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This paper analyses the historical antecedents, character and implications of Assam’s National Register of Citizens as a socio-legal instrument. It seeks to understand how dominant nationalisms and the state produce volatile paper citizenship regimes, and use law – as a reified transcendental performance of social will – to construct the ‘minority citizen’ through categories of ‘belonging’ and ‘citizenship’. The paper does this by analysing three typologies of the law-society interaction. First, it examines what/who is a citizen from within law. Second, it critiques the mythology of law by giving an account of belonging and suffering of minority citizens without law. Third, it foregrounds peripheral subjectivities by offering an account of minority citizenship beyond law. [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]

What drives insurgent groups to negotiation? The paper examines the conditions that facilitate insurgents to negotiate with governments. It examines the case of National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB), in Assam, India's northeast. Factors that may have contributed to the process of negotiation were change in relative costs and capabilities of insurgents. The paper argues that state's unwillingness to concede to the insurgent demands of territorial separation affect the outcomes of insurgencies that further contribute to the fragile peace process. Drawing on qualitative interviews of former insurgents, civil society organizations and government officials, this article contributes to studies on peace negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based on my doctoral ethnographic research amongst the Miya community in one of the chars of Western Assam, shows how a particular category of identity documents shape their subjectivities, experiences, and aspirations. I focus on the identity documents which have errors, like mistakes in names, dates of birth or addresses, and badly angled photos. I refer to them as thin documents. Because of the thin documents, the Miyas find it difficult to assert formal citizenship rights, which they could normally assert based on accurate documentation. For the thin documents to help prove the Miyas’ citizenship, they must be further supported by an additional set of documents. The process questions the Miya’s formal citizenship rights. I present narratives of the Miya people living with thin documents to illustrate how the materiality of the identity document binds the Miya people to a state of liminal citizenship. I ask: what do these errors in the identity document or thin documents tell us about citizenship, particularly liminal citizenship with reference to the Miya community of Assam? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a new and original perspective on the plight of migrants in India. It incorporates an in-depth and practical analysis of Indian legal policies through the lens of migrant and refugee rights. In examining the extra-legal provisions operating in two of India's borderland states--Assam and Jammu & Kashmir--I show how special legal exemptions in Indian law inherently undermine efforts to protect migrant rights. I argue that these extraordinary laws hinder pathways to justice in three distinct ways: by circumventing international principles of non-refoulement; challenging the jurisdiction of India's Supreme Court; and delegitimising migrant-friendly laws. In highlighting an often overlooked aspect of migrants' rights issues, this paper brings the human element of India's regional border disputes and related legal mechanisms to the fore. [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]

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]

