The creation of ethnocentric autonomous councils to administer the hill tribes of Northeast India has remained contested since its introduction soon after independence. While the autonomy provision based on ‘self-determination’ ensures social, economic and cultural security to an ethnic community, it has also been alleged to exclude other groups from enjoying similar rights. This article examines the formation of the Kamatapur Autonomous Council (KAC), mandated for the Koch-Rajbanshi community of the erstwhile Goalpara district of western Assam as part of the growing demands of autonomous councils in the state. By analysing political and economic changes that took place in the region at different historical periods, it explains the underlying factors behind Koch-Rajbanshi identity aspirations and the course of the autonomy movement. Further, an attempt has also been made to analyse how, as an alternative arrangement, the autonomous council raises questions on Indian federalism, the nation-building process and centralised governance. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, the article explores the possibilities and paradoxes involved with the autonomy status and how similar demands raised by different ethnic groups resulted in conflicting interests and territorial contestations in western Assam. The article concludes with policy recommendations and the challenges of their formulation in such a diverse region.
This study explores the lived experiences of Dandi Sanyasis residing in Mumukshu Bhawan, Kashi, and examines how renunciation, sacred migration, ascetic practices and engagement with death shape their pursuit of moksha. Drawing on qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews, participant observation and ethnographic fieldwork, the study investigates the everyday lives of elderly renunciates who have migrated to Kashi in the final stage of life. The findings reveal that renunciation is often shaped by personal loss, family conflict, spiritual aspiration and the search for existential meaning. Kashi emerges as a lived sacred landscape where ascetic discipline, collective life and awareness of death converge. The study further demonstrates how witnessing ageing, illness and the deaths of fellow ascetics fosters spiritual preparedness and acceptance of death. By integrating perspectives from sacred geography, phenomenology, death studies and the sociology of renunciation, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of liberation as a lived social process in contemporary India.
Indian agriculture has experienced remarkable transformation in both scale and speed in recent decades due to neoliberal reforms, signifying a shift towards an urban–industrial–capitalist economy. This transformation has sparked a renewed discussion on the survival and death of peasantry, a persistent issue in agrarian studies for over a century. While one set of scholars advocates the notion of the peasantry’s demise, another contends that the peasantry persists in rural India despite rapid agricultural transformation. Based on an empirical exercise carried out in two villages of Odisha, this study contends that agrarian transformation in India exhibits non-uniform and complex trends. Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood and employment in rural areas, with the rural sector predominantly comprised of small-scale agricultural producers. While the marginalisation and gradual decline of the peasantry is evident, this study suggests that a new cohort, primarily from scheduled castes, has replaced the upper and cultivating caste farmers who have exited the sector, and this new cohort is able to survive due to the expansion of non-farm opportunities, pluri-activities and state-extended populist welfare measures.
Kumar Kalita, the potters of the river island Majuli, represents an occupational group living in a precarious and unique natural habitat. They produce and structure their craft with specific skills and techniques, thus balancing nature and social relations. Highlighting the case of Kumar Kalita, the article explores ecological organisation where life is vulnerable because of the precarious conditions caused by floods and erosion. With the data collected through ethnographic explorations in Majuli, the article historically locates the potters, analyses the gender relations, trading through the Brahmaputra and the relationships they forge with the hinterlands. The article argues that despite the ecological crisis and risks in the livelihood pattern, the potters continue to engage with their traditional occupation, providing a subjective connotation to both precarity and the habitat.
