In the Name of the Nation: India and its North East, authored by Sanjib Baruah interrogates the interaction of North East India with the territorial conceptions of the post colonial nation-state and state sovereignty. The North Eastern Region consisting of small language communities, tribes and sub-tribes offers the picture of opaque multiplicity. By contextualising the continuities and discontinuities between colonial and post-colonial state institutions, the author posits that the political process has reinforced a relation of hierarchy and a centre-periphery interactional dynamic.

India is at the cusp of metamorphosing from a regional player to one with global clout. As India’s geo-political and economic ambitions grow, it needs to develop robust indigenous manufacturing capabilities and ecosystem to secure its ambition for self-reliance in the Aerospace and Defence industry.

Bashir Assad’s book comes at an appropriate time, as it provides an insider and subaltern view of Kashmir. He has firsthand experience of the developments in Kashmir for the past 30 years. In his own words, he has lived the ideology of Maududi Islam for 3 years, after he passed class X. He has been associated with PDP founder Mufti Mohammad Syed. And he has been following the events in Kashmir, as a journalist, columnist and social activist.

Bashir Assad, the Kashmiri writer has come out with yet another interesting and insightful study of Kashmir following the abrogation of Article 370. To quote Bashir, he has brought out the “bitter truth following his inner voice” underscoring the Islamisation and Pakistanisation of narratives in Kashmir. And he blames the political leadership in Kashmir which remains “mired in conservatism and short-sightedness around Muslimness” for the troubled situation.