About the Author

Jaideep Saikia is a security analyst from Guwahati, India. He went to school at the Rashtriya Indian Military College in Dehra Dun, India and received his BA and MA degrees from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi. He is the author of Contours: Essays on Security and Strategy (Guwahati: Sagittarius Print, 2001) and Lyrics from the Amygdala: A Collection of Poems (Calcutta: Cambridge India, 2003), and editor of Development Challenges in India: Assam Faces the 21^st Century (Delhi: Omsons Publication, 2002). Saikia has also authored over two dozen papers on ethnic and religious insurgencies in South Asia in edited academic collections and journals such as Studies in Conflict and Terrorism; Faultlines: Writings on Conflict and Resolution; Aakrosh: The Asian Journal on International Terrorism and Conflicts; and Border Affairs.

The present study has been completed under the aegis of a Ford Foundation fellowship, which Saikia was awarded for the year 2003. The research on Islamic militancy in North East India was conducted at the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the findings of which are published in this Occasional Paper. The author can be contacted at <jaideepsaikia@rediffmail.com>.