One of the signifiers of the transition of medieval state into modern state was the form of punishment it introduced for deviants and nonconformists, who refused to accept the established order of the state and its forms of knowledge and were categorized as criminals. The pre-modern states disciplined such rebels through an elaborate punishment system which hinged on ‘injury’, ‘pain’, and ‘spectacle’. Gradually such forms of discipline and punishment began to prove counterproductive. The modern state shifted its attention from body to mind. It evolved a science of engineering though which mind could be controlled through ‘spatialization’ and minute control of activity and repetitive exercise by which ‘abnormal’ citizens could be turned into ‘normal’, meaning law-abiding. The utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s idea of the Panopticon revolutionized the idea of punishment in the modern state. The idea was that every person would be isolated in a small space so they all might be observed by a single agency from a central tower. The space would be illuminated around the perimeter so that each person could be clearly watched and monitored by the central observer but spatialized persons would neither see each other or the observer. It would not just be applicable to a prison but used for factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, madhouses and so on where non-conformists would be reformed. As modernity unfolds itself, we see such instances in variegated landscapes.

In post-colonial times, Mizo rebels questioned the legitimacy of Indian state to rule over them and decided to subvert the illegitimate regime. It was non-conformism, rebellion. It was an abnormality which required punishing and disciplining. Initially this was done through a ‘causes-and-explanation framework’. In a series of counter-insurgency texts, a theory of deprivation, underdevelopment, neglect, internal colonialism was outlined to ‘regard that insurgency was external’ to the rebels consciousness and ‘cause is made to stand in as a phantom surrogate for reason, the logic of that consciousness’. In other words a discourse was established that the rebels were actually ‘normal’ (read conformist) people but due to certain reasons had turned ‘rebels.’ The cause was deprivation and underdevelopment and hence a development initiative was taken to address the ‘cause’, aimed also at preventing further conversion of people into such rebels. All this happened while counter-insurgency violence and surveillance mechanisms were in place. The entire Mizo Hills was converted into an open prison. People were evicted from their ancestral habitats and coerced into living in this open prison ironically called “Progressive and Protective Villages”. It was a gigantic Panopticon which was sort of a permanent observatory.

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Sajal Nag is currently Professor of Modern and Contemporary History in Assam Central University, Silhcar. He is the author of  Roots of Ethnic Conflict: Nationality Questions in North East India, (Manohar, Delhi, 1990), India and North East India: Mind, Politcs and the Process of Integration 1946-1950 (Regency, Delhi, 1999), Nationalism, Separatism, Secessionism, Rawat, Delhi, 2000, Contesting Marginality: Ethnicity, Insurgency and Subnationalism in North East India, Manohar, Delhi, 2002, Pied Pipers in North East India: Bamboo Flowers, Rat Famine and the Politics of Philanthropy, Manohar, Delhi, 2009, edited, Making of the Union: Merger of Princely States and Excluded Areas, Akansha, Delhi, 2008.

Sajal Nag was a Commonwealth Fellow at Northern Ireland during 2004-05. He was also a Charles Wallace Fellow at Cambridge during 2008. He has been a consultant of Oxfam  on North East India for its Human Disaster Report and Violance Mitigation and Amileoration Pragramme and was in the curriculum committee of NCERT handling Comtemporary Politics in India.