“One of the largest remaining non-state space in the world ... is the vast expanse of uplands, Zomia. This great mountain realm on the marches of mainland Southeast Asia, China, India, and Bangladesh sprawls across roughly 2.5 million square kilometers –
an area that equals the size of Europe…
"There are no barriers, no officials, no capitals on that side. The world as we know it — reciprocal even across national borders — ends here, in Zomia …"”
- Frank Jacobs of The New York Times, Feb 14, 2012 issue
An artist depiction of the rough edges of Zomia
Introduction
When in the 4th century before Christ young Alexander asked his tutor Aristotle what that Golden Bird lying beyond the river Indus is, vast and unexplored in its grandeur, the philosopher answered, “India. We name that country, India, ‘land beyond the Indus’”.
Across two thousand years of turmoil and tumult, amidst histories shaping and reshaping the country’s matchless profile, the word “India”, coined by those Greeks rather than by the Indians themselves, somehow stuck.
Other names, such as Bharatvarsa, Hindustan, Aryavarta, Bharat, etc, have been tried, but none resounded so universally well with the citizens as does the term “India”. Perhaps the reason being that all the other such names are proposed by Indians themselves, so some consider these bigotric, narrow and partisan, unreflective of the country’s diverse cultural complexity. Whereas the word “India” was minted by foreign scholars, so it became universally accepted – as the Greeks, being outsiders, were regarded neutral and objective, not bogged by any vested interest, when they coined the word.
Enters the 21st century: Zomia.
Somewhere in the rounded cloisters of the European academia, from the unlikeliest of intellectual pedestals – in the University of Amsterdam – a revolutionary reading of highland history was in the making. It all began in 2002 when the German historian Willem Van Schendel proposed the neologism “Zomia” to be the name for all the highlands tweaking the conjoined borders of North-eastern India, southern China, Tibet and the South East Asian countries. Zomia. It is a name dreamt up in a moment of singular inspiration.
Full of mystique and clothed in wonder, like the coining of India previously, the term “Zomia” resounded so well in the global academic community the scholars embraced its coinage with gusto and enthusiasm…till, within a short span of 5 years, the word became commonplace among historians, anthropologists and sociologists studying our received geo-cultural heritage. Finally, popular media also picked up on this theme, and articles on Zomia can be found written in the New York Times, Chronicle, the Boston Globe and other leading global periodicals.
Then, in 2009, the explosive, revolutionary reading of highland/tribal cultural history occurred – in the book called “The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia”, by the accomplished anthropologist James C. Scott.
In it, Scott borrowed Schendel’s term “Zomia” to mean all those highlands above 300meters whose people are characterized by that singular, anarchistic love of independence – freed life – rather than being under the hegemony of empires. Naturally, the people living there are called “Zomians”.
Using the idea of Zomia as a conceptual framework, he founded a new paradigm for historiography that, intentionally or otherwise, puts the pride back into all highlanders – when this paradigm introduces our people as being the makers for one of the most stirring saga in the story of man.
How?
To put in perspective the sheer audacity of James Scott’s interpretation, let us consider first what others and anthropologists before him, had said of our fathers.
Justification for an anarchist interpretation
Before James Scott came, scholars and laymen alike regard our fathers, the tribal highlanders in our totality, the Zomians, as “barbaric, primitive, even aboriginal; still stuck in the hunting-gathering prehistoric stage, not knowing the civilized ways of man, failing to evolve the way of civilization and thus, are behind the modern times by at least ten thousand years”.
Our tribes are seen as “the living ancestors of modern man”, what man was like before the discovery of wet-rice cultivation and urbanization and thus, what man was like before civilization came. In other words, our tribes up until the World War II are the modern man’s living key to the understanding of his lost, ancestral past.
