Tracing the Continuities of Violence in Bodoland rishav kumar thakur !"#$$% 128 # Shahpur Jat, 1st &oor %'( )'*+, 110 049 '-$,*:
[email protected] ('#.,/': www.zubaanbooks.com Published by Zubaan Publishers Pvt. Ltd 2019 In collaboration with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation fragrance of peace project All rights reserved Zubaan is an independent feminist publishing house based in New Delhi with a strong academic and general list. It was set up as an imprint of India’s first feminist publishing house, Kali for Women, and carries forward Kali’s tradition of publishing world quality books to high editorial and production standards. Zubaan means tongue, voice, language, speech in Hindustani. Zubaan publishes in the areas of the humanities, social sciences, as well as in fiction, general non-fiction, and books for children and young adults under its Young Zubaan imprint. Typeset in Arno Pro 11/13 Tracing the Continuities of Violence in Bodoland INTRODUCTION The Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD), renamed as Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) in 2020, was created in 2003 as an autonomous region within Assam in response to the long movement for Bodo autonomy. After decades of adopting peaceful means (with sporadic attacks on government property or staff), militant factions of the movement started targeting non-Bodo residents since the late 1980s. Over time, organizations and coalitions have emerged among non-Bodo communities – both recognized as indigenous or as marginalized immigrants such as Adivasis1 and Bengali-speaking Muslims2.