India’s Bangladesh Problem: The Marginalization of Bengali Muslims in Neoliberal Times 9781009259422, 9781009259392, 2022049330, 2022049331, 9781009259408

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India’s Bangladesh Problem

In recent years, Bengali Muslims in India have faced harassment and scapegoating as the trope of the illegal Bangladeshi has gained political currency. India’s Bangladesh Problem explores the experience of Bengali Muslims on the Indian side of the India–Bangladesh border in the context of neoliberal policies, unequal bilateral relations, labor migration, contested citizenship, and increasingly xenophobic government rhetoric. Drawing on extensive research in the borderlands and hinterlands of both countries, Navine Murshid argues that ever-deepening neoliberal policies across the border have shaped how certain ethnic groups are valued and have reconfigured social hierarchies. She provides new insights into the strategic inclusion, exclusion, and invisibility that characterizes Bengali Muslims’ lives, rendering them a group susceptible to manipulation by virtue of their ethnic kinship to the majority of Bangladeshis. In turn, Bengali Muslims simultaneously resist and utilize received neoliberal ideas to sustain their lives and livelihoods at a time when neoliberal development has largely bypassed them. Navine Murshid is an associate professor of political science at Colgate University. She is the author of The Politics of Refugees in South Asia: Identity, Resistance, Manipulation (Routledge, 2013).

India’s Bangladesh Problem The Marginalization of Bengali Muslims in Neoliberal Times Navine Murshid Colgate University

Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8EA, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05-06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge. We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009259422 DOI: 10.1017/9781009259392 © Navine Murshid 2023 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. First published 2023 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Murshid, Navine, author. Title: India’s Bangladesh problem : the marginalization of Bengali Muslims in neoliberal times / Navine Murshid. Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022049330 (print) | LCCN 2022049331 (ebook) | ISBN 9781009259422 (hardback) | ISBN 9781009259408 (paperback) | ISBN 9781009259392 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Muslims–India–West Bengal–Social conditions. | Muslims–India–Assam–Social conditions. | West Bengal (India)–Ethnic relations. | Assam (India)–Ethnic relations. | Borderlands–West Bengal (India) | Borderlands–Bangladesh. Classification: LCC DS485.B493 M887 2023 (print) | LCC DS485.B493 (ebook) | DDC 305.6/97095414–dc23/eng/20221018 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022049330 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022049331 ISBN 978-1-009-25942-2 Hardback Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To my family

Contents

List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction I.1 I.2 I.3 I.4

The Imposed Inferiority of Bengali Muslims in Colonial India Interventions Research Terrain Outline of the Book

1 Neoliberalism and Identity-Based Hierarchy 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4

Interstate Relations between Bangladesh and India Differential Neoliberalism in Bangladesh and India Identity-Based Social Hierarchy in India Conclusion

2 Borders as Sites of Strength and Vulnerability 2.1 Neoliberal Borderlands 2.2 Life and Identity in the Borderlands Negotiating Neoliberalism 2.3 Conclusion

3 Assam and the “Illegal” Other 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6

Violent Manifestations of Marginalization Colonial Divisions: Forests, Hills, Plains, and Encroachment Assam: Independence, for Whom? Neoliberal Assam Exclusion and Inclusion through Population Registers Conclusion

page ix x xi 1 7 12 15 23

25 25 34 51 66

68 70 79 98

103 105 107 111 119 135 142

4 Whatever Happened to Bengali Nationalism? The “Appeased” Muslims of West Bengal 144 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5

Early Predisposition Socioeconomic Conditions of Bengali Muslims in West Bengal The New Economy Identity-Based Hierarchy in the Neoliberal Period Conclusion

146 150 156 162 178

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Contents

Conclusion

180

Select Bibliography Appendices Notes Index

187 207 232 263

Figures

1.1 Number of treaties, agreements, and MOUs between Bangladesh and India, 1970–2020 page 32 2.1 Signpost on the Indian side of a border check-post 101 2.2 Poster advertising employment in Saudi Arabia at a roadside restaurant on the Bangladeshi side of a border check-post 102

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Tables

3.1 Agreements and Acts related to immigration in the 1950s 3.2 Government regulations pertaining to immigration in the 1950s 4.1 Muslims as a percentage of total population in the districts of West Bengal and the percentage of Bengali Muslims who live below the poverty line

x

page 114 115 155

Acknowledgments

I have incurred significant debt in the nine years that went into researching and writing this book. I am beholden to those who shared their knowledge and experiences to help me analyze critically the casual xenophobia that has made its way into the Indian public domain. I am deeply grateful for the conversations with my interlocutors, many of whom shared intimate anecdotes and descriptions of everyday life that veered on the quasi-legal as a way to survive what we might call the everyday communalism in India. I am grateful for their hospitality and offers of tea and biscuits or soda to facilitate our adda sessions. I would like to thank those who facilitated this field research logistically, in particular, Touhidul Islam, Rowshan Ara, and Arzoo Sharmin. Colleagues and administrators at Colgate University provided me with a permanent intellectual home and afforded me the academic freedom to pursue research on a subject that might be deemed marginal to global politics. I am grateful to Colgate University’s Research Council and the Lampert Institute for funding different parts of the research over the years. Jyoti Balachandran, Joel Bordeaux, Aftab Jassal, Padma Kaimal, Eliza Kent, Ani Maitra, and Nimanthi Rajasingham – South Asianists at Colgate – were the first to hear my thoughts on this project, read early drafts, and provide the necessary encouragement to get this project started. My colleagues in the political science department read early drafts of some chapters as part of the Junior Faculty Colloquium and provided helpful feedback. I have benefited from thoughtful comments from Juan Fernando Ibarra del Cueto, Dominika Koter, and Valerie Morevičius. I would also like to thank my two hardworking student research assistants: Alan Dowling for compiling the details of violence against Bengali Muslims in Assam, and Arnab Hait for his help with the bibliography. The American Institute for India Studies (AIIS) provided a generous grant that allowed me to stay in Kolkata, India, in 2017–18. AIIS’s office in Ballygunge, Kolkata, provided a quiet environment for me to think and write, made all the more appealing by its proximity to the best xi

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Bengali food that a restaurant could offer in Kolkata. Discussing my project with local scholars during my time in India was indeed a privilege. I would like to acknowledge all who attended the talks at The Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, University of Calcutta, and Omeo Kumar Das Institute of Social Change and Development – their remarks and suggestions influenced the direction of my research and reinforced the importance of such a project. I have presented parts of the book at various stages of its progress at the Annual South Asia Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, for the past ten years. I am grateful to the panel organizers, copanelists, discussants, as well as conference participants who took the time to discuss my work with me. Sections of Chapter 3 appeared as part of an article titled “Assam and the Foreigner Within” in Asian Survery. I thank the University of California Press for their policy of granting authors the copyright over their published work. This book has benefited from conversations with a wide range of people over the years across the continent: Sabir Ahamed, Rais Ahmed, Zamser Ali, Rahul Ananda, Subir Bhawmik, Suvojit Bagchi, Sanjay Barbora, Sanjib Baruah, Mau Bhattacharyya, Anne Blackburn, Samir Das, Partha Chatterjee, Debdatta Chowdhury, Elora Chowdhury, Nusrat Chowdhury, Sahana Ghosh, Meghna Guhathakurta, Chad Haines, Bonojit Hussain, Naveeda Khan, Bratya Raisu, Ali Riaz, Yasmin Saikia, Awrup Sanyal, Subir Sarkar, Dina Siddiqi, Kabir Suman, Iresh Zaker. I am particularly grateful to those who made time to read previous drafts of this manuscript and gave extensive feedback – Amit Rahul Baishya, Bina D’Costa, Shazia Iftikhar, Lamia Karim, Eliza Kent, Subhasish Ray, and Elora Shehabuddin. I have also benefited tremendously from the two rounds of thoughtful reviews from two anonymous reviewers assigned by Cambridge University Press. I was in the last phase of writing, having just returned from yet another trip to India in early 2020 when Covid-19 hit. Writing during a national stay-in-place order with two young children at home was a new experience, but one that highlighted the importance of human connection, even if digitally. Writing accountability partners Nimanthi Rajasingham, Ed Fogarty, and Elana Shever have helped keep the momentum going, even on trying days. I am grateful to online groups AM 2019 and Probashi Mastan Mastarni for holding space for my rants and vents since then. Writing – like parenting – clearly needs a village! My husband Nagesh Rao has been a wonderful and equal partner, who also made time to read the manuscript and offered feedback. My two children, Neeladri and Neerdhara, not only gave me companionship during my fieldwork, but many sections of the book were written with them hanging onto my legs or neck. They have, indeed, been a constant

Acknowledgments

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source of joy and entertainment. I could always count on my sister Nadine Shaanta Murshid to tell me the truth in a way only a twin can perhaps do. My parents, Shameem Subrana and KAS Murshid, served as my sounding board, travel companions, babysitters, and hosts during my various travels, not to mention the bearers of good food. My in-laws, my mother-in-law Suseela Rao in particular, have rooted for me from afar. I have missed my grandparents whose stories of Partition and 1971 have shaped my understanding of Bangladeshi history and who would have had a lot to say about this book. I constantly miss my brother Shabab who will forever remain fifteen in my heart. For their love, inspiration, and patience, I dedicate this book to my family.

Introduction

“You can write it down. After May 16, these Bangladeshis better be prepared with their bags packed.”1 This was Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Prime Ministerial candidate, talking about “solving the illegal Bangladeshi problem” during an election campaign in 2014 in West Bengal, India.2 As he was no troll but a candidate for the highest political office in the country, Modi boosted the legitimacy of paranoid claims about Bangladeshi “infiltrators” living secretly among Indians. It mattered that he said this in West Bengal, a state with a lovehate relationship with Bangladesh. It was a test of the strength of Bengali solidarity: a test to see if such xenophobia could counter the bhai-bhai (brotherly) relationship between West Bengal and Bangladesh, given their shared culture and history.3 The speech was also addressed to voters in neighboring Assam, where the Assamese have long sought resolution to Bangladeshi “infiltration” and to what they deem the “foreigner threat.” Bangladesh is almost an enclave, wrapped around by India on the west, north, and much of the east. Six of the eight divisions in Bangladesh border India, which on the one hand means a borderland sensibility is widespread, but on the other, feeds the sense of being enclosed by India. India’s rise as a regional hegemon in recent years elicits a fear of India as a threat that seeks to not only dominate and control domestic Bangladeshi politics and policies but impinge upon Bangladeshi sovereignty. In India, West Bengal and Assam flank Bangladesh and make up much of the 4,096 km border. These are also states with the highest Muslim populations in India, after Jammu and Kashmir, feeding into the rhetoric of the Bangladesh–India border as a site of “infiltration.”4 Bangladeshis were not the likely targets in the speech, I suggest, but rather India’s Bengali Muslim population. The speech uncovered a reality that Bengali Muslims had known all along: that their ethnic identity renders them Bangladeshi in the Indian imagination. Predictably, the months after the speech saw an uptick in attacks against Bengali 1

2

Introduction

Muslims across eastern India on the pretext that they are Bangladeshi. These included an instance where a man was stripped and lynched by a mob for the alleged rape of a local woman in Dimapur. What incited the lynching was not the rape, which had occurred a month earlier, but the rumor that he was an “illegal immigrant” from Bangladesh.5 That incident showed how easily a Bengali Muslim could become Bangladeshi when accused of a crime. Modi’s casual threat effectively and predictably emboldened the right-wing nationalists, who would take matters into their own hands to resolve this Bangladeshi “problem.” What was new was that Narendra Modi’s election campaign marked a symbolic turning point in how India defines threats to strengthen its borders – especially since Modi went on to become India’s Prime Minister following the elections of May 2014. This rhetoric allowed Modi to present India as being under siege by its neighbors – a security threat from Pakistan in the west, an imperial threat from China in the north, and now an economic threat in the form of undocumented workers from Bangladesh. The drumbeat about Bangladeshi “infiltrators” among BJP politicians would intensify over the following years, culminating in the implementation of the National Register of Citizens in Assam (2018) and the enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (2019) on the pretext of resolving the “migrant” issue. Who are Bengali Muslims? At a popular level, Bengali ethnic identity in India has been assumed to be “Hindu,” and thus to many a Bengali Muslim identity appears to be an oxymoron.6 During the colonial period, when it became clear that a majority of the population of East Bengal were Muslim, four variations on a conversion theory emerged to explain their existence: (1) Some scholars of Islam argued that Islam spread to Bengal not by the sword but by Muslim settlement in Bengal in the thirteenth century, when Bengal became part of the Turkish sultanate, a claim that the Hindu right continues to use to justify the expulsion of Muslims from India; (2) British officials and Hindu scholars claimed that Bengali Muslims were low-caste Hindu converts;7 (3) some Muslim scholars who accepted the conversion theory argued that Bengali Muslims were Buddhist converts attracted by Sufism based on the fact that Bengal was populated by Buddhists during the thirteenth century when Bengal encountered Islam; (4) some, such as Ibn Batuta who wrote about his travels, claimed that many upper-caste Hindus converted when they encountered the “supernatural powers” of Muslim fakirs such as Shah Jalal.8 Historians agree, however, that the narrative is not so straightforward. Rafiuddin Ahmed, Richard Eaton, and Tazeen Murshid argue that Bengali Islam emerged slowly, combining agrarian roots, pantheism,

Introduction

3

and tribal culture.9 Eaton invokes the ashraf-ajlaf divide in search of the Bengali Muslim identity in his essay “Who Are the Bengali Muslims? Conversion and Islamization in Bengal,” and draws out the class and caste elements that pockmark the process of Islamization. Eventually, he writes, a cleavage “emerged between a folk Bengali variant [of Islam], which was built upon indigenous roots, and a [different] variant [of Islam] practiced and patronized primarily by urban-dwelling, ashraf classes.”10 Ahmed points out that this tension is really between the “foreigners,” who were often learned, wealthy, and bearing “credible” ties to orthodox Islam, and the “locals,” who were based in the agrarian economy with pantheistic, amorphous religious ideas.11 Moreover, the ashraf classes represented an elitist group that perceived natives and converts as inferior, often ineligible for conversion,12 Islam became a dominant religion in eastern Bengal because it was able to morph as it came in contact with local culture and practices in the context of a predominantly rural economy. The process of Islamization was slow and spread endogenously in South Asia, and as such Muslims in Bengal (and India) cannot be thought of as a single, cohesive group.13 In light of these works, the straightforward narrative that Bengali Muslims were low-caste Hindus is not only simplistic but also political, aimed at maintaining (class, caste, national) hierarchies at the individual and state levels. That the conversion theory is the widely accepted version of the origins of Bengali Muslims in the contemporary postcolonial period – and is popularly accepted as fact – has region-wide implications, especially in the context of Partition and Bangladesh’s emergence as an independent nation-state. The logic of Partition – that Hindus and Muslims cannot coexist and require separate homelands – dictates that Bengali Muslims belong in Bangladesh; the conversion theory casts Bengali Muslims, and thereby Bangladeshis, as inferior. This straightforward stratification ignores the fact that Bengali Muslims are not a homogeneous group, nor is their existence bounded by Bangladesh’s borders. It is this tension between the rigid perception of Bengali Muslim identity and the reality of a more heterogeneous and fluid existence that predisposes Bengali Muslims to scapegoating as Bangladeshis in different spaces outside of Bangladesh. India’s Bangladesh Problem treats this easy conflation of Bengali Muslims and Bangladeshis as instrumental in the subjugation of this minority group. By rendering tenuous their relationship, and hence their loyalty to the nation-state, this conflation becomes particularly strategic in the post-reform period of the 1990s, which saw the implementation of structural adjustment policies (privatization, deregulation, market liberalization, fiscal austerity) along with the ideology of individual freedom to

