Discordant Discourse: Revisiting Assam’s Ethnic Issues

This book examines the ethnic issues of one of Indian states—Assam, that has been believed to be inundated with ethnic discord. By examining three instances, we argue that an overwhelming ethnic discourse exists here that renders the imagination and expression of this region as fundamentally fragmented—ethnically . To explore the discourse, we study three recent conflicts that have been considered as ethnic conflicts—the Assam Movement (1979-1985), the United Liberation Front of Assam or ULFA (1979-present) and the Bodol and Movement (1987-present ) . Following this, we forefront the following argument that while the presence and acknowledgment of diversity cannot be negated, categorization of identities in Assam as essentially “ethnic” emerged at a specific junction—the British colonial period. The study finally proposes that in this particular context ethnic strife arise from the nation's inability to emerge from the discordant colonial ethnic discourse about the region.