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amsterdam university press
Northeast Migrants in Delhi
Publications Series
GeneralEditor
PaulvanderVelde
PublicationsOfficer
MartinavandenHaak
EditorialBoard
PrasenjitDuara(AsiaResearchInstitute,NationalUniversityofSingapore)/Carol
Gluck (Columbia University) / Christophe Jaffrelot (Centre d’Études et de
Recherches Internationales-Sciences-po) / Victor T. King (University of Leeds) /
Yuri Sadoi (Meijo University) / A.B. Shamsul (Institute of Occidental Studies /
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia) / Henk Schulte Nordholt (Royal Netherlands
InstituteofSoutheastAsianandCaribbeanStudies)/WimBoot(LeidenUniversity)
The IIAS Publications Series consists of Monographs and Edited Volumes. The
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Forfurtherinformation,pleasevisitwww.iias.nl.
Northeast Migrants in Delhi
Race, Refuge and Retail
Duncan McDuie-Ra
Publications Series
Monographs 9
Cover illustration: Spray-painted stencil of Irom Sharmila, anti-AFSPA
activist from Manipur (likely artist: Bass Foundation); Khan Market,
Delhi
Cover design:Maedium, Utrecht
Layout: The DocWorkers, Almere
ISBN 978 90 8964 422 0
e-ISBN 978 90 4851 6230 (pdf)
e-ISBN 978 90 4851 6247 (ePub)
NUR 741 /763
© IIAS /Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2012
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright re-
served above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or in-
troduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)
without the written permission of both the copyright owners and the
authorof the book.
Contents
List ofMaps and Images 7
Acknowledgements 9
1 Introduction 13
Lookingfor an everyday Northeast 15
Finding aStarting Point 20
Terminology 27
Structure ofthebook 32
2 Leavingthe Northeast 35
The Making of the Frontier 35
Tribe 36
Colonialencounters 38
Insurgency 40
The State of Exception 40
The Migration Moment 44
Refuge 49
Livelihoods 50
Aspirations 52
Attitudestowards India 55
Labour recruitment 57
Connectivity 59
3 Coming to Delhi 61
Explaining Delhi’s Popularity 62
Delhi meri jaan 65
Inclusion in the Exclusionary City 71
New consumer spaces 71
The ServicesSector 75
EducationCity 77
Job prospects 78
Education back home 80
Prestige 82
Brain Drain 83
4 Backward,Head-hunter, Sexy, Chinky 87
The Racialised Frontier 89
Backwardand exotic 92
6 NORTHEASTMIGRANTSINDELHI
Anti-national 93
Anti-assimilation 95
Loose and immoral 96
Discrimination 98
Harassmentand violence 103
Responding to Racism 108
Tolerance 109
Retaliation 110
Safety 112
Race in Contemporary India 115
5 Provincial Men, WorldlyWomen 119
Gendered mythmaking 120
UrbaneWomen, Provincial Men 125
City Love, FrontierPolitics 130
Stuck in Delhi 134
Fluidity andAdaption 138
Subaltern masculinity 138
Cosmopolitan masculinity 141
6 Place-making in the City 145
The Northeast Map ofDelhi 147
Neighbourhoods 149
Food 153
Religion 157
Protesting in Delhi: New places, new identities? 160
Solidarity 164
Cosmopolitanism 166
Fashion andmusic 167
The Korean Wave 170
GlobalChristian Culture 173
7 Conclusion 177
Further Research 178
Borderlands and citizenship 178
Ethnic Minorities and Asian Cities 182
Cosmopolitanism 185
Short Biographical Note onthe Author 187
Bibliography 189
Index 201
List of Maps and Images
Map 1.1 India: States Union Territories 12
Image 1.1 NortheastNeighbourhood.Humayanpur, Delhi 23
Image 2.1 Advertisement forairline training. Guwahati,
Assam 52
Image 2.2 Labour recruitmentadvertisement.Aizawl,
Mizoram 56
Image 3.1 AmbienceMall. Vasant Kunj, Delhi 68
Image 3.2 Northeastwait staff. South Extension, Delhi 73
Image 4.1 NortheastHousing. GTB Nagar,Delhi 102
Image 5.1 Northeastwait staff. HauzKhas, Delhi 128
Image 5.2 Shopping forBeef. Nizamuddin, Delhi 140
Image 6.1 Northeastrestaurant. Humayanpur, Delhi 150
Image 6.2 Naga migrantspracticing dance. Deer Park,
Delhi 153
Acknowledgements
This book has its origins in conversations, friendships, and an inter-
lude. After almost a decade of researching and travelling in Northeast
India and Burma, I have formed many close friendships in the region
and with scholars of the region located in other parts of the world. The
idea to study Northeast migrants came from conversations over akhuni,
kaeng hang-le, and herring in the Northeast borderlands, Chiang Mai,
Delhi, and Amsterdam. Thank you to Willem van Schendel, Yenkhom
Jilangamba, Parismita Singh, Jason Cons, Tina Harris, Anjulika
Samom, Thung-shang Ningreichon and family, Martin Pachuau and
family, Grace Jajo, Achan Munglung, Joy Pachuau, Makiko Kimura,
David Zou, Sarat Phukan, and Evanshania Syiem for inspiring and en-
couraging this study. I especially want to thank Dolly Kikon and Xonzoi
Barbora for encouragement and feedback throughout the fieldwork and
writing. It simply would not have happened without you two! In Delhi I
am forever indebted to Mhademo and Adeno for going to great lengths
to help me with my fieldwork and for being great cooking and eating
companions. I could not have done the fieldwork without you both. In
particular, I wish to thank Selina and Mona for listening to and com-
menting on my ideas as they took shape. So many migrants shared
their stories with me in Delhi and back in the Northeast in Aizawl,
Gangtok,Guwahati,Imphal,Kohima,Shillong,andUkhrul–Iamsorry
I can’t thank you by name but I hope I get the chance to share the fin-
ished book with you when the time comes.
While the idea for this book has been floating around on scraps of
paperfor a very long time, the interludeprovided bya semester sabbati-
calfrom myjob at theUniversity ofNew South Wales gave methe time
to conduct the research and write the first draft of the manuscript. I
wish to acknowledge the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences for the
financial contribution to my travel and semester away from Sydney. For
four months of this time I was a visiting fellow at the International
Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden, the Netherlands. The IIAS pro-
vided the perfect environment to write the manuscript and engage in
discussions with other fellows and IIAS staff. I am very grateful to
everyone who was at IIAS during the first half of 2011 for their com-
ments on this material and their encouragement. I also wish to thank
