At the Northeastern Zonal Council meeting in January, the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, said that Pakistan's ISI was behind the insurgency in the region. Others accuse groups such as the drug mafia, the intelligence agencies and Christian missionaries of fermenting unrest in the region. But they do not explain why people join the underground. They would not unless they were alienated. Hence the need to look at the causes.

One has to understand first the failure of many "mainland" Indians to recognise cultural and ethnic differences. For example, reacting to Mr. P. A. Sangma's views on the foreign origin issue, a prestigious weekly commented that he would have problems proving his Indian origin because of his Chinese looks and because he is not intelligible either in English or Hindi. On Sanskrit New Year's day in July 1999 the Northeastern news of Doordarshan stated that Sanskrit was the mother of all Indian languages. Out of India's 1,652 mother-tongues, 420 are spoken in the Northeast, only a handful of them of Sanskrit origin. Many in the Northeast revolt against this lack of respect for their identity or as D. N. Datta says, the tendency "to take the degree of Aryanisation as the measure of Indianisation".

Diversity causes tensions within the region too. Out of India's 67.76 million tribals, 8.14 million live in its seven States. Some such as the Bodos are plains tribals while most are hill tribes. A few such as the Aka of Arunachal Pradesh are small in number while others such as Bodos, Dimasas, Garos, Kasis and Mizos are numerous. In three States they are more than 80 per cent and in one, two-thirds. But they are very few in the populous States of Assam, Manipur and Tripura. The Bodo-Kachari, a third of the tribals in the Northeast, are only 3.7 per cent of Assam's 20 million population. In Tripura the tribals have declined from 56 per cent in the Fifties to 30 per cent today. The 45 lakh Adivasis, whose forefathers were brought by the British in the 19th century from Jharkand to work in the tea gardens, are considered foreigners. Most tribes oppose their inclusion in the Schedule for fear that they will compete for the few jobs available. Literacy is high. Arunachal Pradesh was 71.08 per cent literate in 1991 and Mizoram 94.22 per cent. Four States have tribals as their political leaders. But the towns where economic decisions are made are dominated by non-tribals, mostly from outside the region. Hence the unequal tribal-non- tribal and inter-tribal power relations and conflicts that are not exclusively religious or cultural or economic.

The tribals resent non-tribal domination. The latter consider themselves indigenous. Both resent the economic control of outsiders and their "one nation one culture" stand. This opposition expresses itself in terms of nationality, identity and ethnicity. Ethnic consciousness grows, many small tribes merge their identity into one and develop a belief in a common origin as the Nagas and the Mizos have done. But the expression of their demands for an autonomous economy, culture and identity changes according to the type of leaders. The chiefs want to protect their resources as well as the traditional ways of using them. Secessionist demands usually come from them. The educated elite demand control over resources and a share in the benefits of the modern system. Normally they want autonomy. Both want to safeguard their identity.

The conflict has its origin in history. The colonialists needed Assam mainly for its tea and later petroleum, and treated much of the region as a buffer zone against Burma and China. They modified the control mechanisms such as the Ahom posa system, i.e. compensation to the hill tribes in lieu of the dues they were entitled to in the conquered territories.

The difference with what the Ahoms had done earlier is that to popularise the finished products of the industrial revolution, the British de-industrialised India that had developed a manufacturing base. In the Northeast it involved destroying the tribal craft that competed with Manchester textiles. The Bodo- Kacharis are an example of trade expansion causing tension. After their conquest, the Udalguri mart, till then their main barter point, became an important trading centre. Since they were not very familiar with monetary transactions, Ahom merchants took control of trade and of cultivation since much of the trade was in agricultural produce. It increased land alienation that began with the Permanent Settlement, 1793, and the Assam Land Act, 1834. Then came the move to settle Bengali peasants, 90 per cent of them Muslims, on "wasteland" that was their livelihood. These developments laid the foundation of Bodo-Ahom enmity on the one hand and with the Muslims on the other. Similarly, the colonialists' dependence on the traditional leaders to control the masses in Manipur resulted in tribal-Meitei as well as Naga- Kuki enmity.

The British opposed the process of the tribals coming together. Many Naga tribes had joined against the British. Missionary intervention facilitated this identity expansion. Their conversion itself was an offshoot of their efforts to protect their identity. They had seen how the Meitei and Ahom had been Sanskritised and were afraid of being subjected to the same homogenising process. That is when conversions to Christianity increased among them. The missionaries did little to protect their culture but provided the organisational structure they required to come together. In Mizoram, the creation of Burma divided the Chins. The Partition divided them again. So those who remained in India had to find a new identity. That is a reason why conversions began around 1907.

That conversions were a response to the changes is confirmed also by the fact that when an alternative was available that combined social reform with protection of identity, they opted for it. The Bodos, sandwiched between the British planters, Ahom traders and Bengali peasants, moved to the north where they faced competition from Nepali migrants. The lower bureaucracy in Assam was dominated by the Ahoms and the higher level by the Bengalis. They saw themselves falling behind both in education and administrative and political power with none to protect their interests. Some converted to Christianity near Kokrajar in the 1920s. But when their leader Kallicharan Brahma was converted to a Hindu sect that combined religion with social reforms, conversions to Christianity all but stopped.

To understand it one should debunk the myth of the missionary's alliance with the colonialist. Most missionaries in the Northeast were American Baptists and Methodists while most British administrators were Presbyterians and Anglicans. Relations between the two were cool. Leadership added to the tension. Colonial economic control depended on the traditional chiefs and on divide and rule while conversion provided the organisational structure required to bring the warring tribes together. The missionary concentrated on education from which new leaders emerged. His new morality and the modern leaders were a threat to the chiefs. Though eventually they too converted, the difference in their approach persisted.

By and large the traditional chiefs supported the British while the new leaders joined the freedom movement because they viewed the state as a modern institution. But the two were united in their effort to protect their identity. So even while joining the freedom fighters the latter were suspicious of their homogenising tendency. The decisive moment was the Japanese invasion. A. Z. Phizo, a traditional chief, succeeded in bringing 27 tribes together under one umbrella. That increased the power of the chiefs.