1) Health Services in Conflict and Fragile Contexts: Implications for South Asia
2) Health Inequity, Conflict and Peace in the Northeast India
3) The Struggle for Identity, Onset of Violence in (for) Bodoland and Meanings of Autonomy
4) Violent Borderlands and Health Systems Collapse: Narratives from Deosri
5) Filling the Void? New Humanitarian Actors, Conflict Response and the Perils of Humanitarian Exit
6) Pathways to Peace and Biographies of Reconstruction
Dr. Samrat Sinha is a Professor at the Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA), O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU), India. He is the Executive Director of the Centre for Border Studies- a research centre within JSIA. He has earlier taught at the Jamsteji Tata Centre for Disaster Management (JTCDM), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. He has been collaborating with civil society organizations in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR), Assam since 2012. He has been involved in conducting humanitarian assessments, applied research and peace-building projects in the region. At JSIA, he teaches courses on Peacebuilding, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief. He, in collaboration with the ant and NERSWN, also teaches an immersive field-based course on community development in the Indo-Bhutan borderland regions. His publications include books and research papers in the fields of peacebuilding, conflict and health. He holds a Ph.D. and a Masters Degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Delaware, USA. He also has a Masters in Politics (International Studies) from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi and an undergraduate degree in History from the University of Delhi.
Jennifer Liang completed her Masters in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, and has since been working in the area of health, organisational development and women’s issues. She is Program Lead and Trainer at IDeA—the Institute of Development Action—and Consultant to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (UK). She is a co-founder of the Action Northeast Trust (the ant), a non-profit working on rural development in Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR), Assam, since the year 2000. She has also served on the boards of various development organisations in the Northeast region of India. She was awarded the United Kingdom’s Chevening Gurukul Scholarship in 2013. She was also selected as one of 50 emerging women leaders in 2014 by the Women in Public Service Project, an initiative of the U.S. State Department. She directs her academic and social change activities in the following themes: gender equality, the development and rights of children, peacebuilding and organization development.
This book provides an insight into the issue of health inequity brought about by the violent conflict in Northeast India. While examining the deep vulnerabilities and loss of well-being suffered by families displaced by conflict in the Indo-Bhutan borderland region, the authors raise fundamental questions of accountability and the role of various stakeholders in providing humanitarian assistance to those affected by the conflict. It highlights for the reader the role played by conflict and armed violence in dismantling a functioning public health system and delineates the long-term barriers to post-conflict recovery. The book is written by those who have worked in implementing development and peacebuilding programs in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) of Western Assam. The book especially brings to the fore the voices of those communities directly affected by conflict in Bodoland. The book is valuable to researchers, development practioners and policy makers. Given the unique format of the book, which includes a number of case studies, it is particularly useful for students of development, public health and allied disciplines such as international relations as well as peace and conflict studies.