Introduction

In this paper an attempt is made to unravel the experiences of the researcher in researching tribal governance and policy, especially in the context of Manipur state in Northeast India. The paper delves into the empirical subjectivities and challenges experienced by the researcher while unpacking the intricacies and subtleties of the research processes and methodological approaches in the light of the above stated subject domain.

It is noteworthy to point out that research about tribes has been one of the main themes, at least in social sciences, from the colonial period to post-colonial times. In the Northeast region of India, especially the tribal people and their polity, outsiders carried out research studies with their lenses of approaches and methodological considerations from colonial times until today. However, in the recent discourse on tribes, there has been strong criticism of the methodological approach of studies done on tribes and sought indigenous/tribal methodologies as a frame to study tribes. Tripura (2023) stated that historically (methodologically), studies concerning Tribes in India were dominated by colonial ethnographers and explorers. Subsequently, in post-colonial India, such studies became the field of a dominant male caste. From a similar perspective of dominance, these studies on Tribes in India viewed them as either backward or from the point of view that “civilization” could be achieved only through bringing them into the mainstream. Bodhi (2022) argued that when one picks up any book concerning Tribes written by the hegemon if one cares to read between the lines, one will see, laced through every category, every theory and every reference, a perspective that inferiorized tribal knowledge, rejects and invisibilize tribal epistemologies and indirectly (consciously or unconsciously) affirms Western and Caste worldviews. For Tribes, such epistemic positions have little to do with intellectual abilities and theoretical-methodological depth but rather with a crude form of epistemological fanaticism that seeks to dilute and neutralize non-Western and non-Caste worldviews (Bodhi, 2022, pp. 72-73). These arguments are reflections on how the studies on tribes have been framed from a colonial gaze with biases that do not reflect the realities of the tribal people.

Smith (1999) discussed that indigenous methodology as a paradigm emphasizes considering the specificities of epistemologies and methodologies which are rooted in survival struggles, specific indigenous contexts, histories, cultural protocols, values, and behaviors as an integral part of any methodology and in a language that is understood by the community and derived from indigenous ways of knowing and their concerns. Bodhi (2020) theorized ‘engaged observation’ based on the philosophical understanding that social reality is fundamentally diverse, and its multiple constituents are in perpetual dialogue. Any attempt to forcefully homogenize social realities or overgeneralize them amounts to epistemic violence.

An interesting process called ‘epistemological decolonization’ by Bodhi (2022) conceptualized with an approach to restrained from reducing colonization to a single historical event and sees colonization as an epistemology that is violently layered into the lives of people through ‘waves of colonialism’ and multiple intersecting colonial mentalities. Bodhi’s (2022, p. 11) critical theorization on dialogical historiography claims that historical knowledge is situated and is neither objective nor neutral. The question it posits is less about what history is written and more about who writes it. The frame-of-reference of dialogical historiography is ‘diversity-coexistence’ compared to the ‘universal-particular’ framework of colonial historiography. These theorizations are critical to deconstructing and diluting the larger dominant and biased frame of studying tribal/indigenous studies in India and the global context.

Contextualizing tribal governance and policy studies becomes very critical at this juncture. What tribal are today has implicit consequences of what the governance frame and policies were for the tribal. With the rigid structure of the state and the politics of diplomacy, studying tribal governance systems and policies faced many complexities and challenges. There is a need to intrinsically locate the theorization and frames that are decolonizing in its methodologies and approaches.

Subjective Experiences and Complexities of Research Processes: A Case of Manipur

In this section, I will discuss the subjective experiences of doing research in Manipur. The research study was on the Manipur (Hill Areas) District Council and Article 371-C, which are the frames of governance for the tribal people in Manipur. I faced many challenges in the data collection, especially on two fronts. One, the identity of being tribal and researching the tribal governance framework poses certain reservations from the non-tribal and Government officials. Two, most non-tribal and Government officials chose not to give their views and opinions and instead blatantly put the onus of governance failures or problems on tribal disunity. For this reason, it was difficult to capture and dig out the actual views of the non-tribal and officials, which is critical for any governance or policies-related research. The complexity of the research process is discussed in the following section.

