Anthropologists have argued for a while now, that the state tends to appear differently to different groups of people, discernible through its everyday practices and knowledge production. Along with that, historical, cultural as well as socio-political factors can influence how various groups perceive the everyday practices in a democracy. When it comes to studying borders and borderlands, where different ascendancies overlap, these underpinning can become even more conspicuous, revealing both the power dynamics at play and how they may shape the experiences of groups of individuals living in these liminal spaces.
This paper focuses on a particular community in India's northeast known as the Tiwas, predominantly residing in the state borders of Assam and Meghalaya, and explores the possible linkages between indigenous identity and development activities. As Virginius Xaxa and others have noted, being indigenous in India and South Asia often centers on claims to land and natural resources, rather than on original inhabitation. Decentralized governance and administration were implemented as a progressive approach to accommodate groups of people with multiple, overlapping identities and to build trust in the post-colonial national building process. Yet, the way indigenous communities like the Tiwas make claims for representation, development, or even cultural preservation require nuance and taking account of shifting socio-political allegiances. This paper will use both primary and secondary data to look at the juxtaposition of indigenous autonomy with lower or grassroot governance bodies, such as development blocks, autonomous councils, etc, by centering on the Tiwa community's development process as envisioned and implemented by state and non-state actors. The study would be exploratory in nature with a socio-historical approach and grounded theory to be used for writing the paper.