4

Introduction

promote free markets, a small state, and personal responsibility. Unable to contribute to the “accumulating economy,” Bengali Muslims are denied entry into the “need economy” as they are deemed second-class citizens, even stripped of the privileges of formal citizenship, in a manner similar to what Ong has called flexible citizenship.14 The post-reforms period with its preference for high-skilled, multilingual, cosmopolitan workers has little sympathy for the rural poor, even less so when they are Muslim. What enables the further marginalization of Indian Bengali Muslims in the moment of neoliberal transition is the relationship between Bangladesh and India. In this book, I analyze how contemporary Bangladesh–India relations amid neoliberal development contribute to the scapegoating of Bengali Muslims in India as Bangladeshis. “Good” relations between the two countries rely on Bangladeshi gratitude for India’s intervention in Bangladesh’s War of Independence in 1971 and for hosting ten million refugees for the nine-month duration of the war. Such positive relations have translated into increased trade and investment since the 1990s – that is, since economic liberalization in India. Yet the regime of free trade has come alongside plans to fence and further militarize the 4,096-kilometer border – much to the surprise of Bangladeshis, who see open borders and migration as essential to neoliberal norms. From India’s perspective, then, undocumented Bangladeshis are the problem, not Bangladesh the nation-state, one of their longstanding allies. This is why Bangladeshis can be termed termites, but Bangladesh is a sibling.15 But, what is the Bangladeshi without Bangladesh? This cognitive dissonance is willful, an attempt to have it both ways – to treat the Bangladeshis as criminals, while taking advantage of strong bilateral relations. I title the book India’s Bangladesh Problem to highlight this hypocrisy and suggest that if Bangladeshis are a problem, so is Bangladesh, irrespective of political rhetoric. India’s Bangladesh Problem argues that interstate relations and differential neoliberalism – the term I use to indicate the difference between neoliberal policies implemented in the two countries and their timing – explain the variation in received neoliberal ideologies, which in turn shape preferences over “valuable” identities at the group and individual levels in India. Local neoliberal policies and practices, as well as local perceptions of Bangladesh, supplement the received neoliberal ideologies to inform and reproduce social hierarchies that privilege Indians over Bangladeshis, Hindus over Muslims, urban dwellers over rural, highskilled workers over low-skilled. The end result of such policies and practices is that Indian Bengali Muslims are marginalized, even dehumanized, albeit in contradictory ways. By focusing on Bengali Muslims in the Bangladesh borderlands and in the capital cities of the Indian

Introduction

5

states of Assam and West Bengal I show that the flexible citizenship (Aihwa Ong’s term16) grafted by neoliberal practices and ideologies onto preexisting ethnic cleavages allows Bengali Muslims to be both excluded as Bangladeshis and strategically included as Bengali Muslims into India’s social fabric. Unsurprisingly, pernicious stereotypes have material consequences for working-class Bengali Muslims in urban spaces. Take the example of Alim and Maloti, whom I interviewed in Kolkata and Guwahati, respectively. Alim, a high school graduate from Murshidabad in West Bengal, worked as a digger at a construction site in Howrah, also in West Bengal. His supervisor said people from Murshidabad are very fit physically because they have experience working in the fields and he sought them out for heavy-lifting work. “They have thick legs,” he said. Alim’s coworker insists he was actually from Bangladesh – maybe because of his accent, maybe because he had heard that Murshidabad or Malda is code for Bangladesh and people from there could be paid less. Maloti worked as a domestic worker in various homes in an apartment complex in Guwahati, Assam. Her income supported her daughter-inlaw and her granddaughter after her son went missing from work one day. He never returned home. The other staff in the complex gossiped about her: Maloti was not her real name, they said; she wore a bindi on her forehead to hide her Muslim identity; her son must have gone to join a terrorist group: She must be a Bangladeshi in hiding. Indeed, the notion of pervasive infiltration from Bangladesh to India has become commonplace – “infiltrators” and recently “termites”17 are shorthand to describe low-income, low-skilled, working-class individuals regardless of whether they are Bangladeshi. With most of the poor having limited documentation to prove their citizenship, such conflations have resulted in harsh and often discriminatory treatment by labor contractors across the Indian subcontinent and beyond. Consequently, not only do migrants fall prey to various kinds of exploitation, but Bengali Muslims with legitimate claims to Indian citizenship get scapegoated as “illegal Bangladeshis” and face discrimination and violent attacks from state and nonstate actors, giving rise to violent conflict that is then labeled as ethnic conflict. While the rise of the BJP in national and local politics explains the rise in communal violence in recent years, I want to suggest that identity-based animosities had already become virulent in the context of neoliberal entrenchment in Bangladesh and India. It is no secret that Muslims in India are on the “margins of the structures of economic, social and political relevance,” as Gayer and Jaffrelot put it.18 Scholarly work, as well as government reports (such

6

Introduction

as the Mandal Commission Report [presented in 1980, implemented in 1992], the Sachar Committee Report [2005], the Ranganath Mishra Commission Report [2007]), show the dire state of Muslims in India in terms of socioeconomic indicators, educational attainment, and political representation. Bengali Muslims, this book argues, deserve special attention because their marginalization is invisible to most people due to their small numbers, their exclusion from Bengali nationalism in West Bengal because they are Muslim, and their exclusion from pan-Islamic identity in India because their Bengali identity is seen as tainting and “Hinduizing” their religious identity. Although part of my aim here is to describe the forms of marginalization that Bengali Muslims face, I also want to show how this marginalization becomes justified and normalized as part of identity-based mythmaking. I take marginalization to mean, as Bina D’Costa does, a social status “linked to particular identities or social groups” that involves multiple practices of exclusion and forms of discrimination. Marginalization could thus result from various forms of “othering,” from discrimination and scapegoating to outright violence and ethnic cleansing. In this book, I focus on the forced exclusion and strategic inclusion of Bengali Muslims whose ethnic kinship with Bangladeshis makes their position in India tenuous, precarious, and contentious in the contemporary period. My focus on Assam and West Bengal was motivated by a widely perceived divergence: Bengali Muslims face violent conflict in Assam but not in West Bengal. A common explanation for this divergence is that Bengali nationalism protects Bengali Muslims from communal violence in West Bengal,19 while Bengali Muslims in Assam are ethnic outsiders and do not enjoy the same protection that ethnic kinship provides. However, this perception ignores and erases the marginalization of Bengali Muslims in West Bengal. (It is this erasure that makes the recent upsurge of Hindu chauvinism in West Bengal appear new and astonishing.) In fact, Bengali Muslims in West Bengal have faced economic precarity, political marginality, and social invisibility for a long time. By analyzing Bengali Muslim marginalization in the context of Bangladesh– India relations and differential neoliberalism, we can explain the variance in marginalization as the outcome of the different roles Bengali Muslims play in the two local economies: the degree to which Bengali Muslims are integrated into these economies; and the different histories of migration and acceptance, including, in the neoliberal era, the preference for certain kinds of labor. Yet as we consider cross-cutting cleavages that produce the Bangladeshi “other,” we need to pay attention not only to the difference between Assam and West Bengal but the difference that borders make in this post-reforms, neoliberal period.

I.1 Bengali Muslims in Colonial India

7

The attention to neoliberalism in the borderlands is a departure not only from the literature on Bengali Muslims but from much of the scholarly work on the Bangladesh–India border. That it is violent, a “killer border” with shootings almost every third day, is well documented,20 as is the fact that pockets of the border are sites of sex trafficking and sexual violence.21 Ethnographic work on the border reveals the need for nuance in our understanding of how borderlanders confront and contend with everyday legalities. For example, Malini Sur writes about how the surveillance mechanism in a Garo border village has produced a division of labor such that the men are laborers while the women are traders because gender stereotypes protect women from being associated with smugglers!22 Annu Jalais showed how food practices in the Sundarbans defied traditional caste practices.23 Jason Cons writes of Dahagram, a Bangladeshi enclave within India, where Hindu residents have had unfettered access to India whereas Muslims continue to be viewed with suspicion and accordingly harassed and attacked, especially in the wake of intensified Islamophobia.24 Sahana Ghosh writes about the fetishizing of identity documents to establish citizenship – something that becomes more important for the Bengali Muslim population.25 Delwar Hussain writes about how the neoliberal state competes with multiple actors in the borderlands.26 To this literature, I add neoliberalism as an analytical category to explain how Bengali Muslims’ experiences, and how Bengali Muslims are perceived, change (or remain the same) at a time when the borders seem to privilege economic exchanges of a kind that precludes them. I.1

The Imposed Inferiority of Bengali Muslims in Colonial India

The portrayal of Bengali Muslims as inferior is not new in South Asia, and can be traced back to the colonial narrative of how the British rescued Indians (Hindus) from tyrannical Muslim invaders/outsiders (e.g., James Mill’s History of India). The Bengali bhadralok (cultural elites among the middle class) were quick to pick up this narrative to serve their own interests. Such ideas would eventually find their way into an Indian nationalism espoused and indeed drafted by Bengali thinkers.27 As Romila Thapar writes, [For some] the oneness of the nation lay in the syncretistic thought and action of diverse groups that fused in the idea of the nation. For others, it was what was described as India’s composite culture that assumed diverse social and religious units in harmonious coexistence, each giving space to the other. For yet others, the definition of one-ness was in being Hindu and this was to be protected against Muslim rule.28

8

Introduction

It is the last narrative – an attempt to write out the Mughals and Muslims from Indian history as “foreign” – that follows Muslims into postcolonial South Asia. In this section, I discuss briefly how Muslim inferiority was cultivated culturally as Indian nationalist discourses emerged at the turn of the twentieth century. Bankim Chandra, an influential nationalist thinker in the late 1800s, was one of those who normalized the idea of the Muslim outsider. He saw India as a nation of Hindus, while the Muslims were invaders and hence outsiders with no place in independent India. While India remained a “subject nation” because of the West’s advances in material culture, India’s strength lay in its spirituality. Partha Chatterjee explains: [To Bankim] the superiority of the West was in the materiality of its culture. The West had achieved progress, prosperity, and freedom because it had placed Reason at the heart of its culture … But culture did not consist only of the material aspect of life. There was the spiritual aspect too, and here the European Enlightenment had little to contribute. In the spiritual aspect of culture, the East was superior – and hence, undominated.29

Crucially, this spirituality was seen by Bankim and his co-thinkers as innately, essentially, and exclusively Hindu. This Eastern spirituality would require bhakti (devotion) and anushilon (practice and duty). To Bankim, purified Hindu philosophy of spirit was well aligned with scientific reason and rationality. Bankim’s 1882 novel Anandamath, whose backdrop is the Bengal Famine of 1770 and the opposition to both Company rule and “tyrannical Muslim rulers,” was influential in establishing him as a leading nationalist thinker. He penned the song “Vande Mataram” (Mother, I Praise Thee), which became a rousing slogan, as well as the concept of Banga Mata (Mother Bengal), which later became Bharat Mata, (Mother India), as a new nationalism sought to represent the nation as a mother needing protection and saving. For Bankim, the ideal man who could offer such protection was embodied in the Hindu deity Krishna. Unsurprisingly, then, the majority Bengali Muslim population are virtually absent in his work except as negative characters. Similarly, and quite surprisingly given his much-acclaimed commitment to internationalism, Rabindranath Tagore’s vast body of literary work too contributes to this invisibilization of the Bengali Muslim. Rabindranath’s opposition to traditional Hindu practices and his role in the evolution of the Brahmo Samaj lent him a certain credibility among progressive Hindus and Muslims. But even Rabindranath could not bury his Hindu upbringing. He used raksha bandhan – a ritual rooted in Hindu mythology – to protest the first partition of Bengal in 1905.30 There are hardly any

I.1 Bengali Muslims in Colonial India

9

meaningful Muslim characters in his vast body of work, let alone protagonists.31 “Kabuliwallah” and “The Story of a Mussalmani,” two short stories are the exception.32 The 1905 partition imposed by the British to make East Bengal and Assam a separate province was a critical juncture and elicited significant opposition, but mostly from landowners or zamindars who were predominantly Hindus based in West Bengal, like Rabindranath, with landholdings across the province. The mostly Muslim peasantry were less moved, even indifferent, as were the weak and relatively insignificant (at the time) Muslim middle classes. The opposition to Bengal’s first partition was thus driven by the class interests of zamindars rather than an emotional attachment or cross-class solidarity among Bengalis. The voices of the Muslim working classes counted little.33 Classes here cleaved along religious lines. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bengali Muslim writers in this period increasingly eschewed the standardized, Sanskritic Bangla (which would come to be known as shadhu bhasha) of the Bengal Renaissance, and adopted Musalmani Bangla, a combination of “words and neologisms from Persian, Arabic, and Hindustani linguistic registers in creative ways.”34 Shadhu bhasha reflected a valorized “Hindu” idiom: “Words of Sanskrit origin were accepted as proper Bengali, and Sanskrit was crowned as the mother of the language,” as Neilesh Bose points out.35 Contrarily, Musalmani Bangla was deemed “marginal” even “deviant” to the “allegedly ‘proper’ version of the language,” he writes.36 Consequently, Musalmani Bangla was scorned both by educated Bengali Hindus as well as the Muslim elites or ashraf, who preferred to write in Persian or Urdu. Musalmani Bangla then became associated with local, folk literature. Thus, ignored in this period of Bengali enlightenment were Bengali Muslim folk artists like Fakir Lalon Shah (1774–1890), whose understanding of the soul beyond the limitations of religion was key to fashioning an East Bengali worldview unbeholden to any religion. He consistently critiqued religion and its practices, seeking spirituality in humanity and the soul. Songs such as “Shob loke koy Lalon ki jaat shongshare (What is Lalon’s caste, people ask),” “Jat gelo jat gelo bole (Because caste was lost),” “Emon manob jonom ar ki hobe (Will another human like this be born)” made Lalon a household staple in many Bengali homes. Rabindranath recognized Lalon’s gift; influenced by him, Rabindranath composed many Baul-inflected songs to much acclaim. Yet Lalon himself would not be accepted by the cultural intellectuals of the Bengali Renaissance as a part of them. In a Hindu-dominated Bengali intellectual and artistic culture, the career of Mir Musharraf Hossain stands out. He was, in Neilesh Bose’s

10

Introduction

words, “one of the very few voices in Bengali Muslim letters whose work was recognized positively by the Hindu literati.”37 Yet here again, the exception seems to prove the rule, as he wrote in shadhu bhasha. His texts were indistinguishable from those of Bengali Hindu writers even when their subject was identifiably Islamic. For example, when referring to Muslims fasting, he used Sanskrit-derived words upobash/upashona, the words for ritualistic fasting among Hindus and not Muslims, who use the Persian-derived words roja/namaj. His magnum opus, Bishad Shindhu (Ocean of Sorrow), published in three phases in 1885, 1887, and 1890, was an epic that fictionalized the tragedy of Karbala that ended the lives of Hasan and Husayn, Prophet Muhammad’s grandsons. As a prolific writer, he drew attention to various kinds of injustices that peasants and plantation workers faced. His texts thus interpreted and rendered the East Bengali comprehensible and accessible to the bhadralok.38 Yet his contemporary Bengali Muslims could not see his role as pathbreaking because his works fit within the established canon of shadhu bhasha literature and served only to further marginalize Musalmani Bangla, which carried a negative connotation by this time. The aspiration to be considered part of the bhadralok – literally “civilized men” who were enlightened, educated, and progressive – may be understandable given the ideology of meritocracy that bhadrolok culture idolized. Yet, in practice it was dominated by Hindu men who were selfproclaimed connoisseurs of culture, and who functioned as gatekeepers to an exclusive group open only to other elite Bengali Hindus (whose superiority complex persists till today).39 Seen in this light, the success of well-known Bengali Muslim scholars like Mir Musharraf Hussein and Kaikobad, who wrote in “their language,” was at least partly a result of their acceptance of the superiority of shadhu bhasha.40 The stifling atmosphere prompted Dacca (Dhaka) University Professor Muhammad Shahidullah to pronounce in 1911: “When we go to Bengali literary conferences, we feel like poor people at the house of wealthy relatives. We have to develop our own Bengali Muslim literature.”41 Salimullah Khan argues that Begum Rokeya and Kazi Nazrul Islam were among the few in the early 1900s who found both critical and popular acclaim despite using Musalmani Bangla in their works. Kazi Nazrul Islam may have been the first to say openly about his writing, “There is no shame in being a Bengali. Likewise, there is no shame in being a Muslim.”42 Nazrul was a pioneer among a growing number of Bengali Muslim intellectuals who, recognizing how Bengali Hindu intellectuals viewed them with condescension, sought to enrich and inculcate a distinctly Bengali Muslim literary sensibility. In two rousing poems,

