The Stratigraphy of Silence: A Critical Analysis of Mamang Dai’s “The Voice of the Mountain”

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of Mamang Dai’s “The Voice of the Mountain,” examining how the poet utilizes a geological persona to interrogate the intersections of deep time, indigenous epistemology, and political history in Northeast India. By shifting the lyric subject from the human to the non-human, Dai destabilizes anthropocentric narratives, offering a vantage point that views human history as fleeting “chapters of the world.” The analysis employs close reading to demonstrate how the poem’s formal elements mirror the fluid, yet stratified, nature of the landscape. Contextualized within the framework of Northeast Indian “literature of witness,” as defined by scholars like Tilottama Misra and Robin S. Ngangom, the poem is revealed not as a Romantic pastoral, but as a resistance text. It critiques the “falsity” of state-imposed peace and explores the limitations of human language through the motif of the mute messenger. Ultimately, this study argues that Dai’s mountain is a witness to the “long combat” of existence, offering a “dream of permanence” that acknowledges the violent dynamism of both the natural and political worlds.