Summary
India's north-east has been beset by problems arising from lack of economic development and insurgency for long. Though the reasons for these are manifold, they primarily lie within the region's sociological, geographic, historical, economic and political spheres. This book is aimed at giving the reader an overview of the major crises that hamper advancement in the north-east, with the hope that it would assist in arriving at solutions.
The ‘north-east’ comprises the states of Assam, Arunachal, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Sikkim, and North Bengal, which though hasn't yet been officially included in the region, forms an integral part of it. The north-east is an area clouded with lack of knowledge and ambiguity for most of our citizens. That it is today an underdeveloped area, troubled with strife, insurgency and low-intensity conflict with our neighbours, where modernity is in conflict with tradition, is largely due to the indifference of the rest of the country. With over 500 different ethnic groups, of which 110 are major, and a consequent diverse ethnic sub-nationalism governed by the primordial values of ‘tribe – land – autonomy’, there is only one commonality – a partially mongoloid heritage. People are in conflict with the state and other ethnic groups, because they feel their values have not been respected and they have been alienated by segregation, social deprivation, lack of development, exploitation because they look, speak and believe differently.
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- An Insider's Experience of Insurgency in India's North-East , pp. xiii - xviPublisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2007