Against State, Against History: Freedom, Resistance, and Statelessness in Upland Northeast India by Jangkhomang Guite, Oxford University Press, 2019; pp 364, ₹ 1,095 (hardcover).
Tribal peoples in Manipur have been maintaining their commons under customary law. Interacting with outsiders has always led to the contestation of their customs, traditions, and beliefs. Tribal societies continue to administer their villages under customary law on the tenet of equity. Their law has even resisted the policies of Manipuri kings and the British administration. In the present day, tribal customary law stands challenged by the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960.
A move towards softening the India-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir will be a humanitarian initiative, making it possible for divided families and villages to reach across.
Over the past fortnight and more, the purveyors of views, official and unofficial, have been dishing out commentaries that look at the valley and the hills from the unreal vantage point of the 'summit'. Unless we learn to see the summit the way it looks from the valley and the hills, we will never understand all that needs to change before any just and honourable resolution of the dispute is even thinkable.
