New Books in British Studies

Arupjyoti Saikia, "The Quest for Modern Assam: A History, 1942-2000" (India Allen Lane, 2023)


Listen Later

The northeast Indian state of Assam has had a complex history. As independence loomed, Assam was a large British province, bordering the fellow British colony of Burma and covering a large segment of India’s northeast. Today’s Assam is much smaller: First partition cut Assam off from the rest of India, with just a tiny “chicken neck” of land connecting the state with India proper. Then decades of tension between the Assamese and minority groups led to new states being created from within its borders: Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram, to name a few.

Arupjyoti Saikia takes on the task of explaining six decades of Assam history in his latest book, The Quest for Modern Assam: A History, 1942-2000 (India Allen Lane, 2023)

In this interview, Arupjyoti and I talk about Assam’s history from the Second World War and the decades since independence, including some of the wild schemes the British tried to apply to the Indian northeast, and why it’s important to understand Indian history through its federal states.

Arupjyoti Saikia is a professor of history at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. He held the Agrarian Studies Programme Fellowship at Yale University and visiting fellow positions at Cambridge University and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He is also the author of Forests and Ecological History of Assam, 1826-2000 (Oxford University Press: 2011), A Century of Protests: Peasant Politics in Assam since 1900 (Routledge: 2014), and The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra (Oxford University Press: 2019).

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Quest for Modern Assam. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

New Books in British StudiesBy Marshall Poe

  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4

4

3 ratings


More shows like New Books in British Studies

View all
In Our Time by BBC Radio 4

In Our Time

5,405 Listeners

Dan Snow's History Hit by History Hit

Dan Snow's History Hit

4,622 Listeners

Coffee House Shots by The Spectator

Coffee House Shots

185 Listeners

Americano by The Spectator

Americano

259 Listeners

The Book Club by The Spectator

The Book Club

8 Listeners

John Anderson: Conversations by John Anderson

John Anderson: Conversations

287 Listeners

Today in Focus by The Guardian

Today in Focus

983 Listeners

The Ancients by History Hit

The Ancients

2,947 Listeners

The Rest Is History by Goalhanger

The Rest Is History

12,523 Listeners

The Rest Is Politics by Goalhanger

The Rest Is Politics

3,159 Listeners

Ukraine: The Latest by The Telegraph

Ukraine: The Latest

1,751 Listeners

Empire by Goalhanger

Empire

2,010 Listeners

Past Present Future by David Runciman

Past Present Future

309 Listeners

Battle Lines by The Telegraph

Battle Lines

160 Listeners

Alas Vine & Hitchens by Daily Mail

Alas Vine & Hitchens

10 Listeners