India’s north-east is often generalised, misunderstood and understudied. Its cultural diversity, decades of armed insurrections, ethnic violence and identity politics have intrigued scholars for the past few decades. To many, the u nderstanding of some major tribes of the r egion – their lifestyle, world view and aspirations, and putting them t ogether as an analytical category and clubbing the whole north-eastern states as “northeast” – seems to snugly fi t their analysis. The generalised presumptions, time and again, overlook the diversity of the region. In contrast, each state has described itself as a “mini India”.