War and Nationalism in South Asia

<p>This book presents and analyses the oldest sub-national war of postcolonial South Asia, between the Indian state and the Nagas of Northeast India. It offers a serious and thorough political history on the Naga region over three periods, pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial.</p><p>Drawing on a wealth of primary sources and comparative and theoretical literature, Marcus Franke demonstrates that agency and identity-formation are an on-going process that neither started nor ended with colonialism. Although the interaction of the local population with colonialism produced a Naga national élite, it was the emergence of the Indian political class, with access to superior means of nation and state-building, that was able to undertake the modern Indo-Naga war. This war firmly made the Nagas into a 'nation' and that set them onto the road to independence. </p><p>War and Nationalism in South Asia fundamentally revises our understanding of the existing 'histories' of the Nagas by exposing them to be influenced by colonial or post-colonial narratives of domination. Furthermore, by placing the region into the longue durée of state formation with its involved technique of imperial rule, the book presents a new approach to the study of nationalism and war in South Asia in general. </p><p>This book will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, history, anthropology and South Asian studies. </p> <p>Introduction 1. British Imperial Expansion and Historical Agency – 1820s–1850s 2. The Nagas, the Angami Case – Polity and War, 1820s–1880 3. Imperial Conquest and Withdrawal, 1860s–1947 4. The Transformation of Naga Societies under Colonialism 5. Nation-building and the Nagas, 1947–64 6. The Nagas’ War 7. Divide-and-Rule 8. From Nation to Civil Society. Conclusion</p>