In the Margins of Empires: A History of the Chicken's Neck

by Akhilesh Upadhyay

The prevailing narrative and knowledge ecosystem, and most certainly newspaper and TV reporting, on the Himalaya is dominated by colonial and postcolonial situational exposés that are informed by the Centres’ perspectives. Hence, many writings suffer from the imperial gaze, on the one hand, and a recency bias on the other, while approaching the peripheries as either exotic destinations or military hotspots with red lines drawn on snow-capped peaks, crests and arid plateaus.

The Himalaya has always been a contested region and has gained even more political salience after the 1962 Sino-Indian border war and, more so in recent times, with the rise of India and China.
What gets lost are the voices and lives of the people who actually call the Himalaya home.
In the Margins of Empires documents the lives and livelihoods of the borderlands in the Eastern Himalayan region—Nepal, Bhutan, pre-1950 Tibet and the post-1950 Tibetan Autonomous Region, Sikkim, Darjeeling, and India’s North-East. The book is an effort to look at the region as an organic whole, from within the region, connected through centuries of transboundary traders, travellers, scholars, monastic exchanges, but also by missionaries, monks, and moles.

As border infrastructure across the Himalaya in TAR and India is being constantly upgraded, and as India and China play a cat-and-mouse game, smaller states and communities in the borderlands, including the Chicken’s Neck, find themselves caught up in the larger geopolitical arena. With fresh analysis, great insight, and on-the-ground reportage, Akhilesh Upadhyay tells the story of the region and of communities that remain wedged between giants, yet are also shaping their own futures in the shadow of the Himalaya’s peaks.

What does the future of the region look like? Perhaps it will follow the mystique of the Himalaya.

329 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 8, 2025

Reviews

[Thaths · Rating 1 out of 5]

Frustrating book. Supposedly about the region of "Chicken's neck" / Siliguri corridor that has historically linked Tibet, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and the states of North East India. But the book falls way short in so many ways. For once it is extremely repetitive. Not just across chapters, but repetition every few pages in the same chapter. And where a chronological narrative of something that happened could have helped immensely, the author frustratingly jumps a decade into the future. For example, when talking about the early occupation of Tibet by the PLA in the 1950's, the author suddenly jumps to Nixon's China visit in the 70's. If there is a thesis in the book beyond "this is an important region" I was unable to find it.

[Bindesh Dahal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The effort to tell the story of the margins - societal and geopolitical - in the complex Himalayan terrain is sincere but the execution lacks finesse. It appears that the writer collected a wealth of information but got lost while arranging them into a coherent final product. Things repeat a lot, irritating the reader. The book does not provide any new insight. However, I would cut some slack because it is the author's first book.