Article Reconfiguring the Tribe: Changing Ethnic Affiliations in India’s Northeast Roderick Wijunamai 1 Abstract This essay sees the form and functioning of the Zeliangrong Naga community as a work in progress. Rather than a perennial, historically immutable and delimited entity, the (relatively recent) formation of the Zeliangrong community indicates that tribes can be formed afresh and that tribal identities are constantly in flux. I begin by tracing and placing the origins of the Zeliangrong Naga as told by Zeliangrong elders and circulating origin and migration stories. Then, continuing my focus on ethnic alignment and realignment, I studied the Zeliangrong move- ment that emerged in the 1920s. At first, they advocated a Naga Raj through the ousting of the colonial government. Over time, however, this rebellion changed direction and reduced its ambitions to the creation of a Zeliangrong homeland that would unite the Zeliangrong people who currently inhabit three different states of Northeast India, namely Manipur, Nagaland and Assam. Drawing both on historical analysis and fresh ethnography this essay shows how over time the Zeliangrong ethnic identity has come under strain and is increasingly internally contested with its constituent parts now expressing divergent political aspira- tions while also struggling over status, standing and dominance within. Keywords Zeliangrong Naga, tribe, ethnicity, identity, Northeast India Introduction On 8 September 2020, the apex bodies of the four constituent tribes of Zeliangrong Naga came together and released a press statement. ‘Inpui Union, Liangmai Naga Council, Rongmei Naga Council and Zeme Naga Council are the only legitimate bodies that legally represent the voice[s] of the respective tribes’, the statement asserted. 1 The press release also clarified that they not only dissociate themselves Sociological Bulletin 1–13 © 2024 Indian Sociological Society Article reuse guidelines: in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india DOI: 10.1177/00380229241287461 journals.sagepub.com/home/sob 1 Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Corresponding author: Roderick Wijunamai, Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA. E-mail: rdrck.wjnm@gmail.com