Identity and Experience at the India-Bangladesh Border T he effects of the Partition of India in 1947 have been more far-reaching and complex than the existing partition narratives of violence and separation reveal. The immediacy of the movement of refugees between India and the newly-formed state of Pakistan overshadowed the actual effect of the drawing of the border between the two states. The book is an empirical study of border narratives across the India-Bangladesh border, specifically the West Bengal part of India’s border with Bangladesh. It tries to move away from the perpetrator state-victim civilian framework usually used in the studies of marginal people, and looks at the kind of agencies that the border people avail themselves of. Instead of looking at the border as the periphery, the book looks at it as the line of convergence and negotiations – the ‘centre of the people’ who survive it every day. It shows that various social, political and economic identities converge at the borderland and are modified in unique ways by the spatial specificity of the border – thus forming a ‘border identity’ and a ‘border consciousness’. Common sense of the civilians and the state machinery (embodied in the border guards) collide, cooperate and affect each other at the borderlands to form this unique spatial consciousness. It is the everyday survival strategies of the border people which aptly reflects this consciousness rather than any universal border theory or state-centric discourses about the borders. A bottom-up approach is of utmost importance in order to understand how a spatially unique area binds diverse other identities into a larger spatial identity of a ‘border people’. T he book’s relevance lies in its attempt to explore such everyday narratives across the Bengal border, while avoiding any major theorising project so as not to choke the potential of such experience-centred insights into the lives of a unique community of people. In that, it contributes towards a study of borders globally, providing potential approaches to understand border people worldwide. Based on detailed field research, this book brings a fresh approach to the study of this border. It will be of interest to researchers in the field of South Asian studies, citizenship, development, governance and border studies. Debdatta Chowdhury is currently an Assistant Professor in Gender Studies at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta. Her research interests include border narratives, citizenship and migration discourses, especially across the South Asian borders. Her research interests also include feminism, caste identities, queer theories and narratives, especially in the South Asian context. Routledge Studies in Asian Diasporas, Migrations and Mobilities Migration, Micro-Business and Tourism in Thailand Highlanders in the City Alexander Trupp Indian Immigrant Women and Work The American Experience Vijaya M. Ramya and Bidisha Biswas Chinese Transnational Migration in the Age of Global Modernity The Case of Oceania Liangni Sally Liu Identity and Experience at the India-Bangladesh Border The Crisis of Belonging Debdatta Chowdhury For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Studies-in-Asian-Diasporas-Migrations-and-Mobilities/book-series/ RSADMM Identity and Experience at the India-Bangladesh Border The Crisis of Belonging Debdatta Chowdhury First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Debdatta Chowdhury The right of Debdatta Chowdhury to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-138-21080-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-29681-4 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC Note: The maps in this book are historical maps and they are included here for representative purposes. The international boundaries, coastlines, denominations, and other information shown do not necessarily imply any judgement concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such information. For current boundaries, readers may refer to the Survey of India maps. Contents List of figures vi List of maps vii Preface viii Acknowledgement s x 1 Introduction 1 2 Livelihood practices: legal, illegal and the grey-zone in between 29 3 Spatial disparities: enclaves, Chars and disputed territories 90 4 Ethno-cultural concerns: appropriation of marginal spaces 141 5 Gendered practices: perpetrators, victims, accomplices 177 6 Conclusion 219 Bibliography 229 Index 239 Figures 1.1 Border pillar facing India with Bangladeshi road beyond, 2012. 10 2.1 Fencing along the South Dinajpur border, West Bengal, 2012. 32 2.2 Cattle h aat , 2012. 52 2.3 Informal border market beside border outposts. Indian shopkeeper selling products to Bangladeshi customers, 2011. 65 3.1 Bangladeshi enclave in India, 2012. 95 3.2 Hospital in Dahagram, 2011. 118 3.3 Tinbigha Corridor leading to mainland Bangladesh, 2011. 119 3.4 India’s border fence through which the land indicated above ( Ghoj ) passes, 2012. 127 Maps 3.1 Diagrammatic sketch map of Cooch Behar enclaves (C hhits ). Redrawn map. Source: District Map of Cooch Behar, Govt. of India. 91 3.2 Location of T inbigha , Cooch Behar. Redrawn map. Source: Cooch Behar District Map, Govt. of India. 114 3.3 Location map of T inbigha . Redrawn map. Source: Cooch Behar District Map, Govt. of India. 