I.1 Bengali Muslims in Colonial India

11

Bidrohi (Rebel) and Dhumketu (Comet), Nazrul invoked both revolution and God as he called for a socialist world free of violence based on class, caste, creed, or religion. His passionate and uncompromising language ignited righteous anger towards the colonial oppressors and contrasted sharply with the calmness evoked by Rabindranath’s anti-colonial writings. Rabindranath appreciated this contrast, as evidenced by his writings in Sangeet Chinta (Thoughts on Music) and his letters. By the early 1940s, Bengali Muslim writers had “a literature they could refer to and critique as their own, as opposed to only working towards inclusion into a Hindu-dominated space.”43 Folklore and folk culture consequently found renewed attention among scholars and public intellectuals. Jasimuddin’s poems depicting rural life amidst Hindu-Muslim love like “Kabar” (Grave) and “Nakshi Kanthar Maath” (Field of the Embroidered Quilt) were popular in both Hindu and Muslim circles. Muhammad Shahidullah was known through academic conferences for his work in folklore studies. Abdul Karim in Chittagong emerged as an expert whose punthi (pamphlets) collection marked “a new era in Bengali Muslim culture, that of the ‘folk’ construction of a nationalist past.”44 At the 1941 Bangiya Muslim Shahitya Shabha meeting in Calcutta, Nazrul was proclaimed to be the “only true ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity in Bengali literature” because unlike Bankim and Rabindranath, he treated Hindu and Muslim characters with “equal respect and interest.”45 With Partition in the air, however, some Bengali Muslim scholars seized this moment to hold forth for a Pakistani-Bangla literature, one that could flourish free of Hindu domination. They succeed in delinking from West Bengali literature, only to be persecuted under Pakistani rule after the imposition of Urdu as the national language of Pakistan in 1952.46 Thus, despite a period of intense progress in Bengali Muslim letters and scholarship, Bangla writers from East Bengal/Pakistan were on the defensive, having to justify their existence to Bengali Hindus and Urdu-speaking Muslims alike. Despite being part of the mainstream, Rabindranath was atypical, as he supported and was inspired by many East Bengali cultural figures, including Lalon, Nazrul, and Jasimuddin. In 1922, for example, he wrote a poem about how Nazrul should be the one to “educate, enlighten, and inspire the masses” in the anti-colonial struggle.47 Nazrul, in turn, found inspiration in Rabindranath’s internationalism. To the contemporary Bengali Muslim, Rabindranath’s validation serves as evidence that these great Bengali Muslim figures were ignored not because they lacked talent or creativity but because of their religion/ background.

12

Introduction

I.2

Interventions

The literature on the effect of interstate relations on domestic politics (and vice versa) is extant in International Relations (IR), at least since Robert Putnam’s seminal work on two-level games, but much of this work is premised upon the assumption – born out of the emphasis on war, peace, and cooperation that underlies dominant IR theories – that nation-states are natural enemies or threats to one another. Statecentrism is common among these theories because the IR scholar is ultimately interested in state behavior and action, even when the role of institutions as important nonstate actors is taken into account or when domestic politics affect foreign policy (and vice versa).48 Likewise, the large body of work on borders in IR is founded on the study and prediction of territorial disputes as a type of interstate conflict.49 For many IR scholars, then, while territorial disputes are no doubt produced historically, and popular sentiments are certainly important, disputes are legitimated by unitary state actors even as they use domestic constituencies to justify their claims.50 This state-centrism then dictates which questions are important. State-centrism, however, offers limited insights into the politics of borders and borderlands. Formally, Bangladesh and India are allies. If we look at voting trends in the United Nations General Assembly (a popular way to gauge bilateral relations in the IR literature), we find the two countries voting in tandem, corroborating a perception of bilateral friendship. But if we shift our gaze to the borderlands we find that the India–Bangladesh border is one of the deadliest in the world, with border guards on the Indian side empowered to shoot to kill trespassers. Borderlands, in my view, are not sites of diplomacy and trade relations as codified and formalized in bilateral deals and multilateral institutions, so much as they are sites where these relations are daily performed by a multitude of actors – border guards, traders, and borderlanders. The contradictions between interstate relations “at the top” and “on the ground” have far-reaching consequences for populations living in the borderlands, often as de facto second-class citizens. A fuller understanding requires that we pay equal attention to both the structural effects of interstate relations on everyday life, and the centrality of borderland biopolitics for the nation-state. My approach in this book departs from mainstream IR scholarship also in my use of neoliberalism as the political counterpart to neoclassical economics: a usage that is associated in the field of IR with a narrow focus on domestic policies and politics. To some this usage of the term has lost explanatory power because “everything is neoliberalism” these

I.2 Interventions

13

days. Others are dismissive of the study of neoliberalism as economic policy because, I suspect, of its negative connotation in other disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Because such studies invariably highlight the negative effects of advanced capitalism, they cut against the grain of a discipline like political science that ultimately participates in systems justification. In IR theory the term neoliberalism, or more precisely “neoliberal institutionalism,” was deployed as a critical response to realist and structuralist analyses of the international system. Kenneth Waltz, who pioneered the approach known as structural realism, argued that wars were not a product of war-prone human nature but of structural changes in the international system.51 In response, scholars like Robert Keohane, Joseph Nye, Joseph Grieco, and Kenneth Oye, who would come to be known as neoliberal institutionalists, argued that structural realism was incapable of predicting the wide gamut of cooperative outcomes.52 The neoliberal institutionalists accepted the realist assumption of selfinterested state actors, but instead of competition, posited that cooperation becomes possible as states recognize the potential for mutual gain.53 It is this understanding of neoliberalism that is widespread among scholars of mainstream IR and political science. Neoliberal institutionalism in IR is thus quite different from the way scholars in diverse other fields, from geography to cultural studies, have understood neoliberalism: policies and ideologies, rooted in the writings of the so-called Chicago Boys, Hayek and Friedman, that facilitate and propagate market liberalization. Neoliberalism in this latter sense signifies the shift away from Keynesianism and toward a political economy characterized by free-market ideals and a shrinking welfare state. IR scholars have all but ignored this usage of neoliberalism; a puzzling oversight, given that a growing body of work on commercial liberalism and the supposedly peace-inducing properties of free trade existed by the 1980s.54 Most IR scholars – realist, liberal, or constructivist – still focus on great power politics as these interactions dominate the international system. Consequently, as Amitav Acharya points out, the field “does not reflect the voices, experiences, knowledge claims, and contributions of the vast majority of the societies and states in the world.”55 In response, Critical IR scholars in the last two decades have sought to “center the margins.”56 Thanks to feminist scholars there now exists a significant body of scholarship on the role played by women’s labor in global political economy, national security, and economics. Similarly, works by Christian Davenport, Randolph Persaud and R. B. J. Walker, Meera Sabaratnam, Alexander Anievas, and others have drawn attention to race-blindness in IR.57 “[R]ace has been given the epistemological status

14

Introduction

of silence,” Persaud and Walker write, despite the role of race politics and racism in modern colonialism, in national and social formation, in producing racialized labor for the global workforce, and in creating global binaries of civilization/barbarism, developed/developing, modern/ backward and so on.58 In the South Asian context, Bina D’Costa rightly critiques the “India looking glass” that dominates scholarship and erases or appropriates the voices of those marginalized by Indian hegemony.59 As a result, “Bangladesh remains largely marginalized because it does not have significant strategic importance to global politics” in the way India does.60 Indian Bengali Muslims, whose only claim to fame is a fraught, often fabricated and ascribed, relationship to Bangladesh, would barely appear as a speck through this looking glass, and are thus ignored in the scholarship. I situate my work in this emerging tradition of what we might call margins scholarship by taking neoliberalism in the Global South seriously. I hope to show that studying neoliberalism as policy helps us understand development in the Global South, and in particular, interactions between states that are not great powers. It is no longer the case that neoliberal policies are imposed by great powers or by international institutions – many countries adopt them as they aspire to higher levels of economic growth, often at the bidding of local capitalists who aspire to be part of the global capitalist class. Nor is it the case that neoliberal policies are merely “domestic”; market liberalization, for instance, is very much about international integration. The degree of neoliberalization in different countries also shapes ideas and norms about the “liberal order,” with diverse effects on domestic social relations and on the international behavior of states. I.2.1

Towards a More Comprehensive Analysis

I use both structural analysis and analysis based on ideology formation to provide a holistic explanation of the marginalization of Bengali Muslims. Not only did neoliberal policies restructure the economies of Bangladesh and India and reorganize their labor markets; neoliberal ideology fostered new subjectivities and new aspirations. The contours of neoliberal development in India and Bangladesh are mapped out in this book using insights from a wide range of scholars, including David Harvey, Lamia Karim, and Atul Kohli to Arundhati Roy, Anu Muhammad, and Rehman Sobhan. From the work of Cedric Robinson and Karen and Barbara Fields I borrow the idea that capitalism and race/ethnicity are co-constitutive and mutually reinforcing, and that racism plays a key role in labor force segmentation.61 At the same time, I use a dialectical understanding of ideology in analyzing

I.3 Research Terrain

15

ideas and stereotypes as imposed from above structurally but also interrogated and shaped from below. The complex interplay of these factors – economic liberalization, labor market segmentation, and neoliberal ideology formation – I suggest, explains the variation in Bengali Muslim experiences across Bangladesh’s borderlands. My work contributes to the emerging work on Bangladeshi migration62 and borderlands63 by paying attention to the oft-neglected Bengali Muslim population residing outside the Bangladeshi state subsequent to its formation in 1971. Scholars of borderlands remind us that borders in the region have often been fluid, as have identities;64 Bangladesh as a nation-state cannot be a self-contained space or a homeland for all Muslims residing in and around what was East Bengal. Yet, in the post-1971 era, thousands of Muslims who for several generations had settled in the regions adjacent to Bangladesh and who might not even self-identify as Bengali Muslim began to be seen as “outsiders” and suddenly became easy targets of state and nonstate actors for being “illegal Bangladeshis.” That is, those who could potentially be cast as Bengali Muslim in Bangladesh’s border areas have become more, not less, vulnerable to ethnoreligious scapegoating by various state and nonstate actors. Some of these questions have been taken up by Rizwana Shamshad’s Bangladeshi Migrants in India.65 While Shamshad focuses on the varieties of nationalism across India to explain the reception of Bangladeshis in India, I argue that neoliberalism and neoliberal ideas affect how identity is valued – including nationality or religion – to explain the marginalization of Bengali Muslims, often conflated with Bangladeshis. I.3

Research Terrain

My research project was prompted by questions I had while reading Indian newspapers in a musty, windowless hotel room in Delhi one hot summer day in 2012. There were riots ongoing in Kokrajhar, Assam, after what appeared to have been a mugging. This was the fourth day that the newspapers led with stories about ethnic strife in Assam. The newspaper reports were clear on the identity of those at fault: “illegal Bangladeshis.” And just like that, some politician reportedly said infiltration from Bangladesh was one of the gravest security threats facing India today. It sounded ridiculous to me. How were Indian politicians and news media so confident in their ascription of blame? What explains the endurance and purchase of the trope of the “Bangladeshi infiltrator”? As a Bengali Muslim born and raised in Bangladesh but interested in pursuing these questions in India, I was confronted by a dilemma: How

16

Introduction

to study the identity-based marginalization of people whose ethnoreligious identity I shared but who belonged to another nation? I knew from experience that the scapegoating and “othering” of Muslims was not new or uncommon in India. My first visit to India was as a teenager with my family in the late 1990s. We were going to Ajmer Sharif. We took a flight to Kolkata and boarded the Rajdhani Express train headed to Delhi. All was going well, until the family in the parallel quarter summoned the manager to say they did not want to sit alongside Muslims. I remember being bewildered at first and then disappointed because it contrasted so sharply with the India that was showcased by Star TV on our recently acquired cable TV: an India defined by religious and a cosmopolitan sensibility. Years later, conducting fieldwork in West Bengal, I was on a train heading towards a border district. At a stop close to the border, a vendor entered the train but remained silent as they made their way through. A child asked their mother why the vendor was silent. “Must be Bangladeshi,” the mother responded. It became clear to me that the research methods I acquired as a student of positive political science had no space or language to analyze such kinds of microaggressions; yet, we know that the absence of violence is not peace, nor is the show of restraint. That our shared identity brought so much grief to the lives of rural Bengali Muslims in India was a source of anguish for me, while reckoning with the fact that my class position and nationality allowed me to escape their plight. Thus, I needed an approach that “validates ‘experience’ as a form of knowledge to be interrogated and that includes the experiences of both the researched and the researcher.”66 I found myself adopting a feminist methodology that validates experience, and where critical inquiry and reflection form the “work ethic during research.”67 While empirical data was useful to identify certain types of quantifiable marginalization (economic, education attainment, etc.) along certain thresholds, examining how Bengali Muslims became the marginal, dispensable other required a qualitative approach. I needed to treat the Bengali Muslim as the subject of study, and not as a byproduct of state actions (in which case the state becomes the subject of analysis). The point was to reconfigure the nature of knowledge production to make meaning of everyday lives and everyday conversations. I came to draw on field research and personal memory – of being treated a certain way when traveling in India, of the excitement that came along with American fast-food chains and television with neoliberal reforms, of the shifts in language patterns as people tried to appear more “global,” of how Bollywood dances replaced traditional wedding dances in Bengali

I.3 Research Terrain

17

homes. I had to make room for the autoethnographic aspect of this analysis, especially when interpreting what I observed and heard from respondents, given the personal relevance and connection to the subject matter. For example, when I wrote a memo at the end of a research day, did I write down what was said or what I heard, as the person I am, along with all my baggage? I.3.1

Methodology

I wanted to understand the intangible – people’s perceptions and how they express them, even as they might deny harboring prejudice, to me or even themselves. My research methods, accordingly, were informed by critical feminist perspectives and feminist methodology that encourages us to “enjoy the nonlinear aspects of research” and “engage in the research process more consciously and deliberately.”68 It would not be a “failed” project if the findings did not match expectations; rather it would be an opportunity to dig deeper, to engage further, to revise our understanding. I used a flexible approach to grounded theory to incorporate knowledge produced in the field, cognizant of the fact that I cannot “assume an external world, which can be discovered by meticulous observation.”69 Nor could I separate myself from the research process and maintain a distance. The research involved engaging with a world with me as a researcher as part of it, me with a personal connection to the region, not a fly on the wall. Indeed, I viewed research as a process where “curiosity, skepticism, persistence, and surprise can function as research tools.”70 This view aligns with recent developments in qualitative research that acknowledge multiple realities, diverse views, and critical engagement.71 Thus, while I began my field research with a set of predetermined questions and expectations about the conflation of Bangladeshis and Bengali Muslims in India, I followed the stories and the gaps in them to direct me to other places and people, which is the basis on which I chose my participants. If snowballing could apply to places and not just a method to sample people, I would say that is how I chose my research sites – one place took me to another. This book is the culmination of six years of field research in diverse places across the Bangladesh–India borders and the metropolitan cities of Kolkata and Guwahati – that is, in the borderlands and hinterlands of an amorphous, fuzzy place once called Bengal. Between 2012 and 2018, I spent between three to eight months a year in field sites. I used participant observation, interviews of experts and locals and focus groups, content analysis of government documents, a survey, and descriptive

