This book offers a compelling ground-based narrative of the Naga armed ethnic movement ongoing since 1918 for a separate independent homeland in Northeast India. Based on my nearly nine years of studying the conflict and my extensive fieldwork in the area, I offer a gripping and unique narrative of how the Naga armed conflict has affected lives on a daily basis. The book offer stories from people who have thought about the conflict, being born into it, taken part in it, or have been directly or indirectly affected by it. It includes glimpses about their love for their land, the poignant mix of ... More

This book offers a compelling ground-based narrative of the Naga armed ethnic movement ongoing since 1918 for a separate independent homeland in Northeast India. Based on my nearly nine years of studying the conflict and my extensive fieldwork in the area, I offer a gripping and unique narrative of how the Naga armed conflict has affected lives on a daily basis. The book offer stories from people who have thought about the conflict, being born into it, taken part in it, or have been directly or indirectly affected by it. It includes glimpses about their love for their land, the poignant mix of identity, politics, emotions, culture as well as the very real inter-ethnic differences that fuel the conflict. The book explains how the Naga population perceives their meeting point with the institutions of the Indian state in the midst of a conflict zone, especially the army and the paramilitary. It documents what it feels like to live in a conflict zone and the restrains and/or constrains that it cultivates in people, especially those young. I write for the reader, stories of immense courage and conviction that I have encountered as I travelled through the Northeast in the last nine years as well as from decades spent, growing up in Haflong, Assam. These stories are poignant yet joyful, sometimes melancholy, sometimes full of aspirations for the future. These complex stories, when woven together, offers a captivating narrative to get a better grasp of life in these Naga-inhabited areas of India and Burma.