From the back cover: Having trudged furrows across the Northeast over three decades of legwork, Rupa Chinai's 'A Reporter's Journal' recounts personal interactions with indigenous communities living in India's little-known, politically sensitive border areas. It is an endeavor to understand the reality of India through their eyes. Barriers of geography, culture and race have long separated the people of the Northeast from those of the 'mainland'. Instead of building bridges, the Indian State has consistently pushed these communities against a wall.
This book provides context to the various protest movements of Northeast groups in their effort to determine their own destiny. It lays out the historical facts, as they view it. It reveals the diversity and complexity of inter-tribal relationships; of what it means for four consecutive generations who have now lived under the yolk of army as also insurgent excesses. It narrates the vision of communities for their future and the sustainable development model they seek.
Reportage is woven with personal stories, highlighting the gentle cultures, rich intellectual thought and human values systems that are idealized by tribal societies here. Their highly advanced environmental and health traditions, their egalitarian culture, hold much that we in the rest of India can learn from.
