IDENTITY CRISIS

~ Zacharia Varte

The plane began to descend for Frankfurt airport and from the small window to my right I could see the glimmering shine of the city. ‘Hello Frankfurt’ I said to myself, feeling a little guilty that I didn’t even know how to say ‘hello’ in German.
Like a typical Indian, I unfastened my seatbelt as soon as the flight came to halt, took out my cabin baggage and scurried along the aisle with a great determination to outpace my co passengers.

After never ending escalators and directions I finally reached the Passport Controls where a perfect single file queue was formed by people holding Indian Passports. Do people changed their surroundings or is it vice versa? Or did the seven and half hour flight somehow elevate the so called Indian ‘sanskar’ from deep within the ‘atma’? I guess I’ll never know.

As I pondered over these not so philosophical questions, my turn came and the officer on duty saw my passport, my Indian passport! There was a certain expression, which I could not comprehend on his otherwise unanimated face. That was the first of the many inscrutable expressions which I was about to see in my coming days as I, the Chinese looking boy claimed to be Indian. Little did I realize that I would have to answer weird, very weird questions even from people whom I thought were intelligent enough to know India is synonymous with diversity. Here are my three of my personal favorites: Q1. You must Indian Chinese then? Q2. Are you mixed? Q3. Were you adopted?

INDIAN? ARE YOU SURE?

Although patriotism is something that I very much lack in, I would still not lie about my nationality. There’s no denying that India is still considered to be land of slums and downright poverty and when it comes to civic sense Indians pretty much are down there. But there’s also no denying that there are things that make you feel good to be an Indian. To state a few of them: being the world’s largest democracy, unity in diversity, tolerance towards all and of course ST quota. Then one day an incident happened which shook the very foundation of my microscopic chinky patriotism.

I was with my dearest aunt Elizabeth, waiting for an underground train in a busy station. Standing next to us were an Indian (he totally looked typical Indian) man and a girl, most probably his daughter. The train arrived and as soon as the doors opened the ‘father-daughter’ duo rushed in blocking the passengers who were to alight thus creating a little bedlam. I felt a tremor from my head to toe as other commuters rolled their eyes, even when we were already in our seats I couldn’t look up and almost wished I could apologize on their behalf. Then I suddenly realized that I do not look like them, after all I am the Chinese/Thai/Japanese/Singaporean/Native American looking boy. Then I looked up and started complaining to my aunt about how the ‘vais’ would never change in a loud voice deliberately trying to let my Hmar sound like Chinese or some other exotic Asian language. Sarang hae anyone? Even so it did not take long for me to realize that there is a small booklet in my pocket which clearly states where I belong. Identity crisis!!!

HMAR or MIZO

The real identity crisis came however when I started mingling among the north east Indian population namely the Dongs of Sikkim, the Nagas of Nagaland and Manipur. Who am I? Even the Kabui-Naga woman on the seventh floor of our building had only vaguely heard about a tribe called Hmar. And if I am Hmar, why do I keep listening to Mizo songs? How is it that I can speak passable Mizo? I have not even visit Mizoram leave alone staying there long enough to pick up the language.
Then finally one evening over dinner I explained to our Naga (Ao) host who I really am or at least think I am. I began by stating that Mizo like Naga is simply a collective name for many sub tribes but over the years due to many factors Mizo has been legitimately accepted as being synonymous to the Lushai speaking populace. I also explained that Mizo is the lingua franca of the various Mizo sub tribes and thanks to the wine, I even stated that if Mizo is Hindi then Hmar is Punjabi.

Ten minutes later I concluded by posing the same question a friend (Mizoram Hmar) asked me on facebook: if Hmars are not Mizo then who the hell are Mizos? My aunt joined me on the lecture talking about Mizo Union, Sikpui Kut etc. The summary of her otherwise diplomatic speech was this: She is very proud to be Hmar and being Hmar alone is quite enough.

