Once the birth of Telangana seemed certain on paper, many areas in the Northeast saw a renewed call for Statehood.
The Bodos, the Karbis and the Gorkhas all raised their voices for separate States. Road blockades, rail roko and violence were reported from across the region, more so in the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts, the Karbi Anglong District in Assam and the Darjeeling Hills in the upper reaches of West Bengal.
During this period, I travelled extensively, covering agitations across Assam and West Bengal, looking at and photographing these three movements. All these regions have a history of separatist struggles demanding new States that would divide them from their current States based on ethnic and linguistic lines. What the Centre had set into motion was bound to have far-reaching effects on the eastern periphery of the Indian nation.
(Vivek Singh is a Delhi-based freelance photojournalist. He reported with the help of a grant from the Manuel Rivera Ortiz Foundation for Documentary Photography and Film 2013)