Being Mizo: Identity and Belonging in Northeast India
Author: Joy L.K. Pachuau

Price: Rs 895
Pages: 288

Book Description:

The ethnic and religious diversity of India is often portrayed as the hallmark of the Indian nation state. However, this diversity has very often not encompassed the Northeast. The history of the region has been ignored and has had to suffer an enduring silence. It has been said, the Northeast is 'on the map, but off the mind'. Being Mizo is a work that essentially examines the making of the Mizos, an ethnic/'tribal' community in Northeast India. It nonetheless begins by examining the ways in which 'mainland' India views the Northeast while engaging with notions of how 'difference' plays an important role in the creation of identity.

This book portrays how the Mizos have subverted the very differentiating practices created by the significant other—the Indian State—and turned them into agencies of identity creation. Focusing on Mizo vengs (localities), Being Mizo uses history as well as detailed ethnography to show how 'territorialization' becomes an important feature of identity making in the twentieth century.   The book further explores how the Mizo identity, inextricably linked to a vernacular Christianity that engages with the Mizo past, and rituals concerning death have become instruments of agency to defy the views of the 'other' and organize their 'ethnic self'.  

Contents:

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Maps xiii
1. Introduction: Mapping the Terrain 1
2. Framing the Margins: Th e Politics of Representing India's Northeast 32
3. Inscribing the Past in the Present: History in the Making of a People 82
4. Mizo Kristian Kan Ni : 'We Are Mizo Christians' 136
5. Death and Locality in the Creation of Mizo Identity 183
6. Conclusion: Refl ections on the Th eme 226
Appendices 235
Glossary
Bibliography 247
Index 266

About the Author 274

About the Author:
Joy L.K. Pachuau teaches at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Besides working on the socio-cultural history of Northeast India, her research interest includes European expansion in Asia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A common thread in both these areas is the history of Christianity, which also forms the core of her interest.