cc Solen malrieu Thesis

Cover: Title by my dear friend Siddharth Dasari

«Quand deux fleuves se rencontrent, ils n’en forment plus qu’un Et par fusion nos cultures deviennent indistinctes Elles s‘imbriquent et s’encastrent pour ne former qu’un bloc D’humanité debout sur un socle» «When two rivers meet, they turn to be unique And by melting our cultures become indistinct They imbricate and interlock to form a single bloc Of humanity standing upright» Gaël Faye - Métis

How to preserve cultural inheritance in the context of Bangalore & the communities migrating from northeast India?

Solen Malrieu - 2013/2014

01 Times of migration 20 22 28

Facts & history of migration worldwide Push & Pull factors for migration Migrations in India – 3 Indians out of 10 are internal migrants

02 Identity crisis 36 38 42 51 52

“To be someone means to be from somewhere” Globalized culture Society of ejection Prejudices towards migrants The Internal Migration in India Initiative

03 Migration & The North East Region of India 59 62 64 70 75 76 84 90 95

“Here, forget about India” A land of diversity A land of conflicts The forgotten corner of India “You want jobs? Come to India megacities!”

“The outsiders” You reject me, I reject you A lack of knowledge Lack of knowledge by the northeasterners itself – identity crisis

04 Bangalore, a multicultural city Bangalore, a land of migration Northeast migrants, an enriching factor for Bangalore citizens Problematic: How do you create a cosmopolitan world which co-exist and preserve its cultures in the same time?

100 102 107 .

05 Exemplar research Broadening knowledge about India’s Northeast Facts against prejudices Provide entertaining educational tools to enhance interests towards the difference

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06 Create an entertaining space to inform about the Northeast region of India and create social exchange between Bangalore citizens and northeasterners The Culture House The Migrant Space Professor Nomadic Reward for the Northeastern migrant Reward for the Bangalore citizen Comparison

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Forward My father once said “Culture is a plant. If you feed it, it will grow but if you uproot, it dries up”.

He was trying to explain to me how important it is to stay connected to the culture of our native land - to remember who we are.

Wherever we live and whoever we mingle with, we should always remember our roots.

More than the pep talks from my father, it was my experience with migration which led me to understand the importance of my roots. I was born in Brittany (West of France), in the state called Penn ar Bed (end of earth). Despite being a region of France, Brittany has a strong and distinct identity. Unlike the rest of the country, this region is more inclined to the Celtic culture. Bretons (Brittany inhabitants) have their own language, folk music, food, clothes and stories influenced by their Celtic roots.

Today, due to stringent rules imposed on Brittany by the French government prohibiting the use of Breton at school, for example, a lot of Bretons don’t know their language anymore; they are also slowly losing their touch with their history. With globalization and the growing popularity of a standardized culture across the world, Bretons don’t dress in their traditional manner anymore.

Folk music and dance native to Brittany are also fading away with time.

However, some associations, festivals, writers and institutions are fighting hard to preserve this heritage. It is in such an environment that I was raised. My family is one of the defenders of Brittany’s cultural heritage who created an association called

Dastum (=collect in Breton) which collects and popularizes all the oral repertoires of Brittany (stories, songs, poems…) so that they won’t be forgotten. I have been taught in the Diwan (=grow in Breton) schools, where everything was taught in Breton.

For as long as I remember, I have spent most of my childhood weekends in Festoù-noz, traditional dance gatherings where everybody dances in circles to cheerful sounds of bagpipes and accordions.

For a long time, I wondered why my parents stressed on the importance of our local culture and heritage. I didn’t quite understand why I had to be proud to be from Brittany, or to be a Breton. But then I got the chance to travel across France and Europe. I saw how lucky some countries or region are to have a strong identity and a strong association with their past. It was this identity and history that made them interesting. The most interesting part of the journey would be meeting the locals, sharing and understanding both cultures, and realizing what made them, and also us, unique. I realized then how important it is to know about our own culture, where we come from, and what makes our native land different from another. From that point, I decided that I would make Brittany’s cultural inheritance preservation my future career concern.

In order to make this aim come true, I needed to learn how, in practical terms, to highlight each culture, mix it with our contemporary knowledge and adapt the traditional know-hows of the actual needs of the society. I chose to come to India to follow the Transcultural Design Master Program, a course which has, even in its name, the idea of diversity and cosmopolitanism.

Furthermore, India is itself an example of transcultural society: people from different languages, religions, landscapes, food coexisting together. It has managed to retain its identity despite being influenced by different sources of thought during its colonial invasions.

To understand this multicultural society as an insider, I worked as an intern at Studio Lotus, based in New Delhi. This ten year old Architecture and Interior design company mainly specializes in fusing the traditional Indian culture into residential and commercial projects including restaurants, hotels, shops and institutions. There, I learnt how to reach into history of traditional inheritance and blend it into suit new purposes.

Birth of the idea As this concern of cultural preservation grew into a passion, it is natural that I would choose to work on this topic for my Final Diploma Project. My concern was on how we can preserve our identities even when we are physically away from our mother land. My status of a ‘migrant’ here in India led me to ask myself two questions: * How can I remain connected to my culture while staying away from the land I come from? * What makes me, the 22 year old Breton/French girl, when I am living in a completely different setting in India?

As a corollary, I wished to understand how do we create a cosmopolitan world which co-exists and preserves culture at the same time?

I decided to explore that topic in the Indian context, knowing that internal migration is a huge phenomenon in India. People of India have such a wide variety of cultures and identities that travelling from one state to another is almost like going from one country to another.

Having lived here for some time now, I started noticing young citizens, who had Mongolian-ish physical features. Not that I was surprised by their morphological difference, but what tickled my curiosity was that they would always stick to their kind and rarely mingled with the locals. On questioning my Indian friends, I got to know that they were Indians who came from the Northeastern part of the country. My friends showed me pictures of this region on the internet and I realized that I had never heard about the culture from this part of the country that looked so different from the India I was becoming familiar with. I decided that these northeasterners migrating to Delhi, Bangalore and other megacities of India would be my first concern for my Final Diploma Project.

iNTRODUCTION The Northeast is a region comprising of eight Indian states and for most part, remains a mystery to the rest of the country. This region is home to a number of different tribes of the country.

For many years now, the political, economic and social condition of this region has been unstable. This has caused as many as 5 million Northeasterners to leave their native land and migrate to the Indian megacities in search of work and better education.

There is a gaping difference between the culture (food, weather, clothing, rituals, religions etc.) of the South India and the NorthEast India. This difference serves as a constant reminder to the immigrants that they are in city entirely unknown to them.

The residents are ignorant to a point that these people are even considered ‘Chinki’ (people from China).

In such circumstances, how do we keep our culture alive? What is the condition of the Northeast Indians? How can we preserve our identities when everything in our own country makes us feel like we are strangers? What is it like to be a migrant from the North East India in Bangalore? What challenges does one face?

What initiatives are taken by the locals to provide social inclusion and cultural awareness?

Through this thesis, I will try to answer as many questions by first understanding the issues of migration worldwide, then in the Indian context, and finally narrow the study down to the specific story of India’s Northeast. For the purpose of thesis, I have limited my findings to the Northeasterners in Bangalore.

01 Times of migration

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Definitions from Oxford Dictionnaries & The Exhibition Migrations, Rennes (France)

Migrant

ˈmʌɪgr(ə)nt - from mid 18th century Latin migrant 1. A person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions 2. A person leaving in a temporary or permanent way in a country different from his/her native country and who has acquired important social links with this country

Immigrant

ˈɪmɪgr(ə)nt - from late 18th century Latin immigrant 1. A person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country 2. This is how we call a migrant in his/her adoptive country «Chinese migrants living in India are the Chinese immigrant of India»

Emigrant

ˈɛmɪgr(ə)nt - from mid 18th century Latin emigrant 1. A person who leaves their own country in order to settle permanently in another 2. This is how we call a migrant looking at his/her orgin country «Chinese migrants who has leave China to any other country are called Chinese emigrants»

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number of Global migrants

Expected within 40 years

232 million in 2013

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Times of migration To understand the phenomenon of migration, let us first look at a global and general vision of migration in the world. What are the push and pull factors for migration in the world?

FACTS & HISTORY OF MIGRATION WORLDWIDE 232 million people of the total world population are migrants.

In other words, one out of every 30 people is a world migrant (Source: Migration in a globalized world by International Organization for Migration); this number will increase by 5 times in the next 40 years. Over 1 billion people are expected to migrate by 2050; that is almost 12.5% of the world’s population. It is as if “all of China’s population was going for a trip” said the urban planner and philosopher Paul Virilio in the book Native land.

No community can assert to have fully settled down in the same place without ever moving. In fact, history of the human race points towards migration as a natural habit. People had to constantly move in order to get food depending on the season.

It is only when the idea of agriculture set root in minds of the humans did the nomadic pattern see a palpable shift. From then on, three different types of people began to emerge: the nomads, the settlers and the migrants. The migrants, too, saw two variants: ones who decided to migrate and ones who were forced to migrate.

The latter group of migrants is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years.

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“As if all India’s population was going for a trip” Paul Virilio 21

PUSH & PULL FACTORS FOR MIGRATION > Work and Economy – 645 million migrants by 2050 Transportations and communication systems are becoming cheaper and faster. National frontiers are being opened to make the flow of goods, capital and services in and out of the country easier. This has led to a “market world going into downsizing, globalization and acceleration” as John Tackara puts it in his book, In the Bubble.

As a result, most of the northern countries of the world, also known as developed countries, have seen their economy growing quickly and lastingly. Some others, now known as the developing countries have been integrated into the globalization process through the exploitation of cheap and massive labor, contributing to a growth in the economy by following the economical examples of the northern countries. The underdeveloped countries are left behind in the system of exchanges and continue to remain poor and unprivileged. Most of these underdeveloped nations are located in the south part of world, mainly in Africa.

This globalized system has created a lot of new jobs in the developed nations leading to massive migration. Since the twentieth century and especially after WWII reconstruction, migration has enhanced this global trade, thus contributing to the growth of the northern countries. We often call this phenomenon ‘The Brain Exodus’, where skilled people from poor countries migrate to rich countries in search of work. 54% of the world migrants living in the north are from the southern part of the world. This creates a lack of skilled people in the developing countries. But at the same time, the world migrants coming from developing countries are, according to the World Bank, the first external revenue of their country. Even if globalization has increased migration opportunities for some time, the borders of the world are more lenient towards trade goods than they are with human trade. This means that the twenty-first century will become a more controlled system for migration.

Due to these stringent systems, migrants coming from the underdeveloped countries sometimes risk their life traveling in dangerous and illegal conditions. For instance, they cross the sea in overloaded boats often leading to death of hundreds of people in case of an accident on water. They are also confronted with the treatment of an exile, having left their family in hopes of finding work, so they can send money back to their family/ community.

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Wars 50 million

945 million of migrants

Global warming 250 million

Economy - Work 645 million

> Natural disasters & Global warming – 250 million migrants by 2050 Natural disaster is the second main push factor for migration.

Natural disasters wreak havoc in human settlements, resulting in death and damage. Survivors are forced to leave. This phenomenon is seeing a steady increase over the years because of human impact. Even though globalization has enabled a lot of new opportunities, improved economy as well as living conditions, it has also caused depletion in the world’s natural resources, leading to a climate imbalance which, in turn, has led to increased natural disasters.

