Sanjib Baruah is Visiting Professor, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. Born in Shillong in Northeast India, he was educated in Cotton College, (Guwahati, India), the University of Delhi and the University of Chicago. He is the author of Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of Northeast India (Oxford University Press, 2005) and India against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). His Op-ed articles on politics in Northeast India appear regularly in Indian newspapers including the Indian Express, the Hindustan Times, the Telegraph and the Statesman. Below you will find a link to an essay he published in Economic and Political Weekly, Bombay, that summarizes a major theme of the book.