This book presents a comprehensive account of the transformation of Assam's forests and ecology from early nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. It locates present-day ecological conflicts in the colonial era when contest over forest, land, and resource began to take new shape. Arupjyoti Saikia delineates how forest resources in Assam were mapped and intergrated with mechant capitalism since the early nineteenth century. He shows how imperial forestry practices led to changes in traditional resource utilization patterns. The book also examines the political economy of conservation practices. It explores the question of law and conservation, role of institutions and organizations, and the changing role of the forests in imperial economy. The book argues how the making of forest policy in the postcolonial period was defind by the complexities of the political matrix. It discusses plantation, silvicultural practices, protection and regeneration of forests, and livlihood practices. The author also analyses public debates surrounding ecology and environmental changes in conservation practices after the 1980 Act.

'A model work of historical scholarship'-Ramachandra Guha 'The most well-researched, comprehensive history of contemporary Assam ever written'-Partha Chatterjee The crucial battles of World War II fought in India's north-east-followed soon after by Independence and Partition-had a critical impact on the making of modern Assam. In the three decades following 1947, the state of Assam underwent massive political turmoil, geographical instability, and social and demographic upheaval, among others. Later, the truncated state suffered widespread unrest as various groups believed their cultural identity and political leverage were under threat. New social energies and political forces were unleashed and came to the fore. Definitive, comprehensive and unputdownable, The Quest for Modern Assam explores the interconnected layers of political, environmental, economic and cultural processes that shaped the development of Assam since the 1940s. It offers an authoritative account that sets new standards in the writing of regional political history. Not to be missed by any one keen on Assam, India, Asia or world history in the twentieth century.

History as a social science is arguably more self-reflective than associated disciplines in that family. Other social scientists seem to see little reason to look beyond the paradigm they are developing in the present times. Historians on the other hand, tend to depend on the cumulative process of the development of their craft and the fund of accumulated knowledge. Yet, while this is acknowledged in the practice of research, Historiography in itself as a subject of study has rarely found its place in the syllabi of Indian universities. Knowledge of Historiography is taken for granted when a scholar plunges into research. In an attempt to address this lacuna, the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) has planned a series of volumes on Historiography comprising articles by subject specialists commissioned by the ICHR. The first volume in the series, Approaches to History: Essays in Indian Historiography brings to the readers the first fruits of that endeavour. While the essays encompass areas of research presently at the frontiers of new research, scholars will also find the bibliographies accompanying the essays of significant appeal.

Contributed articles focussing on the role of Assam in the Indian freedom movement from 1857-1947.

British Assam holds an important place in the history of the British Empire in South Asia. This is especially so in the context of colonial frontier- making. It is in this regard that the book examines what it culturally meant to be a hunter, peasant or rebel between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries in the British Assam frontier. The book highlights that these figures are of conceptual significance. While the figures were of contrastive nature, the complexity of underlying relations through and in which British colonialism constituted and reproduced itself in Assam could be uncovered from a study of these contrastive figures. Using a wide spectrum of archival sources, the hunters’ memoirs, the peasants’ ballads and a rebel’s worldview are examined as the cultural forms through which one can study these relations that generated the sense of colonial reality in these figures. Through these issues, the book examines what constituted the nature of the British Assam frontier, and how colonialism and capitalism shaped and reproduced an imperial frontier. Part of the Empire and Frontiers book series, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of history, cultural studies, anthropology, literary studies, frontiers and borderland studies and South Asian studies.

This book brings together essays on North East India from across disciplines to explore new understandings of the colonial and contemporary realities of the region. Departing from the usual focus on identity and politics, it offers fresh representations from history, social anthropology, culture, literature, politics, performance and gender. Through the lens of modern practices, the essays in this volume engage with diverse issues, including state-making practices, knowledge production and its politics, history writing, colonialism, role of capital, institutions, changing locations of orality and modernity, production and reception of texts, performances and literatures, social change and memory, violence and gender relations, along with their wider historical, geographical and ideational mappings. In the process, they illustrate how the specificities of the region can become useful sites to interrogate global phenomena and processes — for instance, in what ways ideas and practices of modernity played an important role in framing the region and its people. Further, the volume underlines the complex ways in which the past came to be imagined, produced and contested in the region. With its blend of inter-disciplinary approach, analytical models and perspectives, this book will be useful to scholars, researchers and general readers interested in North East India and those working on history, frontiers and borderlands, gender, cultural studies and literature.