Saha Biswanath

I pursued my PhD in Development Studies with disciplinary specialisation in Political Geography with domain expertise in borderland governance. Post PhD, I engaged myself in postgraduate teaching for 5 semesters in the Department of Geography, Sikkim University. Simultaneously, I also had finished a research project funded by Azim Premji University as a Co-PI.

My PhD work mainly focuses on state-making in the eastern Himalayan borderlands and its effect on ethnicity and land relations in the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya, in general, and the Gorkhaland Movement, in particular. One of the objectives of my PhD revolves around the issue of land relations and Nepali ethnic identity formation in the Darjeeling hills. This aspect seeks to analyse the changing land relations and identity formations in the background of migration in the Darjeeling hills vis-à-vis the eastern Himalayas. It also assesses whether the ethnic conflict over access to land resources in the Darjeeling hills is in isolation or a part of the same ethnic conflict in the spatial stretch of the eastern Himalayas! What is the citizenry dilemma of the Darjeeling dwellers associated with land documents is also an important theme for my PhD thesis.

The finished research project as a Co-PI titled "Does Identity Politics Subsume Local Governance! A Study of Darjeeling Hills" funded by the Azim Premji University. Apart from the other nuances, an important theme of this study revolves around the issue of land governance and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in the rural Darjeeling hills. It mainly analysed the criticalities of land governance amidst the prolonged absence of elected PRIs in the Darjeeling hills.

With such an academic background, I wish to broaden my research interests to the other parts of northeast India and Indo-Tibetan borderlands engrossed in the interplay between religion and ethnicity. I am actively looking to work in the domains of cross-border migration and territoriality, borderland governance, citizenship, Tibetan Buddhism, property rights, political ecology and other aspects of development in the Himalayas; from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Warm regards,

Dr Biswanath Saha