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Conflict and Youth Rights in India
 Haans J. Freddy

Conflict and Youth

Rights in India
Engagement and Identity in the North East
Haans J. Freddy
Department of Political Science
Madras Christian College
Chennai, India

ISBN 978-981-10-3068-0 ISBN 978-981-10-3069-7 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3069-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016963285

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

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The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore
189721, Singapore
 To My Beloved
Father Dr. K. John Freddy
 FOREWORD

Dr. Haans J Freddy, a gifted researcher with a moral and empirical

sensitivity, was my student for five years both as an undergraduate and
post-graduate student in Political Science in Madras Christian College,
Chennai, India. Incidentally, I was a student of his father, the late Mr.
John Freddy in Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School,
Chennai, whose flair for English was remarkable and who was highly
respected. A lifelong learner, Dr. Haans obtained an ICSSR fellowship
to pursue post-doctoral studies and I was privileged to be his guide.
Hence, my long-standing association both at the personal level and with
his academic endeavours justifies my happiness and pride in writing this
foreword.
His latest book, Conflict and Youth Rights in India: Engagement and
Identity in Northeast, is a treasure for political scientists, sociologists,
human rights activists, researchers working in northeast India and more
generally for the youth of India. This book integrates insights on the social
and emotional characteristics of the youth in India and specifically those in
the northeastern states.
The book provides valuable information about the unstable period in
the life of an individual between childhood and adulthood and highlights
both the personal aspect of the youth, like biological maturity, and the
social aspects, such as the changing relationships, work, leisure and many
more. Social exclusion, minority syndrome, insurgency and ethnic rivalry
have given rise to new methods of militant activity and pose ever-changing
threats in northeast India. Poor governance and lack of economic devel-
opment have transformed militant outfits into terrorist entities. In this

vii
viii FOREWORD

new age of global interconnectivity and interdependence, it is necessary to

provide assurance for youth that their visions and dreams can become a
reality. This book is a good step in that direction.
This book is primarily designed to assist educators, policy-makers and
social activists who are interested in finding a way to end the conflict and
to restore the rights of the youth in northeast India. The book is signifi-
cant in the sense that it brings to prominence the neglected aspirations of
youth and their forced role in the conflict in northeast India. This book is a
compendium of concrete examples for integrating northeast India with
India at large.
After establishing a theoretical foundation, the book attempts to iden-
tify youth rights, the conflict in northeast India, examines the participation
of the youth in that conflict and specific rights of youth in northeast India.
The three main criteria for essential for development the youth of north-
east India— namely, ‘Survival’, ‘Acceptance’, and ‘Dignity’—are thor-
oughly analysed. I am very sure that the reader will be guided
systematically to understand the issues of the youth and their larger
implications in the northeast India. Youth have not only been agents of
socio-economic change, but they have also been victimized in war and
manipulated to become combatants. The reader will encounter reflective
thinking with regard to youth rights in general. The book can be seen as a
manual for youth rights in northeast India. It could also provide a road
map of a new northeast India that fosters positive developments in the
fields of education, infrastructure, industry and tourism.

Madras Christian College S.D. Christopher Chandran

 PREFACE

It has been a privilege for me to write this volume. What started off as a
brief engagement with the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth
Development a premier organization of the Ministry of Youth Affairs
and Sports, Government of India, through a Lectureship in the Institute
became an inspiration for writing this volume. This volume is the outcome
of a postdoctoral fellowship granted by the Indian Council of Social
Science Research, New Delhi.
Youth studies have in recent times received considerable importance.
With debates surrounding on the flexibility of the concept of youth, many
scholars have contributed to understanding of the period of youth both as
a biological and sociological construct. Youth who are generally consid-
ered as the future generation and when research on them has advanced our
understandings of the concept, it has placed on them a variety of issues
which can be of importance for their development.
This volume captures a variety of issues which arise due to the problems
faced by youth. It raises the question of youth rights in the context of
north-east India. The chapters in this book examine the concept of youth
where definitions and the concept of youth is examined in detail. Youth
rights which are of utmost importance for the successful transition into
adulthood is given priority while examining the conflict in north-east
India. Youth rights are the rights of young people. It is an important
concept in movements responding to the oppression of young people,
with advocates of youth rights promoting youth participation, youth/
adult partnerships, and achieving ultimately, intergenerational equity.
The need to increase attention and concern on the rights of youth is

ix
x PREFACE

beyond controversy. The rationale for making a convention on the rights

of young people has been increasingly debated with some in favour and
others against it. Current challenges to ensuring the access of youth rights
stem from these debates and overarching questions. Examining these
debates and questions, there seem to be some issues relating to youth
rights which need to be answered definitively.
While there are specific instruments which cater to the needs of chil-
dren, women, physically disabled, etc., there seems to be one aspect which
has not received much attention – Youth Rights. Although there have
been some efforts towards better protection and enhancement of youth
rights, yet it is still under represented in the debates which surround
human rights. More particularly youth rights in the context of conflict
situations require attention as it is in those situations that their rights are
severely infringed upon in many ways. This volume seeks to introduce to
the reader why youth rights are important and need to be taken into
consideration and how young people in conflict situations are denied
their specific rights. In the chapters that are in this book, an effort is
made to provide theoretical explanations as to why youth participate in
conflict using the binary of the greed and grievance perspectives. In this
context, the case of north-eastern India is very interesting where the
region has experienced armed conflict which has been in many cases
termed as low intensity conflicts, where youth play a significant role in
insurgent movements in the region. Interestingly many of the insurgent
movements in north-east India were predominantly started by youth who
were dissatisfied with state policies which were adopted towards the region
in the post independence era of the Indian state. The book also provides a
brief overview of the conflicts in north-east India where the cases of
Assam, Nagaland and Manipur are examined to explain insurgent move-
ments in the region in which youth have engaged in the conflicts to a large
extent.
North-east India has been examined by most scholars as a theater of
insurgency and conflict. However, numerous studies which have been
conducted in this context have ignored the concept of youth while analyz-
ing such conflicts. Youth in north-east India have played a significant role
in the conflict and there has not been much effort made in this direction to
understand their motives to engage actively in the conflict. Youth in this
region have joined rebel organizations or insurgent groups in order to
confront the state to achieve some form of redressal towards the grievances
which are present among the people of north-east India. On the other
 PREFACE xi

hand they have joined insurgent groups to demand secession from the
Indian union. This book is an attempt to briefly understand and analyze
the role youth have played in conflict and the consequences of conflict
over their rights in the region. Thus, the book offers an alternative lens to
understand the conflict in north-east India. The chapters in the book are
arranged to understand the concept of youth and its importance and the
idea of youth rights. It also provides a brief overview of conflicts in north-
east India which has survived over five decades despite the Indian govern-
ment’s efforts to establish peace in the region both through military force
and through negotiations with insurgent groups. Further, it moves into
examining youth participation in conflict in north-east India where causal
explanations are provided. It then examines youth rights in the region and
finally concludes with a few suggestions drawn from earlier models which
had been framed and initiated with regard to those regions’ specific needs
could be adopted in similar ways.

Haans J. Freddy
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude and thanks to the LORD

JESUS for his love and support during a very difficult phase of my life
that I went through while writing this book. I extend my sincere thanks
to my father, the late Mr. K John Freddy, who was my source of inspira-
tion for writing this book. A sincere note of thanks also goes to the
Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi, which generously
provided me with the grant for the project through a Post-Doctoral
Fellowship. I owe a special word of thanks to Ms. Sara Crowley
Vigneau for taking an interest in this work and bringing it to Palgrave
MacMillan. My sincere thanks to Dr. C. Joshua Thomas, Deputy
Director, Indian Council of Social Science Research-North Eastern
Regional Council, Shillong, for all his kind words of encouragement
and support through his center towards this project.
A special mention has to be made of Dr. Lawrence Prabhakar Williams,
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Madras Christian
College, who encouraged and supported me immensely while writing
this book. I am grateful for the kind response of my friends as well as
those strangers I met while writing this book. I would like to especially
thank Dr. K. Debbarma, Dr. R. Borgohain, Prof. B.J. Deb, Dr. Biju
Kumar, Dr. Thongkholal Haokip, Dr. Hariharan, Dr. A. Subramanian,
Dr. K. Palani and Dr. S.D. Christopher Chandran.
A sincere word of thanks to Dr. Allen J. Freddy for his kind words of
encouragement, love and support. My Mother, who was a great source of
support and encouragement, needs a special note of thanks.

xiii
xiv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Words do not suffice to express my sincere gratitude to my wife K’Liu,

who supported and encouraged me through the long hours of work away
from home. And to my sons Raphael and Zacchaeus, who have always
been a source of happiness in difficult times – a big thank you.
 CONTENTS

