ABSTRACT
In regions such as Sikkim, Ladakh and the Northeast States youth is reshaping the relationship between home territories and the Indian state through political change and cultural revival. Parents, community leaders and young people talk about geopolitical and ecological futures, and the potential for cultural loss, through narratives about youth. This chapter considers three cases (Life, Love and Activism) in which young people are central to geopolitical questions about the future of territory. The embodied experiences of youth are central to geopolitical struggles to determine relations between the nation and its Himalayan margins. Young people are caught up in rapid political and ecological changes brought on by globalization. In the Himalayan context, young people are implicated in political questions brought on by the rapidly shifting patterns of industry and urbanisation. The region's ecological vulnerability is at odds with the Indian state's need to develop the 'frontier'.
