India s northeastern region, forged by a unique geological history and peopled by several waves of migration, is extraordinarily complex. Farming systems in the hills and the riverine plains are embedded in a heterogeneous environment, comprising forests, wetlands and fields, shaped over centuries by nature and people. Today, the environment and economy are undergoing rapid transformation, affecting peoples lives, livelihoods and methods of food production.

The essays in this volume bring a multi-disciplinary perspective to critical aspects of the process of agricultural change, examine...

Diverging from reductionist studies of Northeast India and its multifarious conflicts, this book presents an exclusive and intricate, empirical and theoretical study of Assam as a conflict zone. It traces the genesis and evolution of the ethnic and nationalistic politics in the state, and explores how this gave birth to nativist and militant movements. It further discusses how the State s responses seem to have exacerbated rather than mitigated the conflict situation.

The author proposes ethnic reconciliation as an effective way out of the current chaos, and finds the key in examining...

This book explores through extensive fieldwork the link between development and security, critical to India s Northeast, within the context of the cross-border space it shares with China, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal. For a long-term sustainable solution to serious issues that include illegal migration and militancy, it proposes forging economic initiatives/collaborations and addressing connectivity problems.

This book discusses the politics of space and identity in the borderlands of northeastern India between the early 1800s and the 1930s. Critiquing contemporary post-colonial histories where this region emerges as fragments, this book sees these perspectives as continuing to be entrapped in a civilizational approach to history writing. Beginning in the pre-colonial period where it focuses on the negotiated character of state-formation during the Mughal imperium, the book then enters the space of the colonial where it looks at some of the early interventions of the East India Company. The...

This book offers a multifaceted look at Northeast India, and the customs and traditions that underpin its legal framework. The book:

- charts the transition of traditions from colonial rule to present day, through constitutionalism and the consolidation of autonomous identities, as well as outlines contemporary debates in an increasingly modernizing region;

- explores the theoretical context of legal pluralism and its implications, compares the personal legal systems with that of the mainland, and discusses customary law's continuing popularity (both pragmatic and...