“Estimates indicate that by 2050, 200 million people worldwide may become permanently displaced due to environmental factors such as sea level rise, floods, more intense droughts, and other climatedriven changes (Myers, 2002)” Internal Migration in India Initiative by Unicef & Unesco These permanently displaced people will never be able to come back to the land that they belong to. This kind of displacement with no way back raises cultural issues. This in turn raises a serious question: how do we preserve a culture when we are deprived of mother land?

> Wars – 50 million migrants by 2050 Another main push factor for migration is wars: conflicts between different ethnic groups or religions for territories.

The displacement of population due to turbulent economy and natural disasters also contributes to the rise in conflicts between the locals and the newcomers mainly because of their culture differences.

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+ 1,21 billion Indian

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+ 326 million internal migrants in 2011 30% of India’s population + 11,4 million international migrants in 2011 0,9% of India’s population 27

MIGRATIONS IN INDIA 3 INDIANS OUT OF 10 ARE INTERNAL MIGRANTS This section looks at migration on a smaller scale, that is, the internal migration in a nation. According to the UNDP Human Development Report 2009, there are four times more internal migrants than international migrants.

India records more than 1.21 billion citizens on her territory.

Of this, 11.4 million are international migrants (2011 Census), the equivalent of 0.9% of India’s population. Internal migration accounted 326 million migrants in 2011 (and approximately 400 million in 2013 according to the Census 2011); that is 28.5% of India’s population. 80% of them are women and 30% of the internal migrants are in the age range of 15 and 29. These numbers are just an approximation as many areas and cases of migration still remain undocumented.

Most migrants move because of a settled acquaintance network in the city of destination. The family or friends already present in the city find new jobs for the newcomers, often in their field of work. As a consequence, every field of work is dominated by a prominent community: “In Bangalore, the clichés says that Tamilians would be construction laborers, Gujarati would be hoteliers and sweet shop tenders, Rajasthani would be bangle sellers and Northeasterners would be guards or beauty parlors tenders” ,said a native from Karnataka.

According to the Internal Migration in India initiative by UNICEF and UNESCO, “The Constitution of India (Article 19) gives the right to all citizens to move freely throughout the territory of India; to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India” 28

“Better inclusion of migrants in cities is a necessary step towards sustainable urban development, based on cultural diversity, social cohesion and human rights [‌] There is a pressing need to ensure that urban settlements become inclusive spaces as they expand in size and diversity.â€?

The Internal Migration in India Initiative

by Unicef & Unesco 29

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Internal migrants: a pillar factor for India megacities’ economy In 2011, 20% of the urban growth was due to internal migration

But the same initiative notes that “the internal migrants are excluded from the economic, cultural, social and political life of society and are often treated as second-class citizens�. Just as the world migrants, the main constraints faced by internal migrants in India are access to good housing, health care and law protection. Just like the world migrants, they have sometimes no other choice but to migrate and survive in their new land.

To ensure immediate sustainability, they have to take up work which is often underpaid with heavy working hours. Sometimes, the work could even be dangerous or hazardous to health.

Majority of internal migrants in India don’t have identity proofs, this makes it even more difficult for these migrants to get access to social protection and education. They are rarely helped by the government and very few urban initiatives are made to help them ease into the society.

Despite the ill treatment, it has been documented that the internal migrants are a leading factor for growth of the Indian megacities. In 2011, 20% of the urban growth was due to internal migration.

There are 337.4 million internal and international migrants in India and 1 billion migrants in the world. This will inevitably have an impact on traffic, transportation, global warming, habitation and identity. It is on this last notion of crisis that we will focus through this memoire: How do we create a cosmopolitan world which co-exists and yet preserves its cultures at the same time?

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02 Identity crisis

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Definitions from Oxford Dictionnaries

Identity

ʌɪˈdɛntɪti - from mid 16th century Latin identitas 1. The characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is 2. A close similarity or affinity 3. The sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in personality over time

Culture

ˈkʌltʃə - from Latin cultura 1. The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively 2. The ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society 3. In Biology, the culture is the maintain in conditions suitable for growth

Rejection

ˈɛmɪgr(ə)nt - from Latin rejectio 1. The dismissing or refusing of a proposal, idea, etc 2. The action of spurning or refuse a person’s affections

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Identity crisis This chapter aims to understand why there is one prevailing culture in the world today and what the effects of this globalized assimilation are. We will also see how identity can be threatened by social behaviors and understand what the urban planner and philosopher Paul Virilio calls the ‘society of ejection’. We will conclude by studying the particular case of migrants in society and the challenges faced to preserve and highlight individual identity when living in an adopted land.

“TO BE SOMEONE MEANS TO BE FROM SOMEWHERE” Jean-Yves Cozan (French politician) Old societies used to have one motherland (ref: Native Land by Paul Virilio) where they chose to settle as long as they could.

This land gave birth to specifics of behaviors according to place, topography and climate. It was the land where people created their own social values, stories and religion. They established rules and practices, developed their own language, food, handicraft, architecture, games, clothes etc. It was a land where they were free to create a unique culture which tended to reflect their idea of perfection.

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“Zenobia, a city in Asia, has houses made of bamboo and zinc, with many platforms and balconies placed on stilts at various heights, crossing one another, linked by ladders and hanging belvederes, with barrels storing water, weather vanes, jutting pulleys, fish poles and cranes.

No one remembers what need, command or desire drove Zenobia’s founders to give their city this form, as the buildings are constructed on pilings that sit over dry terrain. But what is certain is that if a traveler asks an inhabitant of Zenobia to describe his vision of a happy life, it is always a city like Zenobia that he imagines, with its piling and suspended stairways, a Zenobia perhaps aflutter with banners and ribbons, quite different from the original but always derived by combining elements of that first model.

However, it is pointless to try to decide whether Zenobia is to be classified among happy cities or among the unhappy. It makes no sense to divide cities into these two species, but rather into a different two: those that live through the years and the changes continue to give their form to their desires and those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it.”

Italo Calvino, Le Cita Invisibili, 1972.

In opposition to the idea of one motherland and one dominant culture, the twenty-first century is a century of massive migration.

People are no longer just from somewhere. “I am a path, not an aim” said Daniel Libeskind, rebuilder of the Ground Zero in NewYork. The migrants of today and tomorrow are getting rooted and up-rooted from one land to another, and as a consequence, from one culture to another. “Identity will be replaced by traceability” explains Paul Virilio in the book Native land.

Marc Augé sees the contemporary planetary landscape with megacities that would reflect this new cosmopolitan path. This landscape is a reflection of the fusion of a wide range of diverse cultures and cities where there is “no sign of collective belonging”.

Paul Virilio talks about these as ‘Hover cities’; he says “Airports and railways were only small examples of it. Places with no identity, where people wander in a permanent flow”. But now, the world at large is transforming into one.

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GLOBALIZED CULTURE This section looks into the phenomenon of identity loss in a globalized culture that is taking its roots in our society and cultural heritage. Let us see the consequences and challenges of this phenomenon.

As presented in the chapter on ‘push & pull factors for migration’, globalization is one of the causes of flow acceleration. This in turn is causing promotion of the commercialization of ‘product culture’: goods, music, films, food. This has grown to such a proportion that it has created the emergence of one of the prevailing cultures, one adopted by multinational companies – often Americans.

“A great deal of different things or perhaps multiple manifestations of one prevailing trend” said Simon Jeffery when asked to describe globalization.

This phenomenon of the acculturation of one dominant culture over others brings us back to the question: How do we create a cosmopolitan world which co-exists and yet preserves its cultures at the same time?

This question can be particularly relevant in newly developed countries that are adopting examples of the western countries without going through the experiences or facing the challenges that developed countries had gone through. In fact, UNESCO explains that “globalization may bring with it a loss of uniqueness of local culture, which in turn can lead to loss of identity, exclusion and even conflict. It is especially true for traditional societies and communities, which are exposed to rapid ‘modernization’ based on models imported from outside and not adapted to their context”.

As a concrete example, we can quote the alarming situation of languages. Today, there are over 6000 official languages in the world out of which, half of them are in the danger of disappearing.

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where did all the fun people go?

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SOCIETY OF EJECTION In this section, we will try to understand why people reject the migrants with the help of psychological and sociological theories.

We will also see the consequences of these behaviors when it exceeds the point of tolerance and the impact this rejection has on the preservation of migrants’ unique identities.

Globalization of one culture can lead to a loss of identity and, consequently, lead to exclusion and rise in conflicts. But loss of identity is not the only reason for social ejection. Rejection of a group is a feeling present in humankind as explained by sociologists with the concept of ‘reference group’.

It is said in this concept that we subconsciously refer to the ‘social class’ just above ours as ‘positive reference group’ and below ours as a ‘negative reference group’. We absorb the values of the positive reference group and asses ourselves by comparing our way of life to the one of this class (ref: Lyon University Thesis Reference group concept). On the other hand, negative reference group is a group that we neglect and don’t want to be part of; again we asses ourselves to make sure we are not part of these ‘social classes’ that we consider beneath us.

This can be linked back to ‘loss of identity’. Sociologists explain that if you don’t choose a reference group, it means you are part of a whole which also means that you are part of nothing. It is, therefore, said that humankind needs to reject some groups to fulfill its psychological need to feel part of a community. “All real living is meeting” as Martin Büber said.

We find the need to compare ourselves to others in psychology.

Alfred Adler, a doctor and psychotherapist in the early 1900s, studied individual psychology based on the idea that “to be a human being is to feel inferior”. This feeling of inferiority happens as soon as one begins to compare oneself to others, generally around the teenage years when the child understands that he/ she is an ‘other’. From this moment to the rest of his/her life, he/ she will swing between inferiority complex and self-glorification.

The child overcomes the inferiority complex by comparing oneself with people who are considered less talented/fortunate than him/herself is and thinking “Here is someone worse than me!”

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‘All savages’, an exhibition that was conducted in Brittany (France) this summer 2013, was based on a book by Claude LéviStrauss Race and History which talks about one’s perception to something different. The display panel titled ‘Us, the only true humans’ was based on the idea that we are ethnocentric. The exhibit was designed to explain that ethnocentrism becomes prominent when one feels that the group s/he is part of is allknowing and righteous, while the behavior of other groups is incomprehensible.

For a long time, Christian people believed that cultural diversity had been an act of god. Indeed, the Bible paints an image with the story of ‘Tower of Babel’ myth where God, seeing that humans were gathering to build a tour to reach the sky, decided to stop their initiative by mixing up their languages so that they could not understand each other anymore. This story tells us that cultural diversity separates us because we are unable to understand each other, thus leading us to reject them to “protect ourselves against a possible threat that the others represent to our values, lifestyle and identity”.

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Society of ejection can also come from the failure to understand what we don’t know. “Racism is due to ignorance, isolation and fear” said Claude Lévi-Strauss. Even neuro-energetic therapy confirms that fear subconsciously guides our behavior. This fear can drive our most violent rejects, even without surfacing to the conscious mind.

