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

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.