1st Edition

Governmentality Power and Counter Conduct in Northeast India’s Manipur and Nagaland

By Andrew Lathuipou Kamei Copyright 2024
    174 Pages
    by Routledge India

    This volume examines how protest movement counter-conducts the ways in which the citizens have been governed. It studies the rationale, forms, technologies, techniques, practices, and impact of two protest movements in Northeast India: the tribal movement led by the Joint Action Committee Against Anti-Tribal Bills (hereafter JACAATB) in Manipur, and the anti-corruption movement led by the Against Corruption and Unabated Taxation (ACAUT) in Nagaland.

    The study is an ethnographic enquiry into three counter-conduct approaches:

    • First, the attempt at disciplining the local state government through the adoption and deployment of certain technologies of citizenship, making individuals politically active and capable of self-governance
    • Second, the desire for truth through the usage of Right to Information Act and the judicial inquiry against the misconducts of the state governments
    • Third, counter-conduct activities through techniques of critique and self-examination to not only resist or evade the state, but also usher in new subjectivities and forms of governance

    An in-depth look at citizenship and state in contemporary Northeast India, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, governance, public policy, Northeast Studies, and South Asia studies.

    1. Government and Counter-Conducts 2. Disrupting Parallel States Governments: 'One Government, One Tax' and the War against Corruption in Nagaland 3. 'Sunshine is the best disinfectant': Parrhesia and Citizenship as the care of the self in Nagaland 4. 'We don’t believe in Manipur Anymore': Deaths and the Insurgence of People in Lamka, Manipur 5. 'No one feels at home in Manipur': Embodied Martyrdom and Insurgent Constitutionalism in Lamka, Manipur 6. Conclusion: Governmentality and Counter-Conduct

     

     

    Biography

    Andrew Lathuipou Kamei joined the Centre of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2013 to pursue his Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). In 2015, he successfully submitted and defended his MPhil dissertation titled “Experiencing the State: Techniques of Governmentality in Manipur.” He was in the finishing stage of his doctoral thesis when he passed away at the young age of 31. Andrew was a promising scholar and this book is a manifestation of his scholarship. His area of interest included governmentality, social movements, and tribal studies. Andrew wrote a thesis titled “Adaptation, Rejection, Change, and Continuity: A study on the significance of Religion among the Rongmei Nagas of Manipur” for the partial fulfillment of his master’s degree in Social work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He was also awarded Junior Research Fellowship by the University Grants Commission, India in 2012.