According to Helen Palmer, author of The Enneagram: Understanding yourself and the other in your life, there are three reactions to fear: Flight, Freeze and Fight. You can either choose to run away (reject the otherness due to incomprehensibility by trying to bury this fear deep), remain static (allow the fear of the unknown to paralyze you by not showing any opinion to avoid danger), or attack (lash out at the unknown and consequently harming others and yourself). Based on the situation, human mind subconsciously picks up one of these three behaviors. That is why fear of the unknown and the non acceptation of difference – pushed to its height – can lead to drastic consequences. # Video about non-acceptation of the difference explained in a simple way Have you ever seen! A new comer on the Toupoutou’s land…? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctCrNFmVOHQ

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“ Racism is due to ignorance, isolation and fear” Claude Lévi-Strauss

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Share that answered “people of another race” when asked to pick from groups of people they would not want as neighbors 0% - 4.9% 5% - 9.9% 10% - 14.9% 15% - 19.9% 20% - 29.9% 30% - 39.9% 40%

Here is a map of the most and least racially tolerant countries in the world from the Washington Post by Max Fisher. This map has been made according to the answer ‘people of another race’ when asked to pick from groups of people they would not want as neighbors. We can observe that India and Jordan are the only two countries having more than 40% people considered as less racially tolerant according to the map. But Max Fisher explains that the map is subjective; he explains how this map can be hiding social factors that can completely falsify this map results. Max Fishers says,“the survey question is a way of judging 48

racial tolerance but, like many social science metrics, is indirect and imperfect. I cited the hypothetical about Swedes and Finns at the top of this post, noting that perhaps some people are just more honest about their racial tolerance than others. It’s entirely possible that we’re seeing some version of this effect in the U.S.-India comparison; maybe, for example, Americans are conditioned by their education and media to keep these sorts of racial preferences private, to lie about them on surveys, in a way that Indians might not be. That difference would be interesting in itself, but alas there is no survey question for honesty�.

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Animated movie “Bécassine” released in 2001 by Phillipe Vidal

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PREJUDICES TOWARDS MIGRANTS The ‘ejection’ behavior explained previously is present in each of us and we can feel it at any point during our lives. But in addition to that reject, migrants have to handle another factor when they arrive in their adoptive land: the prejudices towards the idea of migrants which can, once again, be linked to a lack of knowledge.

This is what we will try to demonstrate in this section.

How can we preserve and be proud of our own culture and identity when it is what separates us from the other and make us feel lonely?

The exhibition ‘Migrations’ that took place this summer 2013 in Rennes (France) explained that the factor which makes a migrant proud of their culture is the very factor for ridicule in his new land. Newcomers are often seen as exotic, savage and stupid. The example of Bécassine in France illustrates that idea. In the 19th century, there was a rural exodus from the provinces of France to the capital, Paris. Brittany (West of France) was one of these regions. Local bourgeois from Paris used the typical identity of the Bretons (their costumes, habits, language) to make fun of them and turn it into comic scenes that is abundantly found in the famous comic “Bécassine”. This comic tells the story of a young Breton girl who came to the capital to find work. The comic was such a great success that the name of the comic became part of the French language to refer to a naïve and stupid young girl. James Eveillard and Ronan Dantec, two French writers, defined Bécassine as the “embodiment of the contempt Bretons have been often suffering”.

In addition to the lack of knowledge of the migrants’ identity, prejudices linked to politics and economy also contribute to the rejection. According to Migration in a globalized world by the International Organization for Migration “The fostering of economic and social stability and development worldwide, while also respecting the rights and integrity of migrants, is one of the major challenges of the globalized world of the twenty-first century as the international community sets a course for managing migration in today’s mobile world.”

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THE INTERNAL MIGRATION IN INDIA INITIATIVE This section discusses the current inclusion situation of internal migrants in India and the objectives of the newly set up initiative

by UNESCO and UNICEF to better their conditions.

The IMII (Internal Migration in India Initiative) explains that internal migrants are seen as ‘outsiders by the local host administration’.

Discriminations happen even in the administrative process, which makes it tough and discouraging for the newcomers.

As a consequence, very few internal migrants have access to social protection. The lack of it makes them more vulnerable.

At work, for example, they are often underpaid and put in to handle difficult jobs without training, where they can be easily ill-treated, fired or even abused.

The IMII also explains how exclusion of migrants is due to a general lack of knowledge regarding internal migration. This is due to the absence of recent and complete data about migration and because “policies and programmes facilitating migrant integration at the destination remain weak, at best, or non-existent”.

To counter this issue of exclusion and to support the social inclusion of migrants in India, the UNESCO (United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) launched Internal Migration in India Initiative in 2011 with the following objectives: 52

> Promote positive political discourse and avoid a prejudiced, negative perception of internal migrants in society > Build awareness for a better understanding of internal migrants’ positive contribution to society > Adopt a human rights-based approach for internal migrant inclusion in society > Develop gender-sensitive and age-sensitive policies and practices for internal migrants > Create portability of social protection entitlements for internal migrants > Promote existing policies and creative practices that increase inclusion of all sections of the internal migrant population in society, particularly children and women > Advance knowledge on undocumented research areas on internal migration in India in order to support the design of better informed inclusive policies > Mainstream internal migration into national development policy, and regional and urban planning > Ensure democratic participation of internal migrants in society To ensure the IMII initiative is implemented, about 200 stakeholders including government authorities, non-governmental organizations, professional planners, researchers, educational and training institutes and media are involved.

With my Final Diploma Project, I want try to be a part of this initiative and find innovative solutions to answer some of the objectives set by the IMII.

“In our increasingly diverse societies, it is essential to ensure harmonious interactions among people and groups with plural, varied and dynamic cultural identities as well as their willingness to live together. Policies for the inclusion and participation of all citizens are guarantees of social cohesion, the vitality of civil society and peace.�

From Article 2, UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, 2001

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03 Migration & the Northeast region of India

Stranger

ˈstreɪn(d)ʒə - from Latin extraneus 1. A person who has not the nationality of the country where he/she lives 2. A person whom one does not know or with whom one is not familiar 3. A person who does not know, or is not known in, a particular place or community 4. A person who is not a member or official of the House of Commons

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Definitions from Oxford Dictionnaries

Cohesion

kə(ʊ)ˈhiːʒ(ə)n - from the 17th century Latin cohaes ‘cleaved together’ 1. The action or fact of forming a united whole 2. The act or state of cohering, uniting, or sticking together 3. In Physics: the sticking together of particles of the same substance

“The rest of India” I faced difficulties to find an appropriate word to qualify “the rest of India” in comparison to Northeast India. Even though “the rest” might sound a little pejorative, it is finally this term that I decided to keep. Indeed “Central India” could not fit, referring to an area of India geographically too specific, excluding South, North and West. Many people use “the Mainland” to describe it but fairly, some Northeasterners feel offended not to be considered as Mainland India but just as “the part aside”. I also could have chosen “the non-mongoloid India” but not only does it sounds like scientific jargon, but it would have been ignoring the inhabitants of Himachal or Ladakh who often share mongoloid phenotype. That would also exclude the fact that some mongoloid people are living in “the rest of India” as well, and vice versa, some non-mongoloid people are living in Northeast India.

I think this semantic challenge to find proper words to name things reflects here the complexity behind what makes “India”, a country hosting so many identities that it can hardly be represented by one single name.

Nota bene: the word “India” is coming from the greek “India” coming itself from the old persian “Sindhu” meaning “river”. The natives from India used to call their country “Bharat” (in Sanskrit) an ancient emperor of India.

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Migration & the northeast region of india

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Today, 5 million people are migrating from India’s Northeast to its megacities, which accounts for about 12.5% of the region’s population. This chapter intends to understand the condition of the Northeast region of India, push factors for emigration, pull factors for migration and how these newcomers are treated in these megacities.

“HERE, FORGET ABOUT INDIA” This was one of the first things told to me when I arrived in Guwahati, a metropolitan city in Assam (state of Northeast India), for my field research in November 2013. Even though Guwahati looks and sounds like most of the Indian megacities with its crowded streets, its horns symphony, its black and yellow rickshaws (small Indian taxi) asking 5 times more than the official price, its greasy spoons and its parotha (Indian bread) street stalls, I quickly gathered while travelling to the rural areas of the state, visiting museums & crafts workshops and talking to locals that Assam had a very distinct identity from the rest of the country. It was home to a diverse panel of cultures, linked to the numerous tribes who lived in the Assamese territory.

This diversity is not true only for Assam; the whole country gathers natives of more than 1652 different languages (census 1961) on her land. But Northeast India, taking up a small region of a 262,230 km2, accounts for 8 of the 28 states of the country (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya and Sikkim). The influence of the surrounding countries also has an impact on the cultural diversity of the region; the Northeast shares its borders with five international borders (Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh) and is only linked to the rest of India through a small corridor in the North of West Bengal (Indian state). “Many people consider that Southeast Asia begins from India’s Northeast” said Dr. Akoijam, professor at JNU & Achi in an interview with the Tehelka (Indian newspaper) in response to “Is Northeast a challenge to the idea The topography, climate, fauna, flora and 59

food shape the features of the Northeast inhabitants to closely resemble the Mongolians. This is the most striking difference between Northeasterners and the non-Mongolian communities that dominates the Indian subcontinent. But the difference goes much beyond just the appearance; architecture, craft, clothing, dance, music, sports and games to other things which define a culture are all incomparably distinct.

People from the rest of the country assume that there is no cultural difference between the Northeasterners and the Southeast Asians because of the similarity in their appearance.

But the reality is far from the truth. The reality is that there is diversity within the northeast region itself.

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Arunachal Sikkim Assam Meghalaya Tripura

Nagaland

Manipur

Mizoram

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A LAND OF DIVERSITY India’s Northeast is seen by majority as a place with homogeneous culture; very different from the rest of the country but similar within the region. Indeed, this region shows many signs of contrast with the rest of India; however, it is an unexplored land of contrast in itself.

The land’s topology hosts hilly mountains constituting twothirds of the region’s area shared between the Himalayas and unexplored hilly forests; the last third is split between valleys, jungles and marshy meadows. The region is also home to over 850 bird species (one of the highest endemic areas of orient) and 7 national parks where rhinoceros, tigers, elephants and many other species are protected. Since most of these species are endangered, this region is listed in the ‘Priority Global 200 Eco Region’ by WWF. All this wide diversity of fauna and flora are reflective of the culture diversity in India’s Northeast. There are over 200 ethnic groups and as many languages and dialects. Hinduism, Vaishnavism and Islamism (the most predominant religions in Assam), Buddhism (main religion in Sikkim) and Christianity are widely followed in this region. Christianity gained popularity in the region after the British East India Company colonized the area between 1826 and 1947.

This land, wedged between five different countries, is a land of constant migration. Tribes from different civilizations have set their roots in this region. The state of Assam single-handedly gathers 68% of the region’s population (census 2001). “Assam, throughout the history found itself at the cross-road of successive human migrations and plays a role as the catalyst of civilization in the region” according to Nanda Taludkar Foundation. People from different places bring with them different cultures making the Northeast region a land of diversity as well as a land of conflicts, because each society or group tends to consider its own ‘the right one’ (refer to the Society of ejection chapter).

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A LAND OF CONFLICTS The Northeast region of India is mainly known by Indians as a contentious area. This is true since groups are constantly fighting for ownership of the land. The area has been the epicenter of conflicts between surrounding countries, and even between different tribes. Arunachal Pradesh borders remain a source of tension between India and China. On a regional scale, conflicts recurrently occur between insurgent groups. Some states are under constant pressure to maintain peace between tribal and non-tribal people.

