STATE/ARUNACHAL PRADESH
documentaries keep me engaged. I have
Karishma -- following grandma’s footsteps.
for me. I had to overcome the phase to
shape my dream,” she says.
On the sidelines of Kathak, she be-
gan her long innings with Bharatnatyam.
She found another master in Thanku-
mani Kutty, the doyen of Bharatnatyam.
When drawn into a comparison between
the two Gurus, she says, “I don’t have
any first choice. Both were alike. While
Kutty was a strict disciplinarian, Mishra
was more liberal. They were not just
my Gurus—much beyond that. Besides
learning the trade and building my char-
acter, I had learnt a lot from the two.”
In the face of music losing its purity,
due to the onslaught of fusion, Erika is
probably the one among a handful, who
wants to maintain the finesse of music.
“Given the choice of striking a balance
between the two extremes — earning of
livelihood and maintaining purity of mu-
sic — I will opt for the latter. I belong to
50 August 08
Subir
conventional school of musicians. With
fusion, pure music loses its charm and
beauty,” she says.
On the grooming of her grand-
daughter Karishma, a little prodigy in
classical dance, in her towering presence,
she says, “Karishma started dancing at a
tender age. I was moved seeing her steps
and movements, when she was just two.
She has it in her to make it big. It’s her
choice whether she opts for it as a career
or not.” What’s her message to budding
talents? “Preserve and promote your own
form of art and culture,” she says.
Apart from being a musician, she is
an expert on languages. Besides German,
she has mastered fluency over English,
French, Hindi, Bengali and Assamese.
She is also an avid reader of short stories
and a keen lover of documentary films.
Then, how does she spend leisurely
hours? “Reading books and watching
gone through a novel written by eminent
littérateur, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee. I
listen to music too—both western and
oriental, including Rabindra Sangeet.”
How does she relate dance to her
being? For Erika, life is charmless sans
dancing. “I cannot think of a life exist-
ing without dance. It has mystic power.
Dance is my heart. Dance is my soul. To
me, dance is pure ecstasy—a celebra-
tion of life,” she says in a reminiscing
mood.
Erika, having performed in a num-
ber of countries including Germany, Bel-
gium and Denmark, has also done stage
shows in Kolkata, New Delhi, Lucknow
and Allahabad among some other cities
in India.
On her maiden visit to Arunachal
Pradesh, Erika won over the hearts of
music buffs of the state capital, with
her Bharatnatyam presentations—Sab-
dam and Thodayam Mangalam. Having
started with Sabdam, a dance in praise
of Lord Krishna, Vishnu and Shiva, set
to seven beats, she enthralled the capac-
ity audience. It reached the peak with
her concluding performance, Thodayam
Mangalam, in praise of Sri Rama, based
on Ragamalika and Talamalika (a set of
ragas and beats).
The promising Karishma also re-
galed the gathering with her impressive
presentations, Ganeshstuti, a dance in
praise of Ganesha as son of Lord Shiva,
and Jatiswaram, a rhythmic dance.
The musical evening was organized
by Nrityangan Dance & Music Acade-
my, the leading music school in the state
capital, at Vivekananda Hall in Itanagar,
to mark the Vasant Utsav.
On getting a rousing reception from
the music buffs, Erika says: “I am de-
lighted to find such audience, who
wholeheartedly applauded my perfor-
mance. I would love to be here again.”
Before tying the knot with Siman-
ta, Erika wanted to travel around the
world, with folk songs in her kitty. Per-
haps, here comes the moment, as she
goes along singing, one of her favourite
songs by Rabindranath Tagore: Mono
mor meghero sangee, oore chole dikdi-
gantero paane… (My mind is the com-
panion of the cloud, flying far and wide
to the endless horizon).
Bhaumik
Negotiations only option
TOUGH SEASON. At a time when ULFA takes a
beating for many of its cadres laying down arms, its
struggle for self assertion loses its teeth and unleash-
es a tough season of political maneuvering.