The data collection started by making an appointment with the respondents by visiting the office and making a telephone appointment. It took much work for me to identify the various respondents and, more so, the right respondents for the study. One of the difficulties I faced in data collection was that it took many days to get an appointment with government officials, and some officers were not keen to be study respondents. In the context of the tribal organization that was supporting and at the same time demanding more power to the District Council, they were pretty interested in the topic and eager to justify their standpoint. For instance, one of the tribal organizations which opposed the district council election said that this kind of study should be published in the national forum and highlight how exploitative the District Council is for the tribal instead of protecting them. On the other hand, the organizations that supported the district council election said that the District Council is the starting point. With unity among the tribal, the next step is to demand a Sixth Schedule.

As the topic is politicized with many opinions and justifications, drawing any line as a researcher has become very complex. For instance, before the interview begins, the interviewee would ask what other organizations said on a particular issue. In this situation, it was difficult for me to answer and deal with the curiosity the interviewee would have on me. I would answer that the interview went well and ignored the curiosity of the interviewee. I was also cautious not to hurt the sensibilities of the respondents as far as possible.

My identity of being tribal and studying a sensitive issue relating to the tribal of Manipur was challenging for the officials to answer many sensitive issues like the amendment of the act, financial provision, and land rights. In some questions related to government responsibilities, the official did not answer and gave an alibi by saying that it was beyond their authority to answer those questions and change the topic. It was very disappointing for me as the gist of the study where the government officials had to answer was not answered. Further, when the subject was about the politics between the Manipur Government and the district council, it was a surprise to hear from the interviewee that he could not answer those questions and flag off the question. In this situation, focusing on the research objectives and simultaneously handling their curiosity was difficult. However, the HAC Chairman was open and shared the district council and HAC’s problems. I realized that since the Chairman was a tribal, he was more relaxed about the issue. However, due to the issue’s sensitivity, some pertinent questions were not appropriately answered, though I tried to clarify. Instead, the interviewee will change the questions or blame it on the Government of Manipur. It is unethical as a researcher to impose any restriction or urge to answer the questions, as this will blight research ethics. Therefore, I was helpless and in a dilemma to experience this process.

The non-tribal organization experience was challenging as the organization had already taken the researcher’s subjectivity, making them neutral in sharing their views. When essential questions related to the district council’s role and the protection of Tribal were put in, the answers were mainly very political. They stated that people should live in peace and not be aggressive. Most of the answer, or rather the message they wanted to convey, was that peaceful coexistence between different communities in Manipur should be encouraged, and all the communities should ensure the integrity of the state. Being a tribal from Manipur and researching tribal issues, many a time, I was asked by a non-tribal about my views/opinions on tribal movements. In this situation, it took much effort to balance sharing my views while not indulging in any opinion-related debate and discussion. For instance, one respondent asked whether I would prefer moving to Nagaland or an alternative arrangement for the Nagas in Manipur. I responded that I am not a supporter of any political movements, but I am here as a researcher to study the District Council. To avoid this kind of situation, It was pretty challenging for me not to move away from my identity of being ‘Tribal’ as the respondents were more curious about my identity. In this way, they were reluctant to answer some politically sensitive questions regarding Tribal rights, land and autonomy. This situation made me realize that my ethnicity has curtailed the objectivity of the interview. My identity as an insider did pose a challenge on some occasions.

I believe in some way because my identity as a tribal has impeded the interview by not getting the honest opinions of the non-tribal organization. The views of the non-tribal community were more on the need for peaceful coexistence in Manipur despite the existence of a different community, whether in hill or valley. In this situation, it was difficult for me to find other ways to come back to the topic of study and grasp the situation. Concerning the District Council in Manipur, they opined that it is for the self-governance of the tribal in Manipur, and the tribal should respect the act and try to uphold it to the fullest instead of blaming the Government.

