In many senses, India's Northeast has been an enigma to the rest of the country. Beginning with the earliest challenge of the nation-building process in India, this highly diverse and multicultural region has, through its multiple identity movements and militant separatism, thrown up several major issues which have resulted in re-drawing the parameters of the Indian nation-state and helped to re-define the idea of nationalism itself. This selection of essays/commentaries, written over some three decades, analyze the complex processes of the nation-state's engagement with the demands for autonomy/independence raised by the small nationalities of the northeastern region but also focuses on the contradictions and new equations that have been emerging both within these movements and in the State's response to them. The factors behind the rise of ethnic nationalist assertions, the role of civil society, the rise of exclusivist politics and the question of citizens' rights are other issues that figure prominently in the discussions.

This book examines the impact of Partition on refugees in East and Northeast India and their struggle for identity, space and political rights. In the wake of the legalisation of the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019, this region remains a hotbed of identity and refugee politics. Drawing on extensive research and in-depth fieldwork, this book discusses themes of displacement, rehabilitation, discrimination and politicisation of refugees that preceded and followed the Partition of India in 1947. It portrays the crises experienced by refugees in recreating the socio-cultural milieu of the lost motherland and the consequent loss of their linguistic, cultural, economic and ethnic identities. The author also studies how the presence of the refugees shaped the conduct of politics in West Bengal, Assam and Tripura in the decades following Partition. Refugees, Borders and Identities will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of refugee studies, border studies, South Asian history, migration studies, Partition studies, sociology, anthropology, political studies, international relations and refugee studies, and for general readers of modern Indian history.

This book provides an in-depth analysis and critical examination of the representation of ethnic, sexual, cultural, and individual identities in selected literary works by contemporary writers from Northeast India. The book explores the complex dynamics of identity construction, sexuality, marginalisation, ethnicity, and belonging in the context of Meghalaya and Northeast India as a whole. The author analyses poetry and prose by Janice Pariat, Anjum Hasan, Kynpham Singh Nongkynrih, and other Khasi writers. These works candidly portray the turmoil afflicting contemporary Meghalaya – from insurgency and ethnic tensions to ecological threats and loss of roots as well as reconciliation, integration, and mutual understanding. Using postmodern and postcolonial literary strategies, the book depicts fluid, heterogeneous, and multifaceted notions of identity in Northeast India. An exploration of ethnicity, belonging, and unbelonging in the Northeastern context, this book presents marginalised voices and liminal spaces. It will be of interest to academics focusing on Indian English literature, postcolonial literature, and South Asian Studies.

"Ethnic Life-worlds in North-East India: An Analysis" draws upon the phenomenological notion of the life-world to understand the culturally-embedded construction of communities, for whom the lived experience of cultural politics constitutes their identity. It analyses the cultural and political determinants of ethnic- and identity-oriented struggles in India's North-East, as well as the cultural politics of ethnic mobilizations in the region. Such mobilizations are an attempt to construct a self-identity distinct from that constructed by the state - both colonial and post-colonial India - which becomes a source of concern for the latter with regard to its achieving legitimacy and development in the region.While both the state and insurgent groups carve out their distinct ideological and political agenda on to the life-world of the North-East, it is at the point of diversion that the struggle for establishing such agenda falls into the trappings of constitutional determinism. This book analyses the articulation of ethnic politics in North-East India that takes into account moves for integration, as well as apparent differences. In doing so, it critically examines two major insurgent outfits of the region - NSCN and ULFA. It also discusses struggles launched by the Naga and Assamese people and develops a neologism of nations-from-below, arguing that one needs to take into account the concrete totality of the people's lived experiences.It bases this analysis on a critical discussion of the colonial construction of tribal identity and its post-colonial critique. Thought-provoking and analytical, this book opens a new window to the study of India's North-East, which will intrigue students and scholars across various disciplines of development studies, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, political science and ethnic studies, and will be of interest to policy-makers, NGOs and global humanitarian communities.

This book rethinks Northeast India as a lived space, a centre of interconnections and unfolding histories, instead of an isolated periphery. Questioning dominant tropes and assumptions around the Northeast, it examines socio-political and historical processes, border issues, the role of the state, displacement and development, debates over natural resources, violence, notions of body and belonging, movements, tensions and relations, and strategies, struggles and narratives that frame discussions on the region. Drawing on current and emerging research in Northeast India studies, this work will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics, human geography, sociology and social anthropology, history, cultural studies, media studies and South Asian studies.