Beyond Lines of Control: Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India
320
Beyond Lines of Control: Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India
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Overview
Aggarwal brings the insights of performance studies and the growing field of the anthropology of international borders to bear on her extensive fieldwork in Ladakh. She examines how social and religious boundaries are created on the Ladakhi frontier, how they are influenced by directives of the nation-state, and how they are shaped into political struggles for regional control that are legitimized through discourses of religious purity, patriotism, and development. She demonstrates in lively detail the ways that these struggles are enacted in particular cultural performances such as national holidays, festivals, rites of passage ceremonies, films, and archery games. By placing cultural performances and political movements in Ladakh center stage, Aggarwal rewrites the standard plot of nation and border along the Line of Control.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780822385899 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Duke University Press |
| Publication date: | 11/30/2004 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
About the Author
Ravina Aggarwal is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Smith College. She is the editor of Into the High Ranges: The Penguin Anthology of Mountain Writings and the editor and translator of Forsaking Paradise: Stories from Ladakh, by Abdul Ghani Sheikh. She was a founding editor of the journal Meridians.
Read an Excerpt
BEYOND LINES OF CONTROL
Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, IndiaBy RAVINA AGGARWAL
Duke University Press
Copyright © 2004 Duke University PressAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-3428-6
Chapter One
Staging Independence Day
Nothing is impossible when 100 crore Indians work together. That is the spirit of Kargil that we salute this Independence Day.
My fellow Indians, militarily, the Kargil conflict has been a splendid victory. Diplomatically, it has been an unprecedented success. But we have also had another, even greater triumph-the manifestation of Indian unity.
Faced with a crisis, our country has shown the world that despite the differences which we may appear to have on the surface, in our hearts we are Indians first. Indians who will give their all for their motherland.
Unconditionally.
The spirit in which India and Indians around the world have risen together has been overwhelming. A spirit that is more valuable than all the treasures in the world.
Nurture this spirit. Keep it as strong even after this victory. Remember that we are Indians first. And we shall overcome everything that stands between today's India and her rightful place among the great nations of the world.
Together, let us make the 21st century India's century. -PRIME MINISTER ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE
On August15, 1999, on the occasion of the 53rd anniversary of India's independence from British rule, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), greeted the nation with these words in the New Delhi edition of the Indian Express. An advertisement on the flip side of the page displayed camouflaged soldiers holding up the national flag, perched on the craggy terrain of Kargil, their fingers forming a gesture of victory. The caption above them read "Mission Accomplished!" The mission that the soldiers had accomplished was recapturing around seventy positions from approximately eight hundred mujahideen and Pakistani militia who had infiltrated the LOC into sectors of Kargil district along the Sringar-Leh highway. The military face-off in Kargil formed the main thrust of the prime minister's customary Independence Day address from the historic rampart of the Red Fort in the capital. With the parliamentary elections around the corner, he spoke of the upswings in the country's economy despite the Kargil crisis and the international sanctions that followed the nuclear tests at Pokhran in May 1998. For the new millennium, he envisioned an India united in diversity, irrespective of region, religion, or caste, an India fortified by its endorsement of market values, its strong armed forces and expanded nuclear arsenal with which it would supposedly defeat the terrorism that enemy states exported.
The prime minister's speech on Independence Day was distinguished by the pervasive image of a victorious nation progressing to claim the twenty-first century as its own. But this national holiday was more than a celebration of the nation's onward march to future glory; even as it glossed over the past, it staked its claim over representing the past, namely, the accomplishment of Independence and the birth of a democratic country. The date of August 15, as Jim Masselos (1990) points out, signals a day on which Indian nationalists assumed power, a date marked by Nehru's famous "Tryst with Destiny" speech and the official hoisting of the Indian national flag after the Union Jack had gone down the day before. The historical plot of the past, writes Masselos, has since guided subsequent Independence Day functions, but while leaders, dates, and events associated with the nationalist struggle and the end of British rule are still invoked to legitimize the present, it is mostly done through a routinized body of abstract symbols. For instance, commentaries do not necessarily lay out the significance of the Red Fort in an explicit manner, nor do performances focus predominantly on reenactments of the freedom struggle anymore. It is the state that has now become the focus of attention, so much so that celebrations of Republic Day (a day of self-glorification for the state) and Independence Day (a day of reckoning for the nation) are no longer very different from each other except in Delhi, the capital. Masselos argues that the form of Independence Day has remained consistent because various governments that came into power all drew on a conventional repertoire of symbols, but he recognizes that "the meanings which the form intended to bear varied according to political circumstance" (46).
