Tongam Rina, the girl who wouldn’t give in

What do you expect to hear from a young and beautiful woman who was shot twice, almost died, went through hours of surgery and will probably never walk again? Not much.

But then Tongam Rina is different from most other women. An associate editor with The Arunachal Times, Tongam was shot outside her office yesterday evening. Two men waylaid her, and shot her, a bullet tearing through her stomach and hitting her vertebrae. But Tongam being Tongam, she just woke up after surgery and asked for a glass of beer. That’s her, courageous of spirit and action, just like her writing.

For years, Tongam, 32, took on the toughest assignments, writing against the NSCN(IM), corruption in the state, the super-hydro dams that were ravaging her state and the deep tribal fault lines that were tearing her state apart. Threats would be a common feature for her for years. Those threatening her would call her, send her messages, and try their best to intimidate her. But Tongam couldn’t care less. She would soldier on, the intrepid reporter chasing every lead that came her way.

I met her for the first time on a fascinating trip to Arunachal when the Chinese government was busy sabre-rattling and breathing fire because the Dalai Lama was slated to visit Tawang. As the Chinese bristled, I was packed off to do a story by travelling through the state. That trip, driving on the precarious mountain roads with zero visibility in a state that plunged into pitch darkness hours before the rest of India, is deeply etched in my mind. As far as road journeys go, it will probably be one of the best I have ever undertaken because it took me to Tongam.

There she was, a petite woman, sitting at her desk when I arrived at the Arunachal Times office. Everybody I had met for a perspective or quote had asked me to meet her to understand the state and its fascinating people. She was everything that most people had told me she would be and a little bit more. She was warm, friendly, generous and full of empathy for her state, deeply in love with its traditions and its people. She explained the uniqueness of the state, the only part of post-independent India that had seen foreign occupation for several months, until the Chinese chose to go back voluntarily.

But while the Chinese left without harming the state or its people, a nervous Indian government came and did its best to obliterate the local identity and impose ‘Indian culture.’ They chose language as the instrument of a new oppression, killing the local tongues and forcing everyone to learn Hindi as soon as they stepped into school. The tribal identities, perhaps the oldest in the country, were forcibly merged into a single entity, forcing the Adi, Galo, Nyishi, and Apatanis to adapt to this new and alien identity. All this was patiently explained to me by Tongam, while she also told me tales about how the NSCN (IM) cadres would pass through the state on their way to China for training and arms. Her tales of the endemic corruption, the horse-trading among the politicians, the insensitive bureaucracy, helped me understand a beautiful state that had been forced into an identity crisis by being derisively called ‘the Northeast.’ For her, this was as offensive a term as any other.

Few knew Tongam was also ill. She would slip into New Delhi for treatment and call me to come and look her up. But her illness never mattered when there was a story to be discussed. She would call up with infectious excitement, telling me what she had discovered and asking me to check something out for her. That was us, two reporters having a chat like reporters do when they smell a story.

For months, journalists in Itanagar and her paper had been at the receiving end of several threats. Her office was ransacked by unidentified people on April 16 and several of her colleagues had been receiving death threats. The clueless police continue to flounder while journalists work under threats every day. After the attack, The Arunachal Times took the unprecedented decision to suspend publication for a day on June 17 as a mark of protest and refuse all government releases till the culprits are brought to book. For Tongam, also the president of the Arunachal Pradesh Union of Working Journalists, this is her finest moment. The attack has fired up her colleagues to take on the threats and keep writing with the same courage that she has graced the pages of her newspaper. I hope her pen returns to the newsroom soon.