Student Power in North-East India: Understanding Student Movements

In the sixties of the twentieth century student movements generated great interest in some western countries. Two decades later, students seemed to have taken over the political space, in India’s northeast. Thought student organizations have become major political players in some states of northeast India making or marring fortunes of Governments yet there has hardly been any attempt at studying these organizations and movements from a social science perspective. The papers presented in this volume discuss some important methodological issues of student movement studies and provide excellent historical accounts of student movements in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya—the three states that experienced major student movements in the twentieth century. The ethnocentric tendencies of student movements of the Bodo, the Asomiya and the Arunachali communities are discussed in great details. The book should interest students, teachers and researchers of social movements, ethnic politics and student power. The general reader will find a useful introduction to the politics of the youth that overwhelm the societies of the region.