1 Introduction 1

2 Understanding Youth Rights 13

3 Conflict in Northeast India: An Overview 25

4 Youth Participation in Conflict in Northeast India 41

5 Youth Rights in Northeast India 57

6 Conclusion 69

Bibliography 75

Index 87

xv
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

UN United Nations
NNC Naga National Council
NSCN-IM Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland/Nagalim-Isak and
Muivah
NSCN-K National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Kaphlang
NER North Eastern Region
NEC North Eastern Council
PLA Peoples Liberation Army
KNA Kuki National Army
ULFA United Liberation Front of Asom
BLTF Bodo Liberation Tigers Front
US United States
ILO International Labour Organization
WPAY World Programme of Action for Youth
UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights
CRC Convention on the Rights of the Child
AYC African Youth Charter
AUC African Union Commission
OIJ Judicial Investigation Organization
AFSPA Armed Forces Special Powers Act
UNLF United National Liberation Front
PREPAK Peoples Revolutionary Army of Kangleipak
AASU All Assam Students Union
AAGSP All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad
NDFB National Democratic Front of Bodoland
BLT Bodo Liberation Tigers
BTC Bodoland Territorial Council

xvii
xviii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

IBRF Indo-Burma Revolutionary Front

NDFB-S National Democratic Front of Bodoland-Songbijit
NDFB-RD National Democratic Front of Bodoland-Ranjan Daimary
NDFB-P National Democratic Front of Bodoland-Progressive
KLNLF Karbi Longbri North Cachar Liberation Front
NSCN-KK National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khole Khitovi
UPF United Progressive Front
KNO Kuki National Organization
MOU Memorandum of Understanding
URF United Revolutionary Front
KCP-L Kangleipak Communist Party-Lamphel
KYKL Kanglei Yawal Kanna Lup
AMSU Adi Mishing Students Union
ANEFASU All North Eastern Frontier Agency Students Union
APSU Arunachal Pradesh Students Union
ANSAM All Naga Students Association Manipur
KSU Khasi Students Union
NPMHR Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights
NSF Naga Students Federation
UCM United Committee of Manipur
ATTF All Tripura Tiger Force
UNESCO United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization
MDG Millennium Development Goals
 LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 4.1 Causes for youth participation in conflict in northeast India 46

Fig. 4.2 Means through which youth engage in conflict in northeast
India 47
Fig. 5.1 Problems faced by youth in northeast India 64

xix
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Peace accords in northeast India 31

xxi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract Over the last four decades or more, young people have been the
subjects of an enormous amount of research both in developed and devel-
oping countries. In general, the research on youth is assumed to constitute a
separate and significant category of people – non-adults. The problematic
nature of transition from childhood to adulthood is a central and recurring
theme in the research on youth which often confronts the fundamental
difficulty in categorizing this period based on biological aspects and social
processes. The idea of youth has differing meanings across the globe
depending on their social settings. Thus, this chapter is an examination of
the concept of youth and the various meanings attached to it at the global
level and at the local/regional level.

Keywords Youth
Youth studies
Concept of youth
Social construction

of Youth

This chapter is an examination of the concept of youth and the various

meanings attached to it at the global and the local/regional level.
Over the last four decades or more, young people have been the subject
of an enormous amount of research both in the developed and developing
countries. In general the research on youth is assumed to constitute a
separate and significant category of people—non-adults. The problematic
nature of being a youth and the even more problematic nature of the

© The Author(s) 2017 1

H.J. Freddy, Conflict and Youth Rights in India,
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3069-7_1
2 CONFLICT AND YOUTH RIGHTS IN INDIA

transition to adulthood is a central and recurring theme in the research on

youth. Assumptions inherited from developmental psychology relating to
stages of development, identity formation, normative behaviour and the
relation between the social and physical maturation are found in the extant
literature on youth. Yet very little work has been done to make clear the
theoretical basis on the categorization based on age. Researchers on youth
studies have stressed this point continuously (Wyn and White 1997). In
1968, Allen stated that a reassessment of the concept of youth is necessary,
specifically that stability is created in society through social change, which
explains the relationships between different age groups and not the rela-
tions between ages (Allen 1968). However, three decades later, Jones
challenged this point and argued that from a sociological perspective the
concept of youth had yet to develop a framework to explain the different
experiences that young people pass through when interacting with differ-
ent social groups during their transition from youth to adulthood.
Further, she argued that it would be misleading to emphasize the qualities
of youth per se as they are neither a homogenous group nor a static one.
Instead, she argued that the idea of youth can be conceptualized as an age-
related process (Jones 1998). This implies that the focus in the examina-
tion of youth should not be on the inherent characteristics of young
people themselves, but on the construction of the idea of youth through
social processes such as education, family and the labour market, and the
specific ways in which young people engage with these institutions accord-
ing to their historical circumstances (Wyn and White 1997). Growing
awareness amongst researchers on youth as a process has brought into
question the universality of the term youth. For example, Liebau and
Chisholm (1993) have suggested that European youth do not exist.
They stress the point that cultures and economies are framed differently
in European nations, so young people’s experiences across European
countries and regions are completely different from each other. They
further argue that material objectives and subjective interpretations of
culture, society and circumstances shape the way young people grow up
in the region (Liebau and Chisholm 1993). In this context Wallace and
Kovacheva (1995), while speaking about youth in Europe, state that the
experiences of youth are being deconstructed as transitions in life in
relation to age are given less priority. The asymmetry between biological
and social processes is a significant issue in youth research. While the
concept of age generally refers to its biological aspect, more broadly
speaking, the meaning and experience of age and ageing are subject to
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

historical and cultural processes. On the one hand, objective measure-

ments of an individual’s life span can be made according to the passing of
time, while on the other, cultural understandings about the stages of life
provide social meanings to the process of ageing. Specific social and
political processes provide the framework within which cultural meanings
are developed. Youth and childhood have had and continue to have
different meanings, depending on social, cultural and political circum-
stances. Research on young people’s lives in the United States suggests
that the ideals of a happy and safe childhood and the “innocent” period of
youth are myths built around social concerns and priorities in capitalist
countries (such as the United States and European countries). However,
in stark contrast, Boyden also showcases the grim realities of trafficking
and sexual exploitation of children in South East Asian states such as the
Philippines and Thailand, the crimes committed against youth in
Argentina and the repression and detention inflicted on young people in
South Africa due to apartheid (Boyden 1990). More importantly,
Boyden’s work reveals that children in some countries are expected to
work, not only to generate income but also to gain those skills required to
lead a successful adult life.
The nature of youth as socially constructed becomes more obvious
when seen from a global perspective (Wyn and White 1997). The idea of
youth as a universal stage of development and transition was and remains
an inappropriate concept for a large proportion of the world’s young
people. While varying experiences of youth may exist, a universal concept
of youth is important because it enables us to understand some of the
complexities of social change and the intersections between institutions
and personal biography. In this context, youth is most usefully seen as a
relational concept, referring to the social processes whereby age is socially
constructed, institutionalized and controlled in historically and culturally
specific ways (Tyyska 2014). It may be useful to refer here to earlier
arguments over the concept of gender, as there are similarities. The con-
cept of sex roles was constructed to provide a framework for understand-
ing on social limitations which men and women face in the society. While
the concept of sex roles offered useful descriptions and a significant basis
upon which to base strategies to address gender inequalities, it had serious
drawbacks. The idea of distinct sex roles failed to provide any insight into
he relationship between men and women when such a categorization was
constructed socially. However, eventually, the concept of sex roles was
replaced by a stronger argument which placed gender as a relational
4 CONFLICT AND YOUTH RIGHTS IN INDIA

concept in which power was placed at the center. When gender is seen in
this relational context, it draws our attention to the ways in which relations
between femininities and masculinities are constructed. In this context,
femininity and masculinity are not two different categories, and they
cannot be examined independently of each other. Davies (1993), for
example, in her study shows how boys maintained a gender-based dualism
through denigration of the opposite sex, frequently drawing attention to
purportedly negative behaviours associated with women. Thus, Davies
provides us with an example where being masculine involves maintaining
a hierarchical order in which being male carries with it greater value.
Franzway and Lowe (1978), Edwards (1983) and Connell (1987) have
provided several useful discussions and extensive analyses of the limitations
of the categorical approach to gender relations.
The concept of youth is relational in nature and has meaning largely in
relation to the concept of adulthood. An idealized and institutionalized
concept of youth supposes the eventual arrival of adulthood, for which
youth is seen as preparatory. At the same time youth is not seen simply as a
“deficit” of the adult state but as a period when young people require
guidance, training and expert attention in order to ensure the successful
transition from youth to adulthood.
The concept of youth, understood as a relational concept, brings power
relations to the forefront. For the purposes of our analysis, this dimension
is important in understanding the experiences that different groups of
young people have while growing up. The general perception that
young people are a threat to law and order portrays young people as
more powerful than they really are. Although they have rights as citizens,
these rights are relatively easily denied, and young people do not have the
opportunity to express their needs regarding institutions in which they
have the most at stake, such as education (Wyn and White 1997). In
everyday life and language, the concept of youth is associated with the
state of being young, more particularly with that phase of life between
childhood and adulthood. The words youth and young are sometimes used
interchangeably. Although they appear to mean the same thing, the term
youth when used in the plural has a broader meaning. Youth is a word
which carries with it a great deal of baggage. The baggage includes ideas
about unruly young people —often male—operating in groups and, at the
very least, being a nuisance on the streets (Spence 2005).
Though it is often used, the term youth is therefore not a neutral
description of young people. If it is not used critically and carefully, it
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