The meanings of Independence Day symbols have changed according to changing political contexts, yet, as the case of Ladakh shows, it is not just the meanings that vary; the form itself is contested and altered. In Ladakh, as in other border areas, the official form and agenda that have been set for Independence Day must often accommodate competing timelines, in which the moment of assuming power from British India refuses to recede into the background. This moment lingers on in the present to challenge and refute the mythical chronology of nationalism, belying the notion that territory and nation are coterminus or natural. It calls into question not just the maturation of the postcolonial state but also the very legitimacy of the nation's birth. The problem of transferring power also remains at the heart of contemporary politics in Ladakh, where devolution of federal power and autonomy for or from the State of Jammu and Kashmir is deliberated repeatedly.
In official performances of national days, as Srirupa Roy (1999b) demonstrates in her analysis of the Republic Day spectacle in New Delhi, the state constructs an Indianness by parading its modern/welfare economy through representative floats, its territorial integrity through marching citizen-soldiers, and its progressive nature through the diverse costumes and customs of its folk. This symbolic display of unity legitimizes and flaunts the centrality of Delhi as the capital and fixes subjects to their distinct geographies on the periphery. By contrast, an analysis of Independence Day performances in Ladakh reveals how the very principles of territoriality, unity in diversity, and developmental progress are reshaped by citizens on the border as they improvise and rewrite scripts of marginalization to claim a representational center. In this manner, Independence Day becomes the frame and the act, both a stage where histories and counterhistories of identity formation on the Indian border are displayed and also the performance through which national and bordered subjectivity is produced in the first place.
In the valley of Kashmir, Independence Day celebrations have been systematically boycotted and the Indian flag burned, bearing witness to the fragmented and contested nature of nationalism. The flag, as Henk Driessen (1992) notes, "is perhaps the most powerful symbol of the nation state, assuming sacred qualities, and focal in what has been called civil religion." In 1999, most of the officeholders of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) also boycotted the state's Independence Day function and unfurled the national flag in an alternative ceremony. But the struggles underlying their boycott are not identical to Kashmir's troubled relationship with the center. The sections that follow take us on a journey through the form and the meaning, the history and performance of colonialism and independence in Ladakh, as they are shaped by the particularities of "political circumstance" there.
INDEPENDENCE DAY IN LEH
On the summer morning of August 15, 1999, the Ra-dbang-tus-chen-zhag (Independence Day) function started at 9 A.M. in the town of Leh. People streamed into the main bazaar. Antique art and souvenir shops, vegetable stalls, and video libraries all had their shutters down. Street walls were plastered with political posters and graffiti. "Eat Congress, Sleep BJP, Vote NC [National Conference]," read one fading sign. "Vote for Youth," urged another. The crowd proceeded through narrow, winding alleys toward the Polo Ground. The Polo Ground, or Shagaran as it is locally known, is a stark and stunning location, offering a spectacular vista of the Himalayan range. Religious processions, political rallies, tourist festivals, and much of the town's modern history have been played out in this sandy stretch that was leveled flat in the 1960s by the Public Works Department for the sport of polo. Polo made its way into Ladakh from Baltistan under the patronage of aristocrats. Now the game is mainly kept alive by the army and frequent matches are held between civilian and military teams.
Visible from the southern end of the Polo Ground is the Leh Palace, built by the "lion-king," Sengge Namgyal, in 1620. This royal edifice was home to the rulers of the Namgyal dynasty until the last sovereign monarch, Tshepal Namgyal, was deposed to the village of Stok by the Dogra conquerors from Jammu. The palace must have gleamed white and teemed with courtiers once. Ippolito Desideri, an Italian Jesuit missionary who visited Ladakh in 1715, described it as "a large, fine building." In recent years, only tourists scramble to visit its crumbling remains. Bought by the Archaeological Survey of India in 1992, it still awaits the promised restoration.
Above the palace, rising from an adjacent mountainside, stands the fort and temple of the "Peak of Victory," the Namgyal Tsemo, built in the sixteenth century by King Tashi Namgyal to commemorate his victory over invading armies from Turkestan. From this temple, the guardian deity, Chamba, Buddha of the future, protects and blesses the world below. Prayer flags flutter across the summit, wind-horses gathering and scattering the yearnings of wishful devotees.
The northern edge of the Polo Ground is lined by state administrative offices: the office of the development commissioner, the tehsildar's office, district archives, and a conference hall for deliberating social and governmental matters. Facing this cluster of buildings is a canopied pavilion, decorated with a "Welcome! District Administration, Leh" banner, that was set up for this Independence Day with special chairs to seat VIPS and early birds. Ordinary onlookers, a few hundred in number, found seats on the concrete stands along the edges of the Polo Ground. A giant advertisement for the Life Insurance Corporation dominated the backdrop, promising security and prosperity to investors. A policeman hovered around with a box of tear gas. The crowd jostled forward under the scorching sun to watch the ceremony.
