Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of Northeast India (Oxford India Collection

by Sanjib Baruah

The book analyses the causes and seeks to comprehend the political meaning and significance of the persisting ethnic militancy in Northeast India. The author maintains that prolonged counter insurgency operations in the area have eroded the democratic fabric of the region where the army has institutionalized its authoritarian practices. The formal and informal structures of governance of this parallel regime, the intellectual ideas that shape it, and the resultant erosion of the democratic fabric of the region are the major themes of this work.

282 pages, Paperback

First published August 18, 2005

Reviews

[Sam]

A dense but fairly readable introduction to the politics of Northeast India, mostly focusing on Assam. The book seeks to explain the region's continuing instability, discussing, for example, the "insurgency dividend" the Northeast gets in the form of development funds from New Delhi meant to quell the insurgency -- which provide good reason to keep the insurgencies going to keep the money flowing. I brought it along to read on a trip to Assam and Meghalaya recently and was disappointed to find that it didn't offer me much insight into the politics of the latter, particuarly the blockade of Shillong while I was there, or the GNLA's bandh (strike) in the West Garo Hills.

[Siddhartha Das]

If you want to know about the political and economic discourse in North East India, worth a read.