Limits of ethnofederalism and local political autonomy arrangements: Continuing violence in the Bodoland Territorial Area Districts of Assam

This article analyzes the continuing interethnic and anti-state violence in Assam, India after the creation of the semi-autonomous Bodoland Territorial Area District (BTAD) in 2003. We argue that this institutional arrangement, as an “innovative” model of ethnofederalism and political autonomy, has been unsuccessful in effectively preventing continued violence. We identify several dynamics resulting from the creation of the BTAD that contribute to its ineffectiveness, including the emergence of parochial and militarized Bodo ruling cliques, competitive radicalization between Bodo political elites competing in insular electoral constituencies, the inability to co-opt and integrate factionalized Bodo militants, reinvigorated non-Bodo activism and communalism, and the increased politicization of land. The extreme and multi-faceted “ethnic” diversity found in India’s Northeast, and its aggressive political expression at the local level, differentiates this region from other parts of India where ethnofederalism has been comparatively more successful for conflict mitigation. Thus, the prospects for successful ethnofederalism are area-specific.     

Transfer of technology: A classification of motivations

Each technology transfer (TT) transaction takes place because of some motivation on the part of the respective participants. This paper attempts to create a generic taxonomy that lists such motivations and links them to the participants in the transfer. Although the past three decades have recorded an exponential growth in the literature of TT, this literature is highly fractionated. Yet, as the literature has grown several taxonomies have surfaced dealing with the various aspects of TT. Most, however, were designed to serve one of the many scientific disciplines or professions concerned with technology transfer. Zhao and Reisman (1992) provide a synthesis of these taxonomic efforts. This paper in turn addresses an aspect of TT not previously dealt with in this manner.     

Destroyed by Love: nation,memory, and humanity in South Asia

Remembered experiences of violence, humiliation, and loss suffered in the 1971 war of Bangladesh offer a site for writing a new contemporary history in South Asia. Love, not for humanity but for nation, in survivors' memories was the site of violence in the war. The state's history-writing project cultivated hate against neighbors deemed enemies and encouraged violence against them. More than four decades later, the awareness of intersubjective relationships leads survivors—victims and perpetrators—to search for meaning beyond their national labels. The quest leads to the renewal of insāniyat, a South Asian concept of humanity, which survivors suggest is the site of human freedom from violence.     

Forest land and peasant struggles in Assam, 2002–2007

Historically, and currently, agrarian mobilisation in Assam is – and has been – informed by a desire on the part of poor peasants in Tengani for security of tenure on forest land that they have occupied and cultivated in the course of successive historical waves of migration. The result was the emergence of a peasant movement, a process informed by and in turn structuring not just competing claims to nature, particularly as this involved a conflict between forest conservation and cultivation. This problem was compounded by the different class positions of those who subsequently became involved in the struggle: traders, moneylenders, poor peasants, better-off producers, NGOs, bureaucrats and government. These contradictions underwrote what became distinctions between the BTUSS and the DMSS, or the development of what in effect were two movements.     

The ISI Reaches East: Anatomy of a Conspiracy

Operations in India by Pakistan's intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), have primarily been confined to Kashmir, where it actively aids and abets militant organizations. A larger game plan of the ISI has come to light in India's north eastern region with Assam - with its sizeable Muslim population - becoming the primary target of the agency. It is seeking to create trouble in the state by way of direct aid to the separatist organizations there. Although it is not altogether certain whether Pakistan has any territorial designs in that part of India (the state of Assam geostrategically borders Bangladesh, which broke away from Pakistan in 1971) it is evidently becoming clearer that the ISI wishes to set many a "prairie fire" in the area in order to tie down Indian troops from their primary role in Kashmir and elsewhere.