As a positive example of reducing the tensions between factions, we can quote the story of the 2008 football match between Naga people and the non-tribal citizens of Nagaland: An endless conflict was subsisting in the state between different political factions of Naga people. A football match was organized in 2008 to establish dialogue & facilitate the reconciliation process. “Two teams were created. One, the Civil Societies team, comprising members of the organization facilitating the reconciliation process; the other, the Naga National team, whose players would be pulled from all three political factions; here were team members representing those groups that had fought each other in violent clashes [‌] If the factions were in one team,

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they would have to communicate somehow to work as a team” The team played out of the conflict area in Chiang Mai in Thailand the first time and the second time, on Naga’s demands, the match was conducted in the Naga’s territory in Kohima (capital state of Nagaland) and Dimapur. Over 6000 people came to watch the game “On November 13th, 2008, the guys who stepped onto the football pitch weren’t political stalwarts. They were just football players and on the face of it, unlikely crowd pullers – a motley bunch of men, as old as 60, many with paunches, and as young as 30. The factions, once known for their antagonism, were now regrouped under an 11-member unit that displayed perfect camaraderie.”

Still, not all conflicts are resolved, especially on a national scale.

Some states of the region are trying to make their voices heard, struggling either for complete independence or some tribes to have their own state (For example, the Bodo tribe is asking for Bodoland state). One of the causes of this situation is that Northeast is a ‘post-colonial’ region; it has been established as a part of India only after India’s independence from the British.

Some of these states are part of India from 60 years; and others only from 30 years. Their borders are constantly modified, contributing to an unstable political, social and economical situation.

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Pictures of the football match that helped tame Nagaland’s conflict by Kazimuddin Ahmed

Children who had lost parents during the conflicts assembled on the field before the game started.

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1947

1963

Establishement as Indian states

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1972

1975

1987

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THE FORGOTTEN CORNER OF INDIA The constant borders change is one of the causes for instability in the Northeast. Most of the northeasterners believe that the problem is because of the government’s inability to manage this region.

The Indian government shows keen interest in the Northeast because it shares its borders with 5 different countries. There is a need to keep security stringent to prevent attack. After talking to natives from different states of the Northeast region, it seems that majority of the people think that the Indian government is doing only the half of its duties; money is being sent to contribute to the region’s growth but only one third of this money is really used for the northeastern citizens, because there is no process to check how the state government uses this money.

For this reason, the social, political and economical situation in Northeast continues to remains dismal.

The roads are in a bad condition; the rate of unemployment was 60% in 2012; out of 67% of the youth who migrate to the megacities, only 5% of them return after graduation; one person out of three is or has been an addict to hard drug. States like Manipur are shut down for nearly 100 days a year due to regular strike; these shut downs affect education; more than 300 activist and civilians are killed in Manipur every year by the AFSPA (Armed Forced Special Powered Act imposed in Manipur since 1980), this is almost one person killed every day.

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60 % Unemployment in 2012

67% 1 / 3 Student migration Education: main push factor of migration

Addict (or ex) to hard drugs

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Women protest the killing and alleged rape of Thangjam Manorama Devi with a banner “Indian Army Rape Us” at the army headquarters in Imphal in July 2004. by AFP/Getty Images

This is the main cause for tensions in the Northeast and the few initiatives taken by the government have made situations worse. For example, AFSPA, one of the initiatives implemented by the government came from a good intention to protect the civilians from the insurgent groups; but, on pretext of peace, the government “allows the army to use force, arrest or shoot anyone on the mere suspicion that someone has committed or was about to commit a cognizable offence” .This has led to over 300 extrajudicial killing in a year; instances of disappearance of locals and rape have also risen due to the AFSPA. To counter this, new militant groups have been fostered: from 4 insurgent groups in 1980, there are 40 groups in Manipur today.

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Some people have protested for the removal of the AFSPA, but the region seems far from deliverance. Irom Sharmila, a young Manipuri, has been fasting for the last 13 years (Tehelka 2009) to fight against the situation in Manipur, but the government of India has not made any effort to aid this situation and media seems to have lost interest in the cause over time.

“We continue to be oblivious of the young woman who responded to extreme violence with extreme peace. It is a parable for our times.

If the story of Irom Sharmila does not make us pause, nothing will.

It is a story of extraordinariness. Extraordinary will. Extraordinary simplicity. Extraordinary hope. It is impossible to get yourself heard in our busy age of information overload. But if the story of Irom Sharmila will not make us pause, nothing will.”

Tehelka, Shoma Chaudhury, 05.12.2009.

“If Sharmila dies, Parliament is directly responsible. If she dies, courts and judiciary are responsible, the military is responsible. If she dies, the executive, the PM and President are responsible for doing nothing. If she dies, each one of you journalists is responsible because you did not do your duty.”

Shirin Ebadi, winner of the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize 2006.

The political factor is directly impacting the region’s economy.

Companies are unwilling to set up centers in the region due to constant strikes and the perpetual political and social instability.

This is resulting in a high rate of unemployment. Despite having the unique leverage of sharing its border with 5 different countries which could be an enriching factor for international commerce, the Indian government is not considering opening the frontiers borders for trade.

The government and media attitudes clubbed with social, political and economic situation of this region has managed to alienate the northeasterners. As a consequence, many locals of the Northeast don’t even consider themselves as Indians. As ‘anti-Indian’ sentiments are rising, tribes have begun to refuse to acknowledge government rules and regulations. They have set up their own form of governance; for instance, tribes are now collecting toll from national trucks, refusing which, the trucks are attacked and not allowed to pass through.

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“YOU WANT JOBS? COME TO INDIA MEGACITIES!�

The situation in the Northeast has forced the natives, especially the youth, to leave their mother land for the Indian megacities.

Better education and jobs in the big cities are luring these groups to desert their land. The government, rather than trying to improve the local economy, is encouraging the northeasterners to migrate to Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata or Bangalore, where there is need for labour; 4-6 million jobs have been created in the last few years.

As with every migration story, worldwide or national, migrants often choose a city where they have an acquaintance network that can host them and help them find work, often in the same field. But once there, the situation is not always as easy as they would wish. They are faced with language barriers and the environment, unlike Northeast, is overwhelmingly crowded.

According to random interviews with migrants, all of them said language was the main constraint. But the toughest challenge remains the administrative registration which is very complex for migrants according to the Internal Migration in India Initiative which leads to ill-treatment and unfavourable living and working conditions as the North East Support Centres & Helplines often registers.

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“THE OUTSIDERS” More than difficult working and living conditions for migrants with low income, there is a general feeling among northeasterners living in the megacities: the one of being an ‘outsider’.

“The seven states of the Northeast have never really been part of the Indian mainstream’s collective imagination” started the news website Time Out Delhi in an article about a Northeast festival happening in the Indian capital.

Indeed, because of different appearance and a westernized culture of dressing, the northeasterners are seen as the ‘same bunch of people’ even though they come from various places with different cultures and identities. As a consequence, they are called ‘Chinkis’ or ‘Nepalis’, as if their appearance was not Indian enough. Because of their western clothing, girls are often seen as “thin girls with short clothes”, “cheap and loose”, and “always on the lookout for easy money”. Boys are sometimes seen as “drifters” because land’s perceptive identity of violence and drugs. Over the years, words have given way to reported actions as northeasterners have been denied entry to some bars because they “don’t have the right profile” or having to “get foreigner tickets at the Taj Mahal because someone decided they were not Indian enough to be Indian”. Such stories are abundantly available on the net, in forums and articles, on helplines and while interviewing people.

For a fact, “The census puts Delhi at 19 million this year (2011), of which the estimated 1,00,000 Northeasterners living here […]

A visible community in more than one way, 86 percent of Delhi’s Northeasterners reported racial discrimination, and 41 percent of total cases handled by a Northeast support centre focused on sexual abuse, according to a 2009 article in Women’s Feature Service.”

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Northeastern students living in Delhi by Tenzing Dakpa

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You don’t have the right profile... thin girls with short clothes .

Northeast girls are cheap . loose . chinkis . nepali . boys are drifters . always on the lookout for easy money . momo eaters . lower cast people . dog eaters . tea drinkers outsiders . beauty parlours .

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«self-proclaimed «strangers» in their own country»

people in Delhi 2011

northeasternes

of them reported racial discrimination

of these for sexual abuse

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To give a concrete idea of prejudices faced by northeastern migrants, here are profile personas based on different interviews made during my primary research:

Anusmita From central Assam ex Student in an architecture school in Nagpur “when I was living down in Nagpur people used to call me “Chinki” or “momo eater” because of my facial look. Of course I like momos as many Indians today, but this does not even come from my native place! I think that these prejudices are not the local fault but it is just because they don’t know and I think that broadening knowledge about my region would be a good initiative. ” 80

Bringraj From east Assam ex Student in an architecture school in Jaipur & Ahmadabad “In Central India, people still refer to caste system; when I used to live there, people used to ask me from which caste I came from, but in my culture people do not follow any caste system, they live in tribes. Because tribes live in a self-sufficient way and as a result are less materialistic, the caste based society which gives a lot of importance to material ownership always considers tribal people as ‘lower-caste people.”

Bapan From Tripura Working at the Ants Store which acts for broadening knowledge about Northeast in Bangalore

Manoj From Manipur Student in Film-making in a design school in Bangalore “Here in Bangalore, I sometimes feel that I am an alien to local people, they don’t consider me as the same. Because of a lack of awareness and some narrow minded mentalities some fights happen. But I also encounter many nice people who do not judge me. I think that if you want to keep your culture alive here and there, people should feel concerned about it, and recognize it as a part of India’s culture of which they could be proud of.”

“In Bangalore, migrants often stick to their tribe, they are confident within themselves and it is easier for the language. Even if some people are open minded and nice, most of the time there is a feeling of being judged, we are looked as people from a lower class.

Because people don’t know, they don’t realize what they are saying, it is not meant to be racist but because they do not know where we come from. But I also think that both sides (northeasterners and other Bangaloreans) need to understand the others’ differences, both the sides have to make efforts. I think there is a need to give confidence to the northeasterners to be proud of their culture.”

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Again, social segregation often happens because of dissimilar appearance “They never consider the northeasterners as fellow citizens, part of society because of their appearance, dress code, cultural differences”. Because of a lack of knowledge about the Northeast region, people think it is the same culture, an oriental one. “I realized that I was from Northeast when I came to Delhi” said the Naga writer Monalisa Changkija. Very few are aware that the Northeast region hosts a wide panel of communities and cultures, even the states themselves hosts many different entities.

Once the northeasterners come to the big cities, they are no longer seen as belonging to a certain tribe or a certain community. They are seen as one whole community with clichés like “smiling oriental” or “belonging to the hospitality business such as parlours, watchmen and waiters” imposed on them.

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Northeastern girl working in Delhi by Tenzing Dakpa

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YOU REJECT ME, I REJECT YOU Because they are “self-proclaimed strangers in their own country”, there is a need for uniting people who live the same situation, face the same issues and share a same global culture – even though they are very different when looked at from close. It is a common sight to see northeasterners keeping to themselves or their group/tribe without mingling much with the other Indian citizens. This need of uniting people is also sensed by a number of northeastern associations present in the city of Bangalore, like the Bangalore Mizo Association, the Bangalore Manipur Students’ Association or the Assam Society of Bangalore.

“Northeast is a region with varied cultures and sensibilities. It has its fair share of strife and struggle. However, a move to the big city renders a sense of commonality amongst us all; an undefined sense of community binds us in our everyday lives” Tenzing Dakpa.

I, myself, have witnessed this willingness of gathering during a Basket-ball tournament organized by the Mizo Student Union of Bangalore; the event gathered youngsters from different communities of the Northeast to play for their state, tribe or community. The event was titled “Northeast Basketball Tournament – To promote better unity and stronger integrity among us”.