MANMASI OR MANASSEH

Just when I thought that the case pertaining to my identity had been closed for good, it was in fact going to be re opened and I might have to probably join THE public debate.

We (me and my aunt) reached Tel Aviv in the wee hours of a cold February morning, tired and hungry. Then the unapologetic airline staff told us our baggage had been left behind at Amsterdam and the next flight from Amsterdam is only on the next day. But even that could not dampen our spirit; after all we were in the Holy Land! The very same terrain where our Lord Jesus had walked in flesh and blood, healed and fed the multitude.

A wise friend of mine once told me that it does not take much effort to irritate me; he was and is still right. I started getting really annoyed when every shopkeeper in Jerusalem started asking: where are you from? Same story with the taxi drivers, then at a restaurant in Jericho I lost my cool when the waitress asked me the same irritating question. I replied that I do not know where I am from and if she has all the time in the world she can find it out herself. I also convinced my aunt not leave any tips.

As if the incident at the restaurant wasn’t enough, my aunt and Ruth Khawbung, who by the way is a student in Haifa, NOT a Jewish convert type, started the ‘Are we the Lost Tribe?’ conversation. Since I could not bear another identity question, I cut off their conversation saying that we are not Israelites because we are Chinkies and a hundred years before our ancestors were hunting and foraging in thick jungles, not learning the Torah.

FULL CIRCLE

After my two and a half months stay at a foreign land I came back to a not so foreign land called Delhi. At least the immigration officer wasn’t shocked seeing my passport. After all, I am not a foreigner; I’m just a chinky here. And as I write down these thoughts I can’t help but keep a hopeless smile on my face because I am Mizo- Hmar boy, listening to a classical Hindi song while jotting down my thoughts in English. I just hope I am not the only one in this pit.

(March 2011, New Delhi)

FEMINISM IN HMAR

~Zacharia Varte

Feminist writings or movements barely exist in the history of our tribe. A deeper analysis of some Hmar literature may reveal hidden messages on women’s right and empowerment but an explicit movement or literature is hardly to be found. It may be safer to say that feminism has never been a part of our history. A few articles that I have read with a women centric theme dwell more on the duty of women as a mother, caregiver and homemaker.

I would like to stretch the border of this article to include all Mizo women, but even a brief research (if one can call it) on the position of Hmar women proved to be quite a task for me. This article however is not a research paper or a dissertation, it is what it is: an article.

Though the issue of status of women in our society is something that has always intrigued me, what prompted me to write this article were the discussions that were going on in the various groups/discussion forums (in Hmar) on facebook. The subsequent chat that I had with a self proclaimed anti-feminist made me think that this could be the right time to put my thought into words.

What is Feminism?

Feminism, in simple terms, can be called an ideology or movement that strives to achieve political, social and economical equality for women vis a vis men. It can be also said that a feminist is a person who sees women as a subordinated group and thus works (or ideologically supports) for women emancipation.

Any text on gender issues will tell you that there are different varieties of feminist theories like liberal feminist theories, radical feminist theories, Marxist and so on. To dwell on these theories will only make us deviate from our main theme.

Women of our Society

A brief glance at the status of women in our society shows a very pretty utopian picture. Women are as free as men and there is hardly any evidence to say that women lack behind in the economic, social or political fields. However, a closer look is a must to really comprehend the position of women. Our situation is tricky in the sense that we live in a modern liberal-democratic nation where women enjoy as much freedom as men legally but are subjected to various social prejudices.

Women have equal access to education but are they given the same quality of education as their brothers? Do our women have equal property rights under our customary laws? How often does a woman win the child custody rights in case of divorce? Alimony! What’s that?

The above rhetorical questions clearly show that women are not seen as equal. What has caused this inequality? Is it natural or manmade? To look for all the answers to these questions in the western feminist ideology would be, in my opinion, naïve. The western feminism thought had begun since Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792 maybe even before that. We must look for a way to interpret these thoughts to suit our society. In other words, feminists of our society must start from the very beginning.



