Custom, Law and the Colonial State in Northeast India

Nandini Bhattacharyya Panda is currently project Director in Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi, India. She is also the Distinguished Fellow of Asian Confluence, Meghalaya. A historian and Sanskritist, her book Appropriation and Invention of Tradition: The English East India Company and Hindu Law in Early Colonial Bengal (2012) was a seminal contribution to modern Indian history. She has also lectured on Hindu Law, Northeast India and other subjects in leading national and international universities, such as University of Cambridge, UK, Penn Law School at the University of Pennsylvania, Dhaka University, Bangladesh among others. She has been working on the Eastern Himalayas including Nepal and Northeast India since 2006, She has published books, articles and made a documentary film in 2016 on the Lepcha community of the Eastern Himalayas under the title: The Lepcha Community of the Darjeeling and Kalimpong Hills: Quest for the Roots.

1. Colonial State and Law and Customs in Northeast India 2. The colonial legacy in Manipur 3. From Lines to Belts’: Immigration, Anxiety and Community Relations in late Colonial and Post-Colonial Assam 4. Colonial Legal Formation in Northeast India: An Introspective Gaze in the Contemporary Context 5. Customary Law and Gender in Northeast India 6. Power-Relations in Matrilineal Khasi-Jaintia Society: Revisiting Traditional Political Institutions from Pre-Colonial to Contemporary Times 7. Turning to Stone: Transformations in Angami-Naga Patriarchy 8. Creating World Heritage at the Margins of the State: Wildlife, Custom and Culture 9. Legislating ‘Objectionable Content’ in the British Indian Empire and the Case of Assam in Northeast India (1910-1950)