An Ecology of Resistance: Everyday Defiance, Collective Action, and Armed Struggle in the NSCN-IM’s Nationalist Project

This Paper intervenes in the discipline of Resistance studies by challenging the dominant treatment of Resistance, Social movements, and armed rebellion as analytically distinct and often examined in isolation. This compartmentalisation of the concepts obscures the relational aspect of the variables. Similar to Asara v’s (2017) reconceptualisation of social movements and resistance as relational and constitutive processes, this paper builds on such an important framework and argues that resistance, social movements, and armed rebellion are mutually constitutive and relational elements which should be analysed relationally. Rather than viewing armed rebellion as an exceptional or escalatory form of resistance, or social movements as episodic moments of mobilisation, the paper argues that the broader discipline of resistance encompasses routine practices, collective organisation and militarised struggle. The relational framework fosters a rich analysis of how these forms coexist, overlap, and shape each other over time. Through an in-depth analysis of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM), and its nationalist project of Greater Nagaland. NSCN-IM being the largest insurgent group in Northeast India, a region which is identified to be one of the most conflicted zones in the world and the longest running non-state movement in South Asia. The NSCN-IM is analysed not merely as an armed insurgent organisation but as a political project embedded within a wider ecology of resistance. Its parallel governance structures, taxation regimes, ceasefire-era negotiations, and nationalist narratives demonstrate how armed rebellion is sustained through, and in turn reshapes, broader practices of resistance and social mobilisation. Routine social practices, moral economies, and prefigurative institutions operate alongside organised movement politics and armed struggle, blurring conventional distinctions between resistance, social movements, and alternative political orders. The paper employs a qualitative approach. It tries to address three central questions: (1) How are resistance, social movements, and armed rebellion relationally constituted within the Naga nationalist movement? (2) How does the NSCN-IM institutionalise and draw legitimacy from this relational ecology of contention? (3) How does a relational framework advance Resistance Studies beyond typological and event-centred approaches?. The paper argues that resistance in Northeast India cannot be understood in isolation, as it is intertwined with social movements and armed rebellion. The study contributes to Resistance Studies by offering a framework capable of capturing the complexity, durability, and political ordering effects of resistance in protracted conflict zones. Keywords: Resistance, Social Movements, Armed Struggles, South Asia, and Insurgency.