Article – Thongkholal Haokip

Traditional Ideas and Institutions of Democracy in India’s North East

August 25, 2025 admin Article

Thongkholal Haokip This article explores the traditional ideas and practices of indigenous democracy among the tribal communities in North East India. Traditional institutions of governance in the region are repudiated today as autocratic and authoritarian, or at best oligarchic. This oversight is imminent unless their cultures and customs, which are closely linked to their institutions of governance, are examined. In […]

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Selective Outrage, Selective Targeting: The Politics of Othering in Manipur

August 3, 2024 admin Article

By Thongkholal Haokip Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 59(31), 2024, pp. 36-40. The politics of othering that has emerged from the war on drugs and the emergent forest policy in Manipur is discussed. While the war on drugs is not only anachronistic in its approach but also selective in its outrage, the forest policy is mainly the re-manifestation of the […]

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Glimpses from villages in the Northeast: Traditional quarantine measures came alive during the COVID-19 pandemic

May 12, 2022 admin Article

By Thongkholal Haokip Contributions to Indian Sociology, 56(1), February 2022, pp. 1-5. Abstract During the COVID-19 pandemic, communities in the hills of Northeast India fought the epidemic by taking recourse to traditional preventive health measures, both sealing off villages and quarantining to combat the spread of the highly infectious coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. These traditional emergency health measures grew out of local […]

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Unwillingness to Share Power: Manipur and the ADCs Bill, 2021

April 2, 2022 admin Article

By Thongkholal Haokip in Economic and Political Weekly, 2022, 57(14), 25-28. The conflict about the proposed Manipur (Hill Areas) Autonomous District Councils Bill in Manipur is a manifestation of the deep divide between the hills and the valley, and the exercise of political hegemony over the hill areas of the state. Beyond the melee, a close examination of the bill […]

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