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The Bengal delta has been a recipient of Islamic influences since medieval times through trade, commerce and cultural exchanges with Southeast and West Asia via the Bay of Bengal–Indian Ocean trade route. This aspect of Bengal's cultural history and engagement with different religious traditions has gained attention in recent times through works done on subaltern literature, cultural history and global history. The vernacular tradition of littoral Bengal presents a strong frontrunner for this. Jatra (theatre), pala (lyrical play), scroll painting of pir, gazi, fakir and poetic discourse locally known as tarja demonstrate the diverse forms of vernacular philosophy in the littoral Bay of Bengal. In this article, I will engage with Bonbibis Johurnama, an Islamic text 1 which illustrates the struggle of the protagonist Dukhe who is protected by Bonbibi (forest goddess) from the man-eating tiger, personified as Dakhin Ray, the Hindu god. The article will explore the cosmic and mundane aspects of marginalized seafaring communities who depend on the delta's backwaters and the mangrove forest for livelihood. Bonbibi is venerated as the ultimate protector in this amorphous landscape, interspersed by land and water. The vernacular history of the region exposes the serendipity and the mundane everyday activities of Dalit fisherman who venture into the forests and backwaters to collect honey and wax. Through vernacular text – punthi literature – I will show how the ritual practices are shared and how this shapes the religious syncreticism that creates solidarity between Dalit Hindu and Muslim foresters and fishers in the delta. These syncretic and heterodox religious practices are part of the vernacular literary tradition that illustrates how the littoral villages have lived together. The maritime trade and cultural acquaintances with the wider littoral world has been an obvious influence on the creation of liminal religiosity.

Erik De Maaker and Meenal Tula. 2020. Unequal Land Relations in Northeast India: Custom, Gender and Market. Guwahati: NESRC. 178 pp., ₹150, $10, E8. ISBN: 978-81-943578-5-8.

The article examines two aspects of development presented through an ethnographic study of the project 'Nagaland Empowerment of People through Economic Development'. First is the discursive construction of project beneficiaries as poor, underdeveloped and backward in modernist literature. Second, the article captures inter-household negotiations around developmental resources in the context of microcredit. Drawing on participant observations, oral histories and household interviews, I explore the micro-politics of everyday life to reflect on the contesting representations of 'beneficiary community' and 'project experts'. In addition, I analyse the struggle within the community for resources made available by the project. This illuminates the actors, networks and institutions involved in community development programmes and problematizes ideal conceptualization of communities as a site for collective participation. The article highlights practices of objectification and the creation of a populist discourse on participation that overlooks multiple layers of patronage, public and self-interest exercised by project beneficiaries in community development programmes. Additionally, the article investigates how the lack of 'care' in modernist participatory agricultural development discourse undermines the community's aspirations for development and establishes a rupture between policy and practice.

The paper explores climate change induced hydro hazards and its impact on tribal communities in Majuli (largest river island of Brahmaputra River Basin). The island has been experiencing recurrent floods, erosion, and siltation, which has distressed the socio-economic foundation and livelihood of the Mishing—a indigenous community on Northeast India, leading to out migration from the island. The indicators selected to capture the vulnerability of the island to climate change are dependency ratio; occurrence of natural hazards (floods) and coping methods; income of the household; and livelihood diversification. To gather the quantitative and qualitative data on these parameters the methods was designed to conduct both sample survey of households and focus group discussions. The findings reveal that in the selected villages, the dependency ratio is 4 (dependents): 1 (earning member); average income of the household is low i.e. $ 40/month and is declining as compared to last few years because of frequent floods, erosion and siltation that has decreased farm productivity which is the main source of income. The impact of changing climate and heightened flood and erosion risk to farmlands has been forced migration to cities and neighboring urban centers like Jorhar for stable livelihood. Therefore, we propose that a possible way to enhance social resilience to changing climate and vagaries of monsoon (tropical disturbances) is to promote alternative occupation like eco-tourism as (Majuli is the center of Vaisnavism and Satras in Northeast India) and invest in adaptive strategies to mitigate flood by incorporating lay and place-based knowledge of the Mishing community in flood management. Also facilitate community's participation and awareness towards hydro hazards based on flood proof housing focusing on indigenous knowledge.

The indigenous world of Naga tribes has come to the attention through colonial ethnographies, census documentation and itineraries developed by early travel writers, botanists, foot soldiers, surveyors, tea planters and later hill administrators. Anthropological knowledge in this part of colonial India grew out of the need to control the "savage other" through imposition of "house tax" and "forced labour" that restricted their "autonomy". This mechanism of political control was not strictly obligatory for the Nagas. Instead the hill administration worked hand in hand with the village headmen and local go between (dobashis) to establish patronage and rule of law. As Bernard Cohen (1996) has attentively argued, the administrative-ethnographic discourse was a crucial cultural technology of ruler. For the administrator-ethnographers the natives of the Naga Hills represented primitive societies almost untouched by (Western, Buddhist or Hindu) Civilizations. Jhum cultivation or slash and burn farming, head hunting rituals and slave trade practices became a key part of the colonial strategy to caricature the Nagas as savage and hedonistic. The imperial project of administering the frontier was thus justified. Textual and visual documentation of the Naga tribes gave literal and symbolic meaning to these portrayals. It led to ethic classification – 'ethnic involution' or 'ethno genesis' (Van Schendel 1992, Sumit Guha 1999) of the Nagas – social differentiation of hill people from the plains.