During the post-liberalization period the Indian tea industry has been facing a severe crisis. This study looks at the question of inter-generational occupational mobility among tea garden labour in Assam, against the backdrop of, on the one hand, a fall in tea auction prices, decline in exports, and closure and abandonment of tea gardens; and on the other hand, increasing labour unrest, at times leading to violent protests and confrontations, declining living standards and worsening human security in the tea gardens. On the basis of data collected through first-hand primary research in three tea gardens of upper Assam, the paper analyses limitations on the inter-generational occupational mobility of tea garden labourers. We also probe into the reasons behind the relative mobility or immobility of tea garden labourers within and outside the tea gardens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the relationship of a migrant community with the state in a borderland. The relationship between the Indian state and Chinese-origin migrants in post-colonial Assam can be characterised by two themes: control and resilience. On the one hand, the state tried to control the community through strict bureaucratic procedures. On the other hand, the Chinese community showed resilience by adhering to or negotiating with the control mechanisms. This article also seeks to understand the nationality and citizenship issues of community members, in particular the second and third generations of migrants. In this article, I argue that ambiguities of citizenship status, and the state's reluctance or negligence in resolving their citizenship issues, had grave consequences for the community as they had to struggle for their fundamental rights. This issue of ambiguous citizenship caused severe unrest in the region in the later decades, which could also have been avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods are frequently occurring events in the Assam region due to the presence of the Brahmaputra River and the heavy monsoon period. An efficient and reliable methodology is utilized to prepare a GIS-based flood risk map for the Assam region, India. At the regional and administrative level, the flood hazard index (FHI), flood vulnerability index (FVI), and flood risk index (FRI) are developed using multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) – analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The selected indicators define the topographical, geological, meteorological, drainage characteristics, land use land cover, and demographical features of Assam. The results show that more than 70%, 57.37%, and 50% of the total area lie in moderate to very high FHI, FVI, and FRI classes, respectively. The proposed methodology can be applied to identify high flood risk zones and to carry out effective flood risk management and mitigation strategies in vulnerable areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies on community-based conservation in India, while highlighting the results and effectiveness of conservation interventions fail to engage with the underlining social processes emerging from the interactions among conservation actors. This article demonstrates conservation as a social process in which the actors interact with each other daily. We use the notion of 'Everyday Conservation' to highlight that actors use their resources, skills and limitations to create a space where conservation processes are negotiated and shaped on an everyday basis. Using ethnographic work carried out in Assam (India), this article analyzes an Asian elephant conservation project to understand the various actors involved in the project, such as project managers, staff, local community, funding organization and forest department and their interactions, resulting in 'Everyday Conservation.' The inter-actor interactions were of varying intensity, depending upon which the actors negotiated, collaborated, or came into conflict, thereby producing conservation results embedded in contextual factors. We suggest that conservation needs rethinking and the framework of 'Everyday Conservation' can provide a fresh perspective on community-based wildlife conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1966 the Mizo National Front (MNF) instigated a separatist conflict against the Indian state. This article argues that an environment conducive for separatist insurgency was created by the early 1960s in the Mizo Hills, a direct result of problematic state- and nation- building practices. First, there was an inability to initiate a successful state-building drive to overcome deep-seated challenges bestowed by colonial rule. Second, the friction between regional and national conceptions of identity was not resolved. This argument exploits a clear research gap. Currently there is a convincing explanation for the MNF's transition towards civil war between 1961-66. Yet, explaining the structural factors which created an environment conducive for separatist conflict remains elusive. This article plugs that gap, through archive-led historical analysis. In the process, it provides wider insights for conflict dynamics in India's northeast and raises broader questions about interdisciplinary research in the subfield of intrastate conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political campaigning in Assam and the Northeast region is distinctive in India's hybrid media system. This study discusses parties and political campaigning in Assam's hybrid media environment in the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2021 Legislative Assembly elections. The history of the state, party system development, and the media landscape precedes a discussion of the 2019 campaign drawing on interviews with party strategiests and television journalists. Although Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were on the rise as important campaign tools in Assam and the Northeast region in 2019, traditional political advertising (posters, pamphlets), coverage of political issues in traditional media (print and television news), as well as face-to-face communication (public meetings, door-to-door canvassing and rallies) remained the most important sources of political communication between voters and parties due to substantially lower teledensity than the national average. We explore how political parties used a mix of 'advanced' and 'traditional' campaigning tools to mobilize voters to support party agendas during the 2019 Lok Sabha election and the 2021 Legislative Assembly election campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1971 when nearly ten million refugees crossed the border between East Pakistan and India following the outbreak of violence in Dacca on 25 March 1971, it would have surprised many to know that nearly fifty years later that date would be the dividing line between India's putative citizens and those it deemed 'foreigners'. This article takes a look at the immigration debate in Assam, and the protests against the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Act to argue that it is the erasure of 1971 from the latter that gives rise to the backlash against it. I argue that the events of 1971 produces a moment in which both an affective border emerges against the refugees, followed soon after by an effective legal border through citizenship legislation pertinent to Assam. This article investigates the peculiarity of this moment to determine citizenship within India, its consequences and by doing so rewrites the history of 1971 back into debates about citizenship in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did the Muslims of Assam become outsiders in Assam? This essay attempts to answer this question by probing the colonial and post-colonial history of categorising people that has located Muslims outside the category of 'Assamese'. The political effort to make the Assamese into a homogenous Hindu group undoes the xanmiholi or blended humanity of Assam. By focusing on two Muslim communities—the Goriyas or Assamese Muslims and the Miyas or Muslims of East Bengali origin—this essay explores the project of making Muslims outsiders in Assam. Finally, the essay examines the inclusion of the transplanted tea-tribe communities as a possible resolution to the Muslim situation in Assam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an attempt to unpack how the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 that proposed citizenship on the basis of religious affiliation trace its past from narrative rooted in partition and idea of religious identity in determination of citizenship status in India. The act proposes, persons belonging to minority community namely Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsi and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who have either entered into India without valid travel documents or the validity of their documents have expired are eligible to apply for Indian citizenship by naturalisation in 7 years instead of existing 12 years. Building on existing scholarship, field experience and media reports this article argues proposed citizenship amendment bill that favours citizenship status for persecuted minorities defined primarily as Hindus leaving Muslims is not an attempt to redefine citizenship but reinforce logic that favours narrative of India for Hindus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two new and one known species of dorylaim nematodes are described and illustrated from Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India. Prothornenema vulvatum sp. nov. is characterized by having body 1.06–1.17 mm long; lip region cap-like, slightly rounded, offset by constriction with moderate labial and post-labial sclerotization; 10–11 μm long odontostyle; vulva a transverse slit; cuticle both anterior and posterior to vulva with two or three deep invaginations; female tail long filiform, male tail short conoid with 13 or 14 contiguous ventromedian supplements. Allodorylaimus kazirangus sp. nov. is characterized by having body 1.84–2.16 mm long; truncate, slightly offset lip region; 30 μm long odontostyle; amphids duplex; cardia short conoid, an asymmetrical ring-like structure surrounds the junction between pharyngeal base and cardia; transverse vulva; uterus characteristically long, tripartite with wide proximal portion followed by a long narrow intermediate portion with moderately sclerotized inner lining joining a wider pars dilatata distalis; short conoid tail with no sexual dimorphism and males with 13 or 14 contiguous ventromedian supplements. Thornia propinqua (Paesler, 1941) Andrássy, 1957 is redescribed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of the study is to assess the level of expectation and experience regarding the consideration of the skills relating to internal marketing in performance appraisal report while evaluating performance of human resources in Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) (AOD; Assam Oil Division), Digboi. This study also attempts to assess the level of expectation and experience regarding ideal 'post-performance-appraisal-scenario' in IOCL (AOD), Digboi. Furthermore, the study ventures to assess the level of overall satisfaction with performance appraisal system of the company as perceived by the employees, i.e. the internal customers. The study has looked into performance appraisal as a tool of human resource management through the lenses of internal marketing skills in the context of Central Public Sector Undertakings, which have very narrow base of internal Customers. This new approach has the potential to orient the Public Sector Undertakings to the market-driven economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]