brings with it predominantly negative assumptions about the behaviour

and character of young people both as individuals and in groups. Being
young is a natural biological phase in the life cycle associated with the
transition from childhood to adulthood (Seymor 2013). This concept of
youth is connected not only with a biological state, but also with a
connection with society; that is, it has both a biological and social mean-
ing. As individuals grow up within a particular social context, they occupy
particular places within any given society. The experiences of young
people and the meanings attached to the term youth are derived directly
from the social, political and economic positions occupied by young
people as much as they are from their biological development (Bennett
2007). In this context the meaning of youth and the “baggage” attached
thereto shifts and varies in time and place. Being young is experienced and
understood differently today than it was in the past, and there are con-
siderable differences and implications in these understandings in different
regions of the world (Spence 2005).
Youth as a social concept has thus both historical and spatial dimensions.
Within time and space, societies are structured in a way that individuals and
groups occupy different social positions and undertake different social roles.
Often social structures reflect the distribution of wealth and power, and this
distribution affects different groups of people unequally. In relation to
youth, for example, being a young prince brings with it an entirely different
status and identity, social behaviour and different expectations and oppor-
tunities than does being a working class youth earning a minimum wage as a
construction worker. Therefore, even though it is possible to identify some
common biological markers of being young, there is no one universal set of
meanings which can include all young people. In other words, the concept
of youth is a generalization which cannot be taken to represent the complex
experiences of being young in any given situation.
Nevertheless the meanings attached to the concept of youth, and the
manner in which the term is commonly used, does say something about
dominant attitudes towards young people. These attitudes in turn affect the
perceptions of youth and the way in which they are treated. More particu-
larly, youth is itself as a group affected by differing access to wealth and
resources. This is partly related, on the one hand, to legal age barriers which
define access to social opportunities such as voting, employment and welfare
housing benefits, and on the other, partly related to the notion that youth is
a period of learning, apprenticeship and training and skill development in
the path to becoming an adult (Henderson et al. 2007).
6 CONFLICT AND YOUTH RIGHTS IN INDIA

The concept of youth is one which suggests similarities amongst people

belonging to a similar age group, and this concept is used as the basis for
creating social rules and institutions which emphasize these similarities.
This affects the way in which young people construe and comprehend
what it is to be young. Thus, youth is therefore a real social as well as
biological experience. However, there can be no truly universal experience
of youth, as the reality of life for young people is defined according to
different factors such as wealth or power by different categories such as
class, gender or citizenship status. Understanding something of the com-
plex relationship between the concept of youth and the different realities
of young people’s’ lives can help us to understand the world in which
different young people live (Wallace and Cross 1990).
The need to define youth is important in order to the group we are
trying to research, understand and eventually develop a policy for. As is
noted elsewhere in this book, definitions and understanding of youth will
reflect the biases of those doing the defining. Sociologists, youth workers,
and policy-makers all have their own different notions of what constitutes
youth, and many of these understandings are at variance with the ways in
which young people see themselves (Ceislik and Simpson 2013). Similarly
varying conceptions of the period of youth are historically and culturally
documented by writers and researchers on youth. The category of youth as
it is understood today is a relatively recent phenomenon developed during
the eighteenth century, as evidenced by historical studies in Western
societies, although discussions of youth have been noted as far back as
the classical period of Greek society. With the rise of Western modernity
the idea of an intermediate stage of life between childhood and adulthood
came to be commonly seen as youth. Prior to the 1800s, childhood was
seen to merge into an early form of adult independence between the ages
of 11 to 12 as children took on waged employment and greater duties
around their homes (Ceislik and Simpson 2013, p. 3).
Marshall and Bottomore (1992) state that the past two centuries in
Western societies have contributed essentially to the gradual expansion of
the youth phase as the socio-cultural definitions of dependent childhood
became more clearly demarcated, producing a notion of youth as an inter-
stitial phenomenon which exists between the dependency of childhood and
the autonomy of adulthood. During the late nineteenth century and for a
good part of the the twentieth century, the development of adult citizenship
rights such as voting, education, housing and employment helped define
the many facets of the transition from youth to adulthood and with it the
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

contours of the career routes and status passages that youth travel to realise
adult independence (Coles 1995, Jones and Wallace 1992).
The late nineteenth century in Western societies marked the end of
child labour and the separation of employment from the domestic sphere.
Commentators noted the emergence of common characteristics and
experiences of young people; in particular, discussions on the develop-
mental features of youth and the inevitable storm and stress that accom-
panied this period of identity formation and movement through status
passages to adulthood were presented by G.S. Hall (1904) and Erickson
(1968). Key to these early ideas of adolescence was the notion that youth
represented a time of flux when individuals had some time to experiment
with ideas and identities as well as the actual routes they might take
through life. Nevertheless, it is important to note the fact that most
young people in the twentieth century have found their lives to be heavily
influenced by class, race and gender processes that defined much of their
early lives and set limits to what they might turn out to be as adults. In the
early nineteenth century, Parsons (1942) and Mannheim (1952) noted
the similarities which youth shared as a group (ideas, culture and life
chances) while also noting the contrasts between youth and adults,
which helped our understanding of the possibility of generational conflicts
(for a clearer understanding, see Cohen 1997).
Affluent societies have through the latter part of the twentieth century
witnessed the extension of youth from age 14 or 15 to the early twenties and
beyond as many young people spent longer periods of time in educational
institutions and job training and delayed their entry into full-time work or
employment, family and household formation. For many, such delays are a
result of unemployment, poor quality of available work and social exclusion.
Recent researchers have talked of a “boomerang generation” of young
people in their twenties and thirties who have tried to secure work and
independent housing only to find themselves returning home because of
unemployment and the high cost of housing. Thus, the state has significant
control over the youth phase because of its influence on education and labour
markets. Governments have increasingly called for upgrading their citizens’
skills to help create knowledge economies where all workers acquire higher
levels of education (Lauder et al. 2006). As a result, over the past 50 years we
have witnessed the significant extension of compulsory education: whereas
previously most young people left school at 13 to 14 years of age, now they
are engaged are in full-time education until the age of 18, and a majority are
pursuing higher education until the age of 21.
8 CONFLICT AND YOUTH RIGHTS IN INDIA

In recent years the study of youth has predominantly employed defini-

tions of youth transitions and youth identities that offer us an analytical
overview of the youth phase. Generally, transitions are understood to
include manifold pathways into adulthood in relation to key aspects of
young people’s lives, including education and employment, intimate rela-
tionships and friendships, housing and leisure. Commentators have also
suggested that some routes, such as education and employment, are funda-
mental for structuring other pathways during this transition (Roberts
2003). In recent years writers belonging to affluent societies have discussed
the breakdown of once heavily structured and predictable transitions along
class and gender lines and hence have moved from using concepts such as
careers and routes that denote (Banks et al. 1992) transitions to descrip-
tions that convey greater fluidity, such as navigations and niches (Evans and
Furlong 1997). Understandings of youth transitions as developed by
scholars tend to be socially constructed, and they reflect the strong influ-
ence of culturally and historically specific events such the de-industralisa-
tion of many European countries in the 1980s and the 1990s and the
economic growth and cultural transformation of many cities in developing
countries during the first decade of the twenty- first century (Farrar 2002).
Scholars on youth studies have also developed models of young people’s
social identities that contribute to our ways of understanding youth. Prior
to the 1970s, our understanding of youth in relation to their class, race and
gender positioning in the wider society tended to be quite crude
(Mungham and Pearson 1976). However, more recently, such under-
standings have been superseded by concepts of youth identities that define
young people as existing through multi-faceted, processual notions of the
self, where individuals create hybridized identities through identity work
and identity performances (Bennett 1999, 2005). Today social-media
interactions via the web and other forms of digital media and the diasporic
migratory experiences of many young people have influenced these devel-
opments in identity theory. Scholars still acknowledge the powerful way
that economics, social relationships and cultural formations frame youth
identities. However, many commentators speak of the loosening of con-
ditioning processes so that young people have more space and opportunity
to create their identities across what were once rigid and impermeable
boundaries (Pysnakova and Miles 2010). Young people’s hybrid selves
are also understood in relation to a greater sensitivity to the reflexive
processes in the so-called internal conversations and self-monitoring that
we all participate in and that make up or daily lives. Young people today
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

