Arupjyoti Saikia
Arupjyoti Saikia is a professor of history at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. He held the Agrarian Studies Programme Fellowship at Yale University and visiting fellow positions at Cambridge University and School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Saikia is the author of Forests and Ecological History of Assam, 1826-2000 (OUP, 2011), A Century of Protests: Peasant Politics in Assam since 1900 (Rutledge, 2014) and The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra (OUP, 2019). His A Century of Protests won the Srikant Dutt book prize awarded by the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi in 2015. The Unquiet River was short-listed for Kamala Devi Chattopadhayay Book Award in 2020 and long listed for Atta Galatta-Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize in 2020 and got 'Honorable Mention' for Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize in 2021 given by the Association of Asian Studies.
NIF Books
The crucial battles of World War II fought in India's north-east-followed soon after by Independence and Partition-had a critical impact on the making of modern Assam. In the three decades following 1947, the state of Assam underwent massive political turmoil, geographical instability, and social and demographic upheaval, among others. Later, the truncated state suffered widespread unrest as various groups believed their cultural identity and political leverage were under threat. New social energies and political forces were unleashed and came to the fore.
Definitive, comprehensive and unputdownable, The Quest for Modern Assam explores the interconnected layers of political, environmental, economic and cultural processes that shaped the development of Assam since the 1940s. It offers an authoritative account that sets new standards in the writing of regional political history. Not to be missed by any one keen on Assam, India, Asia or world history in the twentieth century.
Purchase: Amazon
Reviews:
The most well-researched comprehensive history of contemporary Assam ever written. ― Partha Chatterjee, Professor Emeritus, Columbia University
A model work of historical scholarship. ― Ramachandra Guha, Historian
[An] instant classic. ― Willem van Schendel, Professor of History, University of Amsterdam and International Institute of Social History, the Netherlands
The book sets new standards for the writing of India's contemporary history, especially from the vantage point of the states. ― Srinath Raghavan, Professor of International Relations and History, Ashoka University
[This] magisterial study... is destined to become the definitive work on the politics and society of Assam in the latter half of the twentieth century. ― K. Sivaramakrishnan, Dinakar Singh Professor of Anthropology and Professor, School of the Environment, Yale University
By choice and compulsion, most of my reading this year has been Northeast-related. Among the wonderful finds has been Arupjyoti Saikia’s The Quest for Modern Assam. -- Anjum Hasan, India Today
An Ambitious Book on Post-Colonial History of Assam ... [The Quest for Modern Assam] traces not just the story of Brahmaputra Valley, but a global network of events, political discourses, and cultural and social imaginations that shaped the post-colonial Assam - Ankur Tamuli Phukan, Northeast Now
Saikia’s work stands out on account of its sheer breadth as a commentary on both colonial and postcolonial events that had a transformative impact on the region and its people. ― Economic and Political Weekly
Anyone who wants to know more about Assam or the Northeast, this book will certainly be a prized possession. - Sandeep Phukan, The Hindu
Other books by the fellow:
