to 1 lakh – 65–70% of the total population of Ukhrul District.

The geography and history of a region naturally shape the contours of its people, their ethnic groupings, culture, traditions, value system and way of life. They also indicate the patterns of migration of ethnic groups and reasons for the same. In a nutshell, as would be seen from the forthcoming analysis, it is a region's geography and history that largely contribute to the problems and prospects of its people and their destiny.

The Lie of the Land

Geographically, the north-east consists of the states of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Arunachal, Sikkim and though not officially accepted yet as part of it – North Bengal. It is definitely an integral part of the region covering an area of about 300,000 sq km, with a population of about 46 million. The north-east is connected to the rest of India over a narrow stretch of plains through North Bengal and Assam known as the Siliguri Corridor (also called the Chicken's Neck by some), which leads into the Brahmaputra river valley plains. The Brahmaputra valley plains are about 70 to 90 km wide and 900 km long. West of Guwahati the valley widens substantially to merge with Bangladesh and the Gangetic plains.

The Himalayan mountains of Nepal, Sikkim, North Bengal, Bhutan, Arunachal and Tibet bound the Brahmaputra and the Gangetic valley plains to the north, the eastern hills link India and Myanmar to the east, and the Meghalaya-Karbi Anglong plateau, the Barak River valley and the plains of Bangladesh to the south.

In this chapter, I propose to give readers an overview of the effects of our foreign policy, power politics and events in the neighbouring countries, as they have had a profound effect on developments in the north-east.

Effects of Partition of India

The effects of the British policy of ‘Divide and Rule’ with reference to the Indian sub-continent's Hindus and Muslims are well-known and documented. Their consequent decision to partition the sub-continent into India, Pakistan and Myanmar and the way they drew up boundaries to do so, was perhaps one of the greatest blunders they committed throughout their colonial and imperial history. It resulted in anguish and massacres which had never been seen on the subcontinent, created millions of refugees fleeing to safety across artificially created boundaries, turmoil for people who had been split across these borders, and unrelenting hatred and distrust between India and Pakistan which continues till today. This is the backdrop to the foreign policies of both India and Pakistan since that fateful period of Partition and Independence.

The idea of creation of a homeland for the sub-continent's Muslims germinated in Bengal, arising out of the first Partition of Bengal by the British in 1919. After this, the so-called ‘Muslim Homeland’ was created through partition of the sub-continent by the British in 1947, in the form of East and West Pakistan. Whoever could have imagined that Pakistan would get balkanised in the fashion that occurred in 1971?

Causes of Insurgency

Insurgency is an armed rebellion of a section of a population – invariably the minorities in a region – against the policies of the state and its established government. The causes of insurgency are invariably due to social, political or economic reasons. On the other hand, it is the primary duty of the state, particularly in a democracy, to ensure the well-being and security of its citizens. This implies that the state must make itself aware of its people's grievances and redress them well in time to avoid conflict situations. It is apparent that insurgency occurs in most cases, due to poor governance and neglect of minorities, including the constitutional provisions which allow them to air their grievances, and have the same redressed.

Importance of Political Resolution

All the insurgencies in the north-east require political resolution. In Tripura, the tribals need a suitable package, which will guarantee protection of their political, cultural, social rights and economic wellbeing. In Assam, the issue of migration, economic development and protection of rights of the minorities needs to be addressed. In Meghalaya, the issues of migration, economic development and removal of causes of ethnic rivalry also needs to be looked at. In Nagaland and Arunachal, the issues of the NSCN's demands, protection of the cultural, social and political rights of the tribes and economic development have to be addressed.

It is now a truism that nonlinearity is everywhere around us. But what is nonlinearity? We know of linearity through Ohm's law, which essentially shows a linear dependence between physical parameters. Let us take a look at a clock pendulum, in which the period of oscillation does not depend in any way on the amplitude, provided we move close to the point of equilibrium. But if the pendulum is swung with greater amplitude, the period of oscillation becomes dependent on the amplitude. It looks that large amplitude brings into play a new physical reality, which doesn't manifest itself at small amplitudes, and, in fact, which now becomes predominant. We say that here we have nonlinear waves that move with large and often, very large amplitudes. If we now delve into the past, we meet several linear relationships. It is only during the past few decades that scientists have started grappling with something different from linearities and we agree to call them nonlinearities. Nonlinear science is a recent and premature coinage. We often use the terms “nonlinear system” or often “nonlinear dynamics”. The emerging field of mathematical sciences, not to be looked upon as a menagerie of nonlinearities, provides in its variety of components e.g. physical sciences, life sciences, ecological sciences, social sciences etc, different contemporary phases of nonlinear science or nonlinear dynamics or nonlinear systems.

The origin of pursuits on nonlinearities dates back to the later part of the nineteenth century.

Introduction

In the preceding chapter, a different way of looking at qualitative aspects of studies has been presented, indicating what can happen if the variables and parameters change through some values. In this chapter, we take up another motivation that leads to what are called ‘catastrophes’ dealing again with qualitative aspects of mathematical systems. We begin with the genesis of the ideas as ‘catastrophes’, and then consider the mathematics of it followed by exemplars that become applicable at this stage.

Genesis

Stability continues to be our fundamental concern. The whole universe including biological organisms has some kind of stability as its basis. However, it was the great French mathematician Rene Thom who in his classic book, published in 1975, pioneered the technique of applying a theory of stability to mathematical models of various kinds. This technique naturally did advance the cause of qualitative insight and could also demonstrate that the qualitative understanding of a problem was as adequate as its quantitative understanding. A combination of qualitative information as well as quantitative details tends to make the solution of many problems from diverse areas not only easier but more complete, as well. Sometimes, quantitative methods applied to obtain answers to practical problems such as the structural survival of a certain bridge in high winds, or may be, the continuation of roughly elliptical planetary orbits in the solar system are, in effect, qualitative answers.

Location, Demography and Situation

Manipur is a beautiful valley and in many ways similar to Kashmir. It sits astride the Patkai, Naga and Manipur hill ranges – it has Nagaland to the north, Myanmar to the east, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. About 75 % of the state is hilly with the hills surrounding the valley on all sides. The valley is about 70 km long and 35 km wide. The hill tribes inhabit the hills and the Meiteis the plains. The 2001 census declared its population to be 23,88,634.

Demographic profile

• Naga Tribes – Ao, Kabui, Angami, Zeliang, Khongazai, Mao, Tangkhul – 13%

• Kuki-Chin-Anal, Chiru, Chothe, Gangte, Koira, Kom, Lamgang, Mizo, Mansang, Paite, Ralte, Sahte, Simte, Thadou, Vaiphei, Zou – 14%

• Meitei – 58%

• Others – 15% (including Muslims)

The seven main Naga tribes of Manipur have a number of subtribes and clans. The main tribes however are dissimilar to each other in many respects including aspects of language and dialect and have throughout history been hostile to each other. Out of the Naga tribes listed above it are only the Aos, Zeliangs and the Angamis that spill across the boundary into Nagaland. Though considered part of the Naga tribes by the authorities, many of the Nagaland Naga tribes do not accept the Manipuri Nagas as being part of them. The Nagas resident in Manipur however universally feel neglected by the Meiteis on issues of economy, jobs, development, culture and governance and strongly feel that the Meiteis have wrongfully seized their lands and sources of livelihood.