The problem of insurgency in the hills of North-East India has defied solution for the past fifty years. The transition from a tribal polity to a parliamentary democracy left the hills communities losing their political foothold within their own territories. The accession to the Indian state and the having the plains people as their new political masters bred discontent in these communities. The resulting insurgence for self-determination was dealt by the state through military means with an overdose of integrationist policies.

These wounds of political modernization and national accession in the region as a whole, and particularly in the hills had been ignored by the academic community till a few years back. However, in the past decade academic discourse has focused on the problems of the North-East and suggested possible solutions. Sajal Nag?s ?Contesting Marginality-Ethnicity, Insurgency and Subnationalism in North-East India? is one of the recent attempts at analyzing the situation in the North East.

While earlier works on North-East India are premised on the ?marginality? assumptions of colonial and regional historiography, the present work challenges colonial, nationalist and regional historiography and its marginalization of North-East India. The book analyses how the nationalist discourse has filtered down to regional and ethnic communities and thereby ignited divisive tendencies. The chronic insurgency, according to the author, is a product of this marginalization. The violent struggle launched by the insurgents is an effort to challenge their relegation to the periphery.

The history of the Nagas, Mizos and Meeteis is reinterpreted in the backdrop of historical parallels in other regions of the country and elsewhere in the world where insurgency or secessionism threaten the fabric of the nation state. The author examines the socio-political and economic setting of the various communities and how they were disrupted, first by the colonial intrusion and then by the abrupt colonial withdrawal, which generated crises of identity and political uncertainty. He analyses how the hill communities tried to handle subjection under the Indian state by assertion of nationhood and how they sought to legitimize such claims. He then dwells on the complex process of their accession to the Indian state and the rise of insurgent resistance.

The section on the negotiations between the Indian state and the insurgents, which is rich in historical facts, maintains academic neutrality. The author relates how insurgent factions emerged from failed negotiations in some cases. He also captures the radical change in the nature of insurgency in the hills of the North-East from an earlier, jungle-based, army targeting, ideal seeking and disciplined rebellion to an increasingly city-based, civilian targeting, politically rudderless and undisciplined violence.

The author goes on to examine the discourses of ethnicity, insurgency and sub-nationalism in the three insurgencies. He concludes that rapid changes in the global political environment preclude the possibility of predicting what form each of these discourses will take in the years to come.

The importance of historiography or the writing of history as a factor promoting either peace or conflict is a line of study much in currency today. The present work is an outcome of such a consciousness. While chronicling the politico-historical developments in the hills of North-East from the imperial times to the present, the author strives to maintain detachment and analytical independence. However, in his examination of the claim to nationhood of the ethnic communities clamoring for independence from the Indian state, his analysis is prey to reliance on established parameters of nationhood, the very ill he started out to rectify. The author, while intending to undo the marginalization of the region, consciously or otherwise, marginalizes other ethnic communities in the hills of the region by focusing his attention only on the Nagas, Mizos and Meeteis. Insurgency has spread to the Kukis, the Khasis, the Garos, the tribals of Tripura, the Dimasas, and recently to the Arunachalese who are all hill communities in the region and whose claims to nationhood and demands for self-determination are no less ?legitimate?. His promise to account for the insurgencies in the hills of the region is thus only partially fulfilled. Moreover, the Meeteis of Manipur are plains people, but he nevertheless includes them in this work. He also commits a factual error, serious for a historian, when he contended that the Kuki Rebellion (1917-1920) was revived by Jadonang and Gaidinliu in 1930-49, oblivious of the fact that the two are Naga leaders and the rebellions in question are entirely unrelated.

The book while failing to include all the insurgent movements in the hills of the region, succeeds in plumbing the depths of Naga, Mizo and Meetei insurgencies and provides useful historical insights. The book is more historical than strategic in focus, and seeks to undo the damage done by colonial, nationalist and regional discourses, in the region.