According to Apatani or Tanii oral tradition, the first priest and knowledge bearer of humankind was Dolyang Chanjang, who was the sister of Abotani – the first complete human and the forefather of all the Tani tribes. Our history is absolutely clear on our descent from Abotani, but fondly remember Dolyang Chanjang as the wise sister. This sister saved his dear life so many times from the absurd and frustrating situations he gets himself into. This sister who gave birth and passed on all the knowledge and wisdom to her sons who are now revered as Popi Sarmi – the wise ones. This sister who was envied by all other powerful spirits gave up all her power and rights to Abotani to save the community. Dolyang Chanjang is praised but has no descendant or legacy to follow. Her story only exists to stitch and push forward Abotani’s history. She flourished and perished, unlike her brother.

This paper will look into the experiences of several tribal women researchers, scholars and academicians, including my own. This is to locate and to not disown our experiences and struggles anymore. Throughout the following sections, this note will discuss what this disowning means and show how this disowning dislocates our struggles from the struggles of other women. In the process, we delve into aspects of research experiences which otherwise get lost only to ‘safe space sharing’. I am writing from years of experience of numerous discussions, deliberations and venting in the safe spaces, about our experiences of researching tribal women’s issues as another tribal woman. It is important to mention here that all the scholars mentioned here identify themselves as cisgender tribal women, all of us are first-generation researchers and scholars belonging to different tribal communities. We discussed our dilemmas of shifting through the insider-outsider complex, our negotiations in gendered spaces, gendered performativity of expectations, access and mobility, dealing with labelling, unequal power dynamics, and disowning of our realities in academic space.

These women are to constantly prove their mettle as scholars, having to prove their credibility beyond their gender identity; and yet are never seen besides their gender identity both in the field and in academia. Sometimes she is expected to ‘speak like a scholar’ and sometimes to speak for her gender. In the field, within the community and among her people, the tension of shifting through these identities becomes challenging. There she has to disown her other parts of her identity – her achievements, who she is as a scholar, her identity thinking of self, her knowledge pool and expertise, the ideology she follows, and all the goods and bads of choices she has made to be where she is – she is reduced to being and behave only as a woman. There she is expected to mindfully and bodily perform her gendered performances. While in academia, one is dealing with other sets of disowning because of denial by her counterparts – who could be non-tribals, racists, casteists, fascist and followers of patriarchy – oblivious of her struggles, or maybe benefits from this oppression. I have a friend who is categorically labelled by her supervisor as a slacker, openly compared with her non-tribal scholars – who also asked her to explain how she is using her scholarship and if she truly believes that she deserves this scholarship/reservation/position. A too-close-to-heart experience experienced by each of us. I for instance (of many other similar instances where the other person chooses to make sure that I should know), was when someone just mentions that I was an obvious selection because I was the only Arunachali. All this sets us behind by miles, paying these extra emotional taxes for our identity, and for what we very proudly want to hold as a badges- as scholars and an intellectual. Today is not the day when I want to take out my time to count and acknowledge for every time there were naysayers there were few who held the doors. There are others whom we call ours, the insiders who choose to not speak about us (tribal women) or to us every time they had the opportunity to research, write, teach or speak. More than outsiders, it is mostly their silence which renders us as imperfect insiders.

Today I am writing only to acknowledge and honor each of these brave, resilient, bright and thinking women who are constantly pushing the frontiers even in small inches.

‘It is getting dark!’