This orthodox reading of our history gained such universal acceptance it seemed downright folly to even consider the possibility of an alternative. Is not the simplicity of our lifestyles, after all, direct evidence of our underdeveloped intellect? The interpretation even got us ourselves so persuaded we ended up seeing (and still end up seeing) our ancestors, even so contemporary as our grandparents themselves, as nothing more than the leftovers of a barbarian world.
“A barbarian world of darkness, superstition and primitivism which we abandon after the World War II with the spread of Christianity, increasing road connectivity, modern education and technology, and modern institutions”.
Or so the story goes.
Such received narrative was rigorously thrown to open doubt for the first time in James Scott’s radical work. In his book, rather than seeing the highland tribes as uncivilized barbarians still yet to be civilized, Scott proposed, on the basis of available evidence, that Zomians are best understood as “people who once saw the way of civilization – but, rather than embracing, flatly rejected it”.
Not people who are yet to be civilized, but people who knew the way of civilization once, then opt to abandon it, and consciously decided to adopt primitive lifestyles instead, by their own choice. The same way a rich man may return to living in the counties after spending a lifetime in the cities.
The reason for our forefathers’ rejection of civilization?
Because Zomians were “runaways. Fugitive, maroon communities who have, over the course of two millennia, been fleeing the oppressions of state-making projects in the valleys – (such as) conscription, slavery, taxes, coercive labor, epidemics and (mass) warfare”. Which is why Professor Scott called Zomia as “zone of refuge” for those who (meaning us) fled the trappings of civilized imperial tyranny.
What evidence did James Scott have to assert such an outrageous proposition which sees our communities as lovers of freedom remaining stateless by choice rather than prehistoric men of the jungles yet to conjure a state of our own?
His evidence was bitingly clear. Virtually every belief, activity and practice regarded as barbaric, superstitious and primitive, can be read instead as “strategic positionings designed to keep the state at arm’s length”.
Our modes of living, our social organization, our village and hut architecture, our physical dispersion in rugged terrain, our mobility, our cropping patterns, our kinship structure, our pliable ethnic identities, even our cuisines, “serve to avoid incorporation into states and to prevent states from springing up in the midst”.
Here, the state which our forefathers fled from and wished to avoid at all costs was primarily Han China. And almost everything about our ancestor’s lives was carefully designed to keep such all-consuming empires at bay.
How so? James Scott’s answers are mesmerizing and revealing.
Why were our ancestors, illiterate that they were, without any written literature, and our histories entirely oral? Not because they were too dumb and too backward to discover writing, but rather that they once had writing, yet rejected it (Scott would show from available evidences how our ancestors had writing once).
Why abandoned literature? Because if they had written records where their names could be listed and catalogued (as happened in electoral rolls), it means ease for the empire-builders in capturing them during an invasion – since they will know how many of them live where, what their ages are, etc. From there is an easy road to taxation, forced military conscription or worse, slavery.
If however there is no written record, it means the imperial subjects are clueless as to our numbers and strength, even of our presence. Thus, our forefathers were not illiterate or pre-literate, bur rather, post-literate: people who had literature once but rejected it because it significantly aided the state subjects in discovering their hides. For them, the price of liberty is civilization itself.
Why is much of our food items fermented and simplistically cooked rather than fried and spiced? And what explains the heavy reliance on root crops, like bamboo shoots and potatoes? Because fermented foods like “sahou” and “dolhou” and others can last for months…meaning that if we are to flee from state oppressors, we can run away with such items and hide for months before we go starving. And because root crops can be easily hidden away from the prying eyes of any tax collector who may do the rounds.
Fried and spiced items on the contrary get spoiled very easily, meaning they are not suitable for transport over long distances, or be stored for weeks’ end; and food simply boiled is, by its very nature, economical and easily prepared, best suited for rugged, hilly terrain and dense forests.
Why do we have no capital of strategic importance, no big cities to speak of, while our settlements in the hills are sparse and far between?
Not because our resources were limited or strained. Rather, because a capital means state formation – exactly the antithesis of the statelessness we desire. Big cities mean, again, control and coercive use of labor and worker exploitation – something our anarchical lifestyle despised.
