This project and other associated ones have taken me several times to Bangladesh and various parts of Assam as well as elsewhere in the North East. And as my knowledge of the area and its issues has grown, so has despair at the realization of how much more needs to be done, urgently, desperately, beginning with making available better information about the area. Home to nearly 150 million people, set amid the stunning landscapes of fertile valleys, here we find back-breaking poverty and a rich cauldron of ferocious and ancient ethnic divisions and feuds. Yet, for the rest of the world, this geographical and cultural entity may as well not exist, so little is the interest in or knowledge about it. And this indifference is well known among the local people. It is a wound that festers and worsens with every passing day. After more than fifty years of independence in India, people in its North East now realize how marginalized they have become in relation to the policy-making apparatus in New Delhi and their own ruling elites at home, and how great remains the ignorance of officials, and politicians who govern them, despite all attempts to educate them. The mindsets in Delhi and Dispur remain largely unchanged.

My present concerns also flow out of interactions with villagers, scholars, professionals, politicians and bureaucrats during the course of my research, as well as with non-governmental groups and the media. Though a detailed study of relevant documents, and other theoretical literature on the subject has been done, my approach is not purely academic—anyway I am not particularly qualified to pursue such an enquiry. Our knowledge of the depth of the problems discussed here and their inter-connectivity with other concerns is limited; they need to be understood through a multidisciplinary approach. The mere collection of data or compilation of interviews is inadequate for this task. Alejandro Portes writes: ‘Data, whether quantitative or qualitative, may accumulate endlessly without producing any significant conceptual breakthrough. Indeed, much of what we do as part of our everyday work is simply to produce information on one aspect or another of social reality within the intellectual frameworks already in place, without altering them to any significant extent. Ideas, especially those of a broader reach, are few and far between and certainly do not emerge out of masses of data.’1

If the problems are multidimensional, so also must be the search for answers. A purely humanist or purely scientific and theoretical approach will not do.

I stumbled along in this search, looking for a concept that would encapsulate my longing for a multi-dimensional set of answers. Late one night, I looked at a review of the brilliant work of that great scientist and philosopher Edmund O. Wilson in a special number of World Watch. And I knew that I had found what I wanted.