Abstract

SPATIAL POLITICS AT INDEPENDENCE AND THE PRESENT SUB-NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS IN NORTH-EAST INDIA

Dr. N. Bijen Meetei

Volume: 5 Issue: 3 2015

Abstract:

Since the late twentieth century India has been witnessing strong manifestations of contesting (sub) nationalist movements with aims of maintaining separate spaces. This presents two seemingly related problems in terms of discourse about the modern nation-state and its territorial space. First, though dissident nationalism is often projected as a source of political instability and crisis, it exposes the contradiction underlying the vision of national leaders at the time of independence and the formation of the new nation and its illatively drawn space, and secondly, it questions the very foundation of the sovereignty by highlighting the problems of existing power and legitimacy system. Hence, the paper throws the argument that this contradiction that comes out of the visioning of a singular strong nationstate without the sufficient political instrumentality (of managing its own internal diversity) is corollary of the spatial politics (read as Partition) at the time of independence. The post colonial process of building the nation at the behest of that very visioning of strong State leads to crisis of legitimacy in the Northeast especially in Manipur as it is partly based on the very tenets of colonialism.

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