Settlements are dispersed rather than focused so that, if a surprise attack was launched on one part of the village, the other areas may have time to escape.
Why practice jhum cultivation rather than wet-rice cultivation and terrace farming?
Because wet-rice cultivation demands permanent settlement and therefore, attachment to a particular piece of land – something that will incur huge economic and psychological costs, were we to forcibly abandon our settlements due to state invasion.
Contrarily, jhum cultivation, which by its very nature is shifting, decreases the level of sentimental attachment there is to a piece of land, and does not demand any permanent, continuous tending – meaning the economic and psychological costs of migration are far lesser here.
Why is our social hierarchy flexible rather than sharp and rigid like India’s caste system, and ours essentially tending towards equality rather than hierarchy?
Because hierarchy demands a chain of command in times of war and a chain of authority in times of peace; and a unified chain of command and authority means that if a part of that chain were to collapse due to sudden deaths by warfare or epidemic or betrayal, the entire command and administrative structure will collapse.
Absence of such chains does away with the idea of a part of the society being more important than another. Meaning that even if a considerable chunk of manpower were to be lost in an imperial invasion, the survivors can continue prospering much as they did before the losses were incurred.
And so on with our belief systems, our forms of dispute resolutions, our priestly institutions, our kinship structures, our devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders, and others…all designed to keep the state at arm’s length. For details in these matters, and more, James Scott’s book is a must read.
This, then, is the real story of our history: our forefathers lived a primitive form of existence not because they were barbaric and aboriginal, not because they were backward and uncivilized; but rather because they choose to do so, were post-civilized rather than uncivilized, post-literate rather than preliterate…and all because Zomians loved freedom and independence more than the order of state oppression and control.
Extent and Size
How big is Zomia? Which areas do Zomia encompass? What gives it a distinct identity separating it from all its neighbors and the world around?
Zomia does not appear on any official map as it is not a political entity. It scurries the boundaries of the big countries, rather, lying in the peripheries, and none at the strategic centers. James Scott identifies Zomia as "the largest remaining region of the world whose peoples have not yet been fully incorporated into nation-states."
Though the scholars who have dreamt up Zomia differ over its precise boundaries, Scott includes all the lands at altitudes above 300 meters stretching from the Central Highlands of Vietnam to northeastern India. That encompasses parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Burma, as well as four provinces of China. That puts the number of Zomians at 100 million – “minority peoples of truly bewildering ethnic and linguistic variety”. Among them are the Akha, Hmong, Karen, Lahu, Mien, and Wa; the Naga; Mizo, Kuki, Zomi, etc.
Identified thus, we may say that Zomia is unique for:
- the composition of its bewildering ethnic and linguistic diversity, with villages astride each other differing in a hundred minute variations, their languages even belonging to different linguistic families;
- being at the periphery of 9 countries and at the center of none, but encompassing an area c.2.5million square kilometers with 100m people;
- bestriding the usual regional designations (Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia), geographically known as the Southeast Asian mainland massif;
- its huge ecological variety within the rainforest itself; and
- the various relationships with the neighboring states.
Even among the Zomians, the Mizo-Kuki-Chakma-Zomi-Chin non-Naga tribes can be separately grouped together for sharing even closer cultural traits than the rest, and for the fact these tribes speak dialects springing from a single long-lost language. This group, presently dwelling in the geo-cultural epicenter of Zomia after which the region is named, may for that reason be called Heartland Zomia – and the people, Heartland Zomians.
Those lands immediately bordering Heartland Zomia maybe called Midland Zomia and the people there, Midland Zomians; while those outside Midland Zomia maybe called Rimland Zomia, and the people, Rimland Zomians. Both Midland and Heartland Zomia maybe grouped together as Inner Zomia; while Rimland Zomia constitutes Outer Zomia.
