The Making of an Authority

Abstract

This chapter examines how the everyday social life of contemporary Lakhipathar is shaped and influenced by its extraordinary past of violence. Examining the place of the army in the present, it analyses what ‘peace’ and ‘normalcy’ mean in contemporary Lakhipathar and how notions of community and belongingness, right and wrong are conceptualized in the shadow of an armed force. The chapter brings up parallels between the period when ULFA was uncontested and was seen as the authority in Lakhipathar, and the contemporary period, when the army’s existence in Lakhipathar has come to be accepted as part of the regular, and as contributory to the civic life the people, by using examples from sport, culture and community life. The chapter draws on ethnographic field material, both in the form of narratives and field observations.