18

Introduction

analysis of data from the census and research organizations, to demonstrate the production of marginality and exclusion. To analyze the marginalization of Bengali Muslims in India, I focused on the borderlands and hinterlands of Assam and West Bengal, two states with the largest Bengali Muslim populations in India. I treated the borderlands as a separate unit because I found people there to have a sensibility that privileges open borders, distinct from those in hinterlands where territory, nationality, and belonging are congruous. Specifically, the analysis of borderlands relies primarily on 100 interviews taken between 2015–2017 and observations around chhit mahals and commercial ports. The analysis on West Bengal uses seventy interviews conducted over the period 2013 and 2018 in Kolkata. In addition, I employed a survey of firms to understand the ethnic makeup of employees, used participant observation at New Market to understand the reception of Bangladeshi tourists in Kolkata and analyzed data from government and non-government sources. The analysis on Assam uses fifty interviews taken in Guwahati, in 2014, historical analysis, and government documents, legal documents, white papers, and census data. In the process, I spoke to and interacted primarily with those subjected to exclusion as well as those who participate in producing such marginality – border guards and personnel, employers, and “bosses” of various types of low-skilled labor, middlemen, and local overlords. The 220 interviews can be categorized as: (1) Interviews of those who could be considered as belonging to epistemic communities: university professors, scholars, and journalists who were part of my extended scholarly network, as well as border personnel, politicians, celebrities, and business managers. Their interviews were important in understanding the cultural and political landscape within which certain identities are deemed valuable. Some of them wanted to be named, while others wanted to remain anonymous. (2) Interviews of locals, who I treat as bearers of knowledge (as opposed to information) as well, in India and Bangladesh. I use the words respondents, participants, and interviewees interchangeably.72 I spent a significant amount of time at a number of “neoliberal” sites (malls and shopping complexes, tourist areas, hotels, restaurants, cafés), cultural sites (concerts, plays, art exhibitions), educational institutions (mainly university campuses), and public spaces (parks, lakesides, street side dhabas, and tea stalls) – all of which served to give me a well-rounded sense of the place and the people. To understand the people and the place, I walked around cities, rode in taxis and used Uber/Ola services, took the public bus and metros, and used unreserved seats on trains. Doing so allowed me to understand the everyday relations between people inhabiting these places. I conducted all the observations and

I.3 Research Terrain

19

interviews myself, sometimes with the assistance of local contacts. I found my interlocutors willing, even excited, to speak to me. In a region where social capital is necessary to get any work done, I was able to draw on my familial and academic networks to introduce me to the groups of people I sought to engage with, in both urban and rural areas. My contacts in the border regions were particularly helpful in introducing me to the closed communities there. Because they were residents well established in the community, I could rely on their trusted position in their community for credibility. Doing the work in person, rather than delegating interviews to intermediaries, meant that I was able to register the degree of engagement, gauge the body language, and understand their positionality as they spoke on their own turf, whether in front of their homes, a dhaba, or their workplaces. I could also appreciate why they might hesitate or pause at times. I found people to be forthcoming not just about their personal lives but also in divulging what might be “semi-legal.” I interpreted this as a sign of trust. To protect their identities and this trust, I have anonymized names and locations. The only exceptions are public places with dense populations where identification will be impossible.73 Although I used qualitative research methods in this work, my training as a positive political scientist interested in the big picture allowed me to step away from the details to analyze the “ground” in the context of shifting economic and political processes that shape the everyday. The interdisciplinary methodological approach made it possible to zoom in and out as necessary to see how the Bengali Muslim becomes threatening and invisible at the same time. This approach revealed that even as neoliberal development strengthened what is called “crony capitalism” in the region, it brought in excitement and dreams of a world without borders, of global cosmopolitanism, and a flat world, as far-fetched as they were. The influences on identity are equally tenuous. Research Process and Ethics For the interviews, whether in Bangla, English, or Hindi, I used a semi-structured method where I allowed participants to speak as much or as little as they wanted, in an adda format. Addas in Bangla are leisurely conversations often for the sake of entertainment. It is a favorite pastime in South Asia, even among strangers. Addas are informal in tone and language, and they conversational rather than a conventional Q&A. In these addas I was sure to pose three main questions to my interlocutors: what they did for a living, how they would characterize their economic prospects, and what they identified as main challenges they face. The questions were intentionally openended to allow them to choose what they want to talk about: their

20

Introduction

personal lives, the local economy, the national economy, or anything else they might want to discuss. I would interject a few times while they spoke to keep the conversation going, either by nodding or asking small questions based on what they said.74 I chose this practice to allow respondents to have agency over what they shared, how much they shared, and for how long without feeling pressured to answer. As a result, my interviews with locals were much like the interviews with community and cultural leaders where they shared knowledge as much as they shared information; where they knew this was not a test, and nor were there any correct answers – just conversations. The informal environment was important to cut against the hierarchy or power differential that could exist between the interviewees and myself, a middle-class, urban, educated Bangladeshi woman living in the USA.75 This would benefit all of us – the informality mitigated the class differences that were obvious in poorer areas while it cut against sexism in contexts where people saw women as inferior and incapable of “serious research.” It allowed space for some to ask why I was interested in their views, given how nogonno or insignificant they were. It gave me space to ask in turn, should their voices not matter, those for whom the slew of development programs exist? Should they not get to say whether the rhetoric of unnoyon or development bears out in reality? The adda approach, I suggest mirrored Charmaz and Thornberg’s concept of interviewing not as “efforts to mirror reality but as emergent interactions through a mutual exploration of the interviewee’s experiences and perspectives.”76 Depending on the location, I used a variety of ways to identify participants. In urban places, I interviewed taxi-drivers, hotel workers, shopkeepers, and university students. If they seemed open to a longer conversation, I would seek consent for use in my research, and continue. This was premised, again, on trying to create an informal environment where, despite positional differences, the conversation could be based on choice and not any kind of obligation that could stem from societal expectations, norms, or power differentials. This was also a way for me to navigate what I sometimes encountered as difficult sites, given generalized anti-Bangladeshi sentiments in particular areas: The informality meant that I could end the conversation without explanation if I felt unsafe. In rural areas, I sought assistance from local government officers and NGO workers to introduce me to the communities they served. They would introduce me as a researcher from abroad interested in questions of livelihood with whom they could share their thoughts if they were so

I.3 Research Terrain

21

inclined. This was more formal because I came with officials. In these areas, the conversations were mostly group addas where people would build on what others were saying. As a result, the sessions were much longer and resembled focus group discussions. I sometimes encountered suspicion. Some wanted to know who I was and why I was there. Even when I shared ethnicity with them as a Bengali woman, I was a clear outsider. At times, they asked whether I was an NGO worker – sometimes with disgust, sometimes with hope. Sometimes they thought I was a journalist, which made them very eager to speak to me. When I disclosed that I was a researcher, they were often disappointed by the lack of glamor it involved. After that summer in Delhi when I first began to think about the project, my first research trip was to Guwahati, Assam, in early 2013. I used an interview strategy that became standard practice for the duration of my research project: not to ask about Bangladesh, Bangladeshis, Bengalis, or Bengali Muslims directly but to see whether a concern about Bangladeshis emerged inductively, organically and unprovoked, in conversations about the economy and the people’s livelihood and material conditions. These interviews in Assam, and initial research on the scapegoating of Bengali Muslims as Bangladeshis prompted me to think about West Bengal, Kolkata in particular, where Bengali nationalism seemed to have tempered open anti-Bangladeshi sentiments and pre-empted the conflation between Bengali Muslims and Bangladeshis. I also remembered a journalist contact in Kolkata who had said that there was an unwritten rule that they would not publish news of any altercation that could be interpreted as “communal conflict” for fear of inciting riots. Given that 90 percent of West Bengal’s Muslims are Bengali speakers, I realized that a comparative study between Assam and West Bengal would allow me to understand the dynamics of the marginalization of Bengali Muslims/Bangladeshi as well as test the limits of Bengali nationalism. Following the trip to Assam, I began my research at the most accessible checkpoint between Bangladesh and India: talking to immigration officers at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. Their intel led me to land ports and commercial zones, which allowed me to focus on specific locations along the 4,096 km border. Spending time in the borderlands, in turn, made it clear that alongside an Assam–West Bengal comparison, a borderlands–hinterlands comparison was necessary. This sent me to the metropolitan zones of Kolkata and Guwahati as well as to villages on both sides of the Bangladesh–India border. I participated in public events and gatherings to observe how people interacted with one

22

Introduction

another and the languages used by different groups. In the course of interviewing people in a variety of places with varying socioeconomic backgrounds, I was able to probe the intricate relationships between migration, nationalism, and development. Using an interactive process of data collection and analysis over multiple years, following Glaser and Strauss, allowed me to understand the nuances and complexities of how identity-based hierarchies are produced and reproduced daily based not only on words but on demeanor, body language, tone, and audience.77 One of the more entrenched patriarchal norms in South Asia is to ask women if they are married or have children; this was the case during many of my introductions. The conversations that ensued, with women in particular, about why I was childless at an advanced age (before I had children) and about being a working/traveling mother (after I had children) helped me build rapport with my interlocutors. Despite differences in class and social positions, work-life balance and alienation under capitalism provided a way for us to identify with each other. The informal approach aligns with Bina D’Costa’s emphasis on the importance of an informal environment to make respondents feel comfortable as an ethical practice.78 I had a male figure accompany me during the interviews. Patriarchal norms that disregard women’s work in the region informed my decision; the male companion served to lend an element of import and seriousness to the interviews/discussions. Unsurprisingly, there were occasions where I was seen as the assistant asking the questions. In one village, it produced a curious dynamic whereby villagers lined up to talk to me to help me do a “good job” and “impress my boss.” My decision to bring along a man was also influenced in part by the travel advisory issued by the US Embassy in India for women to exercise caution while traveling in public (following a heinous gang rape on a bus in Delhi).79 In most instances, people in West Bengal and Assam assumed I was Hindu (which confirmed to me that a Bengali identity in India is seen as a Hindu identity). In some instances, I felt comfortable correcting the misperception. In other cases, I did not feel safe doing so when majority-identifying individuals spoke freely about their lives and (existential) angst regarding what they termed the “minority threat.” In the border areas, I identified myself as a Bangladeshi. It inspired those with Bangladeshi roots to self-identify themselves and speak about their experiences of migration. That I felt safer in the borderlands – the rural backwaters – speaks to a certain kind of openness, progressiveness, and solidarity among borderlanders that come from lived experiences along securitized borders.

I.4 Outline of the Book

I.4

23

Outline of the Book

Chapter 1 provides the theoretical premise to explain the formation of identity-based hierarchies to justify social exclusion. I argue that bilateral relations between India and Bangladesh and the differential neoliberalism between the two countries reproduce a social hierarchy that socially excludes Bengali Muslims based on the tension between their status as a (protected) minority group with cross-border ethnic ties with the majority of Bangladeshis. The argument entails an analysis of the relationship between Bangladesh and India as well as what neoliberalism is in terms of both the bilateral relationship and the kind of (neoliberal) ideas produced to explicate the effect on identity markers – religion, language and culture, geographical importance, and their intersection – that disproportionately affect Bengali Muslims. While scapegoating is an inwardlooking, nationalist, and state-centric strategy because it is geared toward maintaining government control and popularity (albeit based on a constructed foreign threat), neoliberal policies are outward-looking and decentralized because of the rhetoric of open markets and individual freedom; their easy coexistence not only speaks to the various contradictions that characterize neoliberalism but has allowed nonstate actors to become the purveyors of oppression in response to neoliberal shifts as well; the state’s repressive and ideological apparatuses ensure it. Chapters 2 through 4 analyze specific cases. Chapter 2 focuses on the borderlands between Bangladesh and India, while Chapters 3 and 4 look at the hinterlands of Assam and West Bengal, respectively. In organizing the book this way, I want to highlight two sets of comparative lenses – the difference between hinterlands and borderlands, and the difference between Assam and West Bengal. The difference in historiographies in terms of their relationship with “Bangladesh” sets the stage for how Bengali Muslims are treated in the two states. Yet the borderlands are special as the site where the Bangladeshi threat is manufactured before it enters the hinterlands. A close look at the border reveals that the borders have effectively forever locked together Bangladeshis and Indians, instead of separating them. It is only in the hinterlands that the language of threat and deportation finds popular acceptance and political patronage. Chapter 2 explains how the entrenched logic of open borders participates in forming liminal identities in the Bangladesh–India borderlands, where neoliberal ideas confront and contend with national security. The border participates in both fashioning a Bangladeshi other to be strategically targeted as well as accommodating a more porous border and

24

Introduction

more fluid identities. The attention given to the border makes it clear that no matter what the general view might be from the mainland, the borderlands are fluid spaces with fluid identities with a more nuanced, even humane, sense of belonging and de facto citizenship. The changing nature of border trade that emphasizes formalization, I suggest, reveals a curious inversion of neoliberalism in the borderlands, a fact that is likely to make Bengali Muslims’ situation more precarious in the future. Although West Bengal and Assam can and have been identified as “comparative cases,” they are hardly symmetrical. To analyze the variation in Bengali Muslim marginalization requires both a historical analysis as well as an analysis of what neoliberalism entailed in the two places to explain how perceptions toward Bengali Muslims varied, beyond the simplistic notion that it is Bengali nationalism that explains relative harmony in West Bengal. Chapter 3 analyzes how economic decay and aspirational neoliberalism justify anti-Bangladeshi xenophobia in Assam, while Chapter 4 examines how neoliberal development and desires in West Bengal affect the value given to the Bangla language, to Islam as a religion, and to caste, which in turn explain the everyday marginalization of Bengali Muslims there. The comparative cases of Assam and West Bengal clarify the limits of ethnic (Bengali) nationalism and explain how different histories laid out different trajectories for Bengali Muslims in the two states, thereby explaining the variation in what constitutes marginalization. I argue that while prejudice is premised upon caste discrimination and disgust in West Bengal, the marginalization of Bengali Muslims in Assam is a function of “economic threat,” real or imagined, since colonial times. The differing perceptions of Bangladesh in the two Indian states influence how Bengali Muslims are treated and the degree to which they are seen as Bangladeshis. Yet Bengali nationalism in West Bengal often hides the persecution of Bengali Muslims, while the open hostility toward Bangladeshis in Assam overlooks the history of shared living. India’s Bangladesh Problem concludes with a discussion of how the Bengali Muslim is produced as the Bangladeshi “other” in different spaces and the pockets of resistance to such easy scapegoating.

