Roluah Puia – författare

Nationalism in the Vernacular illuminates our understanding of the relationship between orality and nationalist politics. In doing so, it provides a new angle to the understanding of nationalism by looking at the popular support and participation of ordinary people in the construction of Mizo nationalism, in short, the vernacularisation of nationalism. The book examines this process of vernacularisation at two levels, the first concerns the process of creating a vernacular language to express nationalist ideas and second, the irrepressibility of the oral against state's violent response to the nationalist movement. Drawing from multiple sources, the book through the rich oral narratives, archival materials, including government and media reports shows how Mizos have remained active agents in asserting and claiming their rights to defining ideas of nationalism in their own terms by making it distinctively Mizo.

Tribes and indigenous groups are viewed as the 'other', far removed from the non-tribal populace. This book examines India's growth story from the perspective of tribes - it places the experience of tribes at the centre while considering the multiple realities of different tribal communities across the country. This edited volume offers insights into the varying conditions of tribes across different states and communities by highlighting the complex and contesting nature of tribal development. It aims to understand the complexities of the interactions and negotiations between the state and tribal communities, while taking care not to group all tribal experiences as homogenous. The last few years have witnessed increasing violence being inflicted upon different tribal communities and further emphasized the otherization of these communities, whose contributions still remain largely ignored. With this context in mind, this volume offers much-needed insight and assimilates them into the wider scholarship which otherwise excluded their experiences.