Traditionally, highland regions around the world have been misunderstood as a space afflicted by anarchy, violence and ignorance. This colonial-era myth has been exploded by the waves of insights and knowledge that have emerged from there. HNC as an institution located in the highland of North East is a witness to this paradigm shift in perception and projection of the highland region from being a realm of ignorance and violence to that of knowledge and privilege. HNC carries the burden and vision of overturning such myths, bring back focus on highland episteme, and demonstrate that reason and discourse do have space in the region.
At HNC it is the collective responsibility of faculty and students in shaping Intellectual acumen, development of Personality, moulding of Character, and instilling of Discipline to prepare a student to be a good citizen and a future leader. Lecture, tutorials and extra-curricular activities – games and sports, activities of the societies of the college are committed to realizing this mission.
HNC was founded with the objective of redefining higher education in the North East. Institutes of higher education where majority of North East students go to are mostly located in the metro-cities where they confront (i) economic constraints – high cost of living, expensive tuition fees, costly conveyance, (ii) socio-cultural distances and discriminations, (iii) exclusive pedagogic culture. Despite ‘affirmative action’ by the state, these constraints tend to exclude North East students and inhibit the national character of these institutions.
HNC endeavours to help students circumvent these challenges by providing higher education with new perspectives that encourage revisiting North East India as a national region that generates superior pragmatic knowledge and applied skills in the field of local governance, environment conservation, gender empowerment, cultural diversity, and human development. These relative advantages enjoyed by North East region vis-à-vis the rest of India were upended by the decline of traditional social institutions, the violent partition and the redrawing of international boundaries that has left the region economically and educationally landlocked and disadvantaged particularly in economic and education sectors.
HNC is founded and managed by alumni of Delhi University (DU), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Delhi), and former faculty members from institutes of national repute from across the country. They bring vast teaching and research experiences in applied technology, peace and conflict studies, management, among others. Currently, HNC offers B.A. (Hons.) in social sciences. From the next academic year, the college will add B.Sc. (Hons.) courses in natural sciences as well. HNC campus is currently located in the beautiful Kanglatongbi area about 15 kilometers from Imphal city.