Highway 39: Journeys Through A Fractured Land
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In Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land, Sudeep Chakravarti attempts to unravel the brutal history of Nagaland and Manipur, their violent and restive present, and their uncertain and yet desperately hopeful future, as he travels along Dimapur, Kohima, Senapati, Imphal, Thoubal, and their hinterlands-all touch points of brutalized aspiration, identity, conflict and tragedy. These are the lands that nurture deadly acronyms-like AFSPA, an act of Parliament that with impunity hurts and kills citizens. Lands where militants not only battle the Indian government but also each other in a frenzy of ego, politics and survival, and enforce 'parallel' administrations. Sudeep Chakravarti's journey introduces the reader to stories that chill, anger and offer uneasy reflection. A fourteen-year-old Naga girl who dies resisting a soldier's attempt to rape her-and is now an icon. An eleven-year-old girl abducted by police in Manipur because they want to trap her parents. A faked encounter in Imphal that kills a former rebel, and also an innocent lady and her unborn child. A family in Kohima still trying to come to terms with the death of their youngest child in a mortar attack. Chakravarti also interacts with security and military officials, senior bureaucrats, top rebel leaders, and human rights and social activists, to paint a terrifying picture of a society and a people brought repeatedly to breakdown through years of political conceit and deceit, and stress and conflict. In prose suffused with a rare understanding of the region and its people, and with remarkable insight into its convoluted politics, Highway 39 brings into focus a region long neglected and often forgotten by Mainland India, a region surrounded by nations historically inimical to India-and yet, which offer a dream gateway to the markets of East Asia. A region India can continue to ignore only at the peril of the very idea of India.
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Sudeep Chakravarti is a leading commentator on matters of business and human rights, and socio-political and security issues in India and South Asia. Sudeep's non-fiction narratives - Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country, on India's ongoing Maoist rebellion; and Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land (4th Estate, HarperCollins), set in north-east India - are critically feted bestsellers. His essays on conflict are contained in several collections, including Non-State Armed Groups in South Asia; andMore than Maoism: Politics, Policies and Insurgencies in South Asia.Sudeep began his career with The Asian Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company. He subsequently held senior positions at Sunday, India Today, HT Media and India Today Group. Sudeep's media writing is extensively published in numerous Indian and global publications.Sudeep is a professional member of World Future Society, Washington D.C. He was earlier invited to the Club of Asia by Strategic Intelligence. He is invited to comment on aspects of internal security on network television; social, digital and print media platforms; at academic institutions and think-tanks, including India's Army War College, the Naval War College, and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; various CEO and investment forums; and for similar engagements in North America, Europe and Asia.
