The indigenous peoples of the Northeast Indian sub-continent are caught between a rock and a hard place. The growing Hindu nationalism on one hand and Muslim fundamentalism on the other has put the indigenous peoples of the region under two equally dangerous circumstances. For both of these two forces, the lands where the indigenous peoples live are all up for grabs and the people who live there are expendable. For them, the region is nothing more than a territory that must be kept or brought within their realm and the people there must be assimilated or integrated to the “mainstream” or simply pushed out. While one force is working on Akhand Bharat, the other is hatching the “inevitable” Brihot Bangladesh dream. Interestingly, both of these forces consider the region as a territory that must be dominated in order to achieve their goal and both forces have gained significant grounds in their respective endeavors. What is not interesting is that the fate of the indigenous peoples of the region is left hanging by a thread.
While Akhand Bharat or Hindu Rashtra or Bharatvarsha is now openly and boldly propagated by Hindu nationalists, the other is more secretive. This is because of the contemporary geo-political reality. The Northeast India region is under the dominion of India, and, therefore, it is a part of the Hindu Rashtra, they naturally believe. On the other hand, the Brihot Bangladesh or Greater Bangladesh proponents see the Northeast India region as lebensraum, a territory which they believe is needed for their “natural” development. Bangladesh, positioned at the base of the mighty Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna river system, is awashed by a total of 57 trans-boundary rivers that snake down to it. Flood, poverty and very high population density are the greatest drivers for Bangladeshis to migrate (illegally) to the Northeast region, they say. But there is another factor – geopolitics. The ‘Greater Bangladesh’ aspiration dates back to the pre-independent India/Pakistan era. In fact, the Muslim League had in 1947 prior to India’s and Pakistan’s Independence reportedly drawn a political map of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) which indicated the whole of present-day NE India falling within East Pakistan territory. Basing on this map, some utopian fundamentalist Islamic agencies are reportedly endeavoring to carve out an Islamic state out of NE India and then assimilate it with Bangladesh to form “Greater Bangladesh” or “Brihot Bangladesh” or “Bangistan,” as they term their utopian Islamic State.
The only solace is that the Myanmarese do not have any such aspirations although they once ruled over parts of Assam. Neither the military Junta nor the Buddhists have any known covert or overt aspiration to subsume the present day Northeast India region. Otherwise, that would have been one too many a force for the indigenous peoples of the region to deal with.