These essays on the politics of insurgency-ridden northeast India show how counter-insurgency operations have virtually led to the establishment of a de facto authoritarian military rule.

Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of Northeast India

Politics & Social Sciences

Baruah, Sanjib

Politics & Government

Oxford University Press

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.

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

Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India

History

Asia

In an era of failing states and ethnic conflict, violent challenges from dissenting groups in the former Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, several African countries, and India give cause for grave concern in much of the world. And it is in India where some of the most turbulent of these clashes have been taking place. One resulted in the creation of Pakistan, and militant separatist movements flourish in Kashmir, Punjab, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Assam. In India Against Itself, Sanjib Baruah focuses on the insurgency in Assam in order to explore the politics of subnationalism.
Baruah offers a bold and lucid interpretation of the political and economic history of Assam from the time it became a part of British India and a leading tea-producing region in the nineteenth century. He traces the history of tensions between pan-Indianism and Assamese subnationalism since the early days of Indian nationalism. The region's insurgencies, human rights abuses by government security forces and insurgents, ethnic violence, and a steady slide toward illiberal democracy, he argues, are largely due to India's formally federal, but actually centralized governmental structure. Baruah argues that in multiethnic polities, loose federations not only make better democracies, in the era of globalization they make more economic sense as well.
This challenging and accessible work addresses a pressing contemporary problem with broad relevance for the history of nationality while offering an important contribution to the study of ethnic conflict. A native of northeast India, Baruah draws on a combination of scholarly research, political engagement, and an insider's knowledge of Assamese culture and society.

India Against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality (Critical Histories)

Business & Money

Economics

University of Pennsylvania Press

In the Name of the Nation: India and Its Northeast (South Asia in Motion)

Review\n"In this book, Sanjib Baruah provides scholars and students up-to-date facts, new revelations, astute analysis, and basic background for understanding history and politics in northeast India. This is also essential reading for anyone concerned with the quality of sovereignty in India, where national state territorialism is rife with contradictions, ambiguities, militarism, and conflicting allegiances."―David Ludden, New York University\n"With In the Name of the Nation, Sanjib Baruah completes an impressive trilogy of books on India's Northeast. This book unravels the paradoxes of postcolonial life in the periphery of the nation-state with theoretical elegance, intimate knowledge, and political commitment. It is a wonderful read that sets a new standard for South Asian scholarship."―Bengt G. Karlsson, Stockholm University\n"Elegantly written and cogent, Baruah's simultaneous 'insider-outsider' analysis of the region known generically as 'India's Northeast' is rich, nuanced, and multilayered. It captures the long-lasting impact of colonial policies and their present-day legacies, particularly in terms of how the 'center' and the 'peripheries' were imagined. A superb book for anyone wishing to understand how issues of citizenship, identity, and nation-making play out in the region today."―Urvashi Butalia, author of The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India\n"This is an important, accessibly written scholarly work that illuminates what democracy means by viewing it from the margins. A must-read for those interested in the contemporary politics of the Indian northeast and for those interested in the theory, history, and practice of democracy."―Kanchan Chandra, New York University\n"Carefully composed in a highly readable style, this book is an important contribution to the study of democracy, nationalism and vernacular politics on the Indian subcontinent and beyond."―Åshild Kolås, Journal of Peace Research\n"Baruah offers enormous insights into the causes of intensifying resistance, armed or otherwise, to harshly centralised political decision-making in India. The grasp of comparative politics that informs the author's analyses also contributes towards an understanding of increasing authoritarianism in South Asia and beyond."―Siddiq Wahid, India Today\n"This survey of [northeastern India] is an excellent guide to its diversity and complexity and is characterized by a heartfelt criticism of the actions of the Indian government, guided by Baruah's scholarly authority and personal experiences. Highly recommended."―R. D. Long, CHOICE\n"This is a rare gem of a book....While grappling with contentious issues of present politics, Sanjib Baruah provides depth, context and perspective."―Mahesh Rangarajan, The Indian Express\n"This is a reflective book, borne out of several decades of engagement[It] can be read as a prescient ledger of how things came to pass in Northeast India."―Sanjay Barbora, The India Forum\n"Baruah's intimate history and ethnography shows how neglect, corruption, uneven development, and repression―and recently the rise of Hindu nationalism at the federal level―have intensified the Northeast's alienation from the rest of the country."―Andrew J. Nathan, Foreign Affairs\n"[This] deceptively slim volume condenses a lifetime of deep intellectual, scholarly and normative engagement with the Northeast into an erudite and insightful analysis. It is indispensable for anyone seeking to understand the violent and chequered career of postcolonial nationalism in India, and the complex details of the history and present of its Northeast."―Sankaran Krishna, South Asia\n"[A] magnificent work of scholarship and is most timely....The author's main contribution lies in raising awareness about the issues faced by the Northeast and its people and in highlighting the need for alternative politics in the region. It is indispensable for social scientists interested in understanding the society and politics of the re

Stanford University Press

In India, the eight states that border Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Tibetan areas of China are often referred to as just "the Northeast." In the Name of the Nation offers a critical and historical account of the country's troubled relations with this borderland region. Its modern history is shaped by the dynamics of a "frontier" in its multiple references: migration and settlement, resource extraction, and regional geopolitics. Partly as a result of this, the political trajectory of the region has been different from the rest of the country. Ethnic militias and armed groups have flourished for decades, but they coexist comfortably with functioning electoral institutions. The region has some of India's highest voter turnout rates, but special security laws produce significant democracy deficits that are now almost as old as the Republic. That these policies have been enforced to foment national unity while multiple alternative conceptions of the "nation" animate politics in the region forces us to reflect on the very foundations of the nation form. Sanjib Baruah offers a nuanced account of this impossibly complicated story, asking how democracy can be sustained, and deepened, in these conditions.

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Books by Baruah, Sanjib

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baruah, Sanjib. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of Northeast India

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

Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India

India Against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality (Critical Histories)

In the Name of the Nation: India and Its Northeast (South Asia in Motion)

In the Name of the Nation: India and Its Northeast (South Asia in Motion)