The peoples of the Far Eastern Himalaya, isolated from each other by hills, jungles, rivers and national boundaries, confront similar challenges based on changing demography, economic neglect, conflict over resources and governmental suppression. In response, the Far Easterners are vehemently asserting their ethnic identity and fighting the paternalistic nation state. Cycles of unreason and circles of violence characterise a region that is fast becoming one of the most violent corners of Asia.
The stretch of the Far Eastern Himalaya from Sikkim eastward is significantly different from the rest of the mountain range. The reach of the Ganga plains—of Hindu ethos and historical Moslem influence—is much more muted here. If anything, many of the animistic hill tribes have gone the other way by embracing Christianity. Unlike the cultures of the faraway flatlands, these eastern communities are more directly linked to the Tibetans of the north, or the Indo-Chinese of the south and east.
The region is also unique in its geography. Although part of the same Himalayan range, these southern latitudes nurture a lush tropical landscape drenched by one of the highest precipitation rates in the world—strikingly different from the high desert of Ladakh or the dry terraces of West Nepal. The High Himalaya itself is lower at these extremities; with the peaks descending eastward from Mount Everest (8848m) in the Khumbu, to Kanchenjunga (8598m) at the Nepal-Sikkim border, to Namcha Barwa (7756m), standing guard as the great bend of the Tsangpo). .About here, the Himalaya breaks southward into Burma and dwindles away eastward into hills of the Hengduan mountains of Sichuan-Yunnan.
From Sikkim, with Tibet a constant companion to the North, the political boundary snakes across Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh, where it makes a sharp southern twist to plunge along the edges of Yunnan Province into Burma's Chin and Kachin hills, with spurs roping in the states of Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur, before meandering through Tripura into the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, close by the sea.