Hills of despair and hope- A review of the book, Unruly hills-nature and nation in India’s Northeast • by Bengt G Karlsson • Orient Blackswan, Social Science Press • Rs 695
An edited version of this article was published in Down To Earth, April 30, 2013 At one point in his memoir, A Writer’s People, V S Naipul notes, “All my life I have had to think about ways of looking and how they alter the configurations of the world.” The celebrated writer's method holds true for not only a novel but also an academic work, especially when it is set in a politically volatile and culturally diverse region. Seen this way, Bengt G Karlsson’s ' Unruly Hills-Nature and Nation in India’s Northeast' is an honest attempt to document the land, its people, its economy and socio-cultural textures through the disciplines of ethnography and political ecology. It begins with the story of the destruction of a sacred grove in Meghalaya, Law Kyntang of Lum Shyllong. The episode sets up the book's aim: tracing changes that have led the worshipers to desecrate their “sacred” icons. Community forests encroached by a limestone mine in Meghalaya