Main Article Content
Abstract
A huge hoarding at the turning of the main road leading towards Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh, blatantly announced in bold letters-“Bangladeshis go back.” Not only the gall that oozed out of every word, but the way such announcement of hatred is authenticated by a public hoarding exposes the dynamics of ethnic intolerance and violence that characterizes this beautiful region in the northeast of India, loosely referred to as the North-East.
This paper is my attempt to understand the word ‘Bangladeshi’ or ‘bongal’that intrigued me when I first came to stay in the North East as a stranger. It is, I realized, a derogatory word used against a group of migrants who form an important part of the North East’s economy. Why are they hated? What is it that makes them so invincible? How do they survive the endemic intolerance and violence carried out against them? In my paper I would try to find them a legitimate space in the history of the North East.