Insurgency in India's Northeast: Identity Formation, Postcolonial Nation/State-Building, and Secessionist Resistance

Insurgency in Indias Northeast provides a systematic analysis of major secessionist groups and insurgencies in the region, focusing on the postcolonial period. It demonstrates how ethnic/(sub)national identities are dynamic and malleable, and how the postcolonial Indian state has attempted to integrate them into the Indian Union through democratic accommodation/consociationalism and hegemonic/violent control.

Format: Hardback
Length: 158 pages
Publication date: 01 September 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Insurgency in India's Northeast provides a comprehensive and original analysis of every major secessionist group and insurgency in the region, with a primary focus on the postcolonial period. This book offers a parsimonious analytic narrative that traces the historical evolution of Mizo, Naga, Meitei, and ethnic Assamese identities from precolonial to colonial to postcolonial times. By avoiding essentialist or primordialist arguments, the chapters demonstrate how ethnic/(sub)national identities are dynamic and malleable phenomena, not immutable natural givens.

In particular, the book 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. This strategic approach aims to encapsulate their evolving (sub)national identities within the overarching state-sponsored Indian nationality.

Through this book, readers will gain a deep 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.

Weight: 470g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032484228