are more conscious then of their self-identity than the previous generation—
compelled to be so because of globalisation and the risks associated with
it—and are thus mindful of the ways that one can pursue life projects and
seek out self-development (Beck 1992, Giddens 1991). Any definition of
youth today thus needs to be sensitive to the effect that these historical
processes such as individualisation and de-traditionalisation have had on
how young people conceive and live their lives.
While definitions of youth vary from country to country, for statistical
purposes, the United Nations defines youth as those persons between the
ages of 15 and 24 years, without prejudice to other definitions by member
states (Horschelman and Blerk 2012). According to the International
Labor Organisation Convention Number 138, youth begins when a per-
son reaches the age of 15. The Commonwealth Youth Programme defines
youth as those in the age group of 15–29 years. Many countries interpret
the achievement of age majority—the age at which a person is given equal
treatment under the law—as the entry from the state of youth to adult-
hood. However, the operational definition and nuances of the term youth
vary from country to country, depending on the specific socio-cultural,
institutional, economic and political factors (Johal et al. 2012).
Eisenstadt (1956) defined youth as the period of transition from child-
hood to full adult status with full membership in the society. As a stage of
human development, youth is a phase of high expectations, high risk-
taking and great enthusiasm; and, therefore, this group is a strong force to
reckon with in society. They can be mobilized to achieve physical targets
(eg., war) and for psychological purposes by utilizing their capacity for
sacrifice, courage, endurance and initiative. Youth is also a period of
training and acquisition of skills. Rosenmayr (1972) identified five con-
ceptual approaches to defining youth: (i) youth as a stage in the individual
life-cycle—psychological and biological growth; (ii) youth as a social
subset—types of behaviour in roughly determined age ranges; (iii) youth
as an incomplete state—a period of transition between childhood and
adulthood; (iv) youth as a socially structured generational unit— certain
common experiences of circumstances and generating activities; (v) youth
as an ideal value concept—idealism, alertness, traits called youthfulness
(Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development 2012).
Pierre Bourdieu (1978) said, “la ‘jeunesse’ n’est qu’ un mot” (youth is
just a word). Words cannot be taken in such an uncritical manner because
words and even artificial constructs have social meanings and have real
effects. Challenging questions arise about the meaning of words in any
10 CONFLICT AND YOUTH RIGHTS IN INDIA

discussion of youth practice, policy or research, including issues related to

the social and historical—as well as political—implications for our under-
standing of young people’s lives (Chisholm et al. 2011).
The United Nations proclaimed 1985 as International Youth Year, which
laid the foundation for social and political thinking on youth matters. A
decade later the General Assembly adopted a global youth policy drafted as
the World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and beyond
(WPAY). This was with the intent to ensure that governments be more
responsive to the aspirations of youth for a better world. Since then there has
been considerable growth in the recognition of the importance of youth
participation in the process of decision-making (Denstad 2009). Young
people’s participation strengthens their commitment to and understanding
of democracy, which may lead to better outcomes of policies and pro-
grammes. Three important justifications for a greater voice and participation
of young people across a variety of institutional settings and policy areas are
(i) young people are entitled to proper nurturing, protection and respect
along with the right to participation; (ii) improved services for young people
require that their opinions be well negotiated and represented; (iii) participa-
tion should help in the development of young people both at the individual
level and in society as a whole (Delgado 2015, Head 2011). In the present
scenario, there is a need for youth to come together and present themselves
as a potent force to remove social, political and economic inequalities.
Society building, which includes facilitating social mobilization, managing
differences and overcoming and ensuring transparency and accountability of
government and social institutions are the main roles expected from youth.
In order to help us understand youth in the context of northeast India, it
is necessary to provide a brief description of the region. Popularly known as
the northeastern region or the northeast, this region in India comprises
eight states: namely, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya,
Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura (Lo 2015). In the year 1947,
Sikkim became a protectorate of India and was made into a full state in
1975. The northeast region is connected with the rest of India by the
Siliguri corridor of West Bengal (NCAER 2012). Rich in natural resources
and covered with dense forests, this region receives the highest rainfall in the
country, with large and small rivers flowing through the land, and is a cache
of different flora and fauna. Diverse in cultures, customs, languages and
traditions, northeast India is home to multifarious social and ethnic groups.
Democratic ideals and a belief in the value of discussion prevail among
northeastern tribes; and the people of northeast India have high self-esteem,
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

which makes them averse to accepting the diktat of the so-called others.
Although such a description of northeast India seems to present an idealized
view, this region has been experiencing ethnic conflicts, low productivity
and market access, poor governance and lack of infrastructure.
Government’s inability to address problems caused by the region’s remote-
ness, seclusion and backwardness has provided fertile ground for breeding
armed insurgencies and various other conflicts in the region related to
identity and ethnicity (Goswami 2010, Singh 1987). What make the region
distinct from the rest of India are the assertions of various ethnic identities
and the attitude of the state in containing ethnic extremism (Bijukumar
2013). Management of public affairs in northeast India has been of much
interest in recent years and a great deal of attention has been focused on
violence among tribal groups and the brutalities committed by security
forces and the insurgency. There has been no analysis of issues that are of
significance to the youth living in such conditions. Therefore, it is important
to note that youth in northeast India have become either active participants
in the conflict or its victims. This research, thus, is designed to study the
rights of youth in the context of conflict that is present in the region.

RECOMMENDED READINGS
Beker, Jerome and Henry W. Maier. 2014. Developmental Group Care of Children
and Youth: Concepts and Practice. New York: Routledge.
Bendit, Rene and Marina Hanh Bleibtreu, eds. 2008. Youth Transitions: Processes
of Social Inclusion and Patterns of Vulnerability in a Globalized World.
Stauffenbergster: Barbara Burdich Publishers.
Best, Amy L. 2007. Representing Youth: Methodological Issues in Critical Youth
Studies. New York: New York University Press.
Bradford, Simon. 2012. Sociology, Youth and Youth Work Practice. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Burkhart, Roy A. 1938. Understanding Youth. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury
Press.
Cote, James E. 2014. Youth Studies: Fundamental Issues and Debates. New York:
Palgrave MacMillan.
Delgado, Melvin. 2012. New Frontiers for Youth Development in the 21st Century:
Revitalizing and Broadening Youth Development. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Dubios, David L. and Michael J. Kracher, ed. 2005. Handbook of Youth
Mentoring. London: Sage Publications.
12 CONFLICT AND YOUTH RIGHTS IN INDIA

