Borderlands, environment and climate change in Northeast India
1Bhaskar Gogoi and 2Nilakshi Deka
1Department of Political Science, 2Department of MIL & LS, Gauhati University, Guwahati-781014 (India)
ABSTRACT
The Northeast India has suffered from a dismal lack of academic attention. It is being addressed through various disciplinary interventions. Northeast seeks to address the region through the framework of ‘borderlands.’ This conceptualization is especially relevant because of the region’s location. There are many reasons to think of Northeast India as a borderland. First, in the colonial period it was the eastern frontier of British India: here the expanding British Empire encountered the Chinese and Burmese Empires. Second, the region reached independence as the eastern periphery of post-colonial India. Third, it became conceptualized as a liminal zone between the areas of ‘South Asia’ and ‘Southeast Asia.’ Fourth, it is now a dynamic crossroads of geopolitical reconfiguration involving China, Myanmar or Burma, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal and India. North East borderlands in India are now prone to the environment and climate change risk. But impacts of climate change on Northeast borderlands are not much explored making this area more vulnerable to environment induced risks. The article addresses the environment and climate change risks of borderlands in Northeast India to understand the issues.