About NEIPSA

ONWARD MARCH OF NORTH EAST INDIA POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION (NEIPSA)

Organization provides a platform to its members to think and act for their mutual development in respective fields. North East India Political Science Association (NEIPSA) is an academic organization and it provides scope for scholastic and non-scholastics development of its members particularly in the field of the Political Science. It was the brainchild of a small group of the political scientists of different educational institutions of North East India. However, these groups have to wait for about a decade to get the fruits of their effort. In the words of barrister Pakem, “Some political scientists of the region (made) attempts in the early seventies to establish such an organization.” However, for some reasons we had to wait for two decades more to translate that dream into a reality and finally it came in to being in 1990 at Shillong.

The constitution of NEIPSA was adopted on the 4th day of November 1991. It defines the objective as the advancement and the popularization of political science; scientific study of political problems and the public affairs ; holding annual conference , occasional seminar and arranging of the lecturers publication of journals, articles and lecturers, pamphlets and book etc; cooperation with the Indian political Science Association and other organization having similar objects; performance of all other acts that may be conducive to or necessary for the fulfillment of the objectives and to organize and help research in Political Science. The membership of the association is open to teachers of Political Science and such other persons who are interested in the study of Political Science, residing ordinarily in North East India.

NEIPSA organized its first annual conference at North Eastern Hills University in 1991. As the organization was just formed and it had few members, this conference was held in a small way. Its second annual conference, held at Gauhati University on 4th and 5th December 1992 was a much bigger exercise. This conference held an open symposium on Federal restructuring of India. Distinguished personalities like Sri Sarat Chandra Sinha, Prof. Niru Hazarika, Prof.A.K. Baruah and Shri Sarbananda Sonowal took part in the symposium. The conference seminar was held on two themes- Status of teaching and research of Political Science in North East India and Government and Politics in North East India NEIPSA and the local organizing Committee could mobilize financial support for the conference from a number of sources like the Government of Meghalaya, Gauhati University, North Eastern Hills University and ICSSR- Shillong. Since then NEIPSA has been regularly holding its annual conference at different places of the North East, in every such conference a seminar in invariably organized on a pre-identified topic. In order to encourage members to write scholarly papers on the topics that fall in their areas of interest, sometimes more than one theme are chosen for the conference and seminar. It is significant that among the authors of the seminar papers many are pioneers. Besides, many of our members, particularly those who live in remote areas of North East, do not have easy access to standards libraries. It stands as hindrance in their progress of writing scholarly papers. Therefore, sometimes it may not be possible on their part to write perfect seminar papers in methodology and content. .NEIPSA takes pride in making attempts to improve the standard of these papers by sending them to the appointed referees and informing the authors about the opinion and suggestions of the referees on their papers. The papers revised in this manner are published in the proceeding volume.

On two occasions the local organizing committee tagged a national seminar along with the NEIPSA Conference. Among other benefits, such steps help the local organizing committee to generate fund from regular funding agencies like UGC, ICSSR etc. Some common expenditure of the National Seminar and NEPISA conference can be met from such funds, without disturbing the purpose of the former and the budget earmarked for it. First such joint seminar was held at NEHU, Shillong on 30th and 31st March 1995 when the theme of the NEPISA seminar was ‘Youth and social movement’ and that of the attached national seminar, Student Movements in North east India.’(4) The second was the national seminar on Human Right in India which was tagged with the 8th annual NEPISA conference held at J.B. College, Jorhat on 10th and 11th December, 1998 with the official theme –(a) ‘Human Right in the Context of N.E. India’ and (b) ‘Election 1998’. The papers presented in the two national seminars have come out in book from in 2002 (‘Student power in north in India,’ed. Apurba K. Baruah) and in 2003 (‘Human Right in India.’ ed. Bolin Hazarika).

Over the years some new features have been added to the cap of NEPISA. Most remarkable of all these is the holding of a separate session in each conference absolutely for those want to start with the process of writing scholarly papers. Such members may present paper in this session on any topic of their choice. Known as “Young political Scientist’s Meet,” this session was introduced first in the 10th annual NEPISA Conference, and with warm response from those, for whom it was imitated, in successfully continued till date.

Another new feature of NEPISA is the introduction of V.V. Rao Memorial Lecture in its annual conference. Prof. Sanjib Baruah of Bard College, USA deleverd the first such lecture on “Citizens and Denizens: Ethnic Homelands and the Crisis of Displacement in North East India” at North Lakhimpur Conference. Prof. Sobhanlal dutta Gupta of Calcutta University delivered the second V.V. Rao Lecture on “The competing Claims of India’s Democracy: Crisis and Consequences” at CacharCollege conference. Prof. Udayan Mishra of DibrugrahUniversity delivered the third V.V. rao Lecture on the “Role of civil society in conflict situation” at T.H.B.College conference. Prof. A.K. Baruah delivered V.V. Rao lecture on “Identity based conflict and Democratic Politics in North in India” in G.C.College conference on 21.01.2006. Prof. Birendra Nath Dutta will deliver another lecture on Political Dimensions of Folklore” in DemowCollege on 03.01.2007.

NEIPSA also takes step to organize local level workshop/seminars. First such seminar was held at TinsukiaCollege on ‘Recent Changes in International Relations’ in 2003. In the same year another local seminar was held at TenghakhatCollege on’ Changing Trends in the centre –state Relation’. The sprit was continued in the next year also when on 18.11.2004 a one day workshop on “Modern trends on centre -state Relation” was held at BokakhatCollege. The positive result of all such exercises is nicely reflected in the ever increasing number of the organization’s life members. It may be stated here that NEPISA has more than 450 life members as of now from the entire North East and even outside it.

NEIPSA is dear to all of us. We are sure that with our collective effort it will grow from strength to strength in the forthcoming days.