The Manipur Conundrum

Dr. Ankita Dutta has a PhD from the Center for Political Studies at JNU on the history of the Vaishnavite Movement in Assam and the role of the Satras in preserving the Hindu civilisation of Assam. As a part of her MPhil and PhD, she had the opportunity of travelling across different regions of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, interacting with different people in places like Majuli and Namsai. She taught for a brief stint at a few colleges in Delhi and Assam before devoting her time completely to researching on different communities of the Northeast. She has completed various research projects spanning across topics such as Shakti worship in the Northeast under Indic Academy (INDICA). She also served as a researching assistant to Prof. Nandita Saikia of the Indian Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai, in her study on tribal societies of the Northeast. She had also taught earlier as an Assistant Professor at the Center for Indic Studies (CIS) at Indus University, Ahmedabad, where she also designed several courses on the culture and civilisation of the Northeast. She has also guided students (on topics related to the Northeast) as a part of the internship program under the IKS Division of the Ministry of Education. Her articles in Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, and English are regularly published in online prominent local and national dailies including online portals. She can be reached at ankita.dutta3@gmail.com.

Vladimir Adityanath is a writer, activist and political observer. He is an engineer by profession who has had the opportunity of travelling across the '8 Sister' states (Ashtalakshmi) of Bharat. He started his work by preparing reports on and documenting the four decade-long persecution of the indigenous Hindus of Meghalaya in 2020. He is the author of several articles highlighting the demographic change and destruction of native culture in Manipur, West Bengal and Bangladesh. He has compiled several ground reports revealing ignored or suppressed facts about demographic change, religious persecution and the poverty-stricken lives of native people. He is actively involved in organising fundraisers and helping the indigenous victims of persecution. He can be connected at vladimiradityanaath@gmail.com.