Durable Disorder: Understanding The Politics Of Northeast India (oxford India Collection (paperback))

This book offers fresh insights into ethnic conflict and democracy with reference to Northeast India, where insurgency and counter-insurgency operations have caused human and material losses, eroded the region’s democratic fabric, and institutionalised authoritarianism. The result is a growing dissonance between the concept of ethnic homelands and the political economy that actually exists in the region. The book also traces the origins of the Naga insurgency—Northeast India’s oldest armed conflict—and looks at the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) during different phases of its power and influence. The author argues that if peace and development are to be brought to the region, India’s policy would have to be reoriented and linked to a new foreign policy towards Southeast Asia through the pursuit of a dynamic ‘Look East’ policy. In the Preface, the author discusses the issues of insider/outsider and the politics of location which have been interpreted by reviewers and critics as the main themes of the book.

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.

This book tries to understand the causes, the meaning and significance of the pattern of political violence in Northeast India. It argues for a reorientation of India's policy concerning the Northeast and for linking it to a new foreign policy towards Southeast Asia. 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