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What is the role of religion in tribal politics? Does religion shape tribal political imagination? If so, how and in what manner? Politically, tribal movements since the colonial period have been deeply rooted in religion, and even in post-independent India, they continue to inspire and shape tribal politics. The article argues that tribal politics and religion interact in complex ways. First, the article shows how groups and organisations incorporate religious ideas within their political ideology. Second, religion and politics also come into conflict with one another in terms of the use and interpretation of religious beliefs and commitments for political ends, mainly when it involves the use of violence. This is examined through the case of the Mizo movement for independence in northeast India, where religion was interwoven with the politics of identity, nationalism and violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of the Look East Policy (LEP) ─ now the Act East Policy ─ in the 1990s signaled a marked shift in India's economic policy aimed at transforming its northeastern region from a peripheral frontier to an economic corridor. The regional focus of the policy commonly appears in references to the northeast region as a whole and the policy suggestions are centered on ending the region's isolation and underdevelopment. This paper looks at how the inhabitants of a borderland village on the Mizoram-Myanmar border maneuvered themselves in response to the economic drive for the border opening intertwined with the extension of state rule and control. The paper shows how the agenda of the state and the local communities, rather than being in opposition, often converged with local community interests when it came to enhancing trade and liberalizing movement. These factors further served to re-shape ways of identification and belonging as well as everyday trade, commercial transactions, and nationhood. Against this backdrop, the paper engages with everyday borderland lives to examine how change through the policy was mediated upon the interface of competing state and non-state agents as well as local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper looks at how media engages with the issue of framing movements in the northeastern state of Manipur. The focus of the paper is on the demand for Inner Line Permit in Manipur that landed the state into conflict between the communities of the state. The passing of the three bills, as discussed in the paper, by the state government has snowballed into ethnic tensions and re-opened the hill–valley divide in this northeastern state. By using frame analysis, the paper intends to explicate the issue of media framing within the socio-political context of the state. The paper then engages with the process in which local media frames movements that are diametrically opposed to one another. The study further reveals that the local media in Manipur are greatly influenced by the local politics and remain integral to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]