As India and the world are roiled by questions of nationalism and identity, this book journeys into the history of one of the world's newest and most fascinating regions: Northeast India. Having appeared with the stroke of a pen in 1947, as the British Raj was torn asunder and partitioned into India and Pakistan, this is a region of river valleys and hills inhabited by myriad tribes. Until colonial rule, several of these tribes had lived in their ancient ways, largely unmolested by their neighbours, who were rather keen to avoid their traditions of headhunting.

Samrat Choudhury chronicles the processes by which these remote hill tribes, and the diverse other peoples inhabiting the valley of the vast Brahmaputra river, became parts of the 'imagined nation' that is India. He explores two other ideas of India that remain in daily competition: Bharat, the Hindu nationalist conception of the country, and Hindustan, the Persian-origin name by which India is still known as far west as Turkey. Taking a long view, this absorbing political history chronicles the separate pathways by which imperialism, Christianity and the British love of tea brought each of the contemporary region's constituent states into modern India.