Abstract
This book attempts to contribute to the construction of Northeast Indian Studies as a research field in its own right. In doing so it builds on recent reconfigurations of area studies in South and South East Asia Studies to approach Northeast India as an emerging ‘geo historical entity.’ This framework can be understood through a reading of the Preface by the editors, the Introduction by Bengt Karlsson and the Afterword by Willem van Schendel. Karlsson introduces the emergence, transformation and future of Northeast Indian Studies. He calls for introspection in the recent surge in studies on the Northeast, which he argues needs to pay close attention to local voices as well as indigenous epistemologies and ontologies if it is to be liberated from the shackles of colonial categories and modes of thinking. This is the framework within which the book attempts to rethink the Northeast as a lived space, a centre of interconnections and unfolding histories, as opposed to colonial and nation-state centric tropes of isolation and exceptionality.
Part 1—‘Historical and Ethnographic Encounters’—brings forth questions of colonial knowledge production and practices of ethnography. Sanjib Baruah complicates colonial anthropological knowledge production by critically evaluating the work of the well-known anthropologist Furer-Haimendorf. In Bianca Son’s chapter on the Zo highlanders of Burma and India, she critically evaluates how colonial officials constructed the people of these hills as separate communities: as Chin, Lushai and Kuki. Anandaroop Sen provides a rich history of border making in 19th-century Tippera. The two other chapters in this part move to the contemporary, specifically self-reflexive ethnographic practices in contrast to earlier colonial anthropological approaches. Dolly Kikon’s article talks about everyday life in the foothills of Assam-Nagaland, going beyond the hills/plains politics to trace how relationships unfold in this in-between space, in terms of relations across ethnic communities. Similarly, Mélanie Vandenhelsken is critical of her role as an ethnographer in a context where communities are struggling to gain the status of Scheduled Tribes in Sikkim. Both these articles are self-reflective about the role of the ethnographer in the field and engage with the politics and ethics of representation.
Part II is on the politics of land and material resources and brings together a chapter on agrarian changes in Western Assam as a central motif within which to understand issues of identity, conflict and belonging (Sanjay [Xonxoi] Barbora) with another chapter on the politics of development in Arunachal Pradesh. Here, Mibi Ete examines the local sociopolitical context to understand the role played by communities who do not take an antagonistic role towards state and capital induced hydropower projects. Teiborlang Kharsyntiew discusses the popularity of Korean fashion, food and pop music as a form of resistance against dominant Indian hegemony and localised majoritarianism. Iris Odyuo traces the history of Naga handicrafts and the changing ways in which they have been commercialised in the present. Part III—‘In and Out of the State’—has two chapters which focus on the politics of state practices—specifically elections—and state policies in the making and remaking of identities where state structures—both central and local—play a dominant role (Kaustubh Deka, Cornelia Guenauer). Soibam Haripriya and N. William Singh focus on the politics of civil society organisations in the states of Manipur and Mizoram respectively. Soibam complicates our understanding of women’s agency in the context of the Northeast and Manipur in particular. She is critical of the role of the dominant Meira Paibis who, in spite of their challenge to the Indian state, participate in certain patriarchal ways of functioning. She very pertinently shows how a women’s movement is not necessarily the same as a feminist one. Singh, in a similar fashion, critically evaluates the role of the Young Mizo Association whose primary role as promoters of Mizo-ness has led to the domination of other minorities in the state in terms of imposition of the Mizo language and their indirect participation in the dominant Mizo politics. Mark Turin’s chapter on linguistic classification and state language policies cautions the way Tibeto-Burman vernaculars are dying out as they are being replaced by regional languages and English.
The book ends with an important Afterword by Willem van Schendel who states that the history of Northeast India begins with the Partition. As such, he argues that the major thrust in rethinking the Northeast should come from a closer research engagement with Partition, post-Partition history and history writing. Thus, he says:
Imagining Northeast India as a new space, a contested space, a vertical space and a fragmented space helps us to reconsider the Partition of 1947 in two ways: as a political upheaval that had specific regional effects and as a mindset that has determined the way we study the region. (p. 283)
He calls for an academic ‘look east’ policy, whereby the region can be studied in terms of continuities and interconnections with its neighbours—Bangladesh, Myanmar and Tibet/China. This book’s call for re-reading the Northeast as an emerging geo-historical entity is well taken as it takes us beyond the limiting domains of knowledge produced within the frame of colonialism and the nation-state. The attempt to rethink Northeast in terms of Partition is likewise an important theoretical contribution, which would lead to a more complex understanding of the regional neighbourhood as well as help build solidarities. However, the increasing focus on spatiality, particularly the making and remaking of the region, might not be enough to engage with the postcolonial realities of the region. The movement away from the nation-state requires a critical reflection on the enduring legacies of colonialism, nationalism and Eurocentrism in the making and re-making of the Northeast. This can only be articulated through a critical postcolonial lens on the Northeast that works in conjunction with the transnational and post-Partition approach advocated by this book.