Social Change and Development

This volume engages itself with a critical understanding of the changes taking place both at the structural and cultural levels in the northeast of India, a region which has been studied more for its instances of militancy, insurgency, and terrorism. Significant changes are examined, such as: the growth of a middle class * an accentuation of socio-economic inequalities * a sharpening of ethnic/cultural identities * the changing demographic structure * a deepening of the process of democratization * a weakening of the principle of egalitarianism * the gradual entrenchment of the principle of hierarchy. Besides this, the responses of communities to agencies and processes of social changes are the subject matter of incisive analysis. The development model is critically examined, which has been introduced in the northeast, without taking into account the sensitivities and sensibilities, of communities, leading to eruption of feelings of discontent and alienation.