Basics: End and Beginning

In everyday usage gender denotes the biological sex of individuals. To a feminist there is a huge difference between sex and gender. While sex denotes a human male and female depending on biological features, gender indicates man and woman depending on social and cultural factors. Long story short, one maybe born as a male or female biologically but a woman or man is socially produced. One maybe born a female but society and culture make sure she turns into a woman. Society then attaches a particular set of characteristics to a specific gender.

Characteristics such as power, rationality, courage, are associated with men and masculinity (pa), while weakness, timidity and the likes are applied to women and femininity (nu). There is no debate that it is the male gender that gets associated with the more ‘favorable’ set of characters. Feminists therefore argue that females are not born with these women characteristics but it is society that makes sure that female sex is the weaker sex.

How did this happen in our society? How did we start to associate a particular character to a specific sex? There can be two main reasons for this phenomenon. One, we were a nomadic tribe who depended largely on hunting animals for food and two, we were more often than not engaged in inter tribe wars. Male, being physically stronger, became the bread earner and protector while the female was mainly confined to her home. Didn’t Christianity change that? It certainly did to a large extent, but it also brought another form of subjugation: religious subjugation.

The blessings of Christianity were first enjoyed by the men. They were the first ones to get education, white collar jobs etc. One needs to look no further than the various books published to commemorate the Gospel centenary year (2010) to make this conclusion. The blessings gradually trickled down to women but were also alongside subjugated by Bible-thumping fundamentalists who saw/see all women as the cursed Satan’s helper Eve. So women may have been relatively free as compared to the hunting-warring days but the new faith demolishes any hope of them becoming equal with men.

The discussion can end here if we think we should go back to those ages when Rih Dil was thought to be the gateway to pielral. The argument for women emancipation has no validity if we are willing to go back to the time when slavery was justified, democracy a distant dream, where one should obey the ruler no matter what, where everything white was gold.

For many the debate does stop here. To many, feminism is a pseudo-ideology, something that shall never be attained because it’s not meant to be. But for some, this is where the debate really begins.

Feminists are not those who blatantly shout that men and women are equal. Feminists acknowledge that women and men are not equal and also believe that this inequality is manmade. Social constructions of gender can be deconstructed and then reconstructed. Given a chance, women are as capable as men.

However, in my opinion, the new spokespeople of women’s right in our society leap too far and too soon. As mentioned before, western feminist movement began from a time when our forefathers and of course our foremothers were still ‘undiscovered’ (for want of a better word).  So although the cry for a woman pastor or church elder may be a very plausible one, the whole debate needs to stem from the base. Having a woman pastor will not automatically improve the status of women in the society.



Where Do We Start?

The way gender is defined and the implication of the definition has already been mentioned. I believe that to remove any kind of social inequalities it is paramount to acknowledge that both the sexes are biologically equal. Courage, wisdom, strength and capabilities are formed according to the environment where one is brought up. Males are physically stronger but females procreate, this should be viewed as different capabilities. It should not be used as a means of suppression of either of the sexes.

Now that it is established that gender inequality exists and that it’s also manmade, the next step is to identity and remove the barriers that obstruct the march to equality. The chief causes for subordination today are the Bible verses that explicitly state that women are inferior to men. The argument can be attacked on two grounds.

First, we can start by simply asking why the Bible especially Apostle Paul kept women beneath men. Has it ever occurred to these Bible thumpers it could simply be because women, as mentioned many times, were unequal to men because of social circumstances? Did not the Bible say almost the same thing about new converts? What if men and women had the same social status at that point of time? Would the Bible still say the same things about women? Isn’t the Bible just reflecting the cultural settings of those times?

Of course, the Eve factor comes to light again. She was cursed by God to be subservient to her husband. The last time I checked that curse was broken on Calvary by Jesus who said that ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’.

