New Delhi: A new book by author and journalist Samrat Choudhury narrates the political history of Northeast India and documents how people from remote hill tribes became a part of “the imagined nation” of India.
In ‘Northeast India: A Political History’, the former newspaper editor explores the two other ideas of India that remain in daily competition: Bharat, the Hindu nationalist conception of the country, and Hindustan, the Persian-origin name by which India is still known as far west as Turkey.
Published by Harpercollins India, ‘Northeast India: A Political History’ will be released on 26 August on SoftCover, ThePrint’s online venue to launch non-fiction books.
Praising the book, Sajal Nag, professor of History at Assam University, said: “A persuasive, fascinating and unputdownable work of history. I have not come across any other book on Northeast India which reads like fiction, yet leaves untouched almost no aspect of the region, its areas and its people.”
James Manor, Professor Emeritus, School of Advanced Study, University of London, said “the book brings great clarity and insight to the history of India’s Northeast region”.
Author Choudhury has said the book he has written is one he had long looked for as a reader to find a simple overview of the history of Northeast India. “The book is meant to be a simple introduction and overview of the political history of all the states that constitute the region, and of the region as a whole,” he said, adding: “I hope that students, civil services aspirants, policymakers, and anyone else interested in a brief and easy text on the region will find the book useful.”
Choudhury is an author and journalist from Shillong, and a former editor of broadsheet newspapers in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. He currently divides his time between India and the Philippines and writes op-eds, analyses and occasionally reports for a number of national and international publications.
His previous book was ‘The Braided River: A Journey Along the Brahmaputra’ (2021). He has earlier authored the novel, ‘The Urban Jungle’, which was nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize. He also co-edited an anthology titled ‘Insider/Outsider’ on Northeast India.
Samrat was the Asian Leadership Fellow from India at the International House of Japan in Tokyo in 2018 and a Chevening Scholar at the University of Westminster, London, in 2019.
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