1

Neoliberalism and Identity-Based Hierarchy

How do Bangladesh–India relations and differential neoliberalism – the term I use to indicate the different manner and timing of neoliberal policies in the two countries – affect social hierarchy? This chapter provides a historical analysis to argue that unequal economic relations between the two countries alongside India’s position as the regional hegemon produced a perception that Bangladeshis are inferior to Indians. The implementation of divergent neoliberal policies formed sensibilities whereby migration is commonsensical to Bangladeshis but not so to Indians. Such ideas formed the basis of neoliberal ideologies in the two countries, which combined with existing prejudices and preconceived ideas about “others” to renew or reconfigure social hierarchies based on identity.1 The two countries’ different experiences with neoliberalism amid right-wing nationalism in India, instead of creating a borderless zone, hardened national identity. The marginalization of Bengali Muslims is part of the nationalist-neoliberal ideology of the contemporary period that simultaneously spectacularizes them and invisibilizes them as it renders them Bangladeshi – a threat to national security and ineligible for social services, affirmation action, even solidarity or sympathy. Scholars of racial inequality have shown that blaming migrants, a readily racialized group, is common especially when it becomes clear that the state will not reinvest or redistribute gains into the communities devastated by neoliberal restructuring.2 The Bengali Muslim minority group, then, is socially constructed as a migrant group by virtue of cross-border ethnic ties in this neoliberal period. 1.1

Interstate Relations between Bangladesh and India

When India intervened in Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, it did so on the premise of righteous rage in response to the genocide in Pakistan. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi tried to rally the world to step up in defense of the Bengalis in East Pakistan. When that failed, she ordered 25

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Neoliberalism and Identity-Based Hierarchy

the Indian military to go in. This set the stage for India’s role in the region and its relationship with Bangladesh. The lens of strategic culture allows us to understand how India’s military actions cater to its selfimage of grandness.3 Indian intervention in this case bolstered the idea of India as an important international actor, destined for global prominence. It set the tone for its paternalistic relationship with Bangladesh with the expectation that Bangladesh would always be grateful and unconditionally loyal. From Bangladesh’s perspective, this expectation is a source of frustration for many, but still, gratitude continues to inform the sentiments and actions of influential sections of the Bangladeshi population, namely civil society members, cultural groups, and politicians. Pro-India and antiIndia stances found their way to political affiliation well before democratization in Bangladesh in 1991. The current ruling party, the Awami League (AL), has always taken a pro-India stance, while the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was anti-India and more pro-Pakistan. BNP’s political allegiance to Pakistan germinated during the period of Islamization under General Ziaur Rahman, the party’s founder, who held office as a military dictator from 1976 to 1981. Analyzing Bangladesh–India relations in terms of ideology and economic ties helps to explicate the tension between good allies, unequal economic relations, and the rhetoric of Bangladesh as a source of “economic threat,” which allows for the continued subjugation of Bengali Muslims in India. 1.1.1

The Broad Implications of Bangladesh’s Birth

Bangladesh’s Liberation War of 1971 stands out as the international event that most crucially affected the politics of migration in East and Northeast India. While Bangladesh’s independence was a moment of shared pride in West Bengal, it was not so in Assam. Especially, the arrival of refugees from what was East Pakistan fleeing the Pakistani military’s crackdown heightened fears of economic threat. Assam (which then included Meghalaya) received one million refugees, while in neighboring Tripura, the refugee influx rivaled the size of the local population of 1.3 million. An already slow economy suffered inflationary pressures, and the prices of basic food items rose due to the introduction of new ration cards for refugees.4 In both Assam and Tripura, the movement of the refugees became a salient political issue as locals expressed concerns about competition over limited resources. In West Bengal, by contrast, which received 7.2 million of the ten million refugees, solidarity with fellow Bengalis fighting for national self-determination trumped antiforeigner feelings.5 According to officials in Bangladesh, all refugees

1.1 Relations between Bangladesh and India

27

returned home after the war. However, politicians in India contend that many refugees remained behind, and their population has grown over time.6 The 1971 war was significant for the entire region because it ended not with suppression by the Pakistani army but with victory – a victory that had Indian support. From a cynical perspective, Bangladesh’s creation is a miracle given how state powers successfully destroyed all the other struggles of the time. The late 1960s was a period of revolutionary potential for several reasons: (1) the Naxal movement emerged to protect the interest of peasants and Adivasis; (2) Kashmiris began to consolidate their demands for azaadi or independence; (3) different separatist movements emerged in the northeast (of which the Bodo movement was one); (4) resentment began to foment in Balochistan and Sindh in response to state repression. Many felt that 1971 could have been the year when oppressed nations in the subcontinent became free. Instead, state repression and state reorganization undermined the potential for strong opposition to oppressive state structures.7 The late 1960s/early 1970s was a period of containment of national liberation struggles. The 1971 war revealed India’s dualism well: While India sympathized with the Bengalis in East Pakistan and recognized their demands for self-rule, it refused to do the same within its borders. While India used force to “liberate” Bangladesh, it also used force to suppress struggles in Kashmir, Bihar, West Bengal, and in the northeast. In effect, Bangladesh’s Liberation War and victory brought an end to nationalist struggles and turned them into subnationalist ones. It is as though Bangladesh’s victory came at the expense of stifling all other national liberation struggles in the region. Is it not an interesting coincidence that it was around the same time that Meghalaya and Nagaland became states carved out of Assam, which stalled the desire to secede from India? Indian intervention in East Pakistan effectively suppressed the revolutionary potential in the region at the time. India’s intervention became the perfect maneuver, a humanitarian war for national liberation that served multiple purposes. First, by focusing on the atrocities in East Pakistan, India downplayed the resentments within its borders and in effect created a hierarchy of legitimate (East Pakistan) and illegitimate (those in India) struggles. Second, the Indian state described the impact of atrocities in East Pakistan in terms of refugees and the economic burden the refugees imposed. This allowed those impacted by the high refugee influx – the northeast, for example – to pick up the same line of reasoning and channel it toward anti-refugee sentiments. At this point of revolutionary potential, the state was able to scapegoat refugees for the plight of those in the northeast and West

28

Neoliberalism and Identity-Based Hierarchy

Bengal and, in return, garner public support for intervention. Third, the intervention prevented unity among the different struggles. The three main groups demanding autonomy – Maoists, Bengalis, and northeasterners – were contiguous geographically, with East Pakistan (Bangladesh) separating the northeast from West Bengal (and the rest of India). Intervention in the “middle area,” Bangladesh, prevented these three struggles from uniting in a larger struggle. Very quickly, the “Indian” struggles became insurgencies, even terrorism, requiring state repression to contain them and lead to a period of authoritarianism during Emergency Rule in 1975. It is no surprise, perhaps, that strategic interests of the regional power, nor the movements themselves, would dictate which struggles have state patronage and which ones would have to be suppressed. This shows that anti-Bangladesh sentiments stem from two sources. First, from resentment toward refugees who came into the northeast, and who not only exacerbated the fears of an economic crisis in 1971 but also competed over jobs and resources. The narrative that “many remained after the war” continues to be a source of bitterness.8 Second, from Bangladesh’s ability to achieve national self-determination when many groups in the northeast failed to do so despite having legitimate claims. That India aided Bangladesh but refused to take local movements seriously may well have added to the animosity, which, in addition to sustaining anti-Bangladesh sentiments, aggravated the already sensitive local– center relations. Although Gary Bass focuses more on the United States’ role in the 1971 war, his reading of India’s role provides a way to see its foreign policy and domestic policy as not separate but unified: India put itself in a position of breathtaking hypocrisy: demanding freedom for the Bengali people in East Pakistan, while conducting its repression of restive populations under Indian control in Kashmir, as well as lesser-known groups like the Mizos and Nagas and – with painful irony – leftist Bengalis within India’s volatile state of West Bengal. While the Indian government emotionally spoke out on behalf of millions of Bengalis who fled into India, its officials privately worried that these exiles might be radical subversives who would fuel more unrest and revolt in India’s already shaky border states, especially West Bengal. India, in other words, was driven not just by sympathy for Bengalis, but also a certain amount of fear of revolutionary Bengalis.9

We could extend the argument to posit that it was the fear of not just revolutionary Bengalis but revolutions in general. One of the lasting effects of the 1971 war was the impact on other secessionist/separatist struggles. At the time, Bangladesh’s victory had the effect of suppressing all other struggles. It could have been the other way – Bangladesh’s

1.1 Relations between Bangladesh and India

29

success could have ushered in a new era of national liberation struggles that found resolution in the formation of new states. Instead, the two states, India and Pakistan, enhanced their military capacities to strengthen their repressive control over conflict areas, labeling everyone demanding autonomy as “terrorists” and “insurgents.” Such language then percolated into popular media, particularly Bollywood films.10 Both India and Pakistan seem to have learned the same lesson: They would not allow a repetition of Bangladesh’s war. With this reading of the effect of Indian intervention into Bangladesh, I want to highlight the savior complex that inevitably becomes imperial. Alongside this savior complex was a fear of the potential for more partitions or Bangladeshization – clear from how it controlled the Assamese, the Kashmiris, the Maoists (groups that claim some form of sovereignty) – with force. 1.1.2

Post-1971 Bilateral Relations

In Bangladesh, the BNP’s anti-India rhetoric was largely a campaign slogan in the 1990s to accuse the AL for “selling Bangladesh to India.” In recent years, however, there has been rising wariness about India’s role in Bangladesh and the region that transcends partisan politics. A recent article by political scientist Ali Riaz traces the evolution in Bangladesh– India relations and concludes that while India emphasizes togetherness (saath saath), the reality is less friendly.11 India’s rise as a regional hegemon gave it greater international influence. Bangladesh, landlocked by India, is conscious that most bilateral agreements and treaties are more favorable to India, and at times harmful for Bangladesh. Key examples include the Rampal coal plant near the Sundarbans – which could destroy the largest mangrove forest in the world and contribute to the ecological crisis already underway – and India’s control over upstream water, which gives them the ability to cause floods and droughts in Bangladesh. From India’s perspective, Bangladesh is a reliable and loyal ally, especially when the AL is in power. With China making inroads in South Asia, India wants to ensure that Bangladesh remains an ally. Modi has been peddling the “saath saath” aspect of the relationship, claiming that relations with Bangladesh will be a priority. During Bangladesh’s fiftiethyear celebrations on March 26, 2021, Modi said that he participated in his first satyagraha in 1971 for Bangladesh’s freedom. He awarded Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first president and father of the nation, the Government of India’s Gandhi Prize 2021. He touted Bangladesh and India’s shared democratic values and economic interests and their special relationship while highlighting terrorism as a common challenge.12 Yet the “illegal Bangladeshi” continues to be the image of

30

Neoliberalism and Identity-Based Hierarchy

the Bangladeshi in India, easily invoked to elicit support for legislation like the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) of 2019. In July 2005, the Supreme Court of India declared that the large-scale illegal migration of Bangladeshi citizens posed a significant internal threat to India, particularly the northeastern region of Assam.13 The court stated that it “becomes the duty of [the] Union of India to take all measures for the protection of the State of Assam from such external aggression and internal disturbance as enjoined in Article 355 of the Constitution.”14 In 2008, India’s Standing Committee on Home Affairs stated that “the large presence of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants poses a grave threat” to India.15 In 2009, India’s Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said on record that Bangladeshis have “no business to come to India.”16 More recently, a National Register of Citizens (NRC) was implemented in Assam in 2019 on the backs of the “illegal Bangladeshi” threat. The passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill in late 2019, in both houses of parliament, put in place the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 to create a pathway for nonMuslim minorities from neighboring countries (Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan) who were in India as of 2014 to gain citizenship. This enactment came alongside the promise of an NRC process for the entire country, called the National Population Register, although the identification process has not been announced yet (at the time of writing). Effectively, the CAA and NRC could render millions of Muslims stateless, or “Bangladeshi.” At the time of writing, the Covid-19 global pandemic had stalled the implementation efforts. During the 2015 election, the BJP successfully painted India as being under constant threat from its neighbors. In addition to the old trope of Pakistan posing a security threat, the BJP, and Modi in particular, underscored the economic threat posed by Bangladeshis crossing borders unofficially. Bangladesh’s weaker status, economically and politically, helped reinforce the image of Bangladesh as a poverty-stricken country from which everyone is fleeing to “steal” jobs in India. However, Bangladesh is hardly as ill-fated as Indian politicians would make it out to be to their domestic audience. Data shows that instead of being a burden on India’s economy, Bangladesh is a source of significant revenue and imperial exploitation. Bangladesh provides a huge market for Indian rice, onions, beef, and sarees. In what appears as role reversal from when Bangladesh feared dumping (selling below cost price) from India, India has accused Bangladesh of dumping jute and glass into Indian markets and imposed anti-dumping duties, which Bangladesh has been contesting.17 Contrary to popular belief, there are thousands of Indians working in Bangladesh, officially and unofficially. Air India’s

1.1 Relations between Bangladesh and India

31

direct flights from Delhi to Dhaka, for example, are often full of “labor” to work in Bangladesh. The Pew Research Center estimates that these workers have sent $126 million to India in 2017, while other sources such as the Centre for Policy Dialogue estimate the figure to be closer to $3.7 billion officially.18 Unaccounted for in these figures would be remittances through unofficial means, such as hundi. Bangladesh sends more than a million people to India legally every year as tourists. In 2019, 2.58 million Bangladeshi tourists visited India – forming the top tourist-sending country, followed by 1.21 million from the United States.19 In 2017, half of India’s revenues from medical tourism came from Bangladeshis.20 Far from being unwanted, Bangladeshi tourists are sought after, particularly in West Bengal, where shopkeepers claim Bangladeshis are “big-hearted,” a euphemism for spendthrift. India is keenly aware of the tremendous role Bangladeshi tourists play in boosting its tourism economy. Accordingly, it has allowed for easy availability of tourist and medical visas – a source of long-standing tensions. Even in this apparent pro-Bangladesh move, the self-interest is evident. Visas for middle-class Bangladeshis are driven by profit motives. My research shows that at any given time, 10–25 percent of the guests at five-star hotels in Kolkata are from Bangladesh. During Ramzan (or Ramadan), the number of guests declines, but other than that, there is an almost constant flow of guests from Bangladesh. Tourist areas like Park Street thrive on Bangladeshi tourists, as do many of the private hospitals like Apollo, AMRI, and Mt. Elizabeth. In these areas, you hear about wealthy Bangladeshis who do not mind paying extra for good service. One way to gauge the economic relations between the two countries is by examining treaties and agreements they sign. If we look at the number of treaties (see Figure 1.1) between Bangladesh and India over the years, we see a bifurcation: a few treaties in the first few years of Bangladesh’s existence, a fairly long period where there were only zero to one, and then a rise in the number between 2000 and 2018, with 2015 and 2017 being the years when the most treaties were signed (none were signed in 2016). The lull corresponds to the period when Bangladesh was mainly a military dictatorship. But democratization in 1991 did not mean that the relations had improved. More treaties have been signed during AL’s tenure than in any other time. The substance of the agreements reveals India’s intentions for greater economic control in the region. Many of the recent agreements (since 2011) pertain to trade, investments, and access – Indian control over pipelines, access to ports in Mongla and Chattogram, creating special economic zones in Bangladesh – while the earlier ones were about

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Neoliberalism and Identity-Based Hierarchy

Figure 1.1 Number of treaties, agreements, and MOUs between Bangladesh and India, 1970–2020. Data from the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India

establishing diplomatic relations, data from the India’s Ministry of External Affairs show. During India’s early phase of liberalization – the 1990s and early 2000s – India was mostly inward-looking in terms of development programs. By around 2007, India began exploring business interests in Bangladesh and signing a slew of treaties that gave it the upper hand. In recent years, Bangladesh has provided India with transit access to transport goods not only from India to Bangladesh but onward to the northeast. Bangladesh also gave India access to waterways and ports to facilitate trade across the Bay of Bengal. Also, India will be setting up special economic zones (SEZs) in Bangladesh. It is worth noting that during Modi’s trip to Bangladesh in 2015 – when nineteen agreements were signed – officials representing the Indian conglomerate Reliance accompanied him and bagged many of the projects that the two countries decided upon. The most popular agreement during this trip was the finalization of the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement to permanently seal off the borders.21