The second argument against this belief can be made on secular ground or simply put, the separation of state and church. Whether we want to believe or not there will be a day in our evolution as a society when religion and state shall be seen as two different institutions, the day when society cannot be ruled from the Bible. And at that day, the argument that women are inferior to men because the Bible says so, may not be so plausible.

Before I myself leap too far too soon, there is a need to mention some pressing issues that needs to be tackled immediately. These issues do not even reach the level of women empowerment; they need to be first removed to start any form of gender empowerment possible. The issues are domestic violence, rape, marital rape, sexual harassment etc. Sure there are laws that deal with these issues, but how many women are actually aware of these laws? Even if they are aware, most of the above mentioned crimes that happen within the society are judged according to the customary laws which are highly unfavorable to women to say the least.

The issue of gender inequality is a complex one. The condition of Hmar women in Delhi will be different at all levels to that of those say, in Senvon. Similarly, the social status and freedom of an economically independent woman will differ from that of a housewife. The task now is to remove the biases of the society and strive towards equality for all including women. How a society thinks it can prosper when half of the population is subjugated is beyond my intelligence and knowledge.

Note: I personally do not give much weight to the term sex and gender as in male-female vs. men-women. I give more importance to characterization of a particular sex which makes one sex inferior to the other. Therefore, I specifically used male-female in lieu of men-women only when I feel it is of absolute necessity. 

BURQA AND PUON

~Zacharia Varte, New Delhi

I’m neither a philosopher nor a thinker. I guess I’m just too lazy to be one or may be just not scholarly enough to dwell on a particular subject and draw conclusions about it. But of late a train of thoughts has crossed my mind which I am compelled to write as I can no longer keep it to myself.

My first ‘thought’ or ‘theory’ as a pseudo-thinker was this: Boredom is NOT what you feel when you have nothing to do.  One can have a thousand things to do and yet feel very very bored. I was bored to death while I was thinking about this. I had many things to do and I did do them as slow as I could have, even as the voices in my head kept telling me: get a life!

As I mentioned before one thought led to another, so as I was thinking about boredom, its meaning, causes and cure when another thought struck  my mind: Being bored can make you go bonkers. So in the middle of the night I logged out of my facebook and decided to watch Alice in Wonderland. Say what you want but this movie somehow wraps my heart and veils my consciousness until I myself wonder in Underland every time I watch it.

I finished watching the movie and decided to emulate the Mad Hatter with a hope that it would somehow sweep away this dullness. Like the Mad Hatter I started to think of random words that start with different letters.  I began with the letter ‘V’ and all that came to my mind was ‘Varte’ and ‘Valerie’ (LMAO). Then I jumped to ‘B’; bawngsa, bawngchek, Basic Instinct, buffalo and then Burqa. Somehow the word burqa hooked me. ‘But why would it?’ I asked myself.

Burqa and the controversies surrounding it had never affected me directly. I am not a Muslim and even if I did belong to that group of orthodox Muslims being a boy I wouldn’t need to wear it. Then all at once my mind travelled back to the time when the Department of Music and Youth Affairs (HCF Delhi) was organizing the 4^th Youth Conference. As our group were discussing ‘what to wear’ during the choir completion I suggested or rather vehemently argued that all the ladies should be dressed in the traditional puonlaisen.

The greatest opposition came from people whom I thought would have supported me. The most prominent argument was that it would be literally impossible to wear puonlaisen in such a hot and humid climate and that since men do not have to wear, they consequently do not understand the atrocities of wearing such a heavy and ornamental puon. The only counter argument I could give was that the boys would also have to wear a tie. Needless to say all the ladies wore the traditional puon and the men, their tie. The suggestion for men to wear a formal coat was immediately shunned, primarily because of the weather and also because not everyone owns a coat. It may be noted here that some of the girls also had to borrow puonlaisen.

Few questions arise: Does such a diktat for women amount to subordination? Did the issue of women having to wear puon stem out of the traditional belief that women are subservient to men? Can it even be called objectification of women? So does the issue of puon somehow run parallel to that of burqa?

