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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.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction; Chapter 2. Theoretical Concerns & Analytical Framework; Chapter 3. The Mizos of Mizoram: From Ethnic Rebellion to Successful Political Integration into the Postcolonial Indian Union; Chapter 4. The Nagas of Nagaland: Sustained Armed Resistance to Political and Cultural Incorporation into the Indian Union; Chapter 5. The Meitei Rebellion in Manipur: Community Memory, Contested Accession, and Deepening Integration into the India Union; Chapter 6. "Ethnic Assamese" Rebellion in Assam: Amorphous and Fractured Regional Identity, and Deepening Integration into the India Union; Chapter 7. Conclusion
About the author
Jugdep S. Chima is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Hiram College, USA. He is the author of The Sikh Separatist Insurgency in India: Political Leadership and Ethnonationalist Movements (2010) and the editor of Ethnic Subnationalist Insurgencies in South Asia: Identities, Interests, and Challenges to State Authority (2015). He has published numerous articles in journals such as Asian Survey, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Review of International Studies, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Third World Quarterly on topics relating to the political economy of conflict, political parties and group conflict, individual participation in insurgency, and ethnicity and democracy.
Pahi Saikia is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India. She is the author of Ethnic Mobilisation and Violence in Northeast India (2011). She has also co-edited a book with Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury titled India and Myanmar Borderlands: Ethnicity, Security and Connectivity (2019). She has published articles in peer-reviewed journals including Political Psychology, India Review, South Asian History and Culture on political behavior, ethnofederalism, identity-digital media nexus, women in post-conflict zones, and India's multilateral connectivity.
Summary
This book provides a systematic analysis of every major secessionist group and insurgency in the region within a unified and original explanatory framework, focusing on the post-colonial period. It will be of interest to researchers in Asian studies, ethnicity, nationalism, separatism, security studies, border studies and international relations.
Report
"Ethnicity remains a potential driver of both political violence and insurgent movements. As such, understanding the genesis of ethnic conflict and how it can be used for political purposes remains critical. Insurgency in India's Northeast offers some very useful insights into the process in the area, and it is recommended for its case studies on a very complicated region."
-- Lawrence E. Cline, in Small Wars & Insurgencies (26 Sep 2024)
"Insurgency in India's Northeast: Identity Formation, Postcolonial Nation/State Building, and Secessionist Resistance, by political scientists Jugdep S. Chima and Pahi Saikia, offers an important intervention into the expanding scholarship on Northeast India. [...] The book makes a significant contribution to the fields of Northeast India studies, borderland studies, and the broader scholarship on insurgencies and postcolonial nation-state formation in the South Asian region. Through a "macro-historical" analysis of identity formation and secessionist movements, the authors offer valuable insights into these complex dynamics. [...] The book provides a robust theoretical understanding of the region and its ongoing struggles."
-- Kunal Nath Shahdeo, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. Pacific Affairs
