The Northeast

The Northeast is not one conflict.

Eight states, many peoples, a border that is also a forest. When the Republic arrived in 1947 the Naga hills were already in an argument about belonging. Mizoram went to war after a famine and came back through an accord that held. Assam spent six years asking who counted as a citizen — and Nellie, in a morning, made that question lethal. Tripura’s indigenous majority became a minority. In Manipur in 2023 the valley and the hills split in practice.

These fights are about land, census lists, who may enter a hill district, and who is a citizen. Religion is in some of them and beside the point in others. Neighbouring Myanmar and Bangladesh are part of the military geography; so is migration across the same ridges. Isolate the region on the map, then move through the years.