Insurgency In India S Northeast

Written with empathy and lucidity, Mukherjee’s book combines hard fact with sensitive insight in his approach to the region’s landscape, people and history. The author analyses problems intrinsic to this enigmatic area, offering viable solutions where possible.

Since the British withdrew from the subcontinent, nations in the region have been at war with each other. But instead of fighting long-drawnout wars like that between Iran and Iraq, nations of South Asia have sponsored guerrilla armies and armed, trained and equipped them to harass, bleed or embarrass their rivals. The four wars in the region’s post-colonial era were also born out of sponsored guerrilla wars. In 1948 and 1965, Pakistan first tried to have its way in Kashmir by sponsoring irregulars on a large scale and then followed it up with unsuccessful military campaigns aimed at ensuring the state’s secession from India. In 1962, China attacked India not so much over a disputed border or India’s much publicized Forward Policy but essentially in response to what it felt was a joint Indo-US covert effort in Tibet. In 1971 India rounded off its successful sponsorship of the Bengali guerrilla struggle in erstwhile East Pakistan by a speedy military campaign that resulted in the break up of Pakistan. Insurgent Crossfire examines the origins of sponsored insurgencies and how they have shaped South Asia’s tense diplomatic environment. Having done that, it studies the major sponsored guerrilla campaigns in South Asia and then seeks a detailed case study of the phenomenon by focusing on the far eastern slice of the subcontinent. The author argues that this region, with its multitude of tribes and battling ethnicities, has been the most durable theatre of insurgent crossfire – in which nations like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China (a major actor in South Asian politics) have backed insurgencies against each other.

The book examines questions of identity, ethnicity, sovereignty and insurgency in northeastern India, and especially on Assam and its neighbourhood. Written by an academic-journalist, the various articles situate these in their larger social, economic, political and, above all, historical context, the last being especially important in their becoming a part of colonial India relatively late, well after colonial control was established in the rest of India. Based on close, ground level experience involving extensive travel and interaction with the people, this collection is the result of a long journalistic career spanning nearly 50 years in the northeast region. Written in simple, lucid language, the essays cover a range of themes including culture, belief, and identity; homeland and language politics; and insurgency and separatism. The volume also achieves a uniquely dual historical value - while the articles themselves include a lot of historical information tracing the roots of the various issues discussed, the articles themselves range from 1974 to 2010, providing the modern reader with a series of historical moments captured in their immediacy. Of interest to students, academics, researchers in politics, peace & conflict studies, politics, sociology, history, language, those interested in northeast India, policy-makers, cultural studies, etc.

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.

Northeast India comprises of seven states – Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. This region has been the theatre of insurgency and ethnic-based armed conflicts for more than half a century making the region one of South Asia’s most disturbed areas. The instability in Northeast India is characterized by two distinct factors – ethnic clashes among the indigenous groups and political movement against the Union Government. The conflicting dynamics in the Northeast ranges from insurgency for secession to insurgency for autonomy, from terrorism to ethnic clashes, to problems of continuous inflow of migrants and the fight over resources. Moreover, vested interests and inter tribal and inter factional rivalry have led militant groups to continually clash among themselves, plunging the region in a vicious cycle of militancy, social violence and lack of economic growth. These armed conflicts have given impetus to small arms proliferation, narcotics trade and a parallel economy. The democratic deficits and how the Central Government and the states have addressed these concerns are of interest. The location of the region, politically and geographically, has a fundamental bearing on it and its people who aspire for different goals and how they try to reach these goals. The region shares borders with four countries: Myanmar, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Tibet/China and is connected to the Indian mainland by a narrow stretch of land. This adds to the trans – border ramifications to the conflicts. To address these issues CSA with the help of Centre for Northeast Studies and Policy Research, Guwahati engaged a few experts who have contributed papers which were presented at the Seminar in New Delhi in July 2010 and the same stand published through this book.