For more than two centuries, the large and interconnected region spanning northeast Bengal, Burma and what is today known as Northeast India has been intersected by a multitude of formal and informal boundaries. The validity, strength and importance of these boundaries have varied greatly over time and space, as has their quality. During the last century, political tension made identity politics a key marker, and many boundaries claimed to enclose people of particular ethnic or community belongings. From the mid-to late nineteenth century, the British colonial government frequently argued for the need to keep particular ethnologically defined ‘tribes’ apart for reasons of control and security. The heavy handed colonial policies often resulted in violent clashes, and their insensitive encroachments into people’s lives and livelihoods also resonated in the administration of independent India.