Looking Back into the Future

Preface. Acknowledgements. Introduction. PART ONE. The Word and the Idea 1. The Politics of a Script Demand for the Acceptance of Roman Script for Bodo Language 2. Rightful Place for Assamese Language: Scholarly Labours of Missionaries 3. Census in Assam: The Question of Mother Tongue 4. Shaping the Sound and Scripting a Solution 5. Speech, Script and Pronunciation: The Sound and the Word of Assam and Asom. PART TWO. Ethnicity and Identity 6. Strident Tribal Nationalism 7. Tribal Ferment in Assam 8. Assam's Search for Identity 9. More than just Nomenclature 10. Chasing a Mirage 11. Reinventing Identities 12. Massacres Unbound: Outrage Selective 13. Manufacturing Identities? 14. In the Name of Tribal Identities 15. Behind the Adivasi Unrest in Assam 16. Identity Politics: Where it is leading 17. To Divide is to Multiply 18. The Bodoland Territorial Council: Promises and Problems. PART THREE. Issues of Culture and Belief 19. Commitment to Identity: Cultural Dimensions of Ethnic Agitations 20. Process of Consolidation: Assam's Inherent Problems 21. A Natural Process of Transformation. PART FOUR. Discontent and Revolt 22. Serviceable Memory and Persistence of the Past 23. The Search for 'Permanent Solutions' 24. The Fallacy of Internally Coherent Homelands 25. Squeeze in Bhutan: Consequences in Assam 26. ULFA: Talking about Talks 27. 'War' against Indian State: Real Victims and Outcome 28. Prospects for Peace in Assam. PART FIVE. Homeland Politics 29. Land, Source of all Trouble 30. BTC: Going Round in Circles? PART SIX. From the Borders of a Borderland Who Owns History? 31. Who Owns History? 32. Manipur: Burdens of the Past 33. Naga Talks: Territory first, Sovereignty later 34. Insurgencies in Manipur: Politics and Ideology 35. Going Round the Mulberry Bush. PART SEVEN. Theoretical Underpinnings 36. Varieties of Separatism 37. Separatist Movements in the North-East Rhetoric and Reality 38. Agenda for Recolonisation? Epilogue. Bibliography. About the Author. Index.