(In normal parlance, we may simply call Rimland Zomia as Rimlands; Midland Zomia as Midlands; Heartland Zomia as Heartlands).
All these areas – the Heartlands, Midlands, and the Rimlands – deserve the single name “Zomia” for possessing one common historical trait: they in their love of freedom and liberty were largely stateless fugitives, living outside the reach of state empires. And they live in lands above 300meters from the sea.
On what grounds are Heartland and Midland Zomia grouped together into Inner Zomia?
Because all of Inner Zomia is above 600meters (from sea level), situated within the rainforests, with the added caveat the Zomians peopling these highlands are by those who had been migratory up until the last 500 years.
Using these qualified parameters, the upper reaches of Afghanistan and Pakistan, all of Tibet, northern Arunachal Pradesh and downstream river-valleys in South-East Asia, gets categorized as Rimland.
The logic behind these 3 qualifications – 600meters, rainforest area, recent migratory tradition – is that, seen in this light, all the tribes living within the said demarcated area, share more or less similar cultural patterns not seen anywhere else in the world, not even among the Rimlands.
How so?
Because, at 600meters, altitude starts to play role in shaping the region’s climate and by extension, influences its cultural evolution. 600meters is the altitude at which water boils at 98 degrees Celsius, giving birth to all sorts of unique cuisines and dietary habits (This change will also justify use of the term “highland” for Inner Zomia rather than “upland”).
Inner Zomia is also identified with the rainforest areas for the simple reason rainforests differ so much from other biomes they give birth to and sustain very different ways of living.
Inner Zomians are also seen as migratory peoples at least up until 1600 CE to ensure there is cultural contiguity of all the tribes, and as a corollary, genealogical continuity too.
The result is an emergence of shared, underlying cultural themes that make Inner Zomia one but unique, such as:
- sharing more or less food and dietary habits, even similar cuisines;
- a common history of flight from the imperial nations surrounding it;
- similar political institutions, with its polity centered on the chief and village;
- animistic beliefs and lifestyles irreducible to Buddhist or Hindu ways;
- related rites and customs, with a common motif honoring the hornbill;
- similarity in costumes and dress, topped by the feather’s ubiquitous presence;
- being all periphery, are zones of refuge with no central authority; and
- an oral tradition with broadly shared mythos focused on millenarian themes.
Why include the Chakma-Mizo-Kuki-Zomi-Chin groups within the Heartland and not other groups? Because all these tribes emerged out of a single migratory group somewhere in the past 250years and thus, their dialects themselves belong to a single, forgotten mother-language, giving rise to such similar cultural patterns which differ only in the minutest details.
We may now state the 3 main geo-cultural divisions of Zomia:
I. Heartland Zomia: smallest of the divisions, it is constitutive of lands inhabited by the Chakma-Mizo-Kuki-Zomi-Chin groups (includes Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, Chin Hills of Myanmar, Tripura, Mizoram, Southern Manipur, Karbi Anglong areas of Assam, and some other places);
II. Midland Zomia: (its boundaries still to be demarcated; my current knowledge of such people is limited to name just who these tribes are); and
III. Rimland Zomia: largest of the divisions, it includes such areas like the mountainous terrains of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet in entirety, and the upper South-East Asian river valleys (>300meters but <600meters).
Scholars are yet to properly demarcate the boundaries of these 3 divisions, however; and it should be stressed that these are strictly non-political divisions solely based on geo-cultural and genealogical characteristics.
The Dream
The dream we have is primarily for Heartland Zomia and secondarily for the Midlands and Rimlands.
Before all else, we must accept that James Scott’s picture of Zomia unfolding in the 21st century highland historiography, is a depiction of the past, not of the present – a description of Zomia and its peoples before the World War II.
It is not an accurate reading of the present reality, nor does it pretend to be.