Research is contingent upon the quality of data collected. For most female researchers this also translates into the question of accessibility to the fields and data. And this accessibility for us is contingent to several other factors non-existent for most male researchers. A friend shared about the challenges of mobility she faces every time she visits her field to meet people. Unlike her male counterparts who could make spontaneous plans and adjustments, she has to meticulously plan her travels to field, especially in interior areas. Lack of public transport, roads, places for stay and safety concerns are her recurring obstacles. She cannot easily hop on somebody’s bike or car, she cannot stay back with anyone, she cannot make trips via forests alone, she cannot carry heavy luggage, she has to mind her menstrual cycle, daily family responsibilities even if she is not married. Apart from this, she has to be mindful of socio-cultural standards set for women to avoid any labels which might block her access to information. Her attire, voice, tone and demeanor, if she takes alcohol, if she eats too much, or if she is deemed too friendly with men, if she is married or single, if her topic is culturally appropriate for women, everything counts. Yet my friends seldom complained about these conditions, they only found it frustrating when their male colleagues callously remark – you need to learn to adjust!

Safety and a sense of security are crucial concerns for women when they leave their safe spaces. They might not consciously think about it all the time, but they can become acutely aware of its absence in an instant. During a PhD seminar presentation by a female scholar (non-tribal), she was sharing about once when she missed her regular bus while returning from her field. The next bus wasn’t coming till another two hours while it was getting dark. She had harrowing time in that desolate bus stop waiting for the bus alone. Though nothing happened and it was mostly her mental battle, this experience affected her deeply. Next time onwards she became anxiously conscious of ticking time which even started affecting her interview process. She was interrupted by another male researcher pointing out that this happens to him also, sometimes he had to sleep at the bus stop, and this never deterred his commitment. Most female participants in the seminar were left speechless by this. Later in our safe space, we discussed if sharing about our challenges is always going to be interrogated from the lens of commitment towards our work? How are we ever supposed to talk about, get acknowledged, and address our issues then?

The experiences we have gone through, just like those of the people we have interviewed, demonstrate the harsh reality of living in our patriarchal society where women do not feel safe. These experiences were shared by female researchers from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, and Arunachal, researching in their own communities. Yet, each of them put up a brave face as If they are playing on the equal grounds of academia where gender factor is a reality only as a subject of study not as a reality of being. As if these realities are not ‘always realities’ but only situational or special realities of the fields.

Insider’s Trauma

I have a friend whose research took her to conflict zones. She was the only tribal woman in a fact-finding team for cases of sexual violence against women by militant groups and the state military. In the field, she became too aware of how thin is the line between being a researcher and being the next victim for her. She was suspiciously stared at by both army men and by her own people when knowing she is also a tribal. She belonged and looked like any of the victims who just a few days before, being brutally gang-raped or murdered, were just going about their life and work. Others in her team were not experiencing the same vulnerability, fear and trauma. Years later she still was struggling to describe her emotional entanglements – the fear for her safety, shame for her vulnerability, the trauma of ravaged bodies and spirits of women like hers, anger and helplessness, reflections and trauma she was left with. Her supervisor did not find it remarkable enough and asked her, ‘This is happening in all indigenous land. What are you bringing to the table for the academia?’. She has to speak beyond and above her realities or else package these realities in abstractions and inferences for academic sensibilities, to be worthy of the hallowed university space.

I have a friend who was researching and documenting cases of domestic violence in her community. To all her faith and allegiance to her rich and unique tribal culture and traditions, faith in the egalitarian ethos, communitarian way of life and eco-sensitivity, this study was a rude shock for her. Not only because of the prevalence of cases of domestic violence but because of the normalization and collective denial to see domestic violence as a serious problem by both men and women in her community. Women being beaten black and blue to their physical and mental illness and even eventual death, women turning alcoholic, maniacs, getting abandoned or compelled to break away from their homes, is not seen as crime. Both men and women, including the victims themselves, were more willing to provide explanations for the violence that occurs as if to justify it. ‘Ah the husband is an alcoholic’, ‘the woman talks too much’, ‘the woman was of loose character’, ‘men are men, women need to be women’. The traditional councils refuse to intervene citing these as ‘private’ matters. Even any women’s organizations, would intervene only when the situation went to extremes – the death of the woman. My friend was disturbed because these men are no stranger to her, they are her relatives, uncles, neighbors and friends, who otherwise are some of the most educated and wisest men in her society. What would make her trust her own community to be fair to her if she were the victim?

