Nationalism in the Vernacular
State, Tribes, and Politics of Peace in Northeast India

Examines how oral culture provided a platform to people in shaping the discourse of Mizo nationalism.

Roluah Puia (Author)

9781009346078, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 August 2023

260 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.7 cm, 0.4 kg

Nationalism in the Vernacular illuminates our understanding of the relationship between orality and nationalist politics. In doing so, it provides a new angle to the understanding of nationalism by looking at the popular support and participation of ordinary people in the construction of Mizo nationalism, in short, the vernacularisation of nationalism. The book examines this process of vernacularisation at two levels, the first concerns the process of creating a vernacular language to express nationalist ideas and second, the irrepressibility of the oral against state's violent response to the nationalist movement. Drawing from multiple sources, the book through the rich oral narratives, archival materials, including government and media reports shows how Mizos have remained active agents in asserting and claiming their rights to defining ideas of nationalism in their own terms by making it distinctively Mizo.

Preface and acknowledgement
Glossary of terms
List of acronyms
1. Introduction
2. The 'Tribal Question' in India: Problem of Inclusion
3. The Emergence of Mizo Nationalism: The Formative Phase
4. MNF and the Vernacularization of Nationalism
5. Violence, Counter-insurgency and the Transcript of Resistance
6. Discord, Accord and the Politics of Peace
7. Conclusion
References.

Subject Areas: Political activism [JPW], Political control & freedoms [JPV], Regional government [JPR], Nationalism [JPFN], Politics & government [JP], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]