My identity of being an insider did act as an impediment. On some occasions, it was a challenge for me to be unbiased towards a particular community and its perspectives. I realized that my pre-notion perception of a specific community would influence the interviewing process and data. Therefore, I must be aware of my biases and ignore these biases to be unbiased. It is not easy, and it takes time. It was tough in the initial phase, but slowly, I could manage quite comfortably. It was imperative to be unbiased as new views and opinions were learned from the interviewees, and I might have yet to find out if I was biased. It was imperative to accept and locate their perspective and not judge them based on respondent ethnicity or community.

Being politically sensitive, the topic under study made it challenging to find respondents with ease. Most respondents were leaders or representatives of organizations, and it took work to get appointments with them. Though some were very receptive and vocal about their views and opinions, some were reluctant to express their views as the topic is politically and ethnically susceptible. One of the most significant challenges was making the respondents open up their views and opinions on such sensitive issues while maintaining a degree of confidence that such statements would be confidential. It is so because the respondents are the voices of the community/organization. They are meticulous in responding and giving opinions that will not be misconstrued. It happens especially with the non-tribal organization.

One of the significant challenges I faced was my ethnicity as a Naga in Manipur. Studying a susceptible subject, some communities hesitated to share any information that would directly be seen as being against the tribes or Nagas in particular. So, most of the respondents would share only the good points and gloss over the negative energies. Lastly, being a Naga, there are preconceptions from other community members conceiving the researcher as favoring the Naga political demand. In this context, the researcher may have yet to obtain some in-depth data on many complex processes.

Conclusion

Due to the complexities of the research process, it is recommended that the research focuses on people’s experiences to unravel peoples’ perspectives from within. This will capture the varied complexities from the state’s rigid structural policies to the lived experiences of the people and have tremendous scope to unpack the convolutions and intricacies of the problems that persist, such as the case of the District Council in Manipur. The complexities of research subjective experiences reflect in resonate with Bodhi’s (2022, p.5) theorization of ‘contextualization’ that the act of contextualization within the decolonial-historical approach is a conscious effort that demands the engagement, deconstruction, delineation, unravelling, and reassembling of these intersecting realities through the identification of ‘lines of enquiry’ rather than the ‘object of inquiry’. As far as the knowledge producer engaging in knowledge production is concerned, contextualization is somewhat restrained to any ‘truth-claim’ by any person about having understood the totality of a particular social reality. The knowledge producer has, at most, unraveled one aspect of the social reality, not the total reality (Bodhi, 2022, p. 6).

In this way, the ‘truth claim’ for the non-tribal in the research I undertook is the one-sided narrative of the dominant community and government officials who blamed the tribals regarding the failure of the governance systems. For these groups of people, their approach is to ‘disengage’ the narratives of the other communities (tribes) and look for a single universal truth by ignoring the multiple narratives. This process de-contextualized the whole process of contextualization, which is vital in producing knowledge and truth. I strongly recommend that for any study on governance or policies on tribes, the multiplicity of narratives of the people is the utmost truth and should focus on what Bodhi (2022) theorizes on epistemological decolonization, contextualization and engaged observation. People’s narratives directly reflect the governance and policies for the people. In researching policies and governance for distinct and unique people like tribes, the thrust of the study should stem from the people’s narratives and not the biased glance of colonial or caste perspectives.

References:

• Bodhi, S. R. (2020). Epistemology of the Peripheralized: A Decolonial-Historical Approach. Nagpur: New Vehicle Production.
• Bodhi, S. R. (2022a). The decolonial-historical approach in social sciences research: its methodological contours. J. Tribal Intellect. Collect. India 6, 1–12.
• Tripura, B. (2023). ‘Decolonizing Ethnography and Tribes in India: Toward an Alternative Methodology’. Front. Polit. Sci. 5: pp. 1–15.https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2023.1047276
• Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing Methodologies-Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.

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