The North East Crucible

This book is a study of the geopolitical importance of North East India, including the geostrategic threats the region faces from across the borders. It focuses on the background and growth of what the players in the game indulgently call ”regionalism” of the provinces. The rugged geography of the land and the idiosyncratic history of the waves of migration to it from near and distant lands beginning in a remote past and continuing ever since—the course had once led to the formation of an all-inclusive body-politic through a process of social integration in this part of the country centuries back—are now found to have gradually created out of nothing a consciousness—as also belligerence—among myriads of resident groups to rediscover their clan identities on the basis of ethnicity, culture and the small territories of their group dominance. Mistrust, a desire to dominate and a never-ending chain of violence slowly became a way of life during the last half a century in almost all the seven States collectively called the North East. 

This work is a chronicle of investigation into the events that bred a secessionist sentiment and an insular attitude among the different communities and tribes inhabiting the hills and plains of the region. The research undertaken by the author detects a pattern in the social and political developments in various corners of the region during the last few decades. Most of the ills that have been belabouring the Seven Sister States are unique to this region.  It provokes a thought, “who is responsible for this mess?” The book examines the slide.