This book is an ethnography of culture and politics in Monyul, a Tibetan Buddhist cultural region in west Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India. For nearly three centuries, Monyul was part of the Tibetan state, and the Monpas, as the communities inhabiting this region are collectively known, participated in trans-Himalayan trade and pilgrimage. Following the colonial demarcation of the Indo-Tibetan boundary in 1914, the fall of the Tibetan state in 1951, and the India-China boundary war in 1962, Monyul was gradually integrated into India and the Monpas became one of the Scheduled Tribes of India. In 2003, the Monpas began a demand for autonomy, under the leadership of Tsona Gontse Rinpoche. This book examines the narratives and politics of the autonomy movement regarding language, place-names, and trans-border kinship, against the backdrop of the India-China border dispute. It explores how the Monpas negotiate multiple identities to imagine new forms of community that transcend regional and national borders.

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Imagined Places
  • Imagined geographies
  • Living under the spectre of war: State, security, and border
  • Localities unbound: Networks and nodes
  • Chapter structure
  • Note on Methods
  • Fieldwork from the Margins
• 1. Field
  • Monyul and North East India
  • Ties with Tibet
  • Religion and rule
  • Security, connectivity, and selective development
  • Reorientation and local politics
• 2. Locality
  • Indigenous returns and the politics of place
  • Histories of conflict
  • Selective development and autonomy
  • Culture and Politics
  • Bhoti Language
  • Sowa Rigpa
  • Himalayas as a cultural geography
  • Autonomy and its discontents
• 3. Connections
  • In the beginning was the war
  • The thesis of Tibetan origins
  • Mediating the Tibet connection: Bhutan in Monpa origin stories
  • ‘Born here’: Claiming indigenous space
  • Tibet is not us: Marriage and denial
  • Mixed origins, hybrid spaces
• 4. Periphery
  • When legends die
  • In the name of the nation
  • Settling the periphery
  • Directing the tourist gaze
  • Toponymic politics
  • Sacralising space
• 5. Region
  • Immigration and Arunachali regionalism
  • Remembrance and reconciliation: Coming to terms with Tibetan rule
  • ST Certificates and the politics of documentation
  • Complicating boundaries: The case of Labopas and Zhospas
  • Tibetans and Monpas outside Monyul
• Conclusion: Corridors, Networks, and Nodes
  • Mapping moral geographies
  • Of nodes, networks, and non-territorial space
  • Security, territory, and the state
• Bibliography
• Index
• List of Figures
  • Figure 1 Tawang monastery from a distance
  • Figure 2 Footprint of Sixth Dalai Lama, Urgyeling Gonpa, Tawang
  • Figure 3 Road at Thonglen, on the Tawang-Zemithang road
  • Figure 4 Map of the proposed Mon Autonomous Region on the front door of a Monpa house
  • Figure 5 Tsona Gontse Rinpoche in his chamber at GRL monastery, Bomdila
  • Figure 6 Morning assembly at Shanti Deva School, Bomdila
  • Figure 7 Children learning Bhoti in Lama Don’s verandah
  • Figure 8 MARDC badge with yak logo
  • Figure 9 Gyalsey Tulku Rinpoche, author of The Clear Mirror of Monyul with Sangey Leda
  • Figure 10 Army camp at Bap Teng Kang on road to Zemithang, Tawang
  • Figure 11 Manifesto of All Dirang Monpa Youth Welfare Association
  • Figure 12 Restoring old place names
  • Figure 13 Plan of stupa to be built in memory of Sixth Dalai Lama, Tawang
  • Figure 14 Crowds at Buddha Stadium during Dalai Lama’s visit, Bomdila 13 November 2009
  • Figure 15 People gather to receive wang from visiting Sakya Rinpoche at Tawang Monastery, 23 April 2010
  • Figure 16a Blueprint of Thupsung Dhargyeling Monastery 2009
  • Figure 16b Ongoing construction of Thupsung Dhargyeling Monastery 2013
  • Figure 16c Thupsung Dhargyeling Monastery 2017
  • Figure 17 Vivekananda Kendra school, Tawang