This book analyses the cross-border transactions in North-East India, with particular focus on the Tripura-Bangladesh border. It explores the inter-relationship between community, state and market, and also discusses the spatial identity of Tripura in pre and post-partition era and the implications of partition and border-making to the cross-border communities of Tripura and Bangladesh. It reflects on trade transactions between India and Bangladesh and more significantly, on informal cross-border trade, social transactions and people-to-people contact across the border. The subject matter in this book also captures the community anxieties emerging from land boundary institutions and the issues of conflict and development in the cross-border space of Tripura-Bangladesh. It also discusses the dynamics of community inter-dependence and opposition in the post-partition condition in the Tripura and Bangladesh. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Bhutan)

Since the nineteenth century, a succession of states has classified the inhabitants of what are now the borderlands of Northeast India and Bangladesh as Muslim "frontier peasants," "savage mountaineers," and Christian "ethnic minorities," suspecting them to be disloyal subjects, spies, and traitors. In Jungle Passports Malini Sur follows the struggles of these people to secure shifting land, gain access to rice harvests, and smuggle the cattle and garments upon which their livelihoods depend against a background of violence, scarcity, and India's construction of one of the world's longest and most highly militarized border fences. Jungle Passports recasts established notions of citizenship and mobility along violent borders. Sur shows how the division of sovereignties and distinct regimes of mobility and citizenship push undocumented people to undertake perilous journeys across previously unrecognized borders every day. Paying close attention to the forces that shape the life-worlds of deportees, refugees, farmers, smugglers, migrants, bureaucrats, lawyers, clergy, and border troops, she reveals how reciprocity and kinship and the enforcement of state violence, illegality, and border infrastructures shape the margins of life and death. Combining years of ethnographic and archival fieldwork, her thoughtful and evocative book is a poignant testament to the force of life in our era of closed borders, insularity, and "illegal migration."

This book analyses the cross-border transactions in North-East India, with particular focus on the Tripura-Bangladesh border. It explores the inter-relationship between community, state and market, and also discusses the spatial identity of Tripura in pre and post-partition era and the implications of partition and border-making to the cross-border communities of Tripura and Bangladesh. It reflects on trade transactions between India and Bangladesh and more significantly, on informal cross-border trade, social transactions and people-to-people contact across the border. The subject matter in this book also captures the community anxieties emerging from land boundary institutions and the issues of conflict and development in the cross-border space of Tripura-Bangladesh. It also discusses the dynamics of community inter-dependence and opposition in the post-partition condition in the Tripura and Bangladesh. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Bhutan)

This book offers an understanding of the expectations and challenges of Northeast India in the context of India's Act East policy. It critically examines how the policy is being pursued by the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government and analyses its relevance from local perspectives. Contributors to the book provide an examination of the differences between Look East and Act East policy and explanations of the expectations of India's neighboring countries, particularly Myanmar, towards Northeast India. They ask the following questions: a) What is to be done to integrate India’s Northeast region meaningfully into the Act East policy? What is the motive of linking this policy with these states? How is this policy received by the local communities? b) What are the challenges of the Northeast region? What are their needs and priorities? How can these states showcase their potentials to Southeast Asia and East Asia? c) What is the significance of the changes from Look to Act East Policy? Has the regime change affected the continuity in the policy? What are the short- and long-term goals? d) What are the expectations of Southeast Asia and East Asia? By addressing these questions, they bridge the knowledge gaps that exist in the understating of the the Northeast region of India vis-à-vis the Act East policy. The first book to combine a balanced view of India's Act East policy and Northeast India, it will be of interest to policy makers and academics in the fields of Development Studies, International Relations, Northeast India and South Asian Politics.

This book examines India’s Northeast borderland – strategically positioned at the confluence of South Asia, East and Southeast Asia – from the perspective of international relations. The volume interrogates the geopolitics of region-making in both colonial and postcolonial times and traces the transformation of Northeast India from a British strategic frontier into a securitised borderland. It situates the region in transnational interactions both in conflict and cooperation with its immediate neighbouring regions of China, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, especially in the context of India’s Look East/Act East policy. The volume paves the way for a new ‘region-state’ framework borne out of the constructivist worldview and offers answers to many conundrums centring border studies. It further delineates approaches to overcoming the present geopolitical and territorial challenges of India’s Northeast with a critical thrust on regional policymaking. The volume will be of interest to students and researchers in the disciplines of social sciences and humanities in India as well as South and Southeast Asia. It will be especially useful to those in politics and international relations, strategic studies, international political economy, foreign policy, development studies and regional development, besides foreign policy-makers and diplomats, development practitioners, economists and policy analysts.

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. @contents: 1. Security and Development: Understanding the Relationship 2. ‘China Factor’ and India’s Frontier 3. ‘Myanmar Situation’ and India’s Northeast 4. ‘Bangladesh’s Transition’ and India’s Borderland 5. ‘Nepal Issue’ and India East and Northeast 6. ‘Peaceful Bhutan’ and Northeast India’s Hope

This book examines the complex and connected past, present, and future of Northeast India and Japan. It looks at the intricate political geography and ethnolinguistic diversity of India’s Northeast, and its historical and strategic relationship with Japan. From the theatre of the Second World War to a potential economic corridor to the Indo-Pacific, the Northeast, which shares a border with China, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar, has emerged as an area of central importance in India–Japan relations. The book highlights the importance of connectivity and cooperation in the North Eastern Region, for sustainable growth, better accessibility, and quality of life. The chapters in the volume look at shared economic, socio-political, and environmental concerns of the two countries as well as the shared legacies between Japan and the Northeast through stories, collective memories and memorials about World War II, and research. They also explore the strategic implications of China’s One Belt One Road initiative in the region and for India–Japan relations, India’s Act-East policy, provincial politics and ethnic conflicts, and the challenges for sustainable development and greater cooperation for the two countries. With contributions from both Indian and Japanese academics, this book will be a key resource on understanding Asian politics. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics and international relations, strategic studies, development studies, and Asian studies.

Routledge Readings on Security and Governance in Northeastern India: Resource Conflicts, Militarisation and Development Challenges presents some of the finest essays on a region that stretches across the Northeastern Himalaya, eight Indian States and many tribal and non-tribal peoples. With a lucid Introduction, this and its companion volume, Routledge Readings on Colonial to Contemporary Northeastern India offer a compelling look into the society, polity, contemporary security and developmental issues in northeast India. It covers several critical themes and unravels complexities fraught by the unique biogeography and socio-political history of the region. The fifteen chapters in this multidisciplinary volume, divided into three sections, examine land laws, conflict and resource management and local governance. It discusses the political interplay of ethnicities and resource appropriation in a modernizing, globalizing economy as well as instances of conflicts and violence in highly militarized spaces in the region. It offers an engaged and insightful look into the rural and urban human development contexts in the region from authors who have contributed significantly to the academic and/or policy discourse on the subject. This book will serve as essential reading for students, scholars, policymakers, practitioners of South Asian studies, Northeast India studies, history, development studies, labour studies, sociology, public administration, environmental studies, law and human rights, regional literature, cultural studies, geography, and economics.