As the band began playing, Central Reserve Police with rifles in hand, National Corps Cadets attired in khaki uniforms, and schoolchildren wearing sashes of orange, white, and green, colors of the Indian flag, marched past in regimented military style. Morup Namgyal, one of the two hosts for the occasion, directed the crowd to applaud these children, "barely weaned from their mother's breasts, who now promised to grow into radiant moons shining over their parents, protecting their village and motherland."
The function was inaugurated by the chief guest, Ajat Shatru Singh, Minister of State for Information and Technology, who had been flown in from Srinagar to cut the ribbon and unfurl the tricolored national flag. Paying his respects to the abbots seated in the stands, Kushok Khanpo Rinpoche and Kushok Togldan Rinpoche, the chief guest congratulated the people of Ladakh for the resilience they had displayed during the Kargil war. His speech was followed by a cultural program, consisting largely of popular patriotic songs in Ladakhi, Urdu, and Hindi. As the program started, the Urdu commentator, Zainul Abideen, announced, "See the children standing in a line. See the smiles and hopes on their faces. A knowledgeable man has said that the destinies of nations are shaped in the classrooms of a school. May these very children become guides, administrators, and guardians of the future."
Establishing a connection between modern education and the production of citizens has been vital to the successful performance of national days in Ladakh. Forty years ago, on August 24, 1959, Sridhar Kaul (who was posted in Ladakh as assistant inspector of schools by the Jammu and Kashmir government from 1939 to 1942 and is considered responsible for inculcating a political and nationalist sense among Ladakhi Buddhists) had written a letter to Stanzin Angbo, a teacher in Zangskar, instructing him about the value of teaching nationalist songs to schoolchildren: "You can perform a great service for Ladakh.-Sometimes such social gatherings should be held where songs and plays are shown. Where songs are sung and speeches are given. The desire to serve their nation should be instilled in them.-They should be made to memorize national songs thoroughly and the meaning of these songs explained to them."
At the time Sridhar Kaul drafted this letter, the Independence Day celebrations were held at the Girls' School in Leh. The ceremony was on a smaller scale then, with merely a flag hoisting and a few performances by students over tea and biscuits; the performances consisted mostly of short sketches on freedom fighters such as Gandhi and Nehru. Only in the 1970s did the venue shift to the Polo Ground. The organization of the Polo Ground event is the responsibility of the State Information Department, the Jammu and Kashmir Cultural Academy of Ladakh, a State body, and All-India Radio, Leh, a central government institution. Three members from these government bureaus form a judging committee to present awards for Best Performance and Best in March Past.
In 1999, the first prize in the performance category was won by the students of the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies. The students dramatized the clash between the Kargil infiltrators and the Indian army by showing how militants, dressed in long black shirts and black masks, dug trenches and attacked camouflaged Indian soldiers, who fought back valiantly until all the militants fell to the ground or retreated. As some actors playing soldiers breathed their last, the actors playing survivors anchored a victorious Indian flag to a make-believe summit and the skit was brought to a climax by a popular patriotic melody:
Oh people of my motherland Let tears fill your eyes. Those who were martyred Remember their sacrifice. When the Himalayas were wounded Our freedom jeopardized. They fought with their last breath They laid down their lives.
A child sitting behind me, no more than three or four years old, sang all the words to the song. Some spectators cheered and clapped, others wiped away tears. There was a solemnity and melancholy to the cultural show. The theme of dying for the defense of the Himalayas was too close to reality. Many civilians had been displaced in the Kargil war. Twenty-five men in the Ladakh Scouts had lost their lives. Their sacrifice had earned some recognition; one Ladakhi, Sonam Angchug, was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra medal and three others were given Vir Chakras. These honors for gallantry were conferred nationally on Independence Day and the news conveyed to soldiers in a military ceremony hosted at the Zorawar Fort in Leh.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from BEYOND LINES OF CONTROL by RAVINA AGGARWAL Copyright © 2004 by Duke University Press. Excerpted by permission.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments viiIntroduction: Borders Performed 1
1. Staging Independence Day 21
2. Observing Rituals in the Inner Line Zone 57
3. Screening a Contested Landscape 103
4. Songs of Honor, Lines of Descent 149
5. Border Games 179
Conclusion: Flowing across the Lines 223
Notes 237
References 267
Index 287