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Northeast Basketball tournament – To promote better unity and stronger integrity

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Communitarianism is a natural behavior for humans. People belonging to a same community (religion, land, sub-culture) living in minority help each other. Sometimes, they even create a neat separation between the group and the rest of the society.

The consequence of being treated differently and seen differently can drain the idea of an adoptive culture. “Because you reject me, I don’t want to be like you” takes root in their mind.

This is something I have experienced every day since I came to India one and a half years ago. Not a single day goes by without a look or a word that would not remind me that I am ‘different’, that I am a foreigner, an outsider. I feel that no matter how much energy I put in trying to blend in, wear kurtas or saris, eat masala dosas with my right hand, and speak Hindi or even Kannada, I would still remain a stranger in the eyes of most of the Bangalore citizens because of my fair skin with curled brown hair and big eyes. But I accept it because I can’t deny that I am a foreigner. I came to India because I chose to; I chose to discover this culture. But they have no other choice but to come here to find an underpaid job with hazardous conditions.

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I cannot imagine putting myself in the shoes of a northeastern Indian citizen living in Bangalore, who has lived here for 2, 5, 10 years or even more, and have this feeling, every single day of my life, that I am a foreigner in my own country.

After organizing a street interview, where people were responding to questions, I realized that the rejection of culture and the lack of knowledge is from both sides; we can find many statements and clichés making fun of the northeasterners but we can also notice that many northeastern migrants are not fond of the cultures of South India. “They are really traditionalist” said one young waitress from Manipur; “they are being narrow-minded and are not open to modernization” said another street bystander from Manipur. This again refers to the idea of ethnocentrism explained in the chapter on ‘Society of ejection’ the belief that “my culture is the right one and knows how to behave well”.

Facts lead us to ask the same problem quoted in the previous chapters: How do we create a cosmopolitan world which co-exists and yet preserves its cultures in the same time?

More precisely now, how can we bridge the gap between the northeastern migrants of India and the other citizens of India’s megacities and get them to become interested in each other?

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A LACK OF KNOWLEDGE “Racism is due to ignorance, isolation and fear” Claude Lévi-Strauss.

The lack of knowledge is indeed one of the main factors for discrimination; this is true for all the megacities like Bangalore, for all its citizens, northeastern migrants as well as the rest of the population. Most of the Bangalore citizens know little about the Northeast region of India and most of the Northeasterners know little about South India.

“The main factor for the lack of awareness”, explains Binalakshmi Neparam founder of the Manipur Gun Survivors Network and Secretary General of Control Arms Foundation of India, “is that we can’t find a single chapter on the history of the northeast at school.”

It has also been confirmed by the people I have interviewed. If this is the case, how can we know and consider the northeastern states as part of India if even the official books don’t talk about this region?

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“ aT SCHOOL, not a single chapter talks about the history of the northeast�

Binalakshmi Neparam

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A Bodo student with a painted face shouts as hundreds of thousands of Bodo tribal people gather demanding the creation of a new state of Bodoland by Anupam Nath

Tourism is not given prominence in the region and there’s even little economic trade with the rest of India. As a consequence, there is little exchange between the region and the rest of the country.

In TV, which is one of the most popular and effective medium to reach a wide audience, nobody promotes northeastern people or movies on national channels. They are not represented and are again forgotten in the image of India conveyed on TV. The only coverage these people get is, unfortunately, for the negative news. For example, Bangalore realized that it housed such an extensive Northeast community only in 2012 when thousands of northeastern citizens of Bangalore escaped the city because of rumors of violence against their communities after Assam’s riots. More recently, in August 2013, the Bodo tribe rose up with violence after the partition of Andhra Pradesh because the Bodo tribe has been fighting for a separate state for years and its demands have fallen on deaf ears.

These scandals have contributed to a negative idea of the Northeast among India’s population.

Added to that are superstitions that have been passed down from one generation to the next. According Hindu mythology and mythological books, the devils would rise from India’s northeast; this was further propagated by some of the tribal rituals inclining towards black magic and others headhunters, thereby creating fear in the minds of the people, even though these practices stopped by the mid-twentieth century. Some people, because of a lack of awareness, believe that it is still happening and continue to remain scared.

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Young women from Kohima and Dimapur

by Manou, wearabout blog

LACK OF KNOWLEDGE BY THE NORTHEASTERNERS ITSELF IDENTITY CRISIS Surprisingly, lack of knowledge about India’s Northeast is not limited to the states of integral India. Based on my two-week field research in Assam, I observed that even those in the North East have never visited their neighboring states; they know nothing or very little about each other. Considering that each state is made of a number of tribes, it sometimes happens that the tribes are not even aware of each other, their cultures and practices.

Annalisa Merelli explains in an article about fashion trend in the Northeast for the Motherland magazine that there is a growing lack of knowledge in the northeastern youth about their culture. She explains that the Northeasterners have a distinct dressing code which takes its roots from different things. The Christianization of the area has influenced the dressing but, according to her, it also comes from a willingness to “express a separate identity, an anti-Indian sentiment” due to tensions between the government and the Northeastern states.

Vingumeno Bambi Kevichüsa, a fashion designer from Nagaland takes the particular example of Naga’s youth; she explains that they identify themselves with the Korean culture which they have been exposed to by the Korean channel, Arirang TV. They see more similarities in the Korean stars and models than they do with the Indian icons. “They’ll say “I’m Naga”, but they don’t know their language, they don’t know any stories about the Nagas.

But they have a lot of knowledge about Korean culture, and all try talking Korean” said Sentila T Yanger, winner of the Padma Shri Awards in 2008 for her work in empowering local women through handicrafts.

Broadening the knowledge about Northeast India is, thus, not a task that has to be reserved for India’s megacities. But it should be developed for the entire Indian territory - the megacities, smaller cities, the countryside as well as the Northeast region itself.

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The Northeast migration story is the story of hundreds of communities who are shunned by their own country and forgotten from the country’s list of priorities. It is the story of a region handicapped by its political, social and economical issues, which is seeing its youth fleeing to the Indian megacities for a better education and hope of finding jobs to enrich their communities back in Northeast. It is the story of a rural exodus to the big cities, threatening the rich panel of cultures from the Northeast. It is the story of migrants misrecognized by the rest, because of a general lack of knowledge.

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Northeastern girls living in Delhi by Tenzing Dakpa

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04 Bangalore, a multicultural city

Bangalore, A multicultural city Bangalore is a city which transformed from a small city to the third largest economic city in the country in a span of 60 years.

This chapter aims to define the migrants’ situation in Bangalore today and understand how these migrants are the pillars of its economy and why their inclusion is the need of the hour. We will try to highlight why a multicultural city like Bangalore is a source of – more than economical – social and cultural enrichment.

BANGALORE, A LAND OF MIGRATION From a small town, Bangalore has become the third most populated city in India after the independence. In 60 years, the city has seen its population of less than 1 million grow into 8.5 million, out of which 35% are locals and 65% of migrants from different states of India and from abroad.

This large number of migrants in Bangalore makes the city one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the country and has turned it into an urbanized setting full of westernized malls, pubs and shops comparable to most of the megacities of the world.

The growth of the city is mainly because of the Information Technology boom. This high concentration of growing companies constantly creates new jobs opportunities, which brings new migrants, including the northeasterners, to the city.

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64% MIGRANTS

from other states of India / from abroad

36% LOCALS Bangalore map of the citizens according to their native place

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NORTHEAST MIGRANTS, AN ENRICHING FACTOR FOR BANGALORE CITIZENS The northeasterners migrating to Bangalore are mainly from Manipur and Assam. “They are good citizens of Bangalore, They want to help the city develop, they want greater interaction with other people and they want to make the city their own” said Prof.

G. Venkatasubbiah, lexicographer, talking about the internal migrants in Bangalore. Indeed, they are a pillar for Indian megacities’ economy. In 2011, 20% of the urban growth was due to internal migration explained the IMII. The companies attract new migrants; they earn money, spend a part of it, which again creates jobs and bring new migrants to the city.

“Evidence reveals that with rising incomes, migrant remittances can encourage investment in human capital formation, particularly increased expenditure in health and, to some extent, on education (Deshingkar and Sandi, 2012)” 102

Proportion of people according to their native state: Reflect of the social-political-economical situation 103

Work

Jobs are created

Consumption

“Migration, when governed fairly, can make a very important contribution to social and economic developments both in the countries of origin and in the countries of destination.

Migration is a crucial means of broadening access to resources and reducing poverty” Wu Hongbo, United Nations Under- secretary-general for Economic and Social affairs.

The importance of migrants, especially the northeastern migrants was realized last summer in 2012 when thousands of northeasterners of Bangalore abandoned the city because of rumors of violence against their communities after Assam’s riots. The government of Karnataka put a lot of effort to reassure them, arrest those responsible for the havoc and ensure their safety in Bangalore, because without them an important sector of Bangalore’s economy would fall.

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“In our increasingly diverse societies, it is essential to ensure harmonious interaction among people and groups with plural, varied and dynamic cultural identities as well as their willingness to live together.

Policies for the inclusion and participation of all citizens are guarantees of social cohesion, the vitality of civil society and peace.�

From Article 2, UNESCO, 2001 Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity

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“ It is good to rub and polish our brains by contact with those of others�

Montaigne 106

PROBLEMATIC: HOW DO YOU CREATE A COSMOPOLITAN WORLD WHICH CO-EXIST AND PRESERVE ITS CULTURES IN THE SAME TIME? As a first internal conclusion, we can acknowledge that northeastern migrants are pillars of Bangalore’s economy irrespective of the ill-treatment, discouragement and exclusion.

Awareness needs to be brought in to improve the living standard of these people which brings me to the positioning of my Final Diploma Project to educate Bangalore citizens about Northeast India and its migrants to raise social acceptance.

There is a need to treat the migrating communities from the India’s northeast and the rest of Bangalore citizens as equals, even though their cultures are very different and they can’t understand each other completely.

“The sense of gratitude and respect which every single member of a given culture can and should feel towards all other can only be based on the conviction that the other cultures differ from his own in countless ways, even if the ultimate essence of these differences eludes him or, if, in spite of his best efforts, he can reach no more than an imperfect understanding of them.”

Claude Lévi-Strauss I believe that these differences should be what unites India rather than separate it. The geneticist, scientist and philosopher Albert Jacquard once said, “A human adventure is above all the adventures of social interactions. The adventure of encounters that have made me become more than myself. Yes, I am more than a superman. Thanks to others. What I am is not what you see. What I am is all the social interactions I am able to create with others. The other, whoever he is, he is my wealth. And when I deprive myself from this wealth, I start a little to kill myself. I tried to be on the side of those who react. When you react, you can make some mistakes, but at least, you try hard to do it, to participate. And it became for me what I live by: participate. Being someone who is a part of a humanity which needs that everyone gets down to it.”

I believe, as Albert Jacquard said, that what makes an individual is the encounter with others. This is what I want to bring into my design proposal; I want to bring knowledge and participation to build dialogue and interest among different communities of India.

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“ Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world�

Mandela

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Kamal Raj from Reap Benefit working with children at school

To do so, education is, according to me, one of the best means.

