Dimapur has a limited public history, rarely features in popular culture, and has failed to capture the information of scholars. This chapter addresses the question ‘why Dimapur’ and offers six answers that serve as the book’s argument. First, Dimapur is the largest city in a tribal majority state. Second, Dimapur gives us the opportunity to frame frontier urbanism as a research agenda in India/South Asia. Third, more than just a city, Dimapur is a spatial experiment, a zone between the hills and plains, between tribal and non-tribal space. Fourth, Dimapur is a city governed under extraordinary laws with a substantial military presence and two camps of surrendered militants on its outskirts. Fifth, Dimapur has been both a city of conflict and a city of refuge. Finally, Dimapur allows the opportunity to begin an account of the Northeast, and Nagaland in particular, with urban modernity.
