(Re) reading Chivu Stone Inscriptions: Colonial Archives, National Histories and Commemorations in North-eastern India

There are a large number of contested spaces, objects, monuments, historical figures, events and memories in North-eastern states of India. Their commemorations often incite historical controversies, which often spill into the fragile, contested political landscape of the region. The construction of a memorial park at the site of nineteenth century stone inscriptions recently dragged these inscriptions out from historical obscurity, and hence they became another site of contested history in the region. This article historicises the creation of these contested objects and commemorations, in the local and colonial archives, and subsequent writing of national histories in the region. It will also look at the entanglements and intertextualities between these archives and local histories, and how they produced these contested objects and their numerous histories.