Blotted Escutcheon

In the deep valleys and rugged mountains of India's North-East Frontier Agency live a tangle of secretive tribes with peculiar habits. The wily Daflas wear jockey caps with feathers; Gallong girls can have multiple husbands; the Tangsas dress in scotch-plaid sarongs. Apa Tani women are adorned with nose plugs and large, looped earrings, while Hill Miri girls wear tight petticoats of woven cane that give them a mincing walk. The Abors love to dance and fight, and the Mishmis, though remarkably handsome, have nevertheless been described by European explorers as being "excessively dirty" as well as "deceitful and bloodthirsty devils."

In New Delhi, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru last week admitted in Parliament that NEFA's conglomerate tribes have another peculiar habit unflattering to a civilized nation: they still practice slavery. Nehru said that the government was trying to eradicate the custom slowly by giving asylum to escaped slaves and spending up to $105 per man to buy freedom for those in bondage. Should India move too fast in abolishing slavery, the NEFA tribes might rebel and turn for help to the Red Chinese across the border in Tibet. But if India moves too slowly, Red propagandists will exploit the existence of slavery in democratic India. By and large, said Nehru, slaves in NEFA are treated like one of the family. Some have been captured in tribal wars, but others come from within the same tribe and accept slavery to discharge a family debt, or to receive protection from a powerful master, or because they have committed a tribal crime and cannot pay the fine demanded.

India's newspapers grumbled at this "blot upon our escutcheon," and demanded "a clean and speedy sweep of this evil" from Indian soil. It may not be easy: most slave-owning NEFA tribesmen firmly believe that, no matter how wicked a man may be, his riches will accompany him from this life to the next. Thus, if he owns slaves in this world, he will have slaves to attend him in heaven.

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