Nation-building and the political impasse in India’s north-eastern region

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the politics of India’s nationalising policies towards the ‘region’ called the ‘north-eastern region’ in general, and Manipur in particular, of the post-colonial Indian state. Such policies are informed by a two-pronged strategy, the first by militarism and the second by what I identify as developmentalism. This strategy stresses the unilateral nature of India’s nation-building projects, and how it has deliberately or inadvertently brought dissatisfaction among the native population when they have unmasked the disruptive substance of nation-building approach to this hinterland.