Namrata Goswami’s research on the Naga armed ethnic movement offers a compelling narrative on how conflict has affected the daily lives of the Nagas. This volume is an account of the Naga ethnic movement going on in India since 1918, covering both historical and contemporary aspects of the conflict. Based on over a decade of ethnographic work among the Naga rebels and movement zones, personal interviews, and secondary data, the author offers insights into how the Naga population perceives their meeting point with the institutions of the Indian state, especially the army and the paramilitary. The book documents what it is like, to live in a conflict zone and the restraints and thought processes that it cultivates especially among the youth. The book reveals gripping stories of tremendous courage and conviction from people who have thought about the political unrest, been born into it, taken part in it, or have been affected by it. The Naga Ethnic Movement for a Separate Homeland reflects the Nagas’ love for their land, tracing the poignant mix of nature, land, identity, emotions, culture as well as the inter-ethnic differences that exacerbate the conflict.

'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.

India’s near east encompasses Bangladesh, Myanmar and the Indian states of the ‘Northeast’—Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. Celebrated as a theatre of geo-economic connectivity typified by India’s ‘Act East’ policy, the region is key not only to India’s great-power rivalry with China, which first boiled over in the 1962 war, but to the idea(s) of India itself. It is also one of the most intricately partitioned lands anywhere on Earth. Rent by communal and class violence, the region has birthed extreme forms of religious and ethnic nationalisms and communist movements. The Indian state’s survival instinct and pursuit of regional hegemony have only accentuated such extremes. This book scripts a new history of India’s eastward-looking diplomacy and statecraft. Narrated against the backdrop of separatist resistance within India’s own northeastern states, as well as rivalry with Beijing and Islamabad in Yangon and Dhaka, it offers a simple but compelling argument. The aspirations of ‘Act East’ mask an uncomfortable truth: India privileges political stability over economic opportunity in this region. In his chronicle of a state’s struggle to overcome war, displacement and interventionism, Avinash Paliwal lays bare the limits of independent India’s influence in its near east.

With a focus on China, the United States, and India, this book examines the economic ambitions of the second space race. The authors argue that space ambitions are informed by a combination of factors, including available resources, capability, elite preferences, and talent pool. The authors demonstrate how these influences affect the development of national space programs as well as policy and law.

This new handbook provides a wide-ranging overview of the current state of academic analysis and debate on insurgency and counterinsurgency, as well as an-up-to date survey of contemporary insurgent movements and counter-insurgencies. In recent years, and more specifically since the insurgency in Iraq from 2003, academic interest in insurgency and counterinsurgency has substantially increased. These topics have become dominant themes on the security agenda, replacing peacekeeping, humanitarian operations and terrorism as key concepts. The aim of this volume is to showcase the rich thinking that is available in the area of insurgency and counterinsurgency studies and act as a further guide for study and research. In order to contain this wide-ranging topic within an accessible and informative framework, the Editors have divided the text into three key parts: Part I: Theoretical and Analytical Issues Part II: Insurgent Movements Part III: Counterinsurgency Cases The Routledge Handbook of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency will be of great interest to all students of insurgency and small wars, terrorism/counter-terrorism, strategic studies, security studies and IR in general, as well as professional military colleges and policymakers.

This book, based on extensive field research, examines the Indian state’s response to the multiple insurgencies that have occurred since independence in 1947. In reacting to these various insurgencies, the Indian state has employed a combined approach of force, dialogue, accommodation of ethnic and minority aspirations and, overtime, the state has established a tradition of negotiation with armed ethnic groups in order to bolster its legitimacy based on an accommodative posture. While these efforts have succeeded in resolving the Mizo insurgency, it has only incited levels of violence with regard to others. Within this backdrop of ongoing Indian counter-insurgency, this study provides a set of conditions responsible for the groundswell of insurgencies in India, and some recommendations to better formulate India’s national security policy with regard to its counter-insurgency responses. The study focuses on the national institutions responsible for formulating India’s national security policy dealing with counter-insurgency – such as the Prime Minister’s Office, the Cabinet Committee on Security, the National Security Council, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Indian military apparatus. Furthermore, it studies how national interests and values influence the formulation of this policy; and the overall success and/or failure of the policy to deal with armed insurgent movements. Notably, the study traces the ideational influence of Kautilya and Gandhi in India’s overall response to insurgencies. Multiple cases of armed ethnic insurgencies in Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland in the Northeast of India and the ideologically oriented Maoist or Naxalite insurgency affecting the heartland of India are analysed in-depth to evaluate the Indian counter-insurgency experience. This book will be of much interest to students of counter-insurgency, Asian politics, ethnic conflict, and security studies in general.

The original essays brought together in this volume examine the relationship between state and society in India, discuss ideas of citizenship, and study the broad area known as public sphere. The eminent scholars who have contributed to this volume provide numerous fresh insights into issues that have been the subject of extensive debate in recent years. The first book which deals simultaneously with civil society, the public sphere and citizenship in the contemporary context, it also provides a comparative perspective with the West.