Indigenous politics: Community formation and indigenous peoples' struggle for self‐determination in northeast India

This paper deals with a number of questions relating to politics based on “ethnicity” or community belonging among “tribal” or indigenous peoples in India's northeastern region. In particular, I probe the complex question of indigenous peoples’ right to self‐determination, a right that most indigenous organizations in the world regard as crucial and that is central to the UN draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Autonomy or self‐determination, in one form or another, is on the agenda of more or less all mobilized communities in Northeast India. In multi‐ethnic contexts, however, it is not easy to translate such demands into viable political solutions. By discussing several different cases, the contemporary Bodoland movement, the Naga struggle for sovereignty, and the mobilization of the Rabha people, the paper brings the issue of indigenous politics in India into focus.