1.1 Relations between Bangladesh and India

33

If we take neoliberal reforms of the 1990s as the starting point, this evolution can be seen in terms of imperialism – after a certain point, when domestic exploitation appeared to be less profitable, capitalists sought markets (and profits) abroad. Such interests are not new, however. Achin Vanaik points out that India inherited an empire in 1947 and controls some of its territories by force.22 India’s control over Nepal’s and Bhutan’s economies can be seen as imperial too. What changes in the 2000s, as India reached a new phase of imperialism, is that in addition to a position of domination in South Asia, India begins to set up infrastructure abroad for the benefit of Indian capital, as indicated by the rise in MOUs and other agreements for such investments. In the two-level games of managing domestic and foreign relations, the Indian state categorically uses domestic anti-Bangladeshi sentiments to maintain its dominance in all kinds of relations – whether trade, migration, or water – with Bangladesh. For example, West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s unwillingness to share the Teesta waters with Bangladesh in a fair fashion became the excuse for PM Narendra Modi to avoid meaningful discussions of it. During PM Modi’s 2015 visit to Dhaka, the land boundary agreements were signed, and bus services were established on Kolkata–Dhaka and Agartala–Guwahati–Dhaka routes. Twenty-two agreements were signed for cooperation on defense, security, energy, investments, and media – including two SEZs specifically for Indian investments in Bangladesh.23 In this discussion of bilateral relations and the politics surrounding Bangladesh’s birth, I want to highlight the various tensions that underlie the relationship between these two allies. The colonial history with Pakistan and Pakistan’s inability to acknowledge, let alone apologize for, the mass atrocities in what was then East Pakistan meant that Bangladesh cannot count on Pakistan as an ally, even as they both face similar challenges from an increasingly aggressive India that maintains the narrative of a Hindu state under attack. India takes every opportunity, particularly on the anniversary of Bangladesh’s Victory Day, December 16, to announce that this is their Victory Day for having fought Pakistan in 1971 – a slight toward Bangladeshis. Generations of Indians therefore see the war as India’s war, taking away the agency of Bangladeshi freedom fighters and the millions who died for an independent Bangladesh. This normalizes a sense that Bangladesh ought to be India’s puppet state. Such sensibilities have consequences at the interpersonal level, as Indians often behave in ways that are condescending and patronizing, if not outright hostile, to Bangladeshis. Even without addressing local histories, we can see how bilateral relations set the stage for the marginalization of

34

Neoliberalism and Identity-Based Hierarchy

Bengali Muslims, especially when they are conflated with Bangladeshis by politicians trying to score points based on the immigrant threat. Bangladesh’s silence on the migrant issue can be seen as a denial of undocumented Bangladeshis living in India. This denial, however, serves Indian interests because it precludes Bangladesh from taking a position on the issue. In effect, by “looking away” the Bangladeshi government participates in the continued scapegoating of Bangladeshis (or those deemed Bangladeshis) as a source of threat to India. It is, indeed, troublesome that Bangladesh is silent in the face of open calls for ethnic cleansing, but it reflects how strategically India manages its foreign policy and domestic policy on the basis of Bangladesh’s loyalty to India. 1.2

Differential Neoliberalism in Bangladesh and India

Neoliberalism is the application of neoclassical economics to classical liberalism. This is not a theory that explains, but one that prescribes a certain set of overarching state actions (legal, normative, institutional) that would support neoclassical economic policies (popularly known as supply-side economics). Following David Harvey’s definition, Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.24

Neoliberalism serves as a marker of time, too: time during which neoliberal policies and ideas became the norm in development – that is, since the 1970s. Neoliberalism and capitalism ought not to be seen as separate concepts; the logic of profit maximization and capital accumulation underlies the process of neoliberalization as well. What is different is the role of the state as the obvious and open facilitator for capital accumulation, particularly in implementing the specific policies of privatization, deregulation, market liberalization, and fiscal austerity, using the state’s repressive apparatus if necessary. Neoliberalism is not just about domestic economic policies. Neoliberal capitalism characterizes the international system and constrains state behavior; no country can opt out of it without fearing for (economic) survival. Neoliberal capitalism and the policies of privatization, deregulation, market liberalization, and fiscal austerity have become global norms, thanks to the Washington Consensus and the zeal with which international institutions spread these ideals across the world.25 These policies also require international interactions and factor mobility in the interest of market integration. Globalization proliferated neoliberal ideas

1.2 Neoliberalism in Bangladesh and India

35

and practices as it sought integration of factors of production with the promise of free movement of goods, services, and labor in the pursuit of higher returns.26 Ong writes that “non-state actors such as NGOs, international organizations, corporations and so on can (and do) exercise governing technologies.”27 Writing about a coal mine on the Bangladesh–India border, Hussain also sees the presence of nonstate actors such as NGOs diffusing the state’s role.28 Scholars of the Global South have exposed the kind of predatory growth and income inequality that neoliberalism produces.29 The literature shows that neoliberal restructuring changes the demand for different types of labor based on productivity and value addition, and as a result reifies preexisting hierarchies among ethnic groups. The reconfiguration of labor demands maintains continuity while producing a new preference order for labor by skill levels desirable for capital accumulation. I suggest this preference order often maps onto existing social stratification along income, ethnicity, even nationality and, in turn, reanimates salient differences and tensions – those that existed before the restructuring – but this time with value attached to the difference that fashions some as worthy and others as worthless. Neoliberalism, in other words, reinforces essentialist notions of “inherent” qualities that certain groups possess (or do not possess), making them ideal (or dispensable) citizens. “Useful fictions” about Bengali identity have roots in the stereotypes that the British used during the colonial period. The British presented the Bengal as weak and lazy, the Punjabi as strong and warrior-like, and the Marwari as having business acumen. The caste system that relies on a specific kind of division of labor then became the perfect conduit to justify why some groups were suited to the capitalist order while others were not. Decades later, some of these old stereotypes have reemerged in the context of neoliberalism, where the following traits are valued: hardworking, uncomplaining, grateful, accepting of the bootstrap method for personal success, well-behaved (i.e., never tries to overstep boundaries or “talk back”), subservient, driven, spiritual, upwardly mobile. The match between these desired characteristics and older stereotypes produces a new set of stereotypes, which then inform the hierarchy among ethnic groups. Ong’s notion of flexible citizenship is informative: Ethnic stereotypes are a function of the value that the different groups contribute to capital accumulation.30 Because positive value is afforded to those who are productive, they are the ones who enjoy the benefits of de facto citizenship rights. Those who contribute “minimally” are seen as parasites and othered, despite formal citizenship. In this period when biopolitics becomes an important consideration, citizenship rights become a function of the degree to which workers are of the “right kind.”

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Neoliberalism and Identity-Based Hierarchy

It is for this reason that governing bodies (managers, for example), as well as those who are slightly better off (such as the employed), can justify wage disparities and income inequality using ethnic differences. How neoliberal ideas became mainstream in the West through such machinations is well known.31 In South Asia, one of the first noticeable changes in the post-reforms period was the proliferation of TV channels and access to American entertainment twenty-four hours a day, and with it propaganda in the form of entertainment that sold lifestyles – what to eat, what to drink, how to dress, how to speak, how to love, how to please. A journalist who was an editor at a national daily in India told me how throughout the 1990s, the newspaper made it a point to highlight economic ills and point to privatization as a solution. As a pro-capitalist, he felt proud to divulge something that others in his shoes would not. I point it out to suggest that the propaganda was multilevel and multifaceted. Neoliberal policies brought along an ideology that sees free markets and small government as a virtue. The internationalization of this ideology made it easy for politicians and pundits alike to dismiss anticapitalist or anti-globalization sentiments as nonsensical, uninformed, and ignorant.32 Neoliberal reconstruction made way for the implementation of privatization, deregulation, market liberalization, and fiscal austerity to maximize profits, accumulate wealth, and increase aggregate income. This restructuring has inevitably led to what economists call “creative destruction” – destroying the old to produce something more innovative and better. The logic of racial capitalism and biopolitics allows us to recognize that these new structures bestow value to certain bodies for their role in capital accumulation in this new formation, hence producing a revitalized social stratification that borrows from the old. But how are we to understand the specific kind of marginalization that involves scapegoating a minority group as foreign? It is insufficient to analyze the entrenchment of neoliberal policies in specific countries; we need to examine the distribution of neoliberal policies.33 Our understanding of why Bengali Muslims are conflated with Bangladeshis needs to take into account the experience of neoliberalism in both countries to gauge the degree to which citizens in each country accept neoliberal rationality and a globalized worldview, which in turn reanimate stereotypes and justify exclusion from national belonging. In search for a baseline for comparison, I turn to Harvey’s concept of “accumulation by dispossession” – the process by which privatization, financialization, state-sponsored redistribution, and crisis management allow wealth redistribution from the poor to the rich.34 To what degree do we see this kind of dispossession in India and Bangladesh, and what

1.2 Neoliberalism in Bangladesh and India

37

effect does that have on received neoliberal ideas and biopolitics? As I compare and contrast Bangladesh and India’s experience with neoliberalism, I check to see whether: (1) privatization comes at the expense of declining wages, job losses, land grabbing or the private use of public land, union busting, etc.; (2) a symbiotic relationship exists between the state and business elites whereby the state, when it intervenes, does so in support of business interests, cuts back or fails to provide public goods, and (where applicable) dismantles the welfare state; (3) in times of crises, the burden falls disproportionately on the poor while business elites can make a windfall by buying land at dirt prices; (4) financialization and commodification subject segments of the population to further exploitation; and (5) consent for neoliberal policies is created through some type of ideology or ideas/knowledge held in common (such as nationalism). The specific types of reform are relevant, too, because we need to understand how policies impacted (and continue to impact) labor, labor conditions, and labor migration, which contribute to the precarious existence of Bengali Muslims in India and the exploitation of Bangladeshis abroad. Bangladesh was among the first countries in South Asia to liberalize its economy in the hopes of fast recovery of a country ravaged by war. India was a late adopter of neoliberal reforms, especially in comparison to other South Asian countries, waiting until a balance of payments crisis forced the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to intervene and impose structural adjustment policies in 1991. The discrepancy in the starting points, coupled with the fact that since 2002, India’s trade (as a percentage of GDP) is greater than Bangladesh’s, may well indicate a divergence in popular acceptance of neoliberal rationality. Bangladesh’s market reforms occurred in two phases after a probusiness military government took office in 1975: 1977–1986 and 1986 onward. In the 1980s, the dependence on foreign aid went up, and effectively ensured the long tenure of military dictators. The World Bank and the IMF influenced the governments to implement structural adjustment policies, the main components of which included trade liberalization, agricultural reforms, privatization, financial sector reforms, and fiscal reforms.35 Three factors set the trajectory for Bangladesh’s liberalization experience. First, the opening up of the economy allowed the Korean company Daewoo to set up ready-made garment factories in Bangladesh, planting the seed for Bangladesh to become the world’s second largest RMG producer after China. Second, the aid regime saw the proliferation of NGOs in Bangladesh, since international institutions preferred to

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channel aid through NGOs rather than corrupt governments.36 Third, a manpower export ministry, the Bureau of Manpower, Employment, and Training (BMET) was created. India implemented neoliberal reforms between 1988 and 1991 under conditions of high fiscal deficits, soaring current account deficits, and what many considered to be unsustainable borrowing from external sources, all of which created a balance of payments crisis. Internal financial instability prompted India to ask the IMF for a $1.2 billion loan,37 which the IMF issued with the requirements of economic stabilization and structural policy reforms, including a significant reduction in the number of protective tariffs. According to Kotwal, Ramaswami, and Wadhwa, reforms that took place in 1991 included “lesser controls on private business activity especially in manufacturing and substantially lower entry barriers to prospective entrants whether domestic or foreign.”38 The Indian government accepted these conditions with enthusiasm, so much so that, using the IMF programs as a cover, it added requirements relating to capital liberalization measures into its contract with the IMF in addition to “fiscal austerity, regulatory reform, and a revamping of industrial policy.”39 Neoliberal promise enamored both countries – experimented in Chile in 1973 and espoused by Thatcher and Reagan a few years later – of small government, open markets, and private enterprise to enhance competition, efficiency, and economic growth. Judging only by economic growth, such policies have been largely successful: Bangladesh is no longer a “basket case,” as Henry Kissinger put it, or a “test case,” a term popular in developmental circles. It has seen tremendous economic growth despite its high rank in Transparency International’s corruption index (first in some years) and frequent bouts of political instability.40 India, too, has moved beyond the “Hindu rate of growth” and seen high levels of economic growth;41 its GDP grew 6 percent during the great recession of 2008, when countries across the globe struggled with financial crises. If we look closer, beyond aggregate figures, however, much of what Harvey warns us of holds.42 He argues, based primarily on the USA and UK, that although theoretically neoliberalism opposed state intervention and assumed that “state decisions in the matters of investment and capital accumulation were bound to be wrong because the information available to the state could not rival that contained in market signals,” in practice, neoliberalism did not make the state irrelevant; it simply altered its role to one that facilitates the neoliberal project through the defense of “the rights of private property, individual liberties, and entrepreneurial freedoms” used to consolidate class power and wealth among the

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39

economic elite.43 Neoliberalism involved a retreat of the state only in the realm of welfare provision for the poor; instead of minimal state intervention, we see a high level of government spending to support corporations and the wealthy through a wide range of institutional provisions – bailing out firms when they get outcompeted, various tax deductions and exemptions for corporations and homeowners, declaring corporations as individuals – that consolidate economic (and hence political) power among the ruling capitalist class, exacerbating inequality. But neither India nor Bangladesh had much of a welfare state to begin with. Unlike in the USA, where neoliberalism entailed the dismantling of the welfare state established by the New Deal, “retreat of the state” in these cases entailed reducing the provision of public goods, such as health and education (which even the smallest and/or poorest of governments have provided historically) as well as denationalization. Akhil Gupta argues that the role of states that accept neoliberal rationality is reduced to managing structural violence, which aligns with Harvey’s claim that the role of the neoliberal state is to maintain a good business climate.44 It is the state’s interventionist role to support the elite that explains why Davidson, McCafferty, and Miller claim that the neoliberal period is over, Crouch describes this period as “privatized Keynesianism,” and Cahill calls it “embedded neoliberalism.”45 The rise of “flexible labor” in both the formal and informal sectors has characterized the neoliberal period in urban and rural spaces in South Asia. In Kolkata, Guwahati, and Dhaka, the most visible examples are food delivery and ride-sharing services – formal sectors reliant on flexible labor, attractive because they give workers flexibility and control over their time. Yet, these heavily surveilled and exploitative service sector jobs in the gig economy point to the innovative use of Fordism in the service industry through monitoring made possible by technological advancements and rigid earning structures. The neoliberal period is hardly the post-Fordist moment that Ong claims.46 Instead, we can recognize that Fordist division of labor has found its logical conclusion in supply chains, which now dominate global production processes and supply chains. The same logic of methodical production in a timespecific manner is applied to the service sector such that managers can now combine multiple tasks for individual workers. From logistics to delivery services, workers are monitored and controlled, and although specific tasks are divided into small, supposedly manageable units, workers now must learn how to multitask and follow very specific rules while accepting low wages. Similarly in rural areas, this precariat does not have a singular identity – they can be a peasant, but also a construction worker, a bricklayer, as well as a truck loader, all at the same time. They

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might be growing their vegetable garden for consumption, but they might also be doing what in Bangla is called khaep work – odd jobs here and there based on availability. As economist Wahiduddin Mahmud shared in conversation, there is an eta-sheta economy: If you ask a villager what she does, she will often say, “Eito, eta sheta” (this and that). The “this and that” economy may well be the equivalent of the gig economy that currently characterizes urban spaces. The flexibilization of labor, then, effectively maintains low wages and a culture of workers having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. The crucial question here is not whether India and Bangladesh have seen the consolidation of class power among the ruling elite as a consequence of economic liberalization (because they have), but what neoliberalism entailed specifically – how the policies unfolded, what they included, and eventually whether they perpetuate or exacerbate the marginalization of Bengali Muslims. 1.2.1