Through an interview with Kamal Raj, one of the founders of Reap Benefit , a company which is, in part, working with children to teach them waste management and eco-friendly behavior, I understood that it is especially interesting to work with children, assuming that children learn faster than adults through games. Moreover, the earlier we learn something, the longer we remember it. This is based on the context that the mind is still not completely shaped and the prejudices are minimal which opens children to more opportunities of knowledge and creativity. “We see in children the change thinkers and makers of tomorrow”, said Kamal.

“To prepare the ideal society […] we need first to describe with lucidity the reality of today […]; then we should turn towards the ones who will have to build it, the humans of tomorrow, the ones that school prepares today. It is to them to be more clear-sighted than their eldest, to them to become aware of the mistakes that have been made and mostly to adhere to a common goal. It is at school that future is being shaped; it is thereby around the school that a project should be imagined. The structures of the future societies will be the direct consequences of the educative system chosen.” , said Albert Jacquard in his book Mon Utopie (=My Utopia).

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05 Examplar research

Examplar research This chapter looks at the existing initiatives to showcase the cultures of Northeast and bring interest towards this region.

We will then look at initiatives taken all over the world which aims to broaden knowledge about migration and create social acceptance.

BROADENING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT INDIA’S NORTHEAST Even if it is generally assumed that nothing is being done to put the Northeast back on the map, initiatives are being taken to broaden the knowledge about the states of Northeast on a national and local level.

The most popular initiatives that are currently being taken are the dance and music festivals which showcase the cultures of Northeast. Among them, the Northeast festival of New Delhi (India) set up in November 2013 was a festival that combined art performances with dances, music and fashion shows; the event also hosted a photography exhibition and discussions about social, economic and political issues. “This festival is organized to initiate a communication between people of the north-east with other states and also among the various communities living in the north-east” said Shyamkanu Mahanta, organizer-in-chief of the North East Festival 2013.

The other famous festival that was held in New Delhi at the Habitat Center was the ‘Cultures of Peace, Festival of the Northeast’. “The Northeast is an ethnological paradise and breeds within it a diverse range of practices. I think this festival is a unique 112

attempt at a glimpse of this gamut of art, and as a participant, it might even provide a space for me to take another look at my own ethnicity and identity” said Mahanta, a Sattriya dancer from the Northeast. This festival is based almost on the same idea as the first, with one day exclusively focused on discussions with academics, intellectuals, activists and experts from various fields including filmmakers, novelists and poets. “One of our main mandates is to bring the voices of marginalized communities to the forefront” said Preeti Gill, commissioning editor at Zubaan.

Festivals like this are organized in Bangalore in different colleges as well. For instance, Footprints in St Joseph’s College is a fest organized by the northeastern students to showcase their culture to their classmates and the residents of Bangalore.

The festival often gathers over seven thousands spectators. The aim of the event is to “bridge cultural gap and bring students of different states together by providing platform to showcase their distinct culture and tradition”.

Footprints in St Joseph’s College in Bangalore

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My mentor Bapan Debarma at the Ants fairtrade Store

A more extended initiative is the Ants store - the Ants Store and Restaurant - based in Bangalore. The Ant (Action Northeast Trust) is an NGO which has taken a lot of initiatives in the state of Assam, especially in the Chirang district. One of the initiatives has been to use the weaving skills of local women and adapt it to our contemporary needs and taste in order to empower these women and create a new source of income for the rural communities back in Northeast. This fair-trade activity gave birth to the Ants Store in Bangalore which sells these products and many other fair-trade products from Northeast and other lesser known regions of the country.

The Ants Store is not just a store. During an interview with Smitha Murthy and Bapan Debbarma who are part of the Ants initiative, I discovered that this space serves as a platform for different activities such as food festivals, political discussions, exhibitions, movie projections and book readings. The Ants Store aims to “build up sensitivity and empathy for issues of the region among mainstream India through activities which build linkages and promote a positive image of northeast India�.

The Ants Store initiative has triggered the business skills of the northeasterners. Braced by the success of the Ants store, some northeasterners migrants in Bangalore embraced their culture more openly and decided to open restaurants in the city. It also facilitated some local lawyers to hear of the issues in the region and volunteer to help the new-comers. Their company, called the ALF (Alternative Law Firm), provides free legal assistance the northeastern migrants in Bangalore whenever needed.

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The Northeast is not far behind in their attempt to spread awareness not only in India’s megacities but also in their own region. Here are three examples of initiatives that were taken in the Northeast by the people: Athul Lahkar opened his first restaurant in Guwahati called Gam’s Delicacy eight years ago. He said that people in the Northeast “suffer from some kind of inferiority when serving ethnic food” and as a consequence, they forget their own cuisine. To keep the cuisine from dying out, he decided to go across the region, even to remote areas, and collect recipes from tribal villages and serve it in his restaurant. He collected over a thousand of them.

Gam’s delicacy is now a well-known establishment in Guwahati.

I had the opportunity to go there during my field research in Assam and I tasted the typical Assamese Thali, very diferent from the Thali served in Bangalore.

Another project is an initiative by Manoj Kshetrimayum, student at the Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology from Manipur.

This undergraduate filmmaker has made several short movies which talks about the political situation down in Manipur.

He regularly screens these films to create awareness of the situation in Manipuri people and sensitize them to this issue. # Sail: “awolnation” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuxFR11vMOI&feature=youtu.be # The untruth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9fSBuhmhl0&feature=c4-overv iew&list=UUmyco1dnVkV2CdaNLQo8IrA Manoj Kshetrimayum in his video “Sail ‘awolnation’”

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Jenjum Gadi creations by Lamya Bhatri Ebrahim

The third project is the work of Jenjum Gadi, Fashion designer from Arunachal Pradesh. He uses the traditional dressing code from his native state and mixes it with contemporary clothing cuts and textiles. He brings his culture from Arunachal Pradesh, devises his own interpretation of the tradition and keeps his culture alive at the same time.

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FACTS AGAINST PREJUDICES One of the main solutions against prejudice is education; let us look at ways to educate people about migration and fight against prejudices with the example of two associations:

The first association is a French association I discovered during the film festival of Douarnenez (Brittany, France) about the Rroms, Tsiganes and Travelers. It is called “La Cimade” (Comité Inter-Mouvements Auprès Des Evacués = Committee inter-movement for the evacuees). This NGO aims to help the newcomers arriving in France by creating workshops to integrate them with society. They host about 200 evacuees every year. Another important part of their work consists of creating campaigns to make French citizens aware of the migration today and displace prejudices existing in the French minds. One of the medium used for it are simple booklets with childish drawings to explain the phenomenon of migration and its impact on the migrants, deconstructs preconceived ideas about migrants’ impact in the society and highlights their positive role.

Aiming for the same result but with different means is the IOM (International Organization for Migration) which creates centers for post-arrival orientation across the world. Research centers are also set up to improve solutions for migrant integration and raise awareness highlighting successful models of integration in the society. The IOM has also launched the Not Just Numbers Project, a toolkit to teach young people about migration and asylum. This kit helps teachers to discuss this topic through games and CD ROMs. The idea is to explain to the children that “behind anonymous statistic related to migration there is a human force and a personal story”.

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International Organization for Migration & La Cimade

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PROVIDE ENTERTAINING EDUCATIONAL TOOLS TO ENHANCE THE INTERESTS TOWARDS THE DIFFERENCE My research about entertaining learning first started with the meeting of Kamal Raj, one of the founders of Reap Benefit.

The company specializes in effecting behavioral change on the issues of waste, water, energy, and biodiversity management in companies, residential areas, schools, fests and other sectors.

They teach people through gamification, that is teaching people to be eco-friendly while they feel they are playing rather than being taught.

When I think about gamification and entertaining education, the first image which comes to my mind is the souvenir of my summers in Brittany where I volunteer in the biggest music festival of France known as An Errer Kozh (Les Vieilles Charrues = Old pulling cart festival). Every year, this festival turns the countryside to a real village for 4 days. Over 260 000 people attend this festival.

This size of crowd, the second largest in Europe, consequently brings up questions of pollution. People come there to listen to music, party, spend money, drink and eat. What happens to the waste they leave behind? How does the town keep the place clean and get people to cooperate while they are having fun and are least concerned about the ecology? The Errer Kozh Festival smartly turns these eco-friendly behaviors into games. For instance, the festival’s volunteers distribute yellow dust bags for recyclable waste and black bags for non-recyclable waste. The festive campers are then told that if they give their waste bags back to the waste collection booths, they can win points according to the numbers of bags they check in. These points can be redeemed for gifts including goodies, free tickets for the next year, VIP backstage tours or travels in Ireland etc.

Errer Kozh/Vieilles Charrues festival, Carhaix (Brittany, France)

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Skteches by Lucie-lom for the exhibition about “Shadows and lights”

Another way to facilitate awareness and concern among people is to include the idea of experience: allow people to experience in order to engage them in the subject. This is what I learnt when I was interning in Lucie-lom atelier, a stage design and scenography company. Their belief is to narrate a story to the visitors, plunge them into the topic and make them understand. In the pictures here, we can see that they have turned the scientific exhibition about “Shadows and lights” at the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie (= City of Science and Industry, Paris, France) into an interactive space which engages the visitors directly. In this exhibition, “children are taken into a world of fiction created around a house and its landlord: Archibald Ombre (=Shadow), a teacher, dreamer, poet and collector of shadows. Archibald is not home but every room in the house is a testimony of his passion and reveals part of its mystery. Every room, every setting is a casket in which shadows are embellished, where they escape from banality to become a center of attention, emotion and creation.”

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Scenography by Lucie-lom for the exhibition about “Shadows and lights”

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“Design is about delivering a satisfying experience. Design thinking is about creating a multipolar experience in which everyone has the opportunity to participate in the conversation�

Tim Brown

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“TV Show C’est pas Sorcier”

Another example comes right out of my childhood: a TV show for children that became a raging success in France, even among the adults. The idea of this still ongoing TV show, C’est pas sorcier!

(Literal meaning: It is not wizard! Meaning: It’s not rocket science!), is simple: a truck is crossing France. According to the chosen topic, two explorers, Fred & Sabine, would go to meet experts or visit places to interview people about the subject and would communicate through a TV located inside the truck where the teacher, Jamy, explains, with numerous educative models, what Fred is discovering outside. The TV show deals with various complex topics such as astronomy, architecture, history, biology, physics, art, religion etc. in a manner that captivates children.

The TV series became so popular that teachers began to adopt it in class and is now also translated into more than 7 different languages.

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CNA Mali (Mobile Numeric Cinema)

Another effective example of teaching through the screen is the initiative by CNA Mali (CinĂŠma NumĂŠrique Ambulant = Mobile Numeric Cinema). This association goes from rural villages to unprivileged areas of Mali with a car to screen African movies. The idea is to popularize African cinema and make movies accessible to everyone. By extension, this also educates people and introduces them to topics that they might have not questioned otherwise.

Festivals, NGOs, stores, restaurants, magazines and other initiatives are communicating and improving knowledge about the Northeast, but there is still a long way to go to improve the social inclusion between migrants and Bangalore citizens. A lack of knowledge still exists and needs to be filled. I think that people will listen if it is made part of a special experience.

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Create an entertaining space to inform about the Northeast region of India and create social exchange between Bangalore citizens and northeasterners

Create an entertaining space to inform about the Northeast region of India and create social exchange between Bangalore citizens and northeasterners 136

Through the chapters, we have been able to observe that preserving our own identity and culture and being proud of it is, in part, conditioned by the kind of reception that the hosting society presents. We have seen that the main issue with all problems related to migration remains lack of knowledge. Through the particular story of India’s Northeast we have observed the challenges faced by the immigrants when they come to Indian megacities as Bangalore.