European Commission and Council of Europe. 2014. Perspectives on Youth: 2020

What do you See? Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing.
France, Alan. 2007. Understanding Youth in Late Modernity. New York: Open
University Press.
Furlong, Andy. 2009. Handbook of Youth and Young Adulthood: New Perspectives
and Agendas. New York: Routledge.
Hansen, James C. & Peter E. Maynard. 1973. Youth Self-Concept and Behavior:
Counseling Youth Series. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Hart, Stella. 2009. ‘The Problem with Youth: Young People, Citizenship and the
Community’. Citizenship Studies 13(6): 641–657.
Hilfinger, Messias DeAnne K., et.al. 2010. ‘Societal Images of Youth:
Representations and Interpretations by Youth Actively Engaged in their
Communities’. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 21
(1): 159–178.
Kehily, Mary Jane, ed. 2007. Understanding Youth: Perspectives, Identities and
Practices. London: Sage Publications.
Lesko, Nancy and Susan Talburt. 2012. Keywords in Youth Studies: Tracing
Affects, Movements, Knowledges. New York: Routledge.
Sukarieh, Mayssoun and Stuart Tannok. 2016. ‘On the Political Economy of
Youth: A Comment’. Journal of Youth Studies 14(1): 675–691.
Wright, Katie and Julie McLeod. 2015. Rethinking Youth Wellbeing: Critical
Perspectives. New York: Springer.
Wyn, Johanna and Cahill Helen. 2015. Handbook of Children and Youth Studies.
New York: Springer Reference.
Another random document with
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apprentice warrior was so full of grace, his steed so full of fire, and
both so eminently beautiful, that James was lost in admiration. But
suddenly, as the youth bent forward to present his master’s device,
his spur pricked the flank of his charger, and the latter, with a bound
and a plunge, threw his rider out of the saddle, and flung young Carr
of Fernyhurst, at the feet of his ex-master, the King. The latter
recognised his old page, and made amends for the broken leg got in
the fall, by nursing the lad, and making him Viscount Rochester, as
soon as he was well. James created him knight of the Garter, and
taught him grammar. Rochester gave lessons to the King in foreign
history. The ill-favored King walked about the court with his arms
round the neck of the well-favored knight. He was for ever either
gazing at him or kissing him; trussing his points, settling his curls, or
smoothing his hose. When Rochester was out of the King’s sight
James was mindful of him, and confiscated the estates of honest
men in order to enrich his own new favorite. He took Sherborne from
the widow and children of Raleigh, with the cold-blooded remark to
the kneeling lady, “I maun have it for Carr!”
Rochester was a knight who ruled the King, but there was another
knight who ruled Rochester. This was the well-born, hot-headed,
able and vicious Sir Thomas Overbury. Overbury polished and
polluted the mind of Rochester; read all documents which passed
through the hands of the latter, preparatory to reaching those of the
King, and not only penned Rochester’s own despatches, but
composed his love-letters for him. How pointedly Sir Thomas could
write may be seen in his “Characters;” and as a poet, the knight was
of no indifferent reputation in his day.
Rochester, Sir Thomas, and the King, were at the very height of their
too-warm friendship, when James gave Frances Howard, the
daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, in marriage to young Devereux, Earl
of Essex. The bride was just in her teens. The bridegroom was a day
older. The Bishop of Bath and Wells blessed them in the presence of
the King, and Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones constructed a masque in
honor of the occasion. When the curtain fell, bride and bridegroom
went their separate ways; the first to her mother; the second to
school. Four years elapsed ere they again met; and then Frances,
who had been ill-trained by her mother, seduced by Prince Henry,
and wooed by Rochester, looked upon Essex with infinite scorn.
Essex turned from her with disgust.
Rochester then resolved to marry Frances, and Frances employed
the poisoner of Paternoster-row, Mrs. Turner, and a certain Dr.
Forman, to prepare philters that should make more ardent the flame
of the lover, and excite increased aversion in the breast of the
husband. Overbury, with intense energy, opposed the idea of the
guilty pair, that a divorce from Essex was likely to be procured. He
even spoke of the infamy of the lady, to her lover. Frances,
thereupon, offered a thousand pounds to a needy knight, Sir John
Ward, to slay Overbury in a duel. Sir John declined the offer. A more
successful method was adopted. Sir Thomas Overbury was
appointed embassador to Russia, and on his refusing to accept the
sentence of banishment, he was clapped into the tower as guilty of
contempt toward the king. In that prison, the literary knight was duly
despatched by slow poison. The guilt was brought home less to
Rochester than to Frances, but the King himself appears to have
been very well content at the issue.
James united with Rochester and the lady to procure a divorce
between the latter and Essex. The King was bribed by a sum of
£25,000. Essex himself did not appear. Every ecclesiastical judge
was recompensed who pronounced for the divorce—carried by
seven against five, and even the son of one of them was knighted.
This was the heir of Dr. Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, and he was
ever afterward known by the name of Sir Nullity Bilson.
Sir Nullity danced at the wedding of the famous or infamous pair;
and never was wedding more splendid. King, peers, and illustrious
commoners graced it with their presence. The diocesan of Bath and
Wells pronounced the benediction. The Dean of St. Paul’s wrote for
the occasion an epithalamic eclogue. The Dean of Westminster
supplied the sermon. The great Bacon composed, in honor of the
event, the “Masque of Flowers;” and the City made itself bankrupt by
the extravagant splendor of its fêtes. One gentleman horsed the
bride’s carriage, a bishop’s lady made the bride’s cake, and one
humorous sycophant offered the married pair the equivocal gift of a
gold warming-pan.
The King, not to be behindhand in distributing honors, conferred one
which cost him nothing. He created Rochester Earl of Somerset.
Two years after this joyous wedding, the gentleman who had made a
present to the bride, of four horses to draw her in a gilded chariot to
the nuptial altar, had become a knight and secretary of state. Sir
Richard (or, as some call him, Sir Robert) Winwood was a
worshipper of the now rising favorite, Villiers; and none knew better
than this newly-made knight that the King was utterly weary of his
old favorite, Somerset.
Winwood waited on the King and informed him that a garrulous
young apothecary at Flushing, who had studied the use of drugs
under Dr. Franklin of London, was making that melancholy town
quite lively, by his stories of the abuses of drugs, and the method in
which they had been employed by Lord and Lady Somerset, Mrs.
Turner (a pretty woman, who invented yellow starched ruffs) and
their accomplices, in bringing about the death of Overbury. The food
conveyed to the latter was poisoned by Frances and her lover,
outside the tower, and was administered to the imprisoned knight by
officials within the walls, who were bribed for the purpose.
There is inextricable confusion in the details of the extraordinary trial
which ensued. It is impossible to read them without the conviction
that some one higher in rank than the Somersets was interested, if
not actually concerned, in the death of Overbury. The smaller
personages were hanged, and Mrs. Turner put yellow ruffs out of
fashion by wearing them at the gallows.
Lady Somerset pleaded guilty, evidently under the influence of a
promise of pardon, if she did so, and of fear lest Bacon’s already
prepared speech, had she pleaded not guilty, might send her to an
ignominious death. She was confined in the Tower, and she implored
with frantic energy, that she might not be shut up in the room which
had been occupied by Overbury.
Somerset appeared before his judges in a solemn suit, and wearing
the insignia of the Garter. He pleaded not guilty, but despite
insufficiency of legal evidence he was convicted, and formally
condemned to be hanged, like any common malefactor. But the ex-
page won his life by his taciturnity. Had he, in his defence, or
afterward, revealed anything that could have displeased or disturbed
the King, his life would have paid the forfeit. As it was, the King at
once ordered that the Earl’s heraldic arms as knight of the Garter
should not be taken down. For the short period of the imprisonment
of the guilty pair, both guilty of many crimes, although in the matter of
Overbury there is some doubt as to the extent of the Earl’s
complicity, they separately enjoyed the “Liberty of the Tower.” The
fallen favorite was wont to pace the melancholy ramparts with the
George and collar round his neck and the Garter of knighthood
below his knee. He was often seen in grave converse with the Earl of
Northumberland. Sometimes, the guilty wife of Somerset, impelled
by curiosity or affection, would venture to gaze at him for a minute or
two from her lattice, and then, if the Earl saw her, he would turn,
gravely salute her, and straightway pass on in silence.
When liberated from the Tower, the knight of the Garter, convicted of
murder, and his wife, confessedly guilty, went forth together under
protection of a royal pardon. Down to the time of the death of Lady
Somerset, in 1632, the wretched pair are said never to have opened
their lips but to express, each hatred and execration of the other. The
earl lived on till 1645—long enough to see the first husband of his
wife carry his banner triumphantly against the son of James, at
Edgehill. The two husbands of one wife died within a few months of
each other.
Such was the career of one who began life as a page. Let us
contrast therewith the early career of one whose name is still more
familiar to the general reader.
Toward the middle of the sixteenth century there was established at
York a respectable and influential Protestant family of the name of
Fawkes. Some of the members were in the legal profession, others
were merchants. One was registrar and advocate of the Consistory
Court of the cathedral church of York. Another was notary and
proctor. A third is spoken of as a merchant-stapler. All were well to-
do; but not one of them dreamed that the name of Fawkes was to be
in the least degree famous.
The Christian name of the ecclesiastical lawyer was Edward. He was
the third son of William and Ellen Fawkes, and was the favorite child
of his mother. She bequeathed trinkets, small sums, and odd bits of
furniture to her other children, but to Edward she left her wedding
suit, and the residue of her estate. Edward Fawkes was married
when his mother made her will. While the document was preparing,
his wife Edith held in her arms an infant boy. To this boy she left her
“best whistle, and one old angel of gold.”
The will itself is a curious document. It is devotional, according to the
good custom of the days in which it was made. The worthy old
testator made some singular bequests; to her son Thomas, amid a
miscellaneous lot, she specifies, “my second petticoat, my worsted
gowne, gardit with velvet, and a damask kirtle.” The “best kirtle and
best petticoat” are bequeathed to her daughter-in-law Edith Fawkes.
Among the legatees is a certain John (who surely must have been a
Joan) Sheerecrofte, to whom, says Mistress Fawkes, “I leave my
petticoat fringed about, my woorse grogram kirtle, one of my lynn
smockes, and a damask upper bodie.” The sex, however, of the
legatee is not to be doubted, for another gentleman in Mrs. Fawkes’s
will comes in for one of her bonnets!
The amount of linen bequeathed, speaks well for the lady’s
housewifery; while the hats, kirtles, and rings, lead us to fear that the
wife of Master Edward Fawkes must have occasionally startled her
husband with the amount of little accounts presented to him by
importunate dressmakers, milliners, and jewellers. Such, however,
was the will of a lady of York three centuries ago, and the child in
arms who was to have the silver whistle and a gold angel was none
other than our old acquaintance, known to us as Guy Faux.
Guy was christened on the sixteenth of April, 1570, in the still
existing church of St. Michael le Belfry; and when the gossips and
sponsors met round the hospitable table of the paternal lawyer to
celebrate the christening of his son, the health of Master Guy
followed hard upon that of her gracious highness the queen.
Master Guy had the misfortune to lose his father in his ninth year.
“He left me but small living,” said Guy, many years afterward, “and I
spent it.” After his sire’s decease, Guy was for some years a pupil at
the free foundation grammar-school in “the Horse Fayre,” adjacent to
York. There he accomplished his humanities under the Reverend
Edward Pulleyne. Among his schoolfellows were Bishop Morton,
subsequently Bishop of Durham, and a quiet little boy, named
Cheke, who came to be a knight and baronet, and who, very
probably went, in after-days, to see his old comrade in the hands of
the hangman.
Some seventeen miles from York stands the pleasant town of
Knaresborough, and not far from Knaresborough is the village of
Scotten. When Guy was yet a boy, there lived in this village a very
gay, seductive wooer, named Dennis Baynbridge. This wooer was
wont to visit the widowed Edith, and the result of his visits was that
the widowed Edith rather hastily put away her weeds, assumed a
bridal attire, married the irresistible Dennis, and, with her two
daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, and her only son Guy, accompanied
her new husband to his residence at Scotten.
Baynbridge was a Roman Catholic, as also were the Pullens,
Percies, Winters, Wrights, and others who lived in Scotten or its
neighborhood, and whose names figure in the story of the
Gunpowder Plot.
At Scotten, then, and probably soon after his mother’s marriage, in
1582, Guy, it may be safely said, left the faith in which he had been
baptized, for that of the Romish Church. Had he declined to adopt
the creed of his step-sire, he perhaps would have been allowed but
few opportunities of angling in the Nidd, rabbiting by Bilton Banks,
nutting in Goldsborough Wood, or of passing idle holydays on
Grimbald Craig.
On the wedding-day of Edith Fawkes and Dennis Baynbridge, the
paternal uncle of Guy made his will. He exhibited his sense of the
step taken by the lady, by omitting her name from the will, and by
bequeathing the bulk of his property to the two sisters of Guy. To
Guy himself, Uncle Thomas left only “a gold ring,” and a “bed and
one pair of sheets, with the appurtenances.”
When Guy became of age, he found himself in possession of his
patrimony—some land and a farm-house. The latter, with two or
three acres of land, he let to a tailor, named Lumley, for the term of
twenty-one years, at the annual rent of forty-two shillings. The
remainder he sold at once for a trifle less than thirty pounds. Shortly
after, he made over to a purchaser all that was left of his property.
He bethought himself for a while as to what course he should take,
and finally he chose the profession of arms, and went out to Spain,
to break crowns and to win spurs.
In Spain, he fell into evil company and evil manners. He saw enough
of hard fighting, and indulged, more than enough, in hard drinking.
He was wild, almost savage of temper, and he never rose to a
command which gave him any chance of gaining admission on the
roll of chivalry. There was a knight, however, named Catesby, who
was a comrade of Guy, and the latter clung to him as a means
whereby to become as great as that to which he clung.
Guy bore himself gallantly in Spain; and, subsequently, in Flanders,
he fought with such distinguished valor, that when Catesby and his
associates in England were considering where they might find the
particular champion whom they needed for their particular purpose in
the Gunpowder Plot, the thought of the reckless soldier flashed
across the mind of Catesby, and Guy was at once looked after as the
“very properest man” for a very improper service.
The messenger who was despatched to Flanders to sound Guy,
found the latter eager to undertake the perilous mission of destroying
king and parliament, and thereby helping Rome to lord it again in
England. The English soldier in Flanders came over to London, put
up at an inn, which occupied a site not very distant from that of the
once well-known “Angel” in St. Clement’s Danes, and made a gay
figure in the open Strand, till he was prepared to consummate a work
which he thought would help himself to greatness.
Into the matter of the plot I will not enter. It must be observed,
however, that knight never went more coolly to look death in the face
than Guy went to blow up the Protestant king and the parliament. At
the same time it must be added, that Guy had not the slightest
intention of hoisting himself with his own petard. He ran a very great
risk, it is true, and he did it fearlessly; but the fact that both a carriage
and a boat were in waiting to facilitate his escape, shows that self-
sacrifice was not the object of the son of the York proctor. His great
ambition was to rank among knights and nobles. He took but an ill-
method to arrive at such an object; but his reverence for nobility was
seen even when he was very near to his violent end. If he was ever
a hero, it was when certain death by process of law was before him.
But even then it was his boast and solace, that throughout the affair
there was not a man employed, even to handle a spade, in
furtherance of the end in view, who was not a gentleman. Guy died
under the perfect conviction that he had done nothing derogatory to
his quality!
Considering how dramatic are the respective stories of the page and
squire, briefly noticed above, it is remarkable that so little use has
been made of them by dramatists. Savage is the only one who has
dramatized the story of the two knights, Somerset and Overbury. In
this tragedy bearing the latter knight’s name, and produced at the
Haymarket, in June, 1723, he himself played the hero, Sir Thomas.
His attempt to be an actor, and thus gain an honest livelihood by his
industry, was the only act of his life of which Savage was ever
ashamed. In this piece the only guilty persons are the countess and
her uncle, the Earl of Northampton. This is in accordance with the
once-prevailing idea that Northampton planned the murder of Sir
Thomas, in his residence, which occupied the site of the present
Northumberland house. The play was not successful, and the same
may be said of it when revived, with alterations, at Covent Garden, in
1777. Sheridan, the actor, furnished the prologue. In this production
he expressed his belief that the public generally felt little interest in
the fate of knights and kings. The reason he assigns is hardly logical.

