Comments by "M Shastri" (@libshastra) on "Why Assam-Mizoram fratricide show the return of chronic crises in NE" video.

Ahhh this is an armed version of Belgaum dispute between Maha and Karnataka. The 80s are back. 🙄
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The bloody police in our country is nothing more than legalized goondas or thugs with authority.
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@chalsiamazadeng9024 I empathize with your emotions. This tactic is no different from Marathis and Kannadigas fighting against each other, except instead of stones and sticks, they are using bullets. That's a really sad escalation. Perhaps we can learn from that Belgaum dispute and come up with an amicable solution. Perhaps we can look at Chandigarh as a way to resolve this. Maybe an autonomous hill district might work. Either way, the ethnic minorities can demand that. Anything is better than kicking this issue to the next generation.
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Our textbooks betrayed us. It never taught us to see beyond our linguistic ethnicities and culture. With the internet and folks like Shekharji, we are finally learning about our country and it's diversity. I hope we learn more, appreciate the diversity, celebrate it and learn to respect it. Thank you for your comment. Please do tell us more about the North East. I hope to make a trip one day.
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@shekhargupta3911 I think we fail to recognize/teach that identity is layered. I can be Tamil and a Maharashtrian at the same time. Rajnikant is a Marathi speaking Kannadiga who is a Tamilian. We impose a singular Tamil identity on him. His layered identity should be celebrated.
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@ahs pm you just proved my point. We Indians don't realize that identity is multi layered. You see it as a solely tied to one's ethnicity, there's nothing wrong with that. But in my case, my identity is layered, I'm ethnically Tamil & culturally Maharashtrian (I deliberately don't call myself Marathi). My point is we accept one form of identity one but don't recognize the other. In reality, both forms of identity is valid.
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@ThePrint, Shekharji, excellent conclusion. Perhaps it helps to recognize that, politically we never defined minorites in terms of linguistics or ethnic lines (at least post 70s). The concept of minorities was reduced and defined along the lines of religion or linguistic puritanism and has been for several decades except in specific circumstances (cough cough Belgaum). What's worse is we allow the rest of the world to be reductionist towards the layered diversity of our society. Outside India, I'm a Indian Hindu or a Indian Muslim, inside India I'm Tamil and nothing more. But my identity is more layered and complex, I'm Tamil Maharashtrian, our society never allowed that identity to evolve and our politics killed/kills any notion that one's identity can be layered. That's unity in diversity.
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@islandsunset we need serious judicial and police reforms. Our police force are poorly trained and don't have discipline. Not to forget, they are extremely heavy handed. Giving them guns is just a disaster. You can't have police reform without judicial reforms.
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@ahs pm so if I settled in Mizoram, would I be considered as exclusively Mizo, or would I be considered as exclusively Tamil? Or would I be accepted as Tamil Mizo? That's something I can't answer but experience. In Maharashtra, I was exclusively Tamil, my Maharashtrian identity was othered despite my efforts to integrate myself (I speak fluent Marathi).
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