FADING IMAGES

As many parts of the world, the hills of Northeast India, hidden between Bangladesh and Birma, were once covered by virgin forests and thinly inhabited by tribal people. Rainfall was abundant, the diverse vegetation and the fertile soils retained the water and fed the rivers throughout the year. Women collected plant food without degrading the natural resources. Men burned strips of forest to rout game or prepare for one-time crops. The bands of people were small and the forests vast enough to not being depleted. Spirits were felt living in the trees and rivers, plants and animals. 

It was not the paradise of Adam and Eve. The forest was full of danger. Spirits could be unnerving. Customs were harshly maintained to preclude overexploitation of nature, regulate life in the village and keep warfare with neighboring tribes within limits. The sense of belonging and meaning of life fitted the natural and social conditions without question. It all contributed to survival of the communities. 

From elsewhere modernity comes. The nation-state army and other state organizations directed from Delhi took over from the British. Transferred technologies increases production. Allopathic medicine makes more people live longer. Farmers start to sell wood on the market and raise cash-crops over large stretches of slope, impoverishing the bio-diversity and the capacity to retain water. Slash-and-burn practices become disastrous with increased populations and shrinking forest areas. During monsoons water and top soils wash away. The dry seasons see less water seeping through and river beds dry up. Slopes of bare rock appear in the aftermath of modernity. 

Privatization of land, individual market operations, northern-based school education, returning migrants, the television - all undermine the old behavioral patterns. As social sanctions erode, including for sexual behaviors, promiscuity is on the rise and contributes to epidemic forms of AIDS. Civil servants of local origin, not used to the impersonal expenditure of public funds, keep the money for themselves and neglect the maintenance of roads and terracing of slopes. 

The surface of modernity is embraced; deeper tribal identity is vanishing. Along with the erosion of slopes, the sense of belonging, meaning of life, and respect for the self, others, nature and the spiritual world disappear. 

While here we joggled in our jeep over bad roads, the last discussions with villagers in mind, it dawned on me that I had been humming a particular song for a while. Nina Simone ever sang it. It was about an originally African tribal woman, losing her identity and self-esteem in the hostile and fundamentally different society of New York. In vain I tried to remember the text. Once back home, I found it. It goes like this:

IMAGES  

She does not know her beauty

She thinks her brown body has no glory

If she could dance naked under palm trees

And see her image in the river

Then she would know, yes she would know

But there’re no palm trees on the street

No palm trees on the street

And dish water gives back no images 

The tribals of Northeast India, as in many parts of the world, are heading for something similar. They lose their nature and they lose their soul. Modernity is a bridge too far. The image in the river is fading away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMDQ6b_bEhs