From Isolation to Integration: Navigating the Geopolitics of India’s Northeast 1990–2023
By Patricia Mukhim
MLCU Press 2025
1517 pp in 2 volumes
Price: Rs 5998
This question was posed as the title for an article that appeared in the India International Centre Quarterly in 2005. Even 58 years after Independence, it was more than a rhetorical inquiry. Half a century after becoming a part of India, the North East region was still shrouded in obscurity, an exotic patch in the school atlas, bounded by East Asian countries that had little in common with the rest of India. Very little was disseminated about the varied cultures of the region, only the occasional general knowledge quiz question about highest rainfall, or a state capital, or the expansion of the acronym NEFA.
Seventy-five years after Independence, the answer is still not clear to most mainlanders. This two-volume compendium comprehensively answers the question. This collection of editorials, eyewitness reportage, and reflective analysis, lays bare the geopolitical complexities of the North East, mapping its trajectory from benign neglect and colonial legacies to statehoods wrought with continuing struggles with development, identity, and integration.
Acclaimed journalist, editor of The Shillong Times, and tireless civil society activist, Patricia Mukhim brings a probing lens to her latest book, “From Isolation to Integration: Navigating the Geopolitics of India’s Northeast 1990–2023”. Drawing on decades of frontline experience, Mukhim has assembled an epochal work that shapes a conclusive view of one of India’s most misunderstood and marginalised regions.
Published by Martin Luther Christian University Press, this landmark set of tomes is not just a regional chronicle but calls for a national imperative of understanding and action. It provides an unflinching account of how India’s North East continues to be an embattled geographic entity, suffering from political neglect, and cultural invisibility, even today.
The shadow of violence
From the evolution of Nehru’s Panch Sheel vision for tribal areas to the unsavoury legacy of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), and from the rise of regional parties to the unfulfilled promise of the Act East Policy, Mukhim’s narrative is steeped in on-ground observation, joining of dots, and incisive analysis. Her direct engagement with community leaders, insurgents, bureaucrats, and ordinary citizens, often at great personal risk, brings authenticity and urgency to every chapter.
Mukhim has been targeted for her outspoken journalism with a petrol bomb attack on her home and a widely publicised legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court, where she was vindicated and press freedom upheld.
“I am not an outsider writing from a distance. I have lived, reported, argued, and marched in the streets of this region. This book is not a history of the North East, it is a conversation, and sometimes a confrontation, with what India has chosen to forget,” says Mukhim.
With essays spanning politics, insurgency, development, gender, and identity, the book not only answers the foundational question of the North East’s place in the Indian landscape, but demands that the rest of India answer as well.
A perspective from the hills
Her comprehensive span of writings covers topics and regions with great finesse. Syntax and phrases are skilfully crafted and her analysis cuts to the bone. There is a tugging urgency and sharp edginess in her approach. All this makes good reading, but more importantly draws a roadmap that we wish our leaders would pay more attention to as well.
The hills and mountains harbour varied perspectives of culture and customs, a uniqueness that differentiates the region from the mainland. These hidebound traditions protect traditions but also engender resilience. The region is slowly but inexorably, moving into the melting pot of the nation and world. In the process the colourful cultures of the North East may lose some of their flavour.
What may be the consequence of this magnum opus? Many of the chapters deal with timeless issues of values and probity in governance, ensuring the endurance of this book. The author has been the spokesperson for our region, while governments and social movements have risen and fallen around us. This diligent, insistent, unstoppable voice has been described as the conscience of the North . Its integrity will never be questioned.
The book is essential reading for policymakers, scholars, journalists, and anyone who wishes to understand the mosaic of India’s North East, not only as a borderland, but as a vital and vibrant part of the nation.