Emerging Areas in North-East India Studies

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North-East India Studies is gradually gaining due attention it deserves in the academia and the research inputs in social sciences, humanities and environmental sciences on the region over past few decades are indeed phenomenal. The universities, colleges, research institutions and voluntary organisations of researchers as well as individual scholars are immensely contributing to the progress of research. The Asiatic Society, Kolkata, which had been taking keen interest in studying the tribes, communities, social and economic institutions, and art and cultures of the North-East almost since its establishment in the eighties of the eighteenth century. also reinforced its agenda for the region in recent years by organising seminars, workshops, lectures etc. at the headquarters in Kolkata as well as in various places in North-East India, besides offering fellowships to deserving researchers to work on various projects and bringing out quality publications. A meeting of the scholars involved in researching the north-eastern states to suggest an action plan for studying the North-East, which was convened by the General Secretary of the Asiatic Society on 1 September 2016, recommended, among other programmes, that a mother workshop may be held at the earliest to take stock of the trends and directions of the ongoing researches and to evaluate their societal and developmental relevance in north-eastern regional perspectives, so that more seminars, workshops, colloquiums, round table type interactions etc. on specific themes and issues can be held in future to academically explore the North-East more systematically.

Interest of scholars as well as of the members of the public, specially tourists and travellers, is increasingly developing for the land and people of North-East India, as it is popularly known today. In order to be identified as the unique 'spatial conclave with seven initial states (Nagaland 1963, Manipur and Tripura 1971, Meghalaya 1972, Mizoram 1986, Arunachal Pradesh 1987) and a further addition (Sikkim in 2002), the region had passed through a lot of socio-political vicissitude spanning over the long years since the annexation of Assam by the British administration in 1826. By now it has become a long history for the academic engagement of the scholars North- East India belonging to a multiple academic disciplines. Known for its charming ecological niche, absorbing socio-cultural and politico-economic diversities, strategic geographical vulnerability to a considerable stretch of international border and boundaries across multiple ethnos belonging to various South and South-East Asian countries (Tibet, Myanmar, Bhutan, Bangladesh), the region has assumed a distinct status to the extent of having a Minister for the Development Of North-East Region (DONER), Government of India. This has rendered a special weightage towards the Look East (now Act East) Policy of the country in spite of the sporadic tendencies here and there for re-vitalizing the compulsions of the Inner Line' which was imposed in certain areas in 1873.