Scribe captures India's Northeast turmoil

The book was released at Oxford Bookstore here.

Like his first non-fiction, ‘Red Sun’, this book also deals with some sensitive socio-political issues of the country.

The author said: “The book ‘Highway 39: Journeys Through a Fractured Land’ is set in Nagaland and Manipur. The story uses highway 39 as a metaphor. The book unravels the brutal history of the two states.”

The author mentioned that the purpose behind choosing such sensitive, socio-political issue is that the common man does not hold a much clear idea about the region and its complexities.

“I thought it to be a good time to uncover the story of north-eastern zone of the country. The region has been long neglected and often forgotten by the mainland India. The government policies, army and police have made it even more complex and messy situation.”

“I wanted to bring out the stories of North-East to the outsiders. Earlier a lot of stories have bean told by people, who presumed them to speak on the behalf of the people of North-East. But, I tried to pen down their stories in their voices.”

The author added: “I believe theses stories are needed to be told emphatically. People need to understand the situation.”

The author’s earlier non-fiction book ‘Red Sun’ dealt with another sensitive, social issue of India set in the Maoist areas of Chhattisgarh

The author also said that these people shy away to talk about such topics, but they need to realise that thousands of lives in the North-East are trapped in such situation.

“Its really difficult to not to pay attention when half of the population lives in poverty, commits suicide due to poverty, many are killed due to unwanted conflict. I can’t escape from such situation.”

The book was released by Ranabir Samaddar, the Director of the Calcutta Research Group.

(Reporting by Shreejata Niyogi, image by Avishek Mitra)