116 Preface Cultural and linguistic difference between people is often the genesis of a car- tographic border formation – an almost natural and obvious boundary-making between people speaking different tongues and observing different customs. Most of the borders in the world, be they inter-state or intra-state, have followed this logic of letting a natural boundary form where a set of socio-linguistic practices end and a new set of practices begin, often with overlapping traits along the bor- ders. The Bengal border is a unique case, in being an imposed border, forced down upon culturally/linguistically similar people, on the basis of religious cat- egorisations, that too mostly without a rhyme or reason. A mainland was, thus, at a stroke of a pen, transformed into a borderland – a transformation that was neither precise nor complete – resulting in a complicated border fabric. The mainstay of this book, and the study that it has been based on, is an understanding of the pro- cess of this very transformation of a mainland into a borderland and the diverse socio-cultural, political and economic narratives that it has produced in the pro- cess of this transformation. The process of the formation of a borderland can be best understood by a ripple effect where the nearest areas to the borderline are the most affected – forming the core border zone – while the farther the area is from the borderline, the lesser the impact, until the areas cease to identify themselves with the border and see themselves as mainlanders. This, pretty much, stands as the logic of calling an area a border zone or mainland. T his book aims to divest the border and the lives of its people of a certain mys- tery that engulfs a mainlander’s idea of a border. Films, writings, reminiscences often romanticise the Bengal border as an aftermath of Partition and rarely con- sider the border as anything beyond an embodiment of loss, grief, separation and dystopia. A lot of seminal works on the Bengal border have gone a long way in demystifying it. But most of them have identified the border as a space of subver- sion and aberration – an abnormal way of life demanding constant control and rectification by the involved states. This is true of the Bengal border, but not the entire picture. Most of the existing works have also attempted at theorising the border or locating it within the larger discourses of border-making. The aim of this study is not just to demystify or de-romanticise the border but also to consciously avoid theorising the border, in order to avoid the border narratives from being enclosed within specific disciplinary frameworks. That would be an injustice to Preface ix the diverse strands of identity formations as experienced by the borderlanders. The aim is not to reach a conclusion or even form views, but to reveal border life as and how it is experienced by the border people. It is aimed at highlighting the lived realities of the people, to focus on their ‘crisis of belonging’ and how they turn the crisis in their favour in the course of their everyday survival. No single disciplinary tool can do justice to the dynamism of border life. On the contrary, it takes away the ambiguities and uniqueness that characterises this border. Sta- tistical data or graphs have, likewise, been rarely used, in order to maintain the essence of individual experiences and perspectives, rather than objectifying and neutralising these experiences into mere statistical information. S ince the focus has been on the narratives, the language and articulation of the interviewees have been kept intact – the essence of their thoughts maintained as far as possible. The articulation has often been ambiguous, politically incorrect. But nothing has been polished or rectified while transcribing, in order to maintain the spontaneity of the responses. A lot of varied issues have been discussed, while a lot more have been left out. Only the recurrent issues, which have spontaneously cropped up in almost all conversations (open-ended interviews), have been included. The focus has been essentially on the West Bengal-Bangladesh border and has, thus, left out India’s north-eastern border with Bangladesh, because of logistical limitations (my inability to visit Bangladesh’s border with India’s north-east) and because of the ethno-cultural specificities of India’s north-eastern states, which calls for separate in-depth study. Issues like connectivity, religious fundamentalism and terrorism along the borderland have been mentioned, but not as much as issues like these demand. That is because the interviews were meant to highlight more of the everyday lives of the border people, and less of the issues of inter-state bilateral affairs. Very recent trends across this border have also not been touched upon, limiting the discussion to September 2013, when the doctoral research was completed. A few updates have been included though, simply to place a few issues within their current contexts. The book often reads like a string of conver- sations, rather than a critical analysis of a cartographically sensitised space that becomes the platform for diverse identity formations. But that, precisely, brings out the everydayness of a border life, showing how surviving the border is weaved into the daily lives and practices of its people. Daily lives and practices, rather than specific events or issues per se, have, thus, formed much of the conversa- tions. Border-making is not a one-time event, nor is it simply an issue of security, nationalistic discourses or containment of the subjects of a nation – it is a lived experience for the people who negotiate it, survive it and use it to serve their needs. Victimhood is not the only index to understand the border. Agency and appropriation are as integral to a borderlander’s life. And this is what forms the crux of this book.