Social Dynamics in Contemporary North-East India: A Study of Regional Exclusion, Self-Determination Movements and Ethnic Violence

J.J. Roy Burman (b. 1955) is primarily an antahropologist having done his post-graduation from North Bengal University in Sociology and Social Anthropology. Immediately afater obtaining the degree he worked on the impact off counter-insurgency among the Mizos in Mizoram as a Fellow of Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh. After living there in a village for about one year he joined Help Age India as Project Adviser for East and North-East India. After almost eight years of his direct contact with social work and social engineering, he joined Tate Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, as a member of the Faculty. Apart from teaching Anthropology, Roy Burman also carries out research mainly on the problems in rural areas. Forests, environment, mass religion have been his main areas of interest. He is the first person in India to have done Ph.D. on Sacred Groves from the sociological perspective. Few anthropologists have had the opportunity to travel in the tribal and forest areas all over the country like him. Right now it has become his passion to portray the inter-ethnic harmonious relations in the country.