Today, let’s talk about cyclones, ancient trade routes and the recent clashes in the Indian state of Manipur.
We know - the weekend is almost up but this topic is so complex, it’s almost liberating how impossible it is to understand - if you know what we mean? And it is topical in a manner that would interest anyone who is curious about the Himalayas!
Here’s a map showing Manipur within the boundaries of the Indian state & Nagalim region claimed by a separatist group called the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN):
Alright, let’s zoom out a little bit:
So … what are we looking at? Well, you may have heard about the recent clashes between two groups in Manipur over what is essentially a question of who deserves more rights.
Now as is characteristic of India, this clash is brewing within another one which is marked in grey in the first photo. That is a piece of land populated mostly by “Nagas”, a tribe, the interests of which the NSCN claims to represent. These guys don’t like India and want to separate. We all know about Kashmir but the frozen conflicts in the northeast are another world altogether!
Not to be outdone, the RSS claims the entire subcontinent - arguing that it is the Hindu sphere of influence and the original extent of the Indian civilisation - and that is the second orange map. How about two more maps?
Alright, that’s a lot of maps. Let’s continue the game of “not to be outdone” shall we?
Not to be outdone by “Akhand Bharat” is a feature peculiar to the entire subcontinent - the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, which, according to ICIMOD:
extends 3,500 km over all or part of eight countries from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east. It is the source of ten large Asian river systems – the Amu Darya, Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra (Yarlungtsanpo), Irrawaddy, Salween (Nu), Mekong (Lancang), Yangtse (Jinsha), Yellow River (Huanghe), and Tarim (Dayan) – and provides water, ecosystem services, and the basis for livelihoods to a population of around 240 million people in the region. The basins of these rivers provide water to 1.9 billion people, a fourth of the world’s population.
Note that this region is so large that it covers both Kashmir and the north-east, and their respective conflicts, each infinitely complex in its own right. And let’s not forget Tibet, Xinjiang and Balochistan to name a few more.
Well, not to be outdone, we have the latest in the news - a mega cyclone called “Mocha” which today made landfall close to the Myanmar port city of Sittwe, not too far from the Myanmar-Bangladesh and Indo-Myanmar borders.
Alas, not to be outdone, we have a legendary book suggestion that triggered this entire newsletter:
Dr. Amrith, presently at Yale, talks about the historic connections between South Asia and South East Asia (through the Bay of Bengal) and how they abruptly and seemingly vanished by the mid-twentieth century. So deep were these connections that Yangon was once second to only New York City in terms of trade prominence, Dr. Amrith says here.
A resurgence is underway though, he claimed, citing the rise of Sittwe, which today stands directly impacted by a deadly cyclone and junta government.
Whether or not and to what extent these two different parts of the world are connected is up to you to decide - is it geography, history, ideology or planetary change that provides a definitive answer? We’re going to stop here and let this one sit it out in your inbox for a bit - hopefully to come of some use at some point of time?
One thing is for sure, this part of the world is really complex!
Regards,
Himalayan Advocacy Center
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Postscript:
As you may know, we are a small non profit in the environment + law space located in the Indian Himalayas. We are completely bootstrapped, try to run super lean and yet make it a point to pay all our interns a fair stipend. This means no foreign funding and no fancy headquarters - just a small community - of which you all are an integral part - in the long run we hope!
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