Performativity of Insider

In research workshops, young scholars are sensitized on social and cultural sensitivity. Right attitude, ethical conduct, acting and speaking in a way that does not dehumanize your subject or informant, particularly when you are studying other cultures. In more recent times, few researchers have started writing about their experiences of researching their own communities. They are talking about the complex interplay of being an insider and outsider while finding/forming their own voice and views. Among these are a few female researchers who are asserting how their community and gender identities shape the research process and knowledge generation. Their bodily appearance and conduct generate perceptions that determine their access to information positively or negatively.

A friend shared about her struggles with gendered performativity. She feels such cultural gender-specific ascriptions are more strictly imposed upon female researchers than her male counterparts. Performing the ascribed femininity, speaking softly, dressing appropriately, sitting in assigned traditional space, sounding more amicable, mindful and acting helpful like helping with picking the teacups, always being light on the toes in case any help is needed, to impress and get approval. This is truer when someone is researching women’s issues and interviewing women in rural settings. In most cases, interviews happen in the respondent’s house where the informant hardly sits down to give a long interview. She is making tea, thinking about or preparing for cooking, watching over kids, waiting on visitors, working in fields or being worried about it, etc. Like most first-generation researchers who are also an insider, like myself, we are ontologically affected by the situation. While most male researcher who are not used to performing or are responsible for these tasks in their respective homes might find themselves unaffected by all the movements around them. We are helplessly drawn into helping around the female informant. One is too aware of what happens when these women miss their time slots – cooking at the right time, attending to children’s needs, feeding the domestic animals or attending to agricultural responsibilities. Years of upbringing and internalizing where these tasks became part of our tactile memory learned at home. The expectations and its performativity bleeds into all spaces, across the tribes and regions where patriarchy is the norm. One has to tick all the societal markers of a good woman’s performance and do it every day to be accepted as an insider who can connect.

An Indigenous Outsider

One of the most challenging realities, and common experiences – more common to comforting, by many tribal women in general and tribal women scholars in particular, has been that it is not up to them to decide if they are indigenous or not. It is up to the different conglomerates of men of respective societies to give or take away the title/identity. These experiences by women have become more common in recent times. Any woman, especially indigenous feminist women, who raises critical questions against patriarchal norms and practices is seen as a ‘traitor’ or someone with ulterior motives to marry non-tribal men. Point in the case could be the times whenever women’s groups in Nagaland or Meghalaya asked for women’s reservation in electoral bodies. They were not only violently opposed but very systematically harassed. This happened while most of the male intellectuals of the community watched in silence despite knowing the better. Another case could be when in 2022, there was an attempt to introduce a draft bill on Marriage and Inheritance of Property Bill, 2021, legalizing inherited property rights to women in Arunachal Pradesh. Not only the draft bill was never brought to the assembly for discussion, any women showing any support were brutally trolled and threatened with murder, arson, rape, social boycott and public humiliation in social media platforms by their own community men. These men, till this sudden outburst, were their own community members whom they saw as their family, friends, relatives, colleagues, or just another tribal community fellow. These spontaneous moments of spite and misogyny and their silent approvals, give rare glimpses of core values and systems sustaining the male-dominated tribal societies.  Women intellectual who tried to speak any sense or women research scholars sharing their knowledge were witch-hunted and vilified with the threat of ‘disowning’ from the community. This is not far from the experiences of many other friends who have braved social media trolling and threats by their own community members for raising questions against the sexism and oppression within their communities.

I have friends, working and studying women’s organizations in their states. The members of these organizations believed in their subservient position to community apex councils/organizations. These apex bodies are largely dominated by men who believe in upholding traditional customs. The women’s organizations are always cautious and mindful of their boundaries and positions. They continue to re-enact the role they play in their private domestic spheres to public domains. They believe in their ‘motherly’ responsibility of being nurturers towards their communities. My friend asks if it is true that if a woman asks for her rights she is questioning or undermining her community’s rights.

