I keep reading about bihu taking Delhi by storm and being celebrated inside Mothers International School, Aurobindo Ashram -- it IS the best school in India -as per Outlook - as their mail said. So why not the Assamese in Delhi take up this mission to connect the NE creative writers with Delhi's academia. There are many students in delhi colleges also from Assam and rest of NE - why not they take up the constructive task.
How do you think Delhi based NGOs treat poor, illiterate Rajasthan?
Umesh
Ram Sarangapani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ram Sarangapani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Incidents like these give NGOs a bad name. Moreover, there seems to
some patronizing attitude toward the NE by Delhites. This is just
shameful!
If they were organizing events of this nature, they ought to do their homework.
--Ram
__________
Issue Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Help! We are from the N-E
SHILLONG NOTES / PATRICIA MUKHIM
It has become fashionable for sundry organisations based in New Delhi
to do something for the people of the Northeast. It almost seems as if
the natives are such a helpless lot that they are incapable of doing
anything for themselves.
Recently, a New Delhi-based non-governmental organisation (NGO),
claiming to be a publishing house and a non-profit organisation,
invited creative writers from the region for a three-day meeting. Two
prestigious schools, the Assam Valley School and Maria's Public
Schools, were also included among the invitees. The schools responded
in the hope that they would have a wonderful opportunity to interface
with other students from equally prestigious schools in Delhi. They
were deeply disappointed as the school that participated was not what
they expected it would be and they learnt nothing from the interface.
Assam and Manipur had a big contingent of creative writers, artists,
filmmakers, theatre personalities and journalists attending the
function. Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland had one
representative each. Prior to the event, the organisation had hyped
things up so much that several sponsors and donors agreed to pool
funds towards the projected expenditure for the three-day event.
Sponsors included DoNER, ONGC, the Union culture ministry and the
North Eastern Council (NEC). So keen were the organisers to make the
event a high-profile one that they also invited two mediaper! sons, one
each from Meghalaya and Manipur.
Those who responded to the call did so with the expectation that the
event would bring them face to face with policy planners and other
reputed writers of the capital. Nothing of the sort happened. Except
for a few members belonging to the organisation and New Delhi-based
students from the Northeast, there was hardly anyone from Delhi.
So, in retrospect, this was another of those vain attempts to
ostensibly flag critical issues of the region to a Delhi audience,
except that it turned out that almost all of the speakers in the panel
and also in the audience were people from the Northeast. Yet again,
people from the region are talking to themselves, about themselves and
for themselves. It just did not make any sense at all. We could have
had a similar gathering at any of the capital cities of the region at
very little cost. And we would not have required a New Delhi-based
organisation to! do the planning for us. We could have done that
ourselves.
For an event of that stature, one would have expected the metro media
to be attending in full strength. But that, too, was missing. The
event received little or no coverage at all. On the whole, the episode
was a big letdown. Things turned out to be even more nightmarish when
the organisation refused outright to refund the airfares of
participants they had specifically invited to be on different panels.
In fact, the entire event was so badly organised that people had to be
suddenly pulled out from among the audience to become panellists for
sessions they were ill-prepared for.
P.A. Sangma was asked to come for a session that was to start at 10
am. He arrived on the dot and sat through the session that he was a
panellist of, giving an incisive over-view of the Centre's perception
of the Northeast, which was well taken by the audience.
After the two-hour session, Sangm! a took leave because he had a
Parliament session to attend. Without taking cognisance of the MP's
hectic schedule and his more important duty of sitting in Parliament,
the organisers suddenly announced that Sangma would also chair an
afternoon session where school students would engage in a mock
parliament. Sangma was taken aback! He was not told of this
arrangement, he said. And he could not justifiably remain absent from
Parliament for the whole day. This blatant disrespect for protocol and
the propensity to take for granted anyone who is from the Northeast
was amply demonstrated by the organisers, showing yet again what scant
respect the mainstream really has even for political stalwarts from
the Northeast.
Another session, which was supposed to be attended by about 40 people
from different universities of Delhi, also had a lukewarm response.
There were precisely eight people from Jawaharlal Nehru University and
Delhi University ! who attended. The rest were all northeasterners.
Those who came did so because they were previously connected to the
region. There were no curious or interested spectators who would have
wanted to learn something more from the panel discussions.
The organisers made everyone believe they were actually hosting the
event on a shoestring budget. Hence, people were expected to rough it
out in a guesthouse with no air-conditioner, in the unbearable heat of
Delhi.
They were asked to share a room that was just about 10x10 in size.
Food was literally rationed out, and it was purely vegetarian.
Northeasterners are supposed to put up with this kind of treatment in
the national capital because they cannot expect any better. The very
fact that people were invited to come to New Delhi was seen as a great
favour done to the untamed natives. So they had better not complain!
This ludicrous show has taught every invitee to the function a lesson.
Unfortunately, the Union government, with its plethora of departments,
never learns from mistakes. The emergence of organisations like DoNER,
which are based in Delhi and seem to be flush with funds, has also
made them a happy hunting ground for organisations looking for easy
funding. DoNER seems ready to comply with anything that appears like a
remote attempt to "showcase the Northeast", as if the people here are
specimens to be dissected by the more evolved species of humans who
live in New Delhi.
A report in a Meghalaya-based local newspaper on Sunday, May 15, said
DoNER would use the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow, to
evaluate and monitor projects in the Northeast. Now why on earth
should an organisation based in Lucknow do this work?
The region has its own IIM at Guwahati in Assam, which is more than
competent to carry out such an exercise. But of course IIM, Guwahati,
may not have godfathe! rs in DoNER, so they will not get any projects,
right? What IIM, Lucknow, will do is sub-contract the research and
investigation part to a local NGO and pay them a pittance. Is this an
ethical practice? When we speak of IIM, Lucknow, we are actually
speaking of one faculty member from that institute who probably has
"friends" in DoNER. Should we in the Northeast remain passive
recipients of crumbs from DoNER? Is it not high time that we raise our
voices of protest against these attempts to short-change the region?
Perhaps one of the flaws of people here is that they are
mild-mannered, polite and soft-spoken, a culture alien to Delhi. The
average Delhiite sees these attributes as signs of weakness. That is
the crux of the matter and it shall always stand in the way of people
understanding each other. Some people think they can make themselves
heard better by shouting. Northeasterners consider that to be the
height of crudity and a comp! lete absence of civilised behaviour.
However, politeness does not mean allowing people to take you for
granted. People of the region need to unitedly chart out a masterplan
on how to prevent Delhi-based organisations who profess to do charity
for the Northeast from taking away funds meant for the genuine
development of human resources in the region.
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