About the Book

Northeast India has endured decades of conflicts that have kept much of the region militarized, subject to restrictions on civil rights, and economically underdeveloped. In this volume, contributors from diverse fields ranging from the social sciences, philosophy, and cultural studies, to journalism and the civil services reflect on new ways of approaching and resolving these conflicts.

Dissatisfaction with conditions on the ground and with standard policy prescriptions is the common thread that runs through the book. The essays provide analyses of the conflicts at three levels: structural determinants like poverty and underdevelopment; the nature and politics of the postcolonial state; and the agency of multiple actors with diverse motives. The authors argue that neither a development nor a military fix can achieve peace in the region. Only concerted efforts to establish the rule of law, a system of accountability, and faith in the institutions of government can break the cycle of violence.

Contributors

• Sanjib Baruah
• Subir Bhaumik
• Samir Kumar Das
• Nandana Dutta
• M. Sajjad Hassan
• Rakhee Kalita
• Bodhisattva Kar
• Dolly Kikon
• Makiko Kimura
• Bethany Lacina
• Bhagat Oinam
• Pradip Phanjoubam
• H. Kham Khan Suan
• Betsy Taylor
• Ananya Vajpeyi

About the Editor

Sanjib Baruah is Professor of Political Studies at Bard College, New York, and Honorary Professor at Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.

Readership

Conveying a sense of Northeast India’s rich and vibrant public discourse, this book will be useful to all those interested in armed conflicts, the state of Indian democracy, civil liberties, and Northeast India.

‘Sanjib Baruah has compiled an exceptionally diverse anthology. Including voices from social science, history, literature, cultural studies, and government, it reveals the region?s vibrant public discourse and provides an antidote to security-centric proclamations. Beyond Counter-insurgency is a model of creatively engaged and academically astute public intellectual work.’

DAVID LUDDEN

Professor of History, New York University

‘Baruah and his contributors paint a rich, vital picture of the spatial disorder that has unfolded within Northeast India’s multiple ‘inner lines’. This complex and unvarnished story is told without romanticism or cynicism. Between the apparent impossibility of peace through reconciliation and victory through repression or terror, the book envisions the possibility of an open, more inclusive future.’

SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN Strategic Affairs Editor, The Hindu

‘This rich volume opens up a crucial space for re-imagining this highly complex yet remarkably poorly understood region. Shunning facile remedies, its proposals for a better future include redistributing key resources, restoring public trust in the rule of law, and harnessing the region?s exceptional ecological diversity.’ WILLEM VAN SCHENDEL Professor of Modern Asian History, University of Amsterdam

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These fifteen personal essays provide an insider’s take on wide-ranging issues: from the Brahmaputra and the use of natural resources to peace talks in Nagaland; from the Centre’s failure to repeal the hated Armed Forces Special Powers Act, threats to the environment, corruption in government and extortion by armed groups to New Delhi’s Look East Policy and much more.

Yet, as these essays make clear, hope, though distant, is not absent or lost. Restoring governance through people-driven development programmes, peace building through civil society initiatives, assuring the pre-eminence of local communities as evident in Hazarika’s conversations with the legendary Naga leader, Th. Muivah, and simple economic interventions through appropriate technologies — boats and health care, community mobilization and micro-credit — hold promise for solutions to the web of violence, poverty and marginalization.

Writing on the Wall is a passionate call to all stakeholders in the North-east to embrace dialogue and use given platforms for peace, to go beyond the politics of tolerance to that of mutual respect. Only such multi-disciplinary, innovative approaches, rooted in realism, can bring stability and sustainable change to the region.

Source: Penguin Books

* Sanjoy Hazarika is a renowned journalist, author and the Managing Trustee of Center for North East Studies and Plicy Research (CNES).

Manas National Park in the north east of India, is one of the oldest protected areas in the country. This almost 520 sq km of pristine forest is also the core zone of the sprawling Manas Tiger Reserve that extends for 230 km from east to west. The Richly wooded Bhutan hills form the Northern boundary of this National Park. In addition to the big five, namely Royal Bengal Tiger, Asiatic elephant, Asiatic water buffalo, Great Indian one-horned rhino and Gaur, Manas is also home to 5 species of deer, almost 40 other kinds of mammals, 36 different varieties of reptiles and 476 species of birds. As a tribute to its outstanding universal importance, in 1985, Manas was recognised as a World Heritage Site. This handbook provides the reader with a package of ‘facts, legends & pictures’ that is practical for travellers, a souvenir for tourist and a ‘must have’ for the wildlife enthusiast.

My rating: 4.0 stars
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