ABSTRACT
The chapter argues that the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) movement echoes a fairly conventional account of ethnic nationalism spurred by circumstances in which Assam, situated at the margins of a bigger state, was incorporated into a newly consolidating modern nation-state. The movement was closely tied to feelings of separatism against such incorporation. Moreover, the mobilisation revealed an expression of discontent about over-centralisation of power and disproportionate share of political rights at the national level. Despite the uniqueness and peculiar circumstances under which the movement emerged, the chapter identifies a set of causative factors that might be useful not only to explain the origins of the movement, the variant patterns of mobilisation and state responses, but also to discern some of the common elements of ethnic separatism experienced elsewhere in the world. The inclusive character of ULFA's ethnonationalism highly influenced the contours of the movement launched on 7 April 1979 at Rangghar in Sibsagar.