For in the present scheme of things:
Zomia’s topography is punctured everywhere by the surrounding areas with immense roadways, thus ending its geographic isolation, thereby destabilizing our traditional institutions, including the tradition of chieftainship;
its people and culture are irrevocably influenced by Modernity, Euro-centrism, Anglotianity (the mistaken conflation of Christianity with Anglophone culture), Christianity and Buddhism, en masse;
our way of life gets altered – for better or worse – by that quintessential aspect of modernity, viz., technology (vehicles, television, mobiles, computers, modern medicine), so much so that there is no returning back and our lives, still tribal in so many ways, are nevertheless now unimaginable without these gadgets;
while the current political structure is shaped by modern political institutions in which democracy plays a leading role in North-East India and both contemporary Cambodia and Thailand, the military junta in Myanmar highlands, the communist party in upland Laos and single-party socialism in much of Vietnam.
Because the clock cannot be unwind (nor is such a return desirable), and there are no more places available on the map where we can continue to migrate and run, and the present reality as it is must be accepted as a brute fact, the tradition of statelessness and anarchical lifestyle is no longer feasible. We are here to stay wherever we are, and herein we must make a stand to preserve what is left of our way of life. Gone are the days when we can live without literature, without urbanization, without cultivation, without the state even.
In other words, we must adopt civilization for the first time in our history –or perish.
Consequently, there remains only one way to resist cultural incorporation into the mainstream cultures of the respective political states we belong to: carve out a civilizational identity of our own based on our broad, common history and shared genealogical culture.
Spreading historical, genealogical and cultural awareness of each other among all Zomians (Heartlanders, Midlanders, Rimlanders); culturally integrating all of Inner Zomia to the level of integration currently present among the Heartland Zomians; and of the Heartland Zomia to the level of integration that will identify them not just as kin, but as one cultural entity with a multi-personality manifest, so that we can speak of “Heartland Zomian Culture” in the singular rather in the plural “Heartland Zomian Cultures”.
It is time to evolve a distinct Zomian civilization of our own wherein we embrace the lifeworld in entirety, and modern worldviews – philosophies and ideologies, education, the sciences and technologies. A civilization, yes, with our own cultural elements thrown in to give an identity separating us from the rest of mankind. A civilization that makes the best use of the gifts the modern world has to offer – but essentially remaining upland, tribal and Zomian.
Notwithstanding, it is important to note that in our effort to pursue such dreams, we remain essentially non-political in nature and character, for politics is not a game we can afford to play. It will only crush any dreams of ours, instead, and ruin everything.
Now we may state what our dream is all about.
The dream is one wrapped up in a threefold:
First, spreading the singular idea of oneness by using the knowledge of our shared historical contexts among all Zomians all the way from Afghanistan to Tibet and North-Eastern India, and beyond to South-East Asia (scholars and journalists will play this role to a great extent; our job is only to diffuse their ideas so they permeate down to all Zomians);
Second, a cultural, non-political unification of all Inner Zomian tribes to the level of relatedness the heartland Zomians are at in the present, thus maximizing intertribal understanding and concord while minimizing conflict and discord (again, help from the academia will be essential); and –
Third, and for our purposes, most importantly, a socio-cultural reunification of all Heartland Zomia (composing the Kuki, Mizo, Chakma, Chin, Zomi tribes) – given the geographical contiguity; the shared recent history and genealogy; the shared, while forgotten, mother-language, from which the present dialects sprang; and identifiably common cultural traits, differing from each other only in the deeper details…in order to realize our common aspirations and dreams cultural, social and economic.
My pen will dance for the reunification of Heartland Zomia, whence the unfolding of a Zomian civilization will begin.
Perhaps then we will leave behind in our wake an epoch our children will be proud of. An epoch when the Zomians come to the realization of our essentially similar nature and decide, for that reason, to sow greater understanding among ourselves…thus enabling generations hence to talk of our times as being the turning point in modern highland history. A turning point because it is with us that the cultural unification of all Zomia – meaning the unity of highland peoples – truly begin.
Unification for Civilization, then, is the dream that is Zomia.