Neoliberal Bangladesh

In 2020, earnings from RMG exports and remittances from migrant workers in the Middle East make up most of Bangladesh’s GDP. Neoliberal Bangladesh provides an excellent example of what a retreating state looks like in the context of a developing country as it becomes an economy controlled by private entities, with its welfare provisions undertaken by NGOs and a government whose function is to facilitate both. A cynical view would see Bangladesh as a test case for whether a country can function without a government – what does “small government” mean in practice? But even a noncynical view would have to come to terms with Bangladesh as a site for experimentation, or as Naomi Hossain calls it, “the aid lab.”47 Neoliberalism in Bangladesh produced a gendered segmentation of workers. While RMG workers – around four million – are predominantly female, migrant workers are mostly men. The experiment with sending women to Middle Eastern countries as maids beginning around 2005 has largely failed in the wake of sexual assault that many female workers have had to encounter, which in some instances compelled women to commit suicide as recently as in 2020. This bifurcation allows for a dual role for women: as the domesticated homemaker who keeps the household stable as well as the “empowered” woman who works at the RMG factory and/ or engages in micro-entrepreneurial activities, as the case may be. There is a commonality in all these domains – whether in the home, in a factory, or at an NGO loan office – the women’s ijjot (honor) becomes the instrument through which she is controlled and exploited.48 It is the

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same sense of honor that is used to claim that RMG workers are national heroes (for their role in boosting Bangladesh’s economy), and just as easily deemed expendable vectors of disease, even criminals, when they demand rights, as Dina Siddiqi argues, showing how labor rights have little support in neoliberal Bangladesh.49 Along the same vein, patriarchy, traditional notions of masculinity, and the need for men to keep the household stable financially in an economically depressed country means that men are always on the lookout for job opportunities abroad, and once they leave the country – often by making large payments to dalals or middlemen – they are unable to return home, even when cheated, for fear of losing face and maintaining ijjot (honor). The proliferation of mobile banking through programs like bKash has solidified the gendered bifurcation as men no longer have to return home with money; they can simply transfer it using “mobile money.”50 This reinforces the idea that people, mostly men, just need to figure out how to leave the country – and then everything else will fall into place. As will become clear in Chapter 2, it is this gendered role in the economy that produces a dynamic whereby men seek employment in foreign lands but do not wish to relocate there with their family, thereby maintaining ties in the homes.51 Economic reforms reduced the government’s role in the economy so much so that even in times of severe political turmoil, businesses continue to operate, and trade remains more or less unaffected. The privatization of the export economy explains why, despite high corruption, Bangladesh has achieved high growth rates: Businesses can simply bypass the government.52 The government did not become obsolete, however. It has set up several export-processing zones (EPZs) – and another hundred are under construction – to facilitate trade without state regulations such as labor laws and unionizing rights, which businesses argue would impede trade. Such zones also enjoy tax exemptions for many years determined case by case. As the website of the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA) explains, “The primary objective of an EPZ is to provide special areas where potential investors would find a congenial investment climate free from cumbersome procedures.” It advertises, among other things, “Asia’s Low-Cost Production Base.”53 RMG exports form the largest share of exports, and these EPZs are hubs for garment factories. Even on a day-to-day basis, labor organizer Taslima Akhter reminds us, Bangladesh’s intelligence agency DGIF plays the role of monitoring and surveilling garment workers to ensure they remain docile, rule-obeying workers.54 Following the mantra of export-led growth of the 1970s, Bangladesh capitalized on its abundant labor supply to set up the BMET in 1976 in

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part to institutionalize the export of labor. Through bilateral schemes, Bangladesh sends low-skilled workers – mostly men, but increasingly women too – to work in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Recruiting agencies and airlines have mushroomed. Unlike in most other countries, where open markets precluded the labor market, in Bangladesh economic migration was seen as very much part of market liberalization. This was to have long-term consequences – it gave credence to the idea that there were greener pastures elsewhere. Every year hundreds of village men sell their families’ combined assets to try their luck abroad. Fraudulent recruiters and human traffickers dupe many of these men, forcing them to travel under dangerous conditions and enter their destinations illegally. Through this effort, the number of Bangladeshis who worked overseas officially increased from 6,087 in 1976 to 617,209 in 2021. According to BMET, most workers in 2021 were employed in Saudi Arabia (34 percent), the UAE (17.62 percent), and Oman (12 percent).55 In tandem, official remittances increased from $123 million in 1976 to $22,070.87 million in 2021.56 Going by 2020 figures, the top remittance sending countries were Saudi Arabia ($5.127 billion or 24 percent of total remittance), the United States ($2.94 billion or 13.56 percent of total), UAE ($2.5 billion or 11 percent of total), Malaysia ($1.17 billion or 7.9 percent of total), the United Kingdom ($1.649 billion or 7.5 percent of the total ), and Kuwait ($1.565 billion or 7.2 percent of the total).57 The vast increase in the aggregate remittance figure was a function of the high number of migrants employed in low-skilled sectors in the Middle East, where average wages do not exceed $400.58 This would have an effect on how migration is normalized among the low-skilled, especially as remittances became the second largest foreign exchange revenue for the country, and migrant workers were celebrated as patriots (despite limited support in many cases). Bangladeshi neoliberalism is also characterized by the rise of the corporate NGO. As activist–writer economist Anu Muhammad argues, NGOs in Bangladesh have stifled dissent while excusing an incompetent state by providing essential services that governments traditionally provide, including health and education.59 Indeed, the rise of NGOs as providers of basic needs in Bangladesh has led to improvement in terms of human development, especially in comparison to its neighbors (as famously pointed out by Dreze and Sen),60 but it comes at the cost of democracy since NGOs are antidemocratic and unaccountable to anyone outside their boards of directors and donors.61 More importantly, although more than four thousand NGOs operate in Bangladesh, a small number control much of the development operations because of their size and budget. BRAC, Grameen Bank, Proshika, and ASA accounted for close to 90 percent of NGO activities.62 In addition, these

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large NGOs have expanded to include profit-making enterprises. For example, BRAC started in 1972 to aid rural development; today, it is the largest NGO in the world, with operations in fourteen countries. BRAC has a university, a bank, primary schools, clinics, hostels, craft stores, poultry farms, milk factories, and so on. It is also one of the largest employers in the country, employing 100,000 people, and has a client base of 126 million. BRAC and Grameen Bank have effectively silenced and coopted opposing voices by hiring them so that intellectuals and academics in Bangladesh rarely critique the NGO-industrial complex.63 The government, for its part, maintains silence on NGOs. NGOs, too, take a “neutral” noninterfering position. There appears to be a silent pact whereby neither party would denounce the other. Karim’s ethnographic work shows how the “microcredit revolution” marketized Bangladesh’s rural spaces, bringing rural populations into the neoliberal fold by giving them access to small loans and turning rural women into “entrepreneurs,” thereby expanding the consumer base of banking services (and other goods and services that corporatized NGOs provide). As Muhammad Yunus, the father of microcredit, said, “Capitalism is good for the poor and the poor are good for capitalism.”64 The question of consent is tricky, however. Because neoliberal policies and the Bangladeshi state came into being at about the same time, the logic of private enterprise is embedded within the national psyche. Dissatisfaction with the government, the two-party system, corruption, and political instability drives support for the private sector as well as NGOs. Unable to rely on the government and the public sector for jobs and assistance, working-class Bangladeshis see the private sector as the only source of opportunities and NGOs as the only source of welfare assistance. Muhammad Yunus’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize has only strengthened the view that progress in Bangladesh rests on corporations and corporate NGOs. As progressive Bangladeshi economist Anu Muhammad has pointed out, regime type – democracy or autocracy – does not affect economic policies; the consensus is that a privatized economy serves the national interest.65 The government, then, does not have to actively generate propaganda to sell neoliberalism – it simply remains dysfunctional, unresponsive, and mired in petty party politics. It is unsurprising, then, that many see migration as an escape: It must be better beyond the border. 1.2.2

Neoliberal India

India started reforms in 1991, following a period of delicensing in the 1980s, during a balance of payments crisis. The IMF issued its loan with

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the requirements of economic stabilization and structural policy reforms, including a significant reduction in the number of protective tariffs. Reforms included “lesser controls on private business activity especially in manufacturing and substantially lower entry barriers to prospective entrants whether domestic or foreign.”66 Although the IMF instigated structural reforms when it issued the $1.2 billion loan with conditions, the Indian state accepted them enthusiastically. Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya point out, “The Washington Consensus had nothing to do with the reforms” in India; Indian policymakers decided the reforms were necessary.67 Jalal Alamgir posits that there was already ideational conviction among the political elite that “economic openness was a must, essentially non-negotiable.”68 The 1991 crisis provided the opportunity to enact structural reforms. In fact, Alamgir points out, economic openness was “accepted in society as a core national value, on a par with other fundamental values that the state is committed to protect.”69 Lesser control on private business activities set the stage for the consolidation of class power among the business elite in part because of wealth creation and in part because of the redistribution of wealth from the poor to the wealthy. Instead of the pursuit of free enterprise, India saw a slow but steady convergence of state and business interests, Atul Kohli writes in Poverty Amid Plenty in the New India. “The clearest manifestation of the growing state-business alliance in India is the changing pattern of state intervention in the economy. Over the last three decades [since the 1990s] the Indian state and business have increasingly converged on such crucial issues as the approach to labor; the pace and pattern of external opening of the economy; and most importantly, on how to enable Indian business to improve productivity and production,” he writes.70 Under the BJP’s leadership, Gujarat’s model of development became the cornerstone of neoliberalism – privatization, weakening of labor laws, minimal environmental protection, and transfer of public lands for private/industrial use, all of which are said to be responsible for Gujrat’s above-the-national growth rate of almost 7 percent compared to the national average of 5.6 percent in the 2000s. Nagesh Rao explained in an interview: Narendra Modi came into office in 2014 promising “sabka saath, sabka vikas” (together with all, development for all) but with little steam left in the economy to actually deliver. To sustain and prop up accumulation, the government cut corporate taxes, to restore credit they slashed interest rates, and to attract investment they announced further privatizations. They passed new labor laws …. In some BJP-ruled states, they’ve also passed laws to lengthen the workday to 12 hours, while in others they are proposing to suspend all labor laws for a period of up to 3 years.71

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45

Land grabs became commonplace. Paddy fields were turned into SEZs by labeling them “dry and infertile” because only then could agricultural land be legally used for industrial purposes.72 Unsurprisingly, this kind of dispossession has given rise to anger among farmers and peasants, often directed toward the wealthy who made and continue to make millions from the real estate that the farmers got a pittance for. In late 2020, the Indian government announced new farm laws to liberalize agriculture in the interest of corporations, which farmers argue would lead to more dispossession, inciting protests for months.73 Kohli argues that the state’s recognition of the private sector as the vector of capital accumulation has made it see itself as a facilitator of that process, which explains why even local governments legitimize illegal practices such as land grabbing to aid businesses.74 Kohli’s arguments are reminiscent of Harvey’s description of the neoliberal state that intervenes on behalf of the capitalist class.75 Not only have politicians inculcated a pro-business climate in pursuit of economic growth but corporate support of political candidates has effectively given corporations an increased voice. For example, Aditya Birla Group, Torrent Power, Bharti Enterprises, Tata Group, and Vedanta were the top campaign contributors to both the BJP and the Congress, donating roughly the same amount to each party, during the 2014 elections, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms.76 Liberalization in India shares some elements with Bangladesh’s experience: privatization, denationalization, dismantling of the public sector, and cautious easing of capital markets. The Indian counterpart to Bangladesh’s EPZs is the SEZs designed to incentivize exports, attract foreign investments, and develop a business-friendly infrastructure. As Swapan Adnan writes, these SEZs relied on systematic land grabs, legitimized through the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 that allows the state to acquire lands for public purposes.77 This archaic act was used to dispossess people in the name of development and progress across India. Land grabs are not new in the neoliberal period, but in 1991, they became less about state-led industrialization and infrastructure building and more about supporting private and financial capital.78 While the 2013 Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act replaced the 1894 act in an attempt to curtail institutionalized dispossession, it had not eliminated dispossession amid the politics of identifying and naming different types of land, fair price, compensation, and resettlement in India. Workers in India have rights, at least on paper – due to a minimum wage, guaranteed hours, medical leave, strong unions, and so on. However, the majority of the workforce is characterized by informal labor

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instead of formal labor (such as in manufacturing plants), which means they do not have any of these privileges; yet they are not at the mercy of management in the way workers in Bangladesh are. Public universities and hospitals are still thriving, albeit in a climate of censorship, indicating that the public sector has not been completely decimated (unlike in Bangladesh where once well-regarded universities and hospitals continue to lose their best people to private universities and hospitals). Given India’s democratic structure, these rights speak to how the logic of neoliberalism is not widely shared. Dialectically, this explains why reforms have not been imposed as quickly as they were in Bangladesh. Narendra Modi’s election campaign and eventual success at the polls in 2014 provide a way to understand the creation of consent for neoliberal policies. Modi campaigned on a platform that focused on reforms and religion. He touted the “Gujrat Model of Development” as his economic platform. He proudly wore his Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) badge as he campaigned with posters saying, “I am Hindu nationalist [sic].” He did the unimaginable – he convinced inward-looking orthodox Hindus who saw Western influences as vile and vulgar that neoliberal policies were very much in line with Hindu ideology. In the process, he gave credence to the idea that India is Hindustan – an abode for Hindus. The use of Hinduism fits well within the neoliberal project. As Kohli argues, traditional forms of ideologies – nationalism, socialism, populism – had lost their charm and become outdated: The emergence of demagogues as leaders, the focus on caste politics, the rise of Hindu nationalism, the efforts to capitalize on the legitimacy of political dynasties, and some continuing populism can all be interpreted as efforts to appeal to the poor masses without threatening the emerging class hierarchy.79

Modi’s “Make in India” campaign to attract foreign investments epitomizes the coming together of nationalism, Hindutva politics, and neoliberal policies – it sounds protectionist when in fact it is all about further opening up the economy. Thus, while neoliberal policies prioritized privatization and a favorable business climate in India, the BJP reanimated the neoliberal logic by suggesting that development is part of Hindu identity. Certain claims by Narendra Modi – such as Lord Ganesha’s physical features prove that ancient India had plastic surgeons80 – may sound ludicrous, but at the popular level, they add weight to the idea that progress and (economic) development have roots in India’s sacred past.

1.2 Neoliberalism in Bangladesh and India

1.2.3

47

Why Differential Neoliberalism Matters

The discrepancy between India and Bangladesh’s timing of liberalization plays a role in how well established the logic of neoliberalism is. Specific components of the reforms and consent creation for neoliberal policies also shape neoliberal ideology.81 Reforms in both countries emphasized privatization and denationalization. Capital mobility also remains in check, with limits on how much money can be taken out of the country. But two variations in the realm of labor impact the treatment of Bengali Muslims. First, as mentioned earlier, in 1976 Bangladesh set up a bureau for the management of labor, domestically as well as internationally. Since then, the government has encouraged economic migration because of the potential remittance earnings. This was a successful policy given that remittances have soared in the past several decades from the migration of not skilled labor but unskilled labor. In the Bangladeshi context, the desire to go abroad to seek better opportunities became much like the logic of urban migration in most places; the concept of open borders is part of neoliberal sensibility and accepted widely.82 The creation of a large male diaspora workforce with families in villages forms the face of neoliberal Bangladesh abroad. Thus, the image of the migrant worker often is that of a working-class male Bangladeshi. Indian neoliberalism, on the other hand, relies on a kind of chauvinism with a closed mind and closed borders. While the diaspora plays a large role, the Indian diaspora, unlike the Bangladeshi one, is wealthy, conservative, and forever “tied” to India – and was crucial in funding Modi’s campaign. Second, Bangladeshi workers are more exploited – there is constant downward pressure on wages, a threat of competition from rural workers, and significantly fewer protections (in fact, Bhagwati and Panagariya argue that India ought to model its labor laws on Bangladesh’s to be more efficient and increase economic growth).83 This discrepancy has, in turn, had two types of effect: On the one hand, workers find India a better place to work, and on the other, labor contractors find migrant workers more easily exploitable. The migrant worker, then, has become a loathsome character in India no matter where they come from, but more so if they are “from Bangladesh.” However, it is easy to overestimate the pull of India for low-skilled Bangladeshi workers because of the difference in the levels of development. For example, the rise of Hindutva-sponsored violence against Muslims and the general climate of Islamophobia are deterrences. But

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even before Modi’s electoral win, Bangladeshis had figured out that Muslims were not welcome in India. My research in the border areas indicates that while men would like the opportunity to go to India freely, they do not want to live there or take their families along because of religion-based discrimination they have either experienced or heard about. One Mohammad Rafiq, for example, said: I have crossed the border many times to go and work as a construction worker in various cities in India. Why do I go? Because the pay is better. But I go, work, keep my head down, and come back. They don’t like us [Muslims]. So, I don’t talk to anyone. I work, get my wages, and come back. It is a terrible place for us. I can only tolerate it for short periods. I cannot imagine living there and taking my wife and children there. We might be poor, but we have dignity.