“Too great for pity, they inspire respect,

Their deeds astonish rather than affect.
 Proving how rare the heart that we can move,
Which reason tells us we can never prove.”

Guy Faux, who, when in Spain, was the ’squire of the higher-born
Catesby, has inspired but few dramatic writers. I only know of two. In
Mrs. Crouch’s memoirs, notice is made of an afterpiece, brought out
on the 5th of November, 1793, at the Haymarket. A far more
creditable attempt to dramatize the story of Guy Fawkes was made
with great success at the Coburg (Victoria) theatre, in September,
1822. This piece still keeps possession of the minor stage, and
deservedly; but it has never been played with such effect as by its
first “cast.” O. Smith was the Guy, and since he had played the
famous Obi, so well as to cause Charles Kemble’s impersonation at
the Haymarket to be forgotten, he had never been fitted with a
character which suited him so admirably. It was one of the most
truthful personations which the stage had ever seen. Indeed the
piece was played by such a troop of actors as can not now be found
in theatres of more pretensions than the transpontine houses. The
chivalric Huntley, very like the chivalric Leigh Murray, in more
respects than one, enacted Tresham with a rare ability, and judicious
Chapman played Catesby with a good taste, which is not to be found
now in the same locality. Dashing Stanley was the Monteagle, and
graceful Howell the Percy, Beverly and Sloman gave rough portraits
of the king and the facetious knight, Sir Tristam Collywobble—coarse
but effective. Smith, however, was the soul of the piece, and Mr.
Fawkes, of Farnley, might have witnessed the representation, and
have been proud of his descent from the dignified hero that O. Smith
made of his ancestor.
I have given samples of knights of various qualities, but I have yet to
mention the scholar and poet knights. There are many personages
who would serve to illustrate the knight so qualified, but I know of
none so suitable as Ulrich Von Hutten.
 ULRICH VON HUTTEN.
“Jacta est alea.”—Ulrich’s Device.