Now, in response to ‘How do we create a cosmopolitan world which co-exists and yet preserves its cultures at the same time?’, my positioning will be to educate Bangalore citizens about Northeast India and its migrants to improve social acceptance.

How can this be implemented? Here are three design proposal presented as ideation to the resolve the problem.

Create an entertaining space which talks about the Northeast region of India and creates social exchange between Bangalore citizens and northeasterners 137

THE CULTURE HOUSE What?

The Culture House will be a fixed exhibition/café/restaurant.

The exhibition space aims at broadening knowledge about the northeastern states of India and the migration of its citizens to Bangalore. The café/restaurant will discover traditional dishes from the Northeast.

Why? The space provides learning through immersion, intending to make the discovery more complete: to get a visual, olfactory, auditory, gustative and sensory souvenir of that learning.

Where?

The Culture House would be a permanent space in an area of food & beverage places that sees good footfall and people can frequent.

When?

The space would be a permanent service provider. The exhibition will present a new state of Northeast every semester. During that semester, workshops, concerts, movie projections & debates can be organized around the state thematic.

How? The Culture House is an exhibition which would be an immersion in an environment of the Northeast. It will allow the discovery of topics through story-telling in which the visitor would be the protagonist. The Culture House invites to end the visit by a gustative experience for those who would wish to learn more about the culture they discovered.

Who? Stakeholders The Culture House would be implemented in areas providing a large choice of food & beverage services for people who can afford ethnic cuisine restaurants, are used to visiting exhibitions and attending cultural events.

Perspectives - A step forward Once the experience ends, the space could invite the visitor to create partnerships and welcome new-comers from the Northeast by making them discover Bangalore. In a longer perspective, the Culture House could extend and welcome other regions of India to create a complete map of Bangalore’s diversity.

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enter the space

enter the restaurant

enter the exhibition

visit the exhibition while waiting for the meal or after the degustation

continue the visit discovering the food

a step forward: meeting with northeastern migrants in Bangalore

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THE MIGRANT SPACE What?

The Migrant Space will be an itinerant cafÊ/ restaurant which hosts an entertaining learning space Why? The space will share and discover various cultures of India’s Northeast and its migrants coming to Bangalore. It will aim to showcase a less known region of India to educate and create interest towards the Northeast.

Where?

The Migrant Space would cross the city of Bangalore, following different events (festivals, colloquiums, sport tournaments) and settle in the commercial/ crowded streets during celebrations (Diwali, Christmas, Dushera) When?

This nomadic space would stay for the event duration and would move to a new city once the event is over.

How? The itinerant space would act as a landmark in the street or event to attract people externally and invite them to come inside.

Its function of cafĂŠ/ restaurant would represent an opportunity to attract even more people to the space; the clientele could visit the exhibition while waiting for their order.

Who? Stakeholders The Migrant Space initiative would be directed towards all the Bangalore citizens, attending events or simply street bystanders. They could be local and migrants from Northeast or from elsewhere. The initiative is mainly directed towards literate people, nonetheless illiterate people can enjoy the food and the space experience Perspectives - A step forward Once they visit the migrant space, stakeholders can connect with northeasterners migrants to share information and experiences on their culture and build new linkages with the help of social network application.

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new event

savour the migrant space is set up

?

visit inside The Migrant Space while waiting

placing the order

people are attracted by a signal

gathering around the space

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PROFESSOR NOMADIC What?

Professor Nomadic will be an itinerant interactive exhibition to teach and broaden knowledge about India’s Northeast to school children.

Why? The space will explain the phenomenon of migration today to the children and discover the background of some communities migrating to their city. It aims to create awareness and social acceptance.

Where?

The Professor Nomadic space would go from school to school in the city of Bangalore and set-up its exhibition in the playground as an extra-learning activity through games.

When?

Professor Nomadic would stay one day in each school and come back every semester to teach new things, create new games and give updates and feedback about the previous sessions.

How? Professor Nomadic would teach students through an unusual and immersive space. The space would use fun teaching tools such as games, activities, sports, competitions which would follow the concept of gamification.

Who? Stakeholders The Professor Nomadic initiative intends to educate children between 6 and 12 year old attending school in Bangalore.

The project could be implemented in private and government schools. After the visit of Professor Nomadic, teachers could also decide to explore the topic further in their program.

Perspectives - A step forward In order to continue the initiative and deepen the reward, the Professor Nomadic space could travel during the year between Bangalore and a city of the Northeast. The space could host a large range of small suitcase through which one child of Bangalore and one child of northeast could communicate. It would be their own space of exchange where they could share letters, games and objects. The Professor Nomadic would be the link between the two schools and would come back every semester to give the child the suitcase in which he could again add what he/she wants to share. More than gaining knowledge, the child would make a new friend and build linkages with the region of Northeast.

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new school

closing the space for a...

Professor Nomadic arrives

collective class & rewards presentations are made

children invest the space, discover the tools & play

opening the space & the teaching starts

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Get other people’s recognition & help for their region

Participate in migrants’ integration

Exchange ideas and thoughts with other people from Bangalore Be integrated with Bangalorean citizen

REWARD FOR THE NORTHEASTERN MIGRANT

More confidence in their culture and origin

Get people interested in their culture & accept their differences

Get to know more about their own country & the existing challenges

Understand the positive impact of Northeast migrants on their city’s economy

REWARD FOR THE BANGALORE CITIZEN

Meet different entities to see the uniqueness of each culture and share about theirs

Exchange with fellow-citizens having a different culture and state of mind

CONCEPT 1 CONCEPT 2 CONCEPT 3 THE CULTURE HOUSE THE MIGRANT SPACE PROFESSOR NOMADIC

Mobile Access

Social exchange

Sustainable

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Expectations

Innovation

Creative potential

Feasability

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One young muslim with a panel claiming ÂŤWe are Indians first! Bangalore is for all IndiansÂť to encourage migrants to stay in Bangalore & protest against the rumours saying that Indian northeasterners were being targeted by Muslim attack. By Michael Edwards, August 2012

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Conclusion Trying to make the cultures coexist is a must for our contemporary economy, especially in a multicultural city like Bangalore where 65% of the population is coming from various backgrounds and identities.

But more than an economical stake, finding ways to create social tolerance and inclusion is everybody’s concern; because within the next 40 years, more than one world inhabitant out of ten will be a migrant. The present situation of the social gap between the northeastern migrants in Bangalore and the rest of its citizens is a story that could happen to anyone of us.

In the Northeast itself many locals blame the Bangladeshis for migrating to their land, “They’re here to take our land and resources” say most of them. But “It didn’t seem to strike anybody in the living room that in any other setting, even somewhere as close as another city in India, we ourselves could be thought of as dkhar (=outsider in Khasi tribe language). But to imagine ourselves as outsiders—to somebody, anybody, anywhere—would demand an uncorking of the psyche. It’s easier, perhaps, to distract ourselves by presuming the worst of Bangladeshis.” said Janice Pariat in the article Inside/Outsiders for the Motherland magazine.

Most importantly, as we have seen through this thesis, most of the societies have been built on migration, through encounters of different entities and cultures, enriching both the sides through the knowledge brought by the other. How can we aspire to evolve if we ignore the other?

To take the personal example of my native land: France wouldn’t be what it is today- one of the first tourists destinations in the world and one of the first economic powers - if it had not opened its doors to its migrants from Ireland in Brittany and Romans all over the country. What would have happened to this land if North Africans would not have come to France after the World War II to rebuild the country and its economy? What would it be without the encounters of other entities? That, no one can knows, but what is certain is that the ‘Pure French Culture’ that people talk about does not exists according to me. I think that every culture is built on social diversity and encounters of multicultural backgrounds.

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In India, after my experience with my Assamese hosts and after having witnessed their struggle to make their state known in their own country, the need to be recognized by their fellow citizens ascertained my belief that something needs to be done or improved. All the festivals that are being created, the discussions and debates that are emerging from the ground is proof of a demand of recognition, spreading knowledge and the hope that through this recognition, things can be improved in the region of Northeast.

This thesis and my final diploma project aims to showcase the northeastern migrants’ story as an example. It aims to broaden knowledge, try to improve the social inclusion of these migrants and make people aware that exclusion could happen to all, that this is not a marginal situation and that each one of us can decide to consider the other as a strength rather than a weakness for its city or country.

My aim as a future designer would be to use what I have learn at school, in my internships and in my personal experience to contribute, even on a small scale, to the fight for social inclusion and awareness with the hope that this initiative could bring people to contribute in their own way to the cycle of migration; be it working for social inclusion in Bangalore, be it bringing awareness, or even acting directly at source to improve the social, economic, political and educational situation in India’s Northeast.

“Think locally, act locally and make difference globally when rationalized”, said Nabeel Hamdi. In the same thought of development emergence, Danah Zohar said “there is no fully fixed identity until they are in relationship”. This notion adds the idea of a collective work; very little can be done by a single entity as compared to a community of people acting together. This is one of the main reasons why social interaction is one of the key points.

But “Communities are often oppressive to outsiders, a threat to minorities, to the individual, the unique and irregular, absent or incapacitated.” said Mfaniseni Sihlongonyane. People need to understand their differences, culture, challenges and interests to achieve development. They need to understand that we live in a mutually dependent world. It is necessary to create empathy and be willing to participate, understand that others’ challenges are also ours because we are part of a same whole and that every little part of this matters to make the whole remain stable.

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“Culture takes diverse form across time and space. his diversity is embodied in the uniqueness and plurality of the identities of the groups and societies making up humankind.

T

A source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature.

In this sense, it is the common heritage of humanity and should be recognized and affirmed for the benefit of present and future generations.�

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of the UNESCO on the cultural diversity 151

Bibliography Books: # Migration, identity and urbanization in the beginning of the 21st century Terre Natale, Ailleurs commence ici by Paul Virilio & Raymond Depardon # Design in the world as it is nowadays & Design activism In the Bubble by John Tackara # How make people part of the (design) change – How to think design today Change by design by Tim Brown # Historical context of the North-east states of India Insight Guides – India – APA Publications # Historical & Touristic context of the North-east states of India North India – Lonely planet # The importance of the culture & its transmission – democratization of culture The culture explained to my daughter by Jérôme Clément # Simple explanations about migration to dismantle prejudice & bring awareness Small Booklet to understand the international migrations by La Cimade # Simple explanations about migration to dismantle prejudice & bring awareness Small Booklet to fight against the prejudice about migrants by La Cimade # Handmade in India by MP Ranjan # How small scale changes can lead to global & worldwide change Small Change by Nabeel Hamdi # The Enneagram: Understanding yourself and the other in your life by Helen Palmer # Assam by Nanda Talukdar Foundation # Textile and Bamboo crafts of the northeastern region by Aditi Shirali # The Utopia of tomorrow by the scientist and philosopher Albert Jacquard, Mon Utopie (=My Utopia) by Albert Jacquard 152

