ABSTRACT
Almost all movements of militant ethno-nationalistic mobilization in Assam and its environs claim that their ultimate objective is the attainment of sovereignty and freedom for a people seen as suffering unendurable diminishment and oppression from the Indian state. Despite some tactical co-ordination between these militant groups, there are important differences even in their strategic objectives, natural given their international linkages and patrons with their own agendas vis-a-vis India, though they all claim to be ‘at war’ with India. Far from confronting the Indian state, let alone debilitating it and pushing it on the path to Death by a Thousand Cuts, such ‘wars against India’ have provided the rationale, and some democratic sanction, to the Indian state to vastly strengthen and refine its coercive instrumentalities. The victims of the last major symbolic resistance to the holding of an Independence Day parade in 2004 were the schoolchildren of Dhemaji.