Ulrich von Hutten was born on the 21st of April, 1488, in the
castle of Stackelberg, near Fulda, in Franconia. He was of a noble
family—all the men of which were brave, and all the women virtuous.
He had three brothers and two sisters. His tender mother loved him
the most, because he was the weakest of her offspring. His father
loved him the least for the same reason. For a like cause, however,
both parents agreed that a spiritual education best accorded with the
frame of Ulrich. The latter, at eleven years old, was accordingly sent
to learn his humanities in the abbey school at Fulda.
His progress in all knowledge, religious and secular, made him the
delight of the stern abbot and of his parents. Every effort possible
was resorted to, to induce him to devote himself for ever to the life of
the cloister. In his zealous opposition to this he was ably seconded
by a strong-handed and high-minded knight, a friend of his father’s
named Eitelwolf von Stein. This opposition so far succeeded, that in
1504, when Ulrich was sixteen years of age he fled from the cloister-
academy of Fulda, and betook himself to the noted high-school at
Erfurt.
Among his dearest fellow Alumni here were Rubianus and Hoff, both
of whom subsequently achieved great renown. In the Augustine
convent, near the school, there was residing a poor young monk,
who also subsequently became somewhat famous. Nobody,
however, took much account of him just then, and few even cared to
know his name—Martin Luther. The plague breaking out at Erfurt,
Rubianus was accompanied by Ulrich to Cologne, there to pursue
their studies. The heart and purse of Ulrich’s father were closed
against the son, because of his flight from Fulda; but his kinsman
Eitelwolf, provided for the necessities of the rather imprudent young
scholar.
The sages who trained the young idea at Cologne were of the old
high and dry quality—hating progress and laboriously learned in
trifles. At the head of them were Hogstraten and Ortuin. Ulrich
learned enough of their manner to be able to crush them afterward
with ridicule, by imitating their style, and reproducing their gigantic
nonsense, in the famous “Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum.” In the
meantime he knit close friendship with Sebastian Brandt, and
Œcolampadius—both young men of progress. The latter was
expelled from Cologne for being so, but the University of Frankfort
on the Oder offered him an asylum. Thither Ulrich repaired also, to
be near his friend, and to sharpen his weapons for the coming
struggle between light and darkness—Germany against Rome, and
the German language against the Latin.
At Frankfort he won golden opinions from all sorts of people. The
Elector, Joachim of Brandenburg; his brother, the priestly Margrave
Albert; and Bishop Dietrich von Beilow were proud of the youth who
did honor to the university. He here first became a poet, and took the
brothers Von Osthen for his friends. He labored earnestly, and
acquired much glory; but he was a very free liver to boot, though he
was by no means particularly so, for the times in which he lived. His
excesses, however, brought on a dangerous disease, which, it is
sometimes supposed, had not hitherto been known in Europe. Be
this as it may, he was never wholly free from the malady as long as
he lived, nor ever thought that it much mattered whether he suffered
or not.
He was still ill when he took up for a season the life of a wandering
scholar. He endured all its miserable vicissitudes, suffered famine
and shipwreck, and was glad at last to find a haven, as a poor
student, in the Pomeranian University of Griefswalde. The Professor
Lötz and his father the Burgomaster, were glad to patronize so
renowned a youth, but they did it with such insulting condescension
that the spirit of Ulrich revolted; and in 1509, the wayward scholar
was again a wanderer, with the world before him where to choose.
The Lötzes, who had lent him clothes, despatched men after him to
strip him; and the poor, half-frozen wretch, reached Rostock half
starved, more than half naked, with wounds gaping for vengeance,
and with as little sense about him as could be possessed by a man
so ill-conditioned.
He lived by his wits at Rostock. He was unknown and perfectly
destitute; but he penned so spirited a metrical narrative of his life and
sufferings, addressed to the heads of the university there, that these
at once received him under their protection. In a short time he was
installed in comparative comfort, teaching the classics to young
pupils, and experiencing as much enjoyment as he could,
considering that the Lötzes of Griefswalde were continually assuring
his patrons that their protégé was a worthless impostor.
He took a poet’s revenge, and scourged them in rhymes, the very
ruggedness of which was tantamount to flaying.
Having gained his fill of honor at Rostock, his restless spirit urged
him once again into the world. After much wandering, he settled for a
season at Wittenburg, where he was the delight of the learned men.
By their eleemosynary aid, and that of various friends, save his
father, who rejoiced in his renown but would not help him to live, he
existed after the fashion of many pauper students of his day. At
Wittenburg he wrote his famous “Art of Poetry;” and he had no
sooner raised universal admiration by its production, than forth he
rushed once more into the world.
He wandered through Bohemia and Moravia, thankfully accepting
bread from peasants, and diamond rings from princes. He had not a
maravedi in his purse, nor clean linen on his back; but he made
himself welcome everywhere. One night he slept, thankfully, on the
straw of a barn; and the next sank, well-fed, into the eider-down of a
bishop’s bed. He entered Olmutz ragged, shoeless, and exhausted.
He left it, after enjoying the rich hospitality he had laughingly
extracted from Bishop Turso, on horseback, with a heavy purse in
his belt, a mantle on his shoulder, and a golden ring, with a jewel set
in it, upon his finger. Such were a student’s vicissitudes, in the days
of German wandering, a long time ago.
The boy, for he was not yet twenty years of age, betook himself to
Vienna, where he kept a wide circle in continual rapture by the
excellence of his poetical productions. These productions were not
“all for love,” nor were they all didactic. He poured out war-ballads to
encourage the popular feeling in favor of the Emperor Maximilian,
against his enemies in Germany and Italy. Ulrich was, for the
moment, the Tyrtæus of his native country. Then, suddenly
recollecting that his angry sire had said that if his son would not take
the monk’s cowl, his father would be content to see him assume the
lawyer’s coif, our volatile hero hastened to Pavia, opened the law
books on an ominous 1st of April, 1512, and read them steadily, yet
wearied of them heartily, during just three months.
At this time Francis the first of France, who had seized on Pavia,
was besieged therein by the German and Swiss cavalry. Ulrich was
dangerously ill during the siege, but he occupied the weary time by
writing sharp epitaphs upon himself. The allies entered the city; and
Ulrich straightway departed from it, a charge having been laid
against him of too much partiality for the French. The indignant
German hurried to Bologna, where he once more addressed himself
to the Pandects and the Juris Codices Gentium.
This light reading so worked on his constitution that fever laid him
low, and after illness came destitution. He wrote exquisite verses to
Cardinal Gurk, the imperial embassador in Bologna, where the pope
for the moment resided; but he failed in his object of being raised to
some office in the cardinal’s household. Poor Ulrich took the course
often followed by men of his impulses and condition; he entered the
army as a private soldier, and began the ladder which leads to
knighthood at the lowest round.
Unutterable miseries he endured in this character; but he went
through the siege of Pavia with honor, and he wrote such sparkling
rhymes in celebration of German triumphs and in ridicule of
Germany’s foes, that, when a weakness in the ankles compelled him
to retire from the army, he collected his songs and dedicated them to
the Emperor.
The dedication, however, was so very independent of tone, that
Maximilian took no notice of the limping knight who had exchanged
the sword for the lyre. Indeed, at this juncture, the man who could
wield a sledge-hammer, was in more esteem with the constituted
authorities than he who skilfully used his pen. The young poet could
scarcely win a smile, even from Albert of Brandenburg, to whom he
had dedicated a poem. Sick at heart, his health gave way, and a
heavy fever sent him to recover it at the healing springs in the valley
of Ems.
A short time previous to his entering the army, the young Duke Ulrich
of Wurtemburg had begun to achieve for himself a most unenviable
reputation. He had entered on his government; and he governed his
people ill, and himself worse. He allowed nothing to stand between
his own illustrious purpose and the object aimed at. He had for wife
the gentle Bavarian princess, Sabina, and for friend, young Johan
von Hutten, a cousin of our hero Ulrich.
Now, Johan von Hutten had recently married a fair-haired girl, with
the not very euphonious appellation of Von Thumb. She was,
however, of noble birth, and, we must add, of light principles. The
duke fell in love with her, and she with the duke, and when his friend
Johan remonstrated with him, the ducal sovereign gravely proposed
to the outraged husband an exchange of consorts!
Johan resolved to withdraw from the ducal court; and this resolution
alarmed both his wife and the duke, for Johan had no intention of
leaving his lightsome Von Thumb behind him. Therefore, the duke
invited Johan one fine May morning in the year 1515, to take a
friendly ride with him through a wood. The invitation was accepted,
and as Johan was riding along a narrow path, in front of the duke,
the latter passed his sword through the body of his friend, slaying
him on the spot.
Having thus murdered his friend, the duke hung him up by the neck
in his own girdle to a neighboring tree, and he defended the deed, by
giving out that ducal justice had only been inflicted on a traitor who
had endeavored to seduce the Duchess of Wurtemburg! The lady,
however, immediately fled to her father, denouncing the
faithlessness of her unworthy husband, on whose bosom the young
widow of the murdered Johan now reclined for consolation.
On this compound deed becoming known, all Germany uttered a
unanimous cry of horror. The noblest of the duke’s subjects flung off
their allegiance. His very servants quitted him in disgust. His fellow-
princes invoked justice against him and Ulrich von Hutten, from his
sick couch at Ems, penned eloquent appeals to the German nation,
to rise and crush the ruthless wretch who had quenched in blood, the
life, the light, the hope, the very flower of Teutonic chivalry.
The “Philippics” of Ulrich were mainly instrumental in raising a
terrible Nemesis to take vengeance upon his ducal namesake; and
he afterward wrote his “Phalarismus” to show that the tyrant excited
horror, even in the infernal regions. The opening sentence—“Jacta
est alea!” became his motto; and his family took for its apt device
—“Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor!” From this time forward,
Ulrich von Hutten was a public man, and became one of the
foremost heroes of his heroic age. He was now scholar, poet, and
knight.
His fame would have been a pleasant thing to him, but the pleasure
was temporarily diminished by the death of his old benefactor,
Eitelwolf von Stein. The latter was the first German statesman who
was also a great scholar; and his example first shook the prejudice,
that for a knight or nobleman to be book-learned was derogatory to
his chivalry and nobility. Into the area of public warfare Ulrich now
descended, and the enemies of light trembled before the doughty
champion. The collegiate teachers at Cologne, with Hogstraten, the
Inquisitor, Pfefierkorn, a converted Jew, and Ortuin—at their head,