In our final year of BA (Political Science) we were given a choice between two subjects for the last paper; United Nations Organization (UNO) and Women and Political Process (Feminism). Since I could not bear the thought of learning the various resolutions of UNO verbatim and also because I consider myself to be quite a feminist (having been brought up by two incredible women), I chose Women and Political Process. As I had hoped, the class was fun with lots of discussion on various issues pertaining to women. It goes without saying that our teacher, Ms. Namita Pandey is a feminist inside out.

In one of our classes, as we were discussing topics relating to traditional subordination of women, I raised the issue of how society over the years have always issued a diktat on the way women should dress and that women alone are somehow given the responsibility of upholding traditional attires. I argued that while nobody has a problem with the Prime Minister wearing fine western suits, imagine the hullabaloo the media would create had Sonia Gandhi or Sushma Swaraj wore a western outfit to a public function. I pressed that this itself shows the subordination of women right from the top.

Every student in the class including myself thought that our teacher would shed tears of joy if not give me an extra mark in internal assessment. Fortunately, we were all wrong. What she said changed my whole feminist-perspective on women and the way they dress. She said that it is about ‘responsibility’. According to her; since ancient times, almost in every culture women are seen as an ambassador of culture especially when it comes to attire. This is an area where women have always held a higher task and power than men.

I couldn’t agree more with my teacher. The way a woman dress in the privacy of her home is her prerogative, but when it comes to public she holds a certain privilege and liability. Women clothes and female models dominating the various fashion events around the world is in itself a good example of women dominance in this sphere. Come to think of it, women in top brass politics should themselves take up the mission of honoring the traditional attire of the nation and culture they represent.

Looking at it in the context of our society, we the males, no matter how much we may feel the need to uphold and uplift our traditional attires can do very little in the practical ground. Women are needed here to practice what we all ideally want. Therefore, when women are asked to wear a certain traditional puon for a particular gathering, it is not subordination but rather a progressive outlook that women are far more capable of doing this task. If we refuse to see it this way, it would either result in society without its own cultural attire or a society full of cross dressers. (No offence intended).

Thus, I think it can be safely said that the burqa and puon cannot be compared. First, when we say burqa we aren’t talking about a head scarf, hijab or a shawl. A burga is a full on purdah enveloping a woman to make sure that no part of her body be seen in public. I agree with the view that a burqa is a symbol of repression of women. It clearly states that women should barely have a public life, leave alone the physical discomfort of the woman wearing it. Puon on the other hand is a symbol of women’s ability to showcase her traditional dresses in the most fashionable way. I believe it to be a symbol of emancipation, power and dignity.

This however does not mean the patriarchs have every right to direct how a woman should dress in every occasion. That definitely would be subordination. The women themselves need to acknowledge that this is their distinctive area of authority and hence also hold responsibility. In this age of neo-liberalism, a diktat would only lead to a rebellion.

The next big question arise: Are men free to dress however they want? I would like to say yes, but the truth is with freedom comes responsibility. Although it is entirely the individual’s privilege to be constricted in Korean influenced skintight jeans, there is a time and place for everything.  Not that I’m calling these fashions indecent, but come on, skintight jeans and skull T- shirt in a church? What are people trying to prove? Call me old fashioned but if you consider yourself to be a fashionista, dress according to the occasion. Moreover, how one dresses to church or for that matter to a social function is not just between the individual and the creator. It is also between you and the other people attending that gathering. In places like Delhi the equation includes all those people who see you going in and out of the gathering. If we consider ourselves to be progressive enough to value liberalism, I think we should also be advanced enough to acknowledge the image that we project to the outside world.

This essay is not intended to hurt anyone’s sentiments. I, in no way claim to be the epitome of all things cultural. As I have mentioned before, this is just a thought, a thought born out of boredom. But thoughts are the genesis of a social change, thoughts are the beginning of the basic principles that we live and die for today, including liberalism.

 

(zac.varte19@gmail.com)

(8 October 2011, New Delhi)