Interrogating Development: State, Displacement and Popular Resistance in North East India (SAGE Studies on India′s North East) - Softcover

Hussain, Monirul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0761935754 ISBN 13: 9780761935759

Publisher: SAGE, 2008

Synopsis

This book, the first in a series on the North-East, focuses on development-induced displacement of population in the region in the post-colonial period. Despite state-sponsored development initiatives, the North East still remains highly underdeveloped and politically disturbed. Various development projects initiated by the state led to massive displacement of population within the region, which has virtually gone unnoticed. The author has made use of extensive empirical data to document this massive displacement.

Recently, the Government of India had decided to construct 145 mega dams to tap the hydroelectric potential of the region in order to convert the North- East into India′s power house. Fearing negative effects like massive displacement of population, environmental degradation and the erosion of the rich biodiversity of the region, people at the grassroots level have built up resistance movements against such mega projects. This is a significant shift in the politics of the region, which had been ethnocentric so far. Emergence of popular resistance outside the conventional party system, based on new political cleavages is strengthening the democratic consciousness of the people living in these areas, which marks a significant shift in the politics of the region.

About this title

About the Author

Monirul Hussain graduated from Cotton College, Guwahati and completed his MA from AMU, Aligarh. He did his M.Phil and doctoral research at the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and the post doctoral research at the University of Oxford. He was recipient of Commonwealth Fellowship in 1999 and South Asia Regional Fellowship (Senior) from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), New York in 2004. He has contributed papers in national and international journals on society and politics in North East India. His book The Assam Movement: Class, Ideology and Identity (1993) received critical appreciations from far and wide. This book is regarded as an indispensable source for understanding Assam’s colonial and post-colonial society and politics. He co-edited two volumes on Religious Minorities in South Asia: Selected Essays on Postcolonial Situation (2001) in addition to another volume entitled Coming Out of Violence: Essays on Ethnicity, Conflict Resolution and Peace Process in North East India (2005).

Professor Hussain had been a Visiting Fellow at the Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford and Visiting Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Currently, he is Professor at the Department of Political Science, Gauhati University. Besides teaching at MA level and guiding research at doctoral level, he is now engaged in research on ethnicity, human security and forced migration in North East India.

Edition details

• Publisher: SAGE
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0761935754
• ISBN 13: 9780761935759
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 180