had directed all the powers of the scholastic prejudices against
Reuchlin and his followers, who had declared, that not only Greek,
but Hebrew should form a portion of the course of study for those
destined to enter the Church. The ancient party pronounced this
Heathenism; Reuchlin and his party called it Reason, and Germany,
was split in two, upon the question.
At the very height of the contest, a lad with a sling and a stone
entered the lists, and so dexterously worked his missiles, that the
enemy of learning was soon overcome. The lad was Von Hutten,
who, as chief author of those amusing satires, “Epistolae
Obscurorum Virorum,” ruined Monkery and paralyzed Rome, by
making all the world laugh at the follies, vices, crimes, and selfish
ignorance of both.
Leo X. was so enraged, that he excommunicated the authors, and
devoted them to damnation. “I care no more,” said Von Hutten, “for
the bull of excommunication than I do for a soap-bubble.” The
reputation he had acquired, helped him to a reconciliation with his
family; but the members thereof had only small respect for a mere
learned knight. They urged him to qualify himself for a chancellor,
and to repair to Rome, and study the law accordingly.
Something loath, he turned his face toward the Tyber, in 1515. The
first news received of the law-student was to the effect, that having
been attacked, dagger in hand, at a pic-nic, near Viterbo, by five
French noblemen, whom he had reproved for speaking ill of
Germany and the Emperor Maximilian, he had slain one and put the
other four to flight. From this fray he himself escaped with a slash on
the cheek. He recounted his victory in a song of triumph, and when
the law-student sat down to his books, every one in Rome
acknowledged that his sword and his pen were equally pointed.
His French adversaries threatened vengeance for their humiliating
defeat; and he accordingly avoided it, by withdrawing to Bologne,
where he again, with hearty disgust, applied himself to the severe
study of a law which was never applied for justice sake. He found
compensation in penning such stirring poetry as his satirical “Nemo,”
and in noting the vices of the priesthood with the intention of turning
his observation to subsequent profit. A feud between the German
and Italian students at Bologna soon drove our scholar from the
latter place. He took himself to Ferrara and Venice; was welcomed
everywhere by the learned and liberal, and, as he wrote to Erasmus,
was loaded by them with solid pudding as well as empty praise.
From this journey he returned to his native country. He repaired to
Augsburg, where Maximilian was holding court, and so well was he
commended to the emperor, that on the 15th of June, 1517, that
monarch dubbed him Imperial Knight, placed a gold ring, symbolic of
chivalrous dignity, on his finger, and crowned him a poet, with a
laurel wreath, woven by the fairest flower of Augsburg, Constance
Peutinger.
After such honors, his father received him with joy at his hearth; and
while Von Hutten went from his native Stackelberg to the library at
Fulda, yet hesitating whether to take service under the Emperor or
under the Elector of Mayence, he bethought himself of the irrefutable
work of Laurentius Valla against the temporal authority and
possessions of the Popedom. He studied the work well, published an
improved edition, and dedicated it, in a letter of fire and ability, to Leo
X.;—a proof of his hope in, or of his defiance of, that accomplished
infidel.
Luther and Von Hutten were thus, each unconscious of the other,
attacking Popery on two points, about the same moment. Luther
employed fearful weapons in his cause, and wielded them manfully.
Von Hutten only employed, as yet, a wit which made all wither where
it fell; and an irony which consumed where it dropped. In the
handling of these appliances, there was no man in Germany who
was his equal. Leo could admire and enjoy both the wit and the
irony; and he was not disinclined to agree with the arguments of
which they were made the supports; but what he relished as a
philosopher, he condemned as a Pontiff. The Florentine, Lorenzo de’
Medici, could have kissed the German on either cheek, but the
Pope, Leo X., solemnly devoted him to Gehenna.
As a protection against papal wrath, Von Hutten entered the service
of Albert, Elector-Archbishop of Mayence. Albert was a liberal
Romanist, but nothing in the least of an Ultra-Montanist. He loved
learning and learned men, and he recollected that he was a German
before he was a Romanist. In the suite of the elector, Von Hutten
visited Paris, in 1518. He returned to Mayence only to carry on more
vigorously his onslaught against the begging monks. He accounted
them as greater enemies to Germany than the Turks. “We fight with
the latter, beyond our frontier for power; but the former are the
corrupters of science, of religion, of morals—and they are in the very
midst of us.” So does he write, in a letter to Graf Nuenar, at Cologne.
The building of St. Peter’s cost Rome what the building of Versailles
cost France—a revolution. In each case, an absolute monarchy was
overthrown never again to rise. To provide for the expenses of St.
Peter’s, the Dominican Tetzel traversed Germany, selling his
indulgences. Luther confronted him, and denounced his mission, as
well as those who sent him on it. Von Hutten, in his hatred of monks,
looked upon this as a mere monkish squabble; and he was glad to
see two of the vocation holding one another by the throat.
At this precise moment, Germany was excited at the idea of a
projected European expedition against the Turks. The Imperial
Knight saw clearly the perils that threatened Christendom from that
question, and was ready to rush, sword in hand, to meet them. He
declared, however, that Europe groaned under a more insupportable
yoke, laid on by Rome, and he deprecated the idea of helping Rome
with funds against the Moslem. What a change was here from the
Imperial crusading knights of a few centuries earlier. “If Rome,” he
said, “be serious on the subject of such a crusade, we are ready to
fight, but she must pay us for our services. She shall not have both
our money and our blood.” He spoke, wrote, and published boldly
against Rome being permitted to levy taxes in Germany, on pretence
of going to war with the unbelieving Ottomans. At the same moment,
Luther was denouncing the monks who thought to enrich the coffers
of Rome by the sale of indulgences. One was the political, the other
the religious enemy of the power which sought to rule men and their
consciences from under the shadow of the Colosseum.
There was little hope of aid from the emperor, but Von Hutten looked
for all the help the cause needed in a union of the citizen classes
(whom he had been wont to satirize) with the nobility. To further the
end in view, he wrote his masterly dialogue of “The Robbers.” In this
piece, the speakers are knights and citizens. Each side blames the
other, but each is made acquainted with the other’s virtues, by the
interposition of a Deus ex machinâ in the presence of the knight,
Franz von Sickingen. The whole partakes of the spirit and raciness
of Bunyan and Cobbett. Throughout the dialogue, the vices of no
party in the state find mercy, while the necessity of the mutual
exercise of virtue and aid is ably expounded.
The knight, Franz von Sickingen, was author of a part of this
dialogue. His adjurations to Von Hutten not to be over-hasty and his
reason why, are no doubt his own. By the production of such papers,
Germany was made eager for the fray. This particular and powerful
dialogue was dedicated to John, Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, Duke of
Bavaria, and Count of Spanheim. This illustrious personage had
requested Ulrich that whenever he published any particularly bold
book, in support of national liberty, he would dedicate it to him, the
duke. The author obeyed, in this instance, on good grounds and with
right good will. There is in the dialogue an audible call to war, and
this pleased Luther himself, who was now convinced that with the
pen alone, the Reformation could not be an established fact.
Ulrich longed for the contact, whereby to make his country and his
church free of Romanist tyranny. But he considers the possibility of a
failure. He adjured his family to keep aloof from the strife, that they
might not bring ruin on their heads, in the event of destruction falling
on his own. The parents of Ulrich were now no more; Ulrich as head
of his house was possessed of its modest estates. Of his own
possessions he got rid, as of an encumbrance to his daring and his
gigantic activity. He formally made over nearly all to his next brother,
in order that his enemies, should they ultimately triumph, might have
no ground for seizing them.
At the same time, he warned his brother to send him neither letters
nor money, as either would be considered in the light of aid offered
to an enemy, and might be visited with terrible penalties.
Having rid himself of what few would so easily have parted from, he
drew his sword joyously and independently for the sake of liberty
alone, and with a determination of never sheathing it until he had
accomplished that at which he aimed, or that the accomplishment of
such end had been placed beyond his power.
“Jacta est alea,” cried he, viewing his bright sword, “the die is
thrown, Ulrich has risked it.”
In the meantime Von Hutten remained in the service of the Elector-
Archbishop of Mayence. The courtiers laughed at him as a rude
knight. The knights ridiculed him as a poor philosopher. Both were
mistaken; he was neither poor nor rude, albeit a Ritter and a sage.
What he most cared for, was opportunity to be useful in his
generation, and leisure enough to cultivate learning during the hours
he might call his own. His satirical poems, coarsely enough worded
against a courtier’s life, are admirable for strength and coloring. Not
less admirable for taste and power are his letters of this period. In
them he denounces that nobility which is composed solely of family
pride; and he denounces, with equally good foundation, the life of
“Robber Knights,” as he calls them, who reside in their castles, amid
every sort of discomfort, and a world of dirt, of hideous noises, and
unsavory smells; and who only leave them to plunder or to be
plundered. He pronounces the true knights of the period to be those
alone who love religion and education. With the aid of these, applied
wisely and widely, and with the help of great men whom he names,
and who share his opinions, he hopes, as he fervently declares, to
see intellect gain more victories than force—to be able to bid the old
barbarous spirit which still influenced too many “to gird up its loins
and be off.” Health came to him with this determination to devote
himself to the service and improvement of his fellow-men. It came
partly by the use of simple remedies, the chief of which was
moderation in all things. Pen and sword were now alike actively
employed. He put aside the former, for a moment, only to assume
the latter, in order to strike in for vengeance against the aggressive
Duke of Wurtemburg.
The crimes of this potentate had at length aroused the emperor
against him. Maximilian had intrusted the leadership of his army to
the famous knight-errant of his day, Franz von Sickingen. This
cavalier had often been in open rebellion against the emperor
himself; and Hutten now enrolled himself among the followers of
Franz. His patron not only gave him the necessary permission but
continued to him his liberal stipend; when the two knights met, and
made their armor clash with their boisterous embrace, they swore
not to stop short of vengeance on the guilty duke, but to fight to the
death for liberty and Christendom. They slept together in the same
bed in token of brotherly knighthood, and they rose to carry their
banner triumphantly against the duke—ending the campaign by the
capture of the metropolis, Stutgardt.
Reuchlin resided in the capital, and the good man was full of fear; for
murder and rapine reigned around him. His fear was groundless, for
Von Hutten had urged Sickingen to give out that in the sack of