The Intimate Insider

 My friends share about the joy and discomforts of being an insider in their research fields. It is a mixed bag for an insider. By being an insider, I mean being a tribal and a woman who is trying to study their community, who embodies within themselves everything that it means. Empathy comes easy because of shared experience. A friend collecting the narratives of widows in conflict zones has lived through that same period of traumatic experience. She understood what it means to fear for one’s life, fearing for family, going through the aftermaths where the community somehow collect itself back. She also knew that for some, this rebuilding might never happen again as a widow and a single parent. The ‘insiderness’ for her meant reliving the pain with her informants and knowing that they are there for each other as a community. But ‘insiderness’, also exposes you to the vulnerability of being ‘who’s who’ of the community. A friend studying the migration of tribal girls to urban places for work, often sourced out to work as house help, found herself caught in the unfavorable side of being an insider. The idea of unmarried girls living alone far away from their communities is always seen with some sense of misgiving. As an insider, she could understand the diverse and layered meanings of the narratives and views shared by different people. She knows that in tribal society, women earning a living is not an issue – tribal women are rarely dependent women. But she also understood how a family dependent on an unmarried woman’s earnings is looked upon. She also had informants who could not open up to her. Being an insider also means that your identity is located in a very complex dynamics of relations – who you are, your parents/family, and the socio-economic status of your family. Not to forget that as a woman, you do not have a direct status in your community, it is all associated with status, particularly to a man.

On the other spectrum of this ‘insiderness’ is how knowing or being aware of people’s perceptions and expectations affected their own processes. A friend shared about how her being married and university job generates more involved responses. While her young female research assistants found it challenging to be taken seriously. Another friend shared that it was often a conscious decision to take male assistants or interpreters while going to field – not for safety reasons – but for bringing some ‘weightage’ to the process. Another scholar noted that often her male driver, from the same community as hers, received more attention and seriousness than her so much so that ultimately, she decided to put him as the main interviewer while she would supply or ask questions through him. I remember my own experience, as a young researcher, of juggling between overselling or underselling my research project on women’s reservation in Panchayati Raj Institution, depending upon if my informant was a male or a female. Male informants were often disinterested or did not take the subject (and the interview process) seriously. I used to explain why it was such an important subject. When it was a female informant, she would get nervous and agitated whenever I approached them for an interview. So, I had to explain that this was just small research, and I only needed her personal opinion on the subject. Women get agitated also because most of the time they believe they have nothing to say, they are not allowed to say, they don’t believe they know anything, there might be some consequences if she says something wrong, or they don’t have anything important to say because they don’t believe they are important. Most of us have heard these lines whenever we tried to interview a woman, ‘I don’t have anything to say’ or ‘Why don’t you ask my husband/father/brother/or any male around? They can tell you better.’ While on one hand there is this challenge of removing the disowning of self by these women; on the other hand, there is this forever ‘lurking uncle’ (as one friend rightly pointed out) in the background who joins out of curiosity, then start adding/correcting/explaining and then gradually taking over the entire conversation. Simultaneously you will see your main informant exiting the scene with a sigh of relief and defeat. We feel what she is feeling because our experiences are not far away from each other.

Gatekeeping

We have many forms of gatekeeping and many gates. Academic gatekeepers who would like you to speak about truth and knowledge only – but only after processing it through their set frameworks or standards. Till they stamp you and publish you your knowledge and truth is not worthy of being real and actually happening.

We have many sorts of gatekeepers. Some in academia decide if you are worthy and control the processes of knowledge production by stamping and publishing your work or by stopping it. We have our own indigenous scholars who refuse to acknowledge your struggles and articulations as real or worthy. You are constantly told to stand in que ‘your time has not come yet or you are not the right person to speak’. They tell you that you need to research, write, talk, think, dream and even believe like a tribal scholar, not like a tribal woman. Your subjectivity and consciousness of being a woman hinder you and blocks you.

