SAGE Studies on India′s North East – serie

Hindutva Regime in Assam: Saffron in the Rainbow analyses the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) strategy of appropriating cultural resources in Assam while pursuing the Hindutva agenda. In Assam, where numerous ethnic and regional political outfits have registered their electoral presence, the ‘Rainbow Alliance’ emerged as the dominant strategic tool for BJP in its electoral battles. The book studies how BJP has capitalized on people’s attachment to their ethno-regional cultures and has successfully co-opted and ‘saffronized’ the ‘Rainbow’ by bringing together diverse ethnic groups into its fold. Scrutinizing electoral strategies, BJP’s victories in 2014, 2016 and 2019, and the efforts towards dismantling consensus around the National Register of Citizens (NRC) by enacting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the book provides a holistic view of this steady ‘saffronization’. It also critically investigates BJP’s populist development agenda.From the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) grassroots work to the government’s policy initiatives, the book analyses the regime’s performance and ideological pursuits in depth. It highlights how BJP’s strategies in Assam are unique in some ways and how similar strategies can be seen elsewhere in India.

State vs. Society in Northeast India: History, Politics and the Everyday looks at a state as an entity that does not operate strictly as a rational, legal and administrative organization. State in the Northeast region is very much shaped by the social, economic and political practices on the ground. Using archival and ethnographic evidences, the book questions notions of region and border as fixed spaces. A state, in the process of governing society, produces itself through formal and informal practices on the ground, and the book argues that Northeast India is a significant site for studying this. It engages with conceptual, theoretical and methodological challenges thrown up by the political experiences of ordinary people in the Northeast. The book discusses everyday legal discourse, official public memory, development discourse, cases of becoming marginalized, resistance and ways of networking with the authorities. The objective is to understand the various ways in which state and society engage with each other; and to look at layers of historical interconnections that inform much of contemporary Northeast politics. The book will especially be of interest to scholars in politics, history, sociology and anthropology.