Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 23 Feb: Statehood day celebrations of the states of the Indian union are held across Raj Bhavans in the country as part of the ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ initiative of the government of India.
On 20 February, the Maharashtra Raj Bhavan celebrated the statehood of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh with Governor CP Radhakrishnan in attendance at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai. According to a statement on the Raj Bhavan’s website, a cultural programme depicting the rich cultures, folk dances, and traditions of Arunachal and Mizoram was presented by the students of Sydenham College, a constituent college of Dr Homi Bhabha State University.
In mainland Indian events representing the tribals, nothing about the Northeast, or for that matter the tribals of India, is complete without dances and songs from their respective regions. Well and good – what are we even without our folk dances and songs?
However, at the Mumbai Raj Bhavan event, there were several glitches that amounted to a misrepresentation of both the states and their unique dances and songs.
The costume choice was problematic from the start, as tribal attire has distinct patterns, motifs, and fabrics. While it’s understood that sometimes costumes are a mix-and-match attempt to represent everyone, it still doesn’t do justice to the authenticity.
On screen, a folk dance supposedly representing Arunachal turned out to be a modern dance, and the traditional attire was missing. But that wasn’t the end of the issues. They took it a step further with the Cheraw dance (also known as the bamboo dance) from Mizoram.
The screen behind the dancers clearly displayed the Cheraw dance from Mizoram – but the dance had no bamboos.
Perhaps a valid explanation could be that they didn’t have bamboos available, or maybe because of security issue. It was a bamboo dance without bamboos.
To make matters worse, the accompanying song for the Cheraw dance was a modern song of one of the Tani tribes of Arunachal.
