To highlight the generic base and interconnecting linkages of social movements by differentiating the social movements on the basis of their form and content and also their logical interrelationships.

1. Structural Bases of
Social Movements in the
North-Eastern Region
B.S. BUTOLA
Presented By: Sameer Kumar Jena

2. Social Movements
• Social movements is a trend and a process.
• By which the People express their aspirations and
ideologies.
• However, forms and contents of social movements vary from
situation to situation.

3. The North-eastern region of India comprising the seven sister states
are one of the most sensitive regions of the country:
• Its increasing strategic location at the interface of diametrically opposite
ideological regimes
• Heterogeneous culture landscapes
• Currents of civilization.
• Multiplicity of culture
• Economic life along with phenomenal intra-spatial variations in the form
of dense forest
• High hills and valleys
• Mighty barrier created by the river Brahmaputra
• Frequent flood
• Inadequate intra and inter regional linkage

4. Objective of the paper:
To highlight the generic base and interconnecting linkages of social
movements by differentiating the social movements on the basis of their
form and content and also their logical interrelationships.

5.  Preliminary stage of social Movements
• When a phenomena attains a social dimension it becomes a potential
base for questioning the existing hegemony and building the counter
hegemony which ultimately gets articulate through social unrest and need
among the people to act more directly.
 Models formulated for comprehending and taking appropriate remedial
measures to check the spread of such movements
• Theory of relative deprivation (internal colonialism, peripheral and late
capitalism)
• Theory of revitalization (nationality question, sub-nationalism)
• Theory of strain(demographic aggression, foreign hand)
• Theory of environmental condition(relative isolation, environmental
determinism)

6. Structural
Bases of
Social
Movements
Transition,
Structural
Adjustment
and Social
Movements
Primitive
Social
Formation and
Alien
Superstructure
States and
Civil society

7. Transition, Structural Adjustment and Social Movements
• Post-colonial countries are faced with the general problem of transition in
every walk of life.
• The north-eastern region of India is the prime example of this type.
• This region was faced a secular transition:
Tribal territory imperative National consciousness
Lineage Bourgeois democratic state
Subsistence economy High scale consumerism
• Most of the social movements in north-east are due to the centralist
position taken by state while handling different problems.

8. States and Civil Society in the North-Eastern Region
• Ruling state is the characteristic feature of modern bourgeois rule.
• But in case of North-eastern region of India:
 Civil society as well as the ideological apparatus of the state are still in
emerging stage.
 Ruling control of state still not a dominant form
 Where as only repressive organs of the state are becoming stronger
and more prevalent.
 Such development are potentially the basis of social movement in the
region.

9. Primitive Social Formation and Superimposed Alien
Superstructure
• Communal ownership of means of production and clan-based division
of labour was most prevalent in most of the north-east region.
• Division of society on the basis of economy was still in the initial stage
of evolution.
• Imposition of Bourgeois democratic state and its associate with
superstructure always find themselves incompatible.
• There was a void, lack of communication between base and
superstructure.
Therefore
• The modern state found itself irrelevant.
• This was an important factor in spreading discontent among masses
and are vulnerable to different methods of its articulation including
social movements.

10. Conclusion:
State in north-eastern region of India is invariably the direct
as well as the indirect reference point of all the social
movements in the region.
• All socio-economic changes taken in the region
• Alien Superstructure imposed under British and
Independent India too.
• Superimposed state has specialized in perfect the
repressive organs of the state which in turn has been
resisted by masses gave rise to numerous social
movements.

11. “Running water is never stale and door-hinge is never worm-
eaten” means that constant motion prevents the inroads of
germs and other organism.

12. Limitation:
 Not mentioned about the unrest within the Naga
community.
 Impact of wars:
• World war II
• Sino-Indian War(1962)
 Look-East policy (1991)
 Culture and Ethnicity disparities not mentioned