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05/16/2005: "Review of the Forbidden Land by Thomas Farrell"


A
Review of Enter the Forbidden Land - the Quest for Nagalim" by Franz
Welman



Readers of Franz Welman's new book "Enter the Forbidden Land - The Quest for Nagalim" become aware of a small but growing international movement.
The goal of the movement is to expose the ongoing abuses inflicted by the Indian government on the tribal peoples living in the northeastern state of Nagaland. Indeed, it is Welman's purpose in writing this book to break down the wall of secrecy that has kept the atrocities committed by the Indian
army in Nagaland hidden from world scrutiny.

It is quite telling that it took a Dutch social activist, an outsider, to write such a book. Where, a reader inevitably asks, is the Indian social activist, the Indian politician with a conscience, the modern-day Gandhi if you will, to call attention to and bring a just resolution to what BBC News calls "the world's longest running conflict"?

Instead it is Welman, the Director of the Naga International Support Center located in Amsterdam, who takes on the challenge. The author recounts the history of how India, once the oppressed minority under British rule, became the oppressor once they acheived independence in 1947. This, of course, is
the incredible irony that Welman's book forces the reader to face, and that is why it is an important book.

In direct contradiction to Mahatma Gandhi's public promise to the Naga people in 1947, the Indian government refused to give the Naga people their independence. Ever since, India has used the military might of an occupying army to withhold a people's right to freedom. In the same way the
British thought of dark-skinned Indians as "the white man's burden", Indians came to think of the people of the Naga HiIls as violent savages and made their homeland a "protected area". This Orwellian use of language is used to thisday to justify continuing subjugation.

What Welman writes about is what sociologists call "ethnocentrism", the tendency of one social group to consider its culture superior to another.India, with its long history of a caste system, is a classic example of etnocentrism at work. The problem is that ethnocentrism can become especially evil when it turns to violent discrimination as happened in Nazi Germany's Holocaust.

"Enter The Forbidden Land - the Quest for Nagalim" presents evidence of Indian army atrocities both by reference to public documents and in anecdotal interviews with Naga victims. While not on the scope of the Nazi Holocuast, the Gestapo-like actions of some members of the Indian army protected by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act have much in common with the Nazi treatment of Jews in World War II. And, as Hitler tried to conceal the abominations he authorized, so too have India politicians tried to
hide their dark secret. Thanks to people such as Franz Welman, the truth is slowly being revealed.

Welman's book is important, but it is not without flaws. The author's use of the third person voice is a bit awkward and, at times, the book takes on the feel of a travel documentary, it distracts from his major theme. That said, Welman's recounting of his three unsuccessful attempts to enter Nagaland underscores the point about the Indian authorities' restriction of personal freedoms.

The challenge that this book takes on is a formidable one, something Welman recognizes as he writes about the skepticism that his message is likely to encounter:

"Nagas? Nagas, you say? A war in India where 150,000 died? 200,000 Indian troops fighting a guerilla outfit? Man, if this were true, everybody would know about it! It would be splashed all over the news. Are you crazy?"

Welman reminds readers that Indian politicians regularly refer to their government as "the world's biggest democracy" and, in fact, there is much that India has accomplished of which its people can be rightfully proud. Nagaland is just the opposite, a black mark on the country's history.

One can only hope that "Enter the Forbidden Land - the Quest for Nagalim" will find distribution both inside and outside of India. The author explicitly states his goal of increasing the world's awareness of what has happened and continues to happen in Nagaland. Implicit, however, is the call to Indian reporters, writers, film makers and, yes, even politicians to reveal the reality of what has happened in Nagaland to the general citizenry. That is what happens in democracies. That is how wrongs are
made right.

Who knows - maybe an especially courageous Indian politician will work to see that India keeps the promise Gandhi made so long ago when he said to a delegation of Nagas: "The Nagas have every right to be independent. We did not want to live under the domination of British India, but I want you to
feel India is yours . . . If you do not wish to join the union of India, nobody will force you to do that."

Tom Farrell - Author of "An American in Nagaland"

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