I
always upset my friends in West
Bengal and Assam when I tell
them that the baboo bhadraloks
and the dangoriyas don’t understand the
Indian state. Gandhi’s morally inspiring
non-violence, Nehru’s western liberal-
ism, Subhas Bose’s federalist thinking
of India as “a collection of mutually sup-
portive republics” – none of these ever
found a place in the statecraft of post-co-
lonial India. Though he did not live long
after Indian independence, Sardar Patel
left an indelible mark on the statecraft
of independent India. The way he used
the methods of Kautilya to integrate the
princely states – among them my own
state Tripura and our historic neighbour
Manipur – made a lasting impression on
those who ran India in the years after
1947. Because Patel achieved the huge
task of integrating hundreds of princely
states by a combination of “Sham, Dam,
Danda, Bhed” and made a very difficult
task look rather easy. He persuaded, he
cajoled and threatened and when noth-
ing worked, he either split the ruler and
the people or used the Indian army (like
in Hyderabad).
So Nehru adopted Patel’s methods
and gave up his liberalism when he faced
the first ethnic insurrection of modern
India -- in the Naga Hills. He first sent
the army to control the situation, then he
engaged the Naga moderates and gave
them the 16-point agreement that cre-
ated the Nagaland state, and he contin-
ued to use force and negotiations alter-
natively to neutralise the impact of the
Naga insurrection. His daughter, Indira
Gandhi, carried the process forward by
using Kautilyan methods more ruthless-
ly, splitting the Naga rebel movement
twice before signing the Shillong Ac-
cord in 1975. And what an accord – just
a page to express the desire to sign a fi-
nal settlement.
And now the Naga rebel leaders
who opposed the Shillong Accord as
a “great betrayal” are themselves in a
bind – negotiating with Delhi for eleven
years now without getting anywhere
near a settlement. The fiery Muivah, the
first rebel leader of the sub-continent to
trek hundreds of kilometres to China, at
the head of a formidable rebel band, at
the peak of the Cultural Revolution, is
now in a deep soup with the mandarins
on North Block. Would I be exaggerat-
ing if I say the great Muivah has been
tamed at the table, if not in battle?
India has not managed to resolve
most of the ethnic conflicts or separatist
challenges because it does not take the
spirit of federalism seriously. But with
its Kautilyan tactics, it has managed to
contain and control most of these move-
ments. So much so that there is no real
threat of any region breaking away --
like Bangladesh broke away from Paki-
stan or East Timor from Indonesia. I
dont hold brief for the Indian state and
have always been rather critical of its
unitary, centralising tendencies. I have
always said that separate existence and
IN THE ARENA
distinctive political and cultural evolu-
tion of the regions have been the real
history of India.
For our 5000 years of recorded his-
tory, only 700 to 800 years have wit-
nessed some trans-regional empires like
those of the Maurayas and the Guptas,
the Delhi Sultans and the Mughals and
finally the British. Independent India
would have done well to recognise this
historical precedent, which has created a
duality – or rather a multiplicity of iden-
tities. So, one has good reason to be a
proud Tamil, a proud Bengali, a proud
Assamese or a proud Naga and then ac-
cept the overarching identity of being
Indian. It is wrong to impose the Indian
identity as a national identity. India, for
me, is a civilisational identity but only
when that civilisational identity accom-
modates the enormous diversity within.
If it is only a Gangetic identity – the
whole concept of one mainstream – I
cannot accept it.
The men who rule India want to im-
pose the mainstream on all of us. And
that creates the sharp reactions so evi-
dent now. But that is another debate.
The fact is that the Indian state
changes its colour when it handles a sep-
aratist challenge. Sometimes it pushes
for persuasion and reconciliation, some-
times for subversion and sometimes for
ruthless use of force. The ULFA has
been at the receiving end of this Kauti-
lyan statecraft because it never tried to
understand the Indian state. In that, it
was no different from the Bengal Nax-
alites who perished in hundreds during
the state terror of 1971-72. What makes
the Indian state different from Pakistan
is that it uses force when necessary
but avoids any overkill like that of the
Pakistan army in 1971. It packages force
with co-option. If you fall in line, you
get chairmanship of autonomous coun-
cils or even become chief minister (like
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