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STATE/ARUNACHAL PRADESH

Karishma -- following grandma’s footsteps. for me. I had to overcome the phase to shape my dream,” she says. On the sidelines of Kathak, she began her long innings with Bharatnatyam. She found another master in Thankumani Kutty, the doyen of Bharatnatyam. When drawn into a comparison between the two Gurus, she says, “I don’t have any first choice. Both were alike. While Kutty was a strict disciplinarian, Mishra was more liberal. They were not just my Gurus—much beyond that. Besides learning the trade and building my character, I had learnt a lot from the two.” In the face of music losing its purity, due to the onslaught of fusion, Erika is probably the one among a handful, who wants to maintain the finesse of music. “Given the choice of striking a balance between the two extremes — earning of livelihood and maintaining purity of music — I will opt for the latter. I belong to 50

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conventional school of musicians. With fusion, pure music loses its charm and beauty,” she says. On the grooming of her granddaughter Karishma, a little prodigy in classical dance, in her towering presence, she says, “Karishma started dancing at a tender age. I was moved seeing her steps and movements, when she was just two. She has it in her to make it big. It’s her choice whether she opts for it as a career or not.” What’s her message to budding talents? “Preserve and promote your own form of art and culture,” she says. Apart from being a musician, she is an expert on languages. Besides German, she has mastered fluency over English, French, Hindi, Bengali and Assamese. She is also an avid reader of short stories and a keen lover of documentary films. Then, how does she spend leisurely hours? “Reading books and watching

IN THE ARENA documentaries keep me engaged. I have gone through a novel written by eminent littérateur, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee. I listen to music too—both western and oriental, including Rabindra Sangeet.” How does she relate dance to her being? For Erika, life is charmless sans dancing. “I cannot think of a life existing without dance. It has mystic power. Dance is my heart. Dance is my soul. To me, dance is pure ecstasy—a celebration of life,” she says in a reminiscing mood. Erika, having performed in a number of countries including Germany, Belgium and Denmark, has also done stage shows in Kolkata, New Delhi, Lucknow and Allahabad among some other cities in India. On her maiden visit to Arunachal Pradesh, Erika won over the hearts of music buffs of the state capital, with her Bharatnatyam presentations—Sabdam and Thodayam Mangalam. Having started with Sabdam, a dance in praise of Lord Krishna, Vishnu and Shiva, set to seven beats, she enthralled the capacity audience. It reached the peak with her concluding performance, Thodayam Mangalam, in praise of Sri Rama, based on Ragamalika and Talamalika (a set of ragas and beats). The promising Karishma also regaled the gathering with her impressive presentations, Ganeshstuti, a dance in praise of Ganesha as son of Lord Shiva, and Jatiswaram, a rhythmic dance. The musical evening was organized by Nrityangan Dance & Music Academy, the leading music school in the state capital, at Vivekananda Hall in Itanagar, to mark the Vasant Utsav. On getting a rousing reception from the music buffs, Erika says: “I am delighted to find such audience, who wholeheartedly applauded my performance. I would love to be here again.” Before tying the knot with Simanta, Erika wanted to travel around the world, with folk songs in her kitty. Perhaps, here comes the moment, as she goes along singing, one of her favourite songs by Rabindranath Tagore: Mono mor meghero sangee, oore chole dikdigantero paane… (My mind is the companion of the cloud, flying far and wide to the endless horizon).

Subir

Bhaumik

Negotiations only option TOUGH SEASON. At a time when ULFA takes a beating for many of its cadres laying down arms, its struggle for self assertion loses its teeth and unleashes a tough season of political maneuvering.

I

always upset my friends in West Bengal and Assam when I tell them that the baboo bhadraloks and the dangoriyas don’t understand the Indian state. Gandhi’s morally inspiring non-violence, Nehru’s western liberalism, Subhas Bose’s federalist thinking of India as “a collection of mutually supportive republics” – none of these ever found a place in the statecraft of post-colonial India. Though he did not live long after Indian independence, Sardar Patel left an indelible mark on the statecraft of independent India. The way he used the methods of Kautilya to integrate the princely states – among them my own state Tripura and our historic neighbour Manipur – made a lasting impression on those who ran India in the years after 1947. Because Patel achieved the huge task of integrating hundreds of princely states by a combination of “Sham, Dam, Danda, Bhed” and made a very difficult task look rather easy. He persuaded, he cajoled and threatened and when nothing worked, he either split the ruler and the people or used the Indian army (like in Hyderabad). So Nehru adopted Patel’s methods and gave up his liberalism when he faced the first ethnic insurrection of modern India -- in the Naga Hills. He first sent the army to control the situation, then he engaged the Naga moderates and gave them the 16-point agreement that created the Nagaland state, and he continued to use force and negotiations alter-

natively to neutralise the impact of the Naga insurrection. His daughter, Indira Gandhi, carried the process forward by using Kautilyan methods more ruthlessly, splitting the Naga rebel movement twice before signing the Shillong Accord in 1975. And what an accord – just a page to express the desire to sign a final settlement. And now the Naga rebel leaders who opposed the Shillong Accord as a “great betrayal” are themselves in a bind – negotiating with Delhi for eleven years now without getting anywhere near a settlement. The fiery Muivah, the first rebel leader of the sub-continent to trek hundreds of kilometres to China, at the head of a formidable rebel band, at the peak of the Cultural Revolution, is now in a deep soup with the mandarins on North Block. Would I be exaggerating if I say the great Muivah has been tamed at the table, if not in battle? India has not managed to resolve most of the ethnic conflicts or separatist challenges because it does not take the spirit of federalism seriously. But with its Kautilyan tactics, it has managed to contain and control most of these movements. So much so that there is no real threat of any region breaking away -like Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan or East Timor from Indonesia. I dont hold brief for the Indian state and have always been rather critical of its unitary, centralising tendencies. I have always said that separate existence and

distinctive political and cultural evolution of the regions have been the real history of India. For our 5000 years of recorded history, only 700 to 800 years have witnessed some trans-regional empires like those of the Maurayas and the Guptas, the Delhi Sultans and the Mughals and finally the British. Independent India would have done well to recognise this historical precedent, which has created a duality – or rather a multiplicity of identities. So, one has good reason to be a proud Tamil, a proud Bengali, a proud Assamese or a proud Naga and then accept the overarching identity of being Indian. It is wrong to impose the Indian identity as a national identity. India, for me, is a civilisational identity but only when that civilisational identity accommodates the enormous diversity within. If it is only a Gangetic identity – the whole concept of one mainstream – I cannot accept it. The men who rule India want to impose the mainstream on all of us. And that creates the sharp reactions so evident now. But that is another debate. The fact is that the Indian state changes its colour when it handles a separatist challenge. Sometimes it pushes for persuasion and reconciliation, sometimes for subversion and sometimes for ruthless use of force. The ULFA has been at the receiving end of this Kautilyan statecraft because it never tried to understand the Indian state. In that, it was no different from the Bengal Naxalites who perished in hundreds during the state terror of 1971-72. What makes the Indian state different from Pakistan is that it uses force when necessary but avoids any overkill like that of the Pakistan army in 1971. It packages force with co-option. If you fall in line, you get chairmanship of autonomous councils or even become chief minister (like August 08

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