Imagined Geographies in the Indo-Tibetan Borderlands: Culture, Politics, Place is an ethnography of culture and politics in Monyul, a Tibetan Buddhist cultural region in west Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India. For nearly three centuries, Monyul was part of the Tibetan state, and the Monpas — as the communities inhabiting this region are collectively known — participated in trans-Himalayan trade and pilgrimage. Following the colonial demarcation of the Indo-Tibetan boundary in 1914, the fall of the Tibetan state in 1951, and the India-China boundary war in 1962, Monyul was gradually integrated into India and the Monpas became a Scheduled Tribe. In 2003, the Monpas began a demand for autonomy under the leadership of Tsona Gontse Rinpoche. This book examines the narratives and politics of the autonomy movement regarding language, place-names, and trans-border kinship against the backdrop of the India-China border dispute. It explores how the Monpas negotiate multiple identities to imagine new forms of community that transcend regional and national borders.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Imagined Places
- Imagined geographies
- Living under the spectre of war: State, security, and border
- Localities unbound: Networks and nodes
- Chapter structure
- Note on Methods
- Fieldwork from the Margins
- 1. Field
- Monyul and North East India
- Ties with Tibet
- Religion and rule
- Security, connectivity, and selective development
- Reorientation and local politics
- 2. Locality
- Indigenous returns and the politics of place
- Histories of conflict
- Selective development and autonomy
- Culture and Politics
- Bhoti Language
- Sowa Rigpa
- Himalayas as a cultural geography
- Autonomy and its discontents
- 3. Connections
- In the beginning was the war
- The thesis of Tibetan origins
- Mediating the Tibet connection: Bhutan in Monpa origin stories
- ‘Born here’: Claiming indigenous space
- Tibet is not us: Marriage and denial
- Mixed origins, hybrid spaces
- 4. Periphery
- When legends die
- In the name of the nation
- Settling the periphery
- Directing the tourist gaze
- Toponymic politics
- Sacralising space
- 5. Region
- Immigration and Arunachali regionalism
- Remembrance and reconciliation: Coming to terms with Tibetan rule
- ST Certificates and the politics of documentation
- Complicating boundaries: The case of Labopas and Zhospas
- Tibetans and Monpas outside Monyul
- Conclusion: Corridors, Networks, and Nodes
- Mapping moral geographies
- Of nodes, networks, and non-territorial space
- Security, territory, and the state
- Bibliography
- Index
- List of Figures
- Figure 1 Tawang monastery from a distance
- Figure 2 Footprint of Sixth Dalai Lama, Urgyeling Gonpa, Tawang
- Figure 3 Road at Thonglen, on the Tawang-Zemithang road
- Figure 4 Map of the proposed Mon Autonomous Region on the front door of a Monpa house
- Figure 5 Tsona Gontse Rinpoche in his chamber at GRL monastery, Bomdila
- Figure 6 Morning assembly at Shanti Deva School, Bomdila
- Figure 7 Children learning Bhoti in Lama Don’s verandah
- Figure 8 MARDC badge with yak logo
- Figure 9 Gyalsey Tulku Rinpoche, author of The Clear Mirror of Monyul with Sangey Leda
- Figure 10 Army camp at Bap Teng Kang on road to Zemithang, Tawang
- Figure 11 Manifesto of All Dirang Monpa Youth Welfare Association
- Figure 12 Restoring old place names
- Figure 13 Plan of stupa to be built in memory of Sixth Dalai Lama, Tawang
- Figure 14 Crowds at Buddha Stadium during Dalai Lama’s visit, Bomdila 13 November 2009
- Figure 15 People gather to receive wang from visiting Sakya Rinpoche at Tawang Monastery, 23 April 2010
- Figure 16a Blueprint of Thupsung Dhargyeling Monastery 2009
- Figure 16b Ongoing construction of Thupsung Dhargyeling Monastery 2013
- Figure 16c Thupsung Dhargyeling Monastery 2017
- Figure 17 Vivekananda Kendra school, Tawang
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