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This paper seeks to understand the socio-political dimension of the political changes in Assam vis-a-vis "regionalism" and its contestations. The Changing contours of regionalism in Assam reflect its distinct character marked by the simultaneous articulation of regional, sub-regional and national identity in a complex socio-ethnic and historical context. The recent political trajectory of Assam bears testimony to the dual challenges facing the forces of regionalism; the presence of sub-regional ethnic identity articulation and the appropriation of regional space and issues by the national parties. Further, the shifting allegiance of ethnic identity-based parties to the national parties is critical to understand the dynamics of regionalism in Assam. Socio-political developments subsequent to the rise of BJP post-2014 provide an interesting landscape to comprehend the complexities inherent in understanding regionalism in contemporary Assam. On a contextual note, the paper also locates the question of regionalism in the ongoing debates of NRC and CAA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent times many indigenous Muslim groups in Assam have asserted their ethnic identities as Deshi, Goriya, Moriya by distancing themselves from the immigrant Miya Muslims. In this regard, they have received much patronage from the current BJP government. These developments have happened in the background of the consolidation of Hindutva in Assam and the consequent otherization of the Muslim community as a whole. This paper has two objectives: First, it tries to understand why a separate identity consciousness among indigenous Muslims have emerged. Secondly, it goes on to explore as to why indigenous Muslims in recent times have offered political support to the BJP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out among the Dimasas (of Assam and Nagaland) in Northeastern India. This Indigenous group has a system of double descent which places them separately from the other ethnic groups in the Indian subcontinent. In double descent, lineages are drawn through both the paternal and maternal lines of descent. The existing literature suggests that studies on double descent have mostly focused on ethnic groups in Africa, while not much research has been done on Dimasas or other Indigenous groups with double descent in the region. The paper attempts to fill the gap in South Asian anthropological literature on kinship discourses by focusing on the Dimasas of Northeast India. Further, by taking gender as an analytical tool, the paper attempts to explore the complex cultural contours of the double descent system, which intricately gets subsumed within the patriarchal setup in Dimasa society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the movement of "item numbers" from mainstream Bollywood culture to the regional culture of Assam. Given the level of eroticism that is part of such songs, the paper will specifically explore the means of surveillance and control that these "non-normative" cultural texts are subjected to within a local spatial context. By deconstructing this inter-cultural movement of performance, the paper attempts to reveal whether and how cultural appropriation of the "mainstream" by the "periphery" functions to keep the power dynamics of gender and national/sub-national identities intact. Based on visual methodology and textual analysis of Assamese item songs and cringe pop songs, the paper will theorize the regulation of bodies in these spaces. Understanding the renewed relationship between music and bodies in a new context will situate the gendered nature of body-space politics through item numbers. While, on the one hand, the dancing body has the capability to subvert gender norms, on the other hand, the same dancing body is often controlled through hyper-nationalist imaginations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings light to the existing practice of cataloging in the college libraries of Assam in terms of utilizing the MARC 21 standard and its structure, i.e., the tags, subfield codes, and indicators. Catalog records from six college libraries are collected and a survey is conducted to understand the local users' information requirements for the catalog. Places, where libraries have scope to improve and which divisions of tags could be more helpful for them in information retrieval, are identified and suggested. This study fulfilled the need for local-level assessment of the catalogs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inter-ethnic violence and counter-violence have been at the center of writings on identity politics among ethnic groups in India's Northeast. Yet, the existing literature on these aspects in India, especially in the Northeast region, has missed out on a very significant dimension. Very few studies have focused on the use of oral narratives and folklores as important methods that contribute to identity politics and conflict transformation among ethnic groups. Preliminary research suggests that ethnic violence in Northeast India exhibits variations in terms of the patterns of violence and state responses that shape the outcome of the conflicts. Oral narratives are the repositories of cultural reproduction of marginalized communities and serve as important tools that enable these communities to reclaim their identity, social justice and shape their agency. The aim of the paper is, therefore, to examine how and to what extent oral traditions and narratives in the form of folklore help mobilize marginalized ethnic groups in conflict zones in India's Northeast. The paper uses the case study of the historically marginalized Bodo ethnic group to examine the linkages between folklore, identity construction, mobilization and peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Masculinity and manhood are prerequisite characteristics desired and demanded from every male individual born in Indian society. They are taught to become an 'Ideal Indian Man' from the time they are born. Critical reading of masculine attributes is an important facet of feminist discourse. Men who become a part of this quest and movement as 'women rights activists', fighting against gender inequality, are often ridiculed and discouraged. In this context, this paper brings out the narratives and struggles of being a male 'women human rights defender' in India. According to the information published on the official website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are people of all genders who work, promote, defend, advance, and advocate for gender equality, and stand for the cause of human rights of women. Hence, going by the definition mentioned above, I argue that a feminist man working relentlessly on women's issues will surely fall under the category of 'women human rights defenders'. Their personal experiences and struggles as WHRDs working in their local areas voice varied forms of challenges, stigma, ostracisation, and life risks that otherwise go unnoticed, unspoken, and at times trivialised because of their gender. With an objective to bring out a broader conversation between masculinity studies and feminist scholarship, this paper analyses the challenges of being feminist male WHRDs. To examine this position as a WHRD, the paper will look into the questions of (1) being a man who is always looked upon with suspicion as a person occupying a privileged gender position; (2) a man working on gender-sensitive issues such as human/sex trafficking, child abuse, violence, conflict, and displacement; and (3) his regional location and social class. This paper will structure details of different forms of gender-based lived experiences of selected male WHRDs working in various districts of Assam and West Bengal, through personal interview methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bovine has been the cause of conflict in the Indian sub-continent for the past few centuries owing to religious and cultural sentiments associated with it. This apparent irreconcilable conflict is localised in the binary of religious mannerism espoused by the religious groups in northern India, which is known as India's cow belt. Such contradictions have caused bitter riots and conflicts resulting in social unrest in mainland India with spiralling effects spilling over to other regions. Although this issue has become a determiner in controlling electoral politics in some Indian states that affected the rise in Hindutva politics, in the case of Assam both cow-politics and Hindutva sentiments have had little effect. This paper proposes to examine this hypothesis by analysing Himanshu Prasad Das' Assamese feature film Goru (2021) through the lens of cultural nationalism. A study of the film within the framework of Assamese popular culture shall help us understand the implication behind the rejection of Hindutva ideology in this peripheral region. The primary focus of this paper is to read how cow politics and Hindutva have failed to make inroads in Assam's composite culture despite Bharatiya Janata Party's thumping victory in Assembly polls in 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the case of hijras of Assam who are undocumented in the National Register of Citizens because of their fractured identity and adopted gender and face the risk of being declared illegal immigrants despite being citizens. The paper focuses on how transgender individuals are excluded from different aspects of citizenship as a consequence of document-focused procedures created and enforced by the state. The primary argument is that document-focused procedures of the modern state, rooted in heteronormative underpinnings, are exclusionary for transgender individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper articulates the issue of ethnicity and identity formation among the Misings of Assam. It navigates the life graph of the community and unearthed the subtlety involved in their identity formation, articulation and assertion. The nuances involved in their identity formation and the subsequent intra-community ethnic fragmentation reflect the fact that the case does not purely fit into a singular theoretical framework of either 'primordialism' or 'constructivism'. Rather it necessitates the call for traversing through different theoretical frameworks. On a descriptive note, the paper tends to examine the role of social, political and historical forces influencing the Mising identity narratives. Besides delineating the historical trajectories of Mising identity in different historical periods, – pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial – the study has explored the multiple processes of identity formation vis-a-vis migration, politics of (re)naming, role of middle class organisations and the vitality of script and language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demonetisation of the Indian economy in 2016 facilitated significant changes in the lifestyle of people, particularly in adoption of digital transactions in everyday life. While there have been studies on mobile phones and the digital divide even prior to demonetisation, the growing gender disparity in the use of new technologies for secure payment via UPI (Unified Payment Interface) methods remains largely unexplored. Therefore, this paper explores the impact of new payment methods through digital means on street vendors in local markets through an ethnographic study based on narratives, unstructured interviews, and general observation. The study focuses on Assam while bringing out the larger socioeconomic context of the digital discrimination within the country. It locates how the government's drive for digital economy post-demonetisation exacerbated the gender gap in access to technology in informal markets. The article observes how men use mobile phones and technology to sell their commodities while women vendors lag behind in ownership, usage, or access to such technology due to social norms and expectations. Subsequently, the study brings about the narratives on how women negotiate through such constraints to build their social 'agency' and identity in the market at both individual and collective level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There appears to be a globally unifying discourse that suggests Muslim communities are not supportive of girls' education12. This paper aims to destabilize such a discourse by inserting the narratives of Muslim parents pursuing girls' education in Assam's Nagaon district. By paying attention to the concepts of bhal suwali (good girlhood) and bhal ghor (good family) articulated by parents in my study, this paper connects the performances of certain types of gender practices with the pursuit of class aspirations. It shows that good girlhood works as symbolic capital that helps Muslim parents to culturally authorize their daughters as legitimate actors in the field of education, while legitimizing themselves as good family. This paper draws attention to three practices of respectable femininity through which good girlhoods are enacted in the field of education, namely: negotiating poverty respectably, prioritizing gendered discipline, and merging career aspirations with marital prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to locate the violence perpetrated on the bodies of the coolies in colonial Assam. The paper observes that the existing historiography on tea plantations in colonial Assam restricts corporeal violence on the coolies within the boundaries of the plantation estates and does not talk about the permeation of such violence to spaces and coolies totally outside of the plantation production process. This paper, with the evidence from a case from nineteenth-century Assam, extends the limits of corporeal violence on the coolies beyond the physical setup of the plantations. The paper proposes that histories of corporeal violence on labour in the colonial era need to look beyond the peripheries of the plantations and towards the social regimes of power under colonialism. The paper demonstrates the complicit character of the state and newly landed and moneyed native classes in the colony, which aggravated the magnitudes of violence on labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent developments in the evolution of 'labor history' as an academic field have injected new direction into theories of Gender, Sex and Bodies. Incidents of sexual violence and gender oppression have long been a brutal part of human history. In contemporary times, plantation societies are finally receiving critical attention as historians embark on gendered reappraisals of history, especially in countries like India. This article sets out to retrieve several accounts of sexual violence in the tea plantations of Assam during the colonial period. It also shows how the colonial masters (Sahibs) of the tea gardens have oppressed/sexualized the bodies of men/women workers in the tea gardens of Assam. An attempt is also made to reconstruct the forgotten stories of two tea-garden working-class women, Mangri Orang alias Malati Mem and Durgi Bhumij alias Durgi Mem, who were sexually abused by the European tea planters. From their objectification as sexualized bodies, the duo later showed their abilities of agency when they joined India's freedom struggle and transformed into freedom fighters. The paper analyzes the connections between oppressed/sexualized bodies of women tea plantation workers and the colonial capitalist patriarchy in the history of Assam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]