I was doing some random search on Google when I stumbled upon this website called The Morung Express. The name itself suggested it’s a news site. It looked like something to do with India, but not really. I moved the mouse around the home page only to come across names, issues, events, I have never heard of.

  • Legislative Assembly elections in Dimapur.
  • Bomb attack at residence of former Opposition Leader, I Imkong at Sangtemla ward in Mokokchung district.

Strange, how come I didn’t hear anything about this election or attack. May be I didn’t follow the news properly. Although 7-8 times a day I pass by the office cafeteria and take a look at the TV news and all I see is Indian Cricket team. As if they have not only conquered planet Mars but also have gift wrapped it with nice shiney glossy paper with bow strings attached to be presented to the people of India.

I logged on to NDTV.com to see if I can find similar news. Nothing on the home page. Then I clicked on Nation: Headlines still nothing about Dimapur elections.

I went back to Morung to try looking at the date thinking, may be the reason I don’t know about these people or events is because these news are outdated. But that was not the case. I was looking at a current page on Morung which looked foreign to me.

I moved to Times of India website. Here, I did find a story on the election but only after going through Home >> India >> More news >> Other news.

Where am I going with this? To the question, “Is Nagaland and the other far north-eastern states not a part of India?” How much do we know about these states. True, the news on Morung is regional news but don’t the regional activity affect the whole nation. Particularly the news related to Legislative Assemby elections. As I write this I am trying to recollect when was the last time I heard any news related to the 6-7 states that’s around that belt. You know what, I just realised, I don’t even remember how many states are there and what are their names, all I remember is that there was something like the 7 sisters.

But is it my fault that I don’t know enough about the north-east? Or is it a problem with north-eastern states that they mostly remain invisible when we talk about India? Or is it Centre which failed to pay attention to smaller and far off regions? Or is it a failure, on the part of popular Media, to cover India in its entirety? Or is it a problem about the size of our country and the geographical limitations? Just why do we have this gap.

I have always heard this argument that it is them who don’t consider themselves as true Indians. This is not entirely wrong. Even I have come across north-eastern people who don’t identify much with the Indian tradition or Hindu Rashtra that we keep hearing about. Like, there was this girl who in a college function, where the dress code was traditional, refused to wear a saree as a saree was never her traditional dress. But again is not this isolation caused by the continued failure on the part of Central agencies to reach out to these far regions, are they not more and more segregated because the other part of India didn’t make enough efforts?

In one of the comments here on mutiny, I asked, if the RSS brigade considers north-east states, a part of their Hindu Rashtra but I didn’t get any response from the Hindutva flag bearers.

I also blame the popular Media for this unequal representation of India. Media anyway is busy reporting frivolous news. The first page of Times of India, news in boldest and largest font “Team India arrives in Delhi”. Shouldn’t sports news be only in sports section. The third most important news of the day, “Facebook founder is world’s youngest billionaire.”

Thanks to new media at least now, those of us who are really interested can catch up with all the nook and corners of India and world. My personal request to readers here, please do visit the Morung site to know about another part of India about which no body ever informed you. As a website it has created a nice blend of regional and national news. It doesn’t look like they are only reporting Nagaland. The web interface is also very neat. Worth a visit.