Insurgency in India's Northeast: Identity Formation, Postcolonial Nation/State-Building, and Secessionist Resistance (Routledge Studies in South Asian Politics)

By: Jugdep S. Chima and Pahi Saikia

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Synopsis: Insurgency in India’s Northeast provides a systematic analysis of every major secessionist group and insurgency in the region within a unified and original explanatory framework, focusing primarily on the postcolonial period.　 This book presents a parsimonious analytic narrative involving a rich sequential account of the historical evolution of Mizo, Naga, Meitei, and "ethnic Assamese" identities from precolonial to colonial to postcolonial times. Avoiding essentialist or primordialist arguments, the chapters in the book demonstrate how ethnic/(sub)national identities are dynamic and malleable phenomenon, not immutable natural givens. In particular, it argues that the postcolonial Indian state has attempted to integrate these ethnic/sub-state national groups into the Indian Union through a combination of democratic accommodation/consociationalism and hegemonic/violent control, strategically designed to encapsulate their evolving (sub) national identities into the overarching state-sponsored Indian nationality. 　 Through this book, readers will gain a rich understanding of the dynamics of ethnicity/ nationality and the nation/state-building process in postcolonial India. It will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Asian studies, ethnicity, nationalism, separatism, security studies, border studies, and international relations.