Frozen Identities

Post 1857, a new form of colonial rule was experimented in India’s North East. This came to be known as indirect rule colonialism. The focus of this book is the indirect rule state, which is a typical modern form of rule in a colonial setting. The management, rather than eraser, of social differences is the core of this modern society and state craft. Using history, census and law, there was a shift from a homogenizing nationalism to silo nationalism. This gave rise to new forms of hegemonic political identities and the society shifted from a binary to a triangular form of relationship. This modern form of state craft is institutionalized by colonial underpinnings where indigenous people, migrants and the Assamese occupy the vertexes of the triangulation, each vying for their own space. This form of statecraft and society freezes identities and creates friction. The genesis of structural violence is thus traced to the underpinnings of indirect rule colonialism.The troubled and violent post colonial history of the region does not connect to a standard national narrative as the conflicts are inbuilt in the social structure. Using settler colonial studies as a framework to analyse the frozen social relationships, this book makes a bold statement that the region is not fully decolonized as the colonial content and intent still continue to subsist. The book offers a new way of thinking of relationships between nationalism, sub-nationalism and religionism in Assam.