Websites: > Northeast India < #Eurasia review - 5,000,000 North East Indian Migrations Expected In Five Years – Article by Madhu Chandra social activist working as Spokesperson of North East Support Centre & Helpline http://www.eurasiareview.com/26112011-5000000-north-east-indian-migrationsexpected-in-five-years-oped/ # Spokesperson of North East Support Centre & Helpline www.nehelpline.net #Youth Ki Awaaz - North East: The Vicious Cycle of Drug Addiction http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2012/03/north-east-the-vicious-cycle-of-drug-addiction/ # Manipur Online - What pushes north-east Indians to migrates to mega cities – by Madu Chandra, 9.12.2010 http://manipuronline.com/features/north-east-migration-and-challenges-in-mega-cities/2010/12/09 # The fight of Irom Sharmila against the AFSPA in North East & Manipur http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main43.asp?filename=Ne051209irom_and.asp # Not a single chapter on the history of the northeast – Binalakshmi Neparam interview by Aastha Tyagi, 13.05.2013 http://www.tehelka.com/i-studied-history-for-5-years-but-there-was-not-asingle-chapter-on-the-history-of-the-northeast/ # The trust deficit & discriminations in India – The Hindu – Ibu Sanjeeb Garg – 12.06.2013 http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/india-of-a-thousand-dreams/article4706922.ece # Exodus from mega-cities of India to North East – International Business Times – 18.08.2012 http://www.ibtimes.co.in/articles/374982/20120818/north-east-people-exodusbangalore-karnataka-attacks.htm # Protest in Assam for the creation of a Bodoland state – NDTV – 02.08.2013 http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/telangana-fuelled-protests-in-assam-stop-alltrains-to-northeast-india-400165?curl=1375443673 # Jenjum Gadi – Fashion Designer from Northeast using his roots in his collections – Indian Express “A tribe of his own” http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-tribe-of-his-own/909123/ # Motherland Magazine – Issue 4: Northeast http://www.motherlandmagazine.com/northeast-issue > Migration & Social tolerance < # A fascinating map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries – The Washington Post – by Max Fisher - 15.05.2013 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinatingmap-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/

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# Exhibition “Migrations” – Rennes (Brittany, France) – Summer 2013 http://www.musee-bretagne.fr/expositions-temporaires/expositions/migrations/ # Exhibition “All savages! Look on the difference” – Daoulas (Brittany, France) – Summer 2013 http://www.cdp29.fr/fr/agenda/view/93/tous-des-sauvages/ # Movie’s Festival of Douarnenez – 2013: Rromes, Tsiganes and Travellers http://www.festival-douarnenez.com/ # Survival Organisation – Fighting for Indigenous rights http://www.survivalinternational.org/ # International Organization for Migration – Migration Integration http://www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/what-we-do/migrant-integration.html # Migration in a globalized world by the International Organization for Migration http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/about_iom/en/ council/86/MCINF_268.pdf # Internal Migration in India Initiative http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002214/221486e.pdf # Social Inclusion of Internal migrants in India by the Internal Migration in India Initiative http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002237/223702e.pdf # Data About Migration in 2013 – United Nations – Department of Economic and Social Affairs – Population Division http://esa.un.org/unmigration/wallchart2013.htm # New Campaign of The Museum of Immigration’s History – Paris (France) http://www.histoire-immigration.fr/la-cite/dernieres-nouvelles/nouvelle-campagne-de-communication # Interactive website – People movin – Migration flows across the world http://peoplemov.in/ # Migration and remittances Factbook 2011 http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/migration-and-remittances # Census data for Bangalore 2011 http://www.census2011.co.in # Growing resentment for outsiders in Bangalore – IBN live by Deepa Balakshrinan – 15.02.2008 http://ibnlive.in.com/news/blore-feels-bubbling-kannadiga-vs-migrant-tension/59005-3.html # Tenzing Dakpa – Photograph from Sikkim living in Delhi http://www.tenzingdakpa.com # Lyon University Thesis - Reference group concept http://theses.univ-lyon2.fr/documents/getpart.php?id=lyon2.2010.abang_ sako_a&part=174626 # Article about Adler by Christelle Moreau, 19.04.2007 http://www.psychanalyse-en-ligne.org/index.php?3-alfred-adler # Muzaffarnagar (Uttar-Pradesh) riots in 2013 - How Not to Handle a Riot’s Aftermath - Tehelka http://www.tehelka.com/muzaffarnagarriots2013/ # Interview of Albert Jacquard for Arte – French Channel http://lejardindepierre.free.fr/videotheques/documentaires/Films/film143.html

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# About Bangalore – This is my India http://www.thisismyindia.com/about_bangalore/index.html # Indian identity is forged in diversity. Every one of us is in a minority – by Shashi Tharoor for The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/aug/15/comment.india # Inside/Outsiders by Janice Pariat for Motherland magazine http://www.motherlandmagazine.com/borders/inside-outsiders > Spreading culture < # Movie’s Festival of Douarnenez – 2013: Rromes, Tsiganes and Travellers http://www.festival-douarnenez.com/ # Alexandra Heritage Center by Peter Rich – South Africa http://www.peterricharchitects.co.za/projects/alex_center.php # “The Bistro to read” – Quimper (Brittany, France) https://www.facebook.com/bistroalire # The Breton Mission – Non Profit association - Paris http://www.missionbretonne.org/ # Dilli Haat – Open Aircraft Bazaar – New Delhi (India) http://www.dillihaat.net.in/ # Sunday Soul Sante by Asha Rao – Flea Market in Bangalore (India) http://www.sundaysoulsante.com # CAN Mali – Cinéma Numérique Ambulant (=Mobile Numeric Cinema) Promotion of African Movies for underprivileged people http://www.c-n-a.org/cna-mali.html # Prof. G Venkatasubbiah says migrants should learn Kannada http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/prof-g-venkatasubbiah-says-migrantsshould-learn-kannada # Globalization explained by Simon Jeffery http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/31/globalisation.simonjeffery # Unesco – Culture for sustainable development – Globalization and culture http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/culture-and-development/the-future-we-want-the-role-of-culture/globalization-and-culture/ # Successful North East Festival set to become an annual affair in Delhi – Kangla Online http://kanglaonline.com/2013/11/successful-north-east-festival-set-to-becomean-annual-affair-in-delhi/ # The Northeast Festival in New Delhi, November 2013 http://www.northeastfestival.com/index.html # Cultures of Peace, Festival of the Northeast by Sibi Arasu for Time out Delhi http://www.timeoutdelhi.net/around-town/features/north-northeast # Bangalore: St Joseph College Organizes North East Tibetan Fest by Daiji World http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=71911&n_tit=Bangalore%3A +St+Joseph+College+Organizes+North+East+Tibetan+Fest+

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> Entertaining education < # The Errer Kozh Festival (Brittany, France), eco-management through games http://www.vieillescharrues.asso.fr/asso/festival-eco-citoyen/la-gestion-des-dechets # Cité des sciences et de l’industrie (=city of sciences and industry) exhibition “Light and Shadows” http://www.cite-sciences.fr/english/ala_cite/expositions/ombres_lumieres/ index_f.htm # “C’est pas sorcier!” TV show about Islam religion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtjEiXTLYGU Videos: # Correspondents - Is Northeast a challenge to the Idea of India (in three parts) – 07.06.2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNM6fy0Qntw # Non acceptation of the difference explained in a simple way – Have you ever seen! A new comer in the Toupoutou’s country http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctCrNFmVOHQ Interview: # Patrick Malrieu – President of the Cultural Institue of Brittany, ex president of the cultural regional council of Brittany and creator of the association Dastum (highlighting and preserving the oral and musical inheritance of Brittany) Talk about the transmission of culture # Street interview – 17 people till now # Bapan Debbarma & Smitha Murthy – part of the The Ants Store initiative, Bangalore http://www.theant.org/ # Manoj Kshetrimayum – Student at Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology – Bangalore Film maker to broaden knowledge about the political situation in Manipur # Véronique Pérennou, therapist energetician and teacher in essential psychology # Kamal Raj, Founder of the Reap Benefit Company – about teaching to children http://reapbenefit.org/ # My three month internship experience at Lucie-lom atelier, Angers, France http://lucie-lom.fr/ Event: #Northeast Basket-ball Tournament organized by the Mizo Student Union of Bangalore

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Photo credits: #p4 New Delhi railway station by Solen Malrieu #p9,15,33,75,110,134 In the Indian train by Solen Malrieu #p54,98 Manoj Kshetrimayum by Solen Malrieu #p48 Map of the most and least racially tolerant countries in the world from the Washington post by Max Fisher #p50 Animated movie “Bécassine” released in 2001 by Phillipe Vidal #p58 Woman from the Missing tribe on Majuli Island, Assam, India by Solen Malrieu #p63 Man and little girl from the Missing tribe on Majuli Island, Assam, India

by Solen Malrieu #p66 Pictures of the football match that helped tame Nagaland’s conflict by Kazimuddin Ahmed #p72 Women protest the killing and alleged rape of Thangjam Manorama Devi with a banner “Indian Army Rape Us” at the army headquarters in Imphal in July 2004. by AFP/Getty Images #p77,83,97 Young girls living in Delhi by Tenzing Dakpa #p85,86,87 Northeast Basketball tournament in Bangalore by Hélène Thébault & Solen Malrieu #p93 A Bodo student with a painted face shouts as hundreds of thousands of Bodo tribal people gather demanding the creation of a new state of Bodoland

by Anupam Nath #p94 Young women from Kohima and Dimapur by Manou, wearabout blog #p 108 Kamal Raj from Reap Benefit working with children at school #p113 Footprints in St Joseph’s College in Bangalore #p114 My mentor Bapan Debarma at the Ants fairtrade Store #p117 Manoj Kshetrimayum in his video “Sail ‘awolnation’” #p118 Jenjum Gadi creations by Lamya Bhatri Ebrahim #p121 International Organization for Migration & La Cimade #p123 Errer Kozh/Vieilles Charrues festival, Carhaix (Brittany, France) #p125 Skteches by Lucie-lom for the exhibition about “Shadows and lights” #p126-127 Scenography by Lucie-lom for the exhibition about “Shadows and lights” #p139 “TV Show C’est pas Sorcier” #p132 CNA Mali (Mobile Numeric Cinema) #p148 One young muslim with a panel claiming «We are Indians first! Bangalore is for all Indians» by Michael Edwards Illustrations & Graphic work by Solen Malrieu

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Respect is the gratitude towards all those how preceded us and to whom we owe life. We have also inherited the past civilizations and all the earth. Respect is the force which through metamorphosis allows for the transmission of the inheritance from those of the past to those of the future. Respect covers everything that existed, exists and will exist.â&#x20AC;?

Master Huang Zhen Hui, Master taoist et buddhist from the Chen Yen tradition

Acknowledgements I would like to extend my gratitude to all who have participated from close or from afar in this thesis and the evolution of my Final Diploma Project.

Thank you Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique, Srishti School.

Warm thanks to Sabina Von Kessel and Kshitiz Anand for their help, their advices and generally for this two years spent in India.

Special thanks to Bapan Debbarma my tutor and Shalini Jagadish my proof-reader.

I thank everyone who has been supporting me, advising me during this Final Diploma Project. To everyone who I have met along my way and who have made me what I have become today, my ancestors, my family, my teachers and my friends, I thank you all.

Thank you to my father and my mother.

To all of you, thank you.

“This small book is a migrant.

Shall its ideas be spread, from pockets to night tables, from family dinners to coffee tables. Shall it be a messenger of an ambition, the one of changing the look on the migrants, and prone by a conviction, the one that humanity exists through the other.”

Jérôme Martinez – General Secretary of La Cimade

GO AWAY - SOLEN MALRIEU - L’ECOLE DE DESIGN NANTES ATLANTIQUE 2013/2014