We have community gatekeepers, who check upon what you speak and where you speak. The truth and questions you want to raise have to fall or feed into the narratives they have decided upon. Women’s struggles and realities have to be subservient to the community’s identity, struggles and aspirations. Some even stop you from accessing the knowledge.

This reminds me of the time during my PhD fieldwork, when I was trying to interview an elderly speaker well known for his knowledge of oral traditions, particularly of Kiidi Migung – land history. After two visits he agreed to give me some time that also only if his daughter is around to translate from literary Apatani to common Apatani that I could understand. Finally, one late evening I sat for the interview where throughout he was being condescending. And answered in briefs, summaries and left out details. However, as it became late and dark my late father had to come to pick me up. The moment he entered the scene, this person transformed into what he was known to be – one of the most dexterous speakers with profound knowledge and mastery. The syntax and semantics of his oration went several notches higher, and now he wanted to talk politics in the presence of another male member! I was sitting and staring at the happenings. It just took a gender identity to open all access to knowledge and information. I cannot blame him, can I?

Conclusion

 One way of dealing with the situation is to plan and design your specifically for women – where she is the privy knowledge bearer, which cannot be shared with the expertise of men. Another way is to structurally and reflexively believe in the fact that our society is a shared reality. Women do not only might have special insights to share but her existence itself matters. Sometimes, the inclusion of their knowledge/perspectives/ experience should be inbuilt in our research project. Sometimes, this inclusion should be done not because they are women, and one needs a representation but because the project should be unbiased and just.

I took time and then some more time to write this note. I had the choice to write about the challenges of researching women’s issues and present women’s issues as if that is the only thing important about them as a subject. Turning the lens towards men is also important. I was not sure if I was to write as a researcher or as an indigenous women researcher. I will not dare to assume that I do not have any privileges and share the same power status as most of the women I worked with in knowledge generation. But I know that I am an intimate insider to their experiences. As my friend said, it will take just a few turns of fate or a context before I might be standing exactly at the same spot as my informants are in. It is really difficult to escape this fate if I wish to own my indigenous identity in a community. Many patriarchal men and women still believe that I could be ‘put in the right place’ and reminded of what is women’s position in society’, and that ultimately, I am a woman. Every time each of us, me and my friends, we choose to speak about women’s situation in our community, we bite the bullet with a grit that only ignorance or faith could bring.

So today, I once again choose to speak not with anger or any hatred but against the ‘appalling silence’[i] and denial by many men and women. We are often advised – not to talk like you are complaining, angry or like a victim, don’t talk as if all men are the same, don’t talk like western/Savarna feminists, don’t talk like some ‘city madam’, don’t talk as if women’s issue are the only issue, your time has not come, don’t cause trouble. Just too many instructions to subdue and deny your self-awareness. I have to state without any pretence, allusion or with apologetic disclaimers which only delays and impairs the process of change but only based on my own experience of what I have seen, known, learned and felt. Nothing new, different or radical but just stating it straight so that no one has to interpret it or hide in denial: Tribal societies are oppressively patriarchal societies which systematically and ideologically privileges men at the cost of women. Its patriarchy is sometimes obscured by everyday communitarian way of life and a durable sense of ethnocentrism but in the end, it is unjust and unfair towards women. Despite its outward appearance, women hold an oppressed, underprivileged, subjugated and dehumanized status in tribal society like in any other patriarchal society of the world.

Now let us see where we get from here on.

End Notes

[i] Borrowed from ‘Appalling Silence’, a poem by Neal Hall. Hall, Neal (2015) Appalling Silence. Council for Social Development: Hyderabad (p2).

Excerpt:

It’s not the night,

but the absence of light

that keeps us in the dark

And in that darkness, we must remember not

the words of our enemies, but

the silence of our friends

 

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