Special Centre for the Study of North East India
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Speaker : Dr. Kaustubh Deka
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science, Dibrugarh
University, Assam.
Time and Venue : 3 to 5 PM, Friday, 16th March, 2021
Through Google meet at the following link: https://meet.google.com/yop-dcyz-ewt
Title of the Lecture : Blowing gas wells, coal mining in elephant reserves
Nature, nation, nationalities: Northeast India as a resource frontier
Abstract : ‘On the frontier, nature goes wild’, wrote anthropologist Anna Tsing. There’s this significant political ecological narrative that is useful in understanding the coming together and perpetuation of ’Northeast India’ both as a normative and strategic category. Off late described as a ‘militarised carbon landscape’ (Dolly Kikon, 2019), fieldwork across the region makes one perceive lives built around tea, oil, coal and coated with vernacular ideas of power, status, obligation. Northeast India has been historically conceptualised and continues to be reproduced, in many ways, as a resource frontier, as ‘empty’ or under-populated wilderness, which hold the promise for high rates of return on investment. In recent times news about a couple of government decisions to expand resource extraction in parts of Northeast India led to significant opposition, with allegations of potential irreparable ecological damage to sensitive bio diversity zones. These include the reported clearance given for open-cast coal mining by National Board of Wildlife (NBWL) inside the Saleki Proposed Reserve Forest (part of Dehing Patkai elephant reserve), the Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) giving clearance for the extension of drilling and testing of hydrocarbons at seven locations by OIL under Dibru- Saikhowa National Park area (that includes the Maguri-Motapong wetland area considered crucial for migratory birds) and the go ahead given (and subsequently put on hold) for the Etalin mega hydroelectric project at Dibang valley, Arunachal Pradesh. While, the reactions and the oppositional machinations triggered by these series of announcements have received significant attention, it is also a good time to understand the complex equation between nature, nation state and the nationalities that makes up these spaces.
One must take a closer look on how a complex web of resource extraction, militarisation, aspirations and class formation makes up spaces like these. As examples elsewhere from Southeast Asia shows, frontier spaces can be ‘peripheralised’ even while being integrated into a globalised economy. This becomes significant given the increased attention that the region is getting from the Government of India as manifested through measures like unprecedented infrastructural expansion and so on. The author visits some sites, talks to people and consults some archives and policy documents , trying to understand the phenomena more.
About the Speaker
Dr. Kaustubh Deka is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, Dibrugarh University, Assam. Formerly he was with the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi. He has also been a fellow at the Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, Chennai, where he looked into the issue of Youth and Political Participation in the context of India & Northeast. He holds a doctorate from the School of Social Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His academic interest includes, beside others, issues of ecological politics in Northeast India and India’s Act East Policy as well as trends of youth politics in the Northeast region.
All are Cordially Invited