{"product_id":"9780822386162","title":"TEST1 Fragmented Memories: Struggling to be Tai-Ahom in India","description":"\u003ci\u003eFragmented Memories\u003c\/i\u003e is a beautifully rendered exploration of how, during the 1990s, socially and economically marginalized people in the northeastern Indian state of Assam sought to produce a past on which to base a distinctive contemporary identity recognized within late-twentieth-century India. Yasmin Saikia describes how groups of Assamese identified themselves as Tai-Ahom—a people with a glorious past stretching back to the invasion of what is now Assam by Ahom warriors in the thirteenth century. In her account of the 1990s Tai-Ahom identity movement, Saikia considers the problem of competing identities in India, the significance of place and culture, and the outcome of the memory-building project of the Tai-Ahom.\u003cp\u003eAssamese herself, Saikia lived in several different Tai-Ahom villages between 1994 and 1996. She spoke with political activists, intellectuals, militant leaders, shamans, and students and observed and participated in Tai-Ahom religious, social, and political events. She read Tai-Ahom sacred texts and did archival research—looking at colonial documents and government reports—in Calcutta, New Delhi, and London. In \u003ci\u003eFragmented Memories\u003c\/i\u003e, Saikia reveals the different narratives relating to the Tai-Ahom as told by the postcolonial Indian government, British colonists, and various texts reaching back to the thirteenth century. She shows how Tai-Ahom identity is practiced in Assam and also in Thailand. Revealing how the “dead” history of Tai-Ahom has been transformed into living memory to demand rights of citizenship, \u003ci\u003eFragmented Memories \u003c\/i\u003eis a landmark history told from the periphery of the Indian nation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47128778014960,"sku":"9780822386162","price":17.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780822386162_p0.jpg?v=1763751969","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780822386162","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}