Many others had similar views. This implies that “infiltration” into India from Bangladesh does not take the form that Indian politicians, media, or the BSF say that it does – Bangladeshis are not flocking to India to live there permanently. To the extent they go in search of jobs, it is mostly temporary jobs that they seek. In turn, this draws attention to the fact that new jobs in neoliberal India may be numerous, but they are low-waged, contractbased, temporary jobs, with little to no benefits, following the Gujarat model where labor rights were curtailed to incentivize investment.84 In both countries, wealth redistribution to the elite has occurred through land grabbing, whether to produce economic zones, malls, apartment complexes, factories, or power plants.85 However, the response to it differs. In many parts of India, those affected by such takeovers have risen in protest, whereas in Bangladesh such protests have been almost nonexistent. Part of the reason may have to do with India’s vibrant protest culture, but largely it has to do with how rapid neoliberal transformations have made it easy to see the source as well as beneficiaries of change. In Bangladesh, the prevalence of neoliberal logic and the relatively slower pace of change lead people to blame themselves and their fate before blaming the system. In India, people still see the value of protest in the hopes that it will have an impact; in Bangladesh, many see (temporary) migration as a way out. Put differently, in India the recognition that dispossession is systemic leaves open the option of collective action; in Bangladesh, dispossession is seen as a personal failure and thus requires individual solutions. Traffickers take advantage of the desperate and lure them into greener pastures, often illegally. Others have figured out ways to make borders porous, for example, by bribing border guards. Adding to these tensions, there is a difference in rural-urban consolidation of neoliberal reforms. In Bangladesh, reforms are city-centric – Dhaka, Chittagong, and the surrounding areas have become economic

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hot spots. Much of rural Bangladesh has been “left out” of development; in those areas, there is a high proclivity for people to migrate to the closest city, which often means to India (Of the eight divisions in Bangladesh, six share a border with India, and one [Barisal] borders the Bay of Bengal. Only Dhaka District has no international border.)! Crossing the border for economic gains and participating in informal trade have become part of an entrenched neoliberal sensibility because it corresponds to the way of life that people are accustomed to. Malini Sur’s point that “Rowmari’s [a town in Bangladesh’s Kirugram District] traders flashed mobile phones and openly discussed the cattle business at local markets as they awaited consignments” provides a case to discern the difference in neoliberal sensibilities across the border because of the contrast with Assam, where people spoke of the cattle trade only in hushed tones.86 What is common to both Bangladesh and India is the importance of the informal economy in absorbing many of the marginally employed, often migrant, labor. Twenty years ago, the informal economy referred to the residual sector characterized by very low productivity and a subsistence economy. But today, because of structural changes, the informal economy takes a different form. Despite its name, there are many kinds of formalities involved in the informal economy, such as verbal contracts. If there is any value to the much touted “entrepreneurial spirit” under neoliberalism, it is in this sector that includes a wide array of work that range from blasé and menial to clandestine and generally dui-nombori (shady), as many Bengalis will point out. Barbara Harriss-White defines the informal economy as “the economy not covered by official data on registered enterprises” because “the production or exchange does not take the form of market transactions,” transactions “fall below the size threshold for direct taxation or licensing,” “it involves various kinds of mobile exchange and production.”87 The post-reforms period in both India and Bangladesh saw the tendency towards formalization as a way to deepen the degree of neoliberal entrenchment. Yet, the desire for contract-free labor meant that certain kinds of informal work persisted, even thrived. Many of these precarious workers are connected to the formal sectors through outsourcing and subcontracting, if not through “horizontal subdivision[s] of a formal firm” to avoid taxes and regulations, as Pranab Bardhan shows.88 Whether production or logistics, informal firms provide a range of support to formal firms, from supplying provisions and raw material to final goods and services. Formal firms are notorious for using casual labor and paying under the table – such that the difference between formal and informal workers is in the different degree of

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exploitation, Martha Chen and Françoise Carré argue.89 In Bangladesh, garment factory work may be seen as informal because contracts are often verbal. The subcontracting of textile manufacturing to unlicensed firms that adhere to no labor laws is well known. The “smuggling” of garment products is informal, too. Similarly informal are the use of casual labor, contract labor, outsourcing, home working, and various other methods through which formal work gets subcontracted in both rural and urban spaces. What this means is that while activities can be informal in terms of documentation and taxation, they need not necessarily be divorced from capitalist production and exchange. These examples point to how capitalism produces informalization in its own service. For all their attempts to formalize, the formal sectors seek the kind of flexible labor markets that characterize the informal sector – and this is why a discussion of flexible labor and the informal sector are related to how identities are reproduced. Corporations want the ability to hire and fire at will and do away with any kind of labor protection, just like anyone else whether a roadside dhaba owner, a village phone operator, or a landlord seeking domestic help. The desire for formalization, then, is about centralizing profit-making, and little about labor rights. The 2018 demonetization scheme in India affected the informal sector disproportionately because their transactions were predominantly in cash. A cynical view would see that as a way to force workers out of the informal and into the formal economy, even if as reserve labor, without any benefits – because that is the kind of labor that forces wages down. The stratification of high-skilled and low-skilled labor in post-reforms India and Bangladesh had two main consequences: uneven development across West Bengal and Assam, coincidentally in border districts, and the emergence of Bangladeshis as a source of low-skilled manpower whether for the domestic RMG industry or blue-collar work in the Gulf and East Asia. Along with an increasingly militarized border and an accompanying nationalism that privileges the Hindi language and Hindu religion, neoliberal policies and border politics have led to the myth of Bengali Muslims as Bangladeshi infiltrators, justifying their continued marginalization. Put differently, capitalist revitalization has reanimated ethnic divisions to produce and reproduce ethnic hierarchies that see Bengali Muslims in India at the bottom of any socioeconomic order because of their low levels of productivity and contribution to the Indian economy, which make them almost dispensable, unworthy of any social protection. Bengali Muslims market themselves as cheap labor to be more attractive in the job market – allowing for further exploitation.

1.3 Identity-Based Social Hierarchy in India

1.3

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Identity-Based Social Hierarchy in India

While the understanding of workers as collective producers can create working-class consciousness, workers as individuals competing with each other obscure the role of capitalists who divide them in the first place and turn workers against each other. It is on this site that “useful fictions” about race/ethnicity become animated. Foucault’s Birth of Biopolitics helps us understand, quite literally, the politics of the body under capitalism – the idea that our skills, capabilities, and productivity give us value; that our value is commensurate with our contribution to capitalism and to profit-making. This valuation of the body allows for the strategic use of biological determinism to show why certain bodies are more valuable than others – indicating that despite the debunking of eugenics, we still use a form of it to categorize different ethnic groups. This becomes the premise through which race, gender, and other fictions enter the valuation process.90 Theorists of racial capitalism have long pointed out that capitalism and racism are co-constituted, that they mutually reinforce one another.91 Capitalists use previously consolidated differences to differentiate workers because a segmented workforce is easier to control. As capitalists reap profits, they arrive at new ways to divide workers, strengthening ethnic stereotypes (now linked to neoliberal work ethics), and allow such ideas to propagate via various labor practices. The ruling class constructed the idea of racial hierarchies, some suggest, to explain and justify slavery and other forms of subordination in societies where constitutional equality was becoming the norm.92 In pre-capitalist societies, exploitation was coercive, and inequality was seen as natural. “Once capitalist social property relations become dominant,” writes Charles Post, “the production and reproduction of race are rooted in the dynamics of labormarket competition.”93 As Fields and Fields note, “Race explained why some people could rightly be denied what others took for granted: namely, liberty.”94 I follow these scholars in seeing race as an ideology in the South Asian context. Were South Asians always racist (or casteist or colorist or elitist), or was their racism a product of contact with colonial capital and hence a colonial construct? Scholars have argued both sides. Whether racism or caste prejudice precede the encounter with colonial capitalism, what we do know from well-established literature is that this encounter solidified, politicized, and turned violent whatever form difference took before. Racialization was not merely about making race visible when it was not previously,95 but making it visible to exploit and oppress. Thus, there

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may have been prejudices, but it is only under capitalism that such prejudices have taken on violent forms to extract profit. As racialized ideas become internalized by the very people they exploit, they become a tool for population management.96 Thus, the expectation is not that new identities will be created because of neoliberalism, but that some of the existing identities will become more valuable than others based on market consideration. Several historical and socioeconomic reasons explain why Bengali Muslims in India have become easy targets of scapegoating in the neoliberal age. Xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments play into their marginalization because the majority of the population is unable to distinguish between Bangladeshis and Bengali Muslims. However, the types of liberalization policies, how they were implemented, and how public consent was garnered for these policies based on nationalistic chauvinism ensured that instinctive xenophobia finds expression in discrimination. In the rest of this section, I first discuss how difference was politicized in colonial India and then outline how social hierarchies developed since independence based on identity, with particular attention to West Bengal and Assam. 1.3.1

Politicization of Difference in Colonial India

The colonial period set the stage for conflict between competing identities in the contemporary period. As the British consolidated power, they set new rules for interactions and behavior, codifying behavior and practices based on identity. The 200 years of British rule speaks to the success they achieved in using an approach that relies on racialization, primarily as a way to exploit labor. While some were relegated to menial work, others were cultivated as aspiring classes – with durable effects on how identity is valued. Andrew Rotter’s Empire of the Senses gives us a sense of how the early encounters foretold the stereotypes that would eventually become reified. He recounts stories of British soldiers’ first encounter with India where they expressed being overwhelmed by the visuals, the heat, the spicy food, the sound, and also the smell, or odor. All these were signs of primitiveness to them that they tried to temper.97 In the present day, perhaps because of the integration of ethnicity and specialized work, the notion that one can smell ethnicity, or at least caste and religion, is common. As food habits changed and settled across ethnic lines, it served to reinforce that people could be identified based on smell. Along with the solidification of caste position, odor became a barrier to upward mobility or transcending caste barriers. It is for this reason that

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Hindus and Muslims will claim that they cannot live together even in the same locale. This is also the reason why sweepers – traditionally Dalits – cannot enter the homes of upper-caste Hindus. Rotter points out, odor connoted disease, impurity, and lack of hygiene during colonial times; it does so even now.98 South Asian experience of capitalism is rooted in colonial encounters, in the trade interests of imperial powers, even before India became a formal British colony. The British and French trading companies became the main competitors by the 1600s, as Portuguese and Dutch trading companies were in decline. Eventually the British East India Company, through its acquisition of trading bases in Madras (1639), Bombay (1664), and Calcutta (1696), and instigation of proxy wars between various kings, became the biggest trading company in the world – notably the world’s first multinational company. High demand for cheap cotton, silks, fine china, and tea insured high stock prices and the near 200 stockholders most of whom lived in Britain.99 Trade interests brought about the labor-intensive production of cotton, silk, indigo, salt, tea, and opium using local labor. The different value placed upon mental labor versus manual labor could not be more obvious, as local women and men toiled the earth to generate profits for the foreign traders. The need for local labor was not only for production processes but also for security. The East India Companies had their armies which they manned by recruiting and training locals. To these trading companies, India represented riches that would enrich the companies as well as the empire – a place to exploit and loot. They were also aware that local rivalries between kings could be exploited. Acquiring land in exchange for military support in these local wars was a popular way of increasing their power. With these armies, thus, the colonizers became kingmakers by supporting various kings with troops and weapons during battles. In return for help during these battles, the colonizers would take over control over coffers and territories. These battles soon became grounds for proxy wars between different colonial powers – the British, the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese – as each took sides in local battles and victors took over control of the lands. The kings slowly and steadily became symbolic figures only – and the British the ultimate victors as the British East India Company effectively laid siege throughout the subcontinent through a number of battles.100 As the East India Company moved beyond economic interests to become politically entrenched as it gained control over trade routes, they used ethnicity-based stereotypes to include and exclude locals from various privileges and to justify their presence. For example, Indians were “ill-calculated for war, and except when they are led on by

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English with other Europeans, seldom make any great figure in the field,” observed a Royal Navy officer in Pondicherry.101 Yet, the demand for sepoys meant there had to be exceptions; thus emerged the “warrior class” – those who were naturally strong-bodied and minded to be soldiers. The British decided the Punjabis and Jats were the natural warriors given their relatively larger physical structure. In contrast, the Bengalis were deemed weak and fragile, physically and mentally, and hence ill-equipped for battles.102 The Battle of Polashi in 1757 (Plassey, as the British called it) solidified this understanding of Bengalis. The failed Battle of Polashi institutionalized Company Rule in India. Cognizant of how the British were taking over control, Bengal’s Nawab Sirajudoula spearheaded this battle – seen with pride as the first battle for independence in West Bengal and Bangladesh. British reports speak to how underprepared the Nawab and his troops were, but the crucial factor that led to the Sirajudoula’s defeat was the betrayal by his trusted righthand man and commander of the Bengali forces, Mir Zafar, who accepted bribes to sabotage the plans.103 This defeat had long-lasting effects on a number of fronts. First, it established Company Rule and with it the right to collect taxes (diwan), effectively taking on the role of the government. Second, it strengthened the repressive arm of the Company, and they could successfully thwart anti-British movements for decades to come. Third, the defeat became the context for mythmaking about Bengalis and how weak and fickle they are that they can be bribed to betray their dear ones. Numerous plays and stories have been written about Mir Zafar’s betrayal which becomes the example to show how India would have been independent had it not been for the fickle Bengali. What is interesting is that this betrayal becomes the reason why Sirajudoula’s men lost the battle; there is little room for alternate explanations. The stereotype of the weak Bengali, thus, is a product of both an imposition of character flaws by the British as well as self-loathing because the fall-out of Polashi played into the stereotype. Whether by design or not, this self-loathing would serve the British well as Bengalis tried to transcend their “inherent” flaws through hard work and loyalty to the British. Of particular import, was the introduction in 1793 of Permanent Settlement, yet another form of institutionalized exploitation that would create social hierarchies in favor of the Hindu upper caste. This was a land revenue system that provided property rights to those who paid a fixed amount of khajna or tax. These landowners, or zamindar, in turn, collected revenue from their tenants who tilled the land, fueling feudal control on the one hand and commodifying land on the other, in the interest of a permanent revenue system to benefit the British.104

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Initially, it was the feudal lords or kings who formed the new zamindar. However, many could not continue to pay the fixed sums and had to sell their lands to pay arrears. Within a few decades, the zamindari class constituted of those who benefited financially from doing business with the East India Company – merchants, brokers, traders – the businessmen who in effect bought respect and social status through landownership. These merchants were wealthy, urban Hindu Brahmins and Kayasthas and emerged as a significant social class in Bengal supported by the British.105 Bengali Hindus thrived as they took advantage of the secular education that the British employed that influenced Bengal’s period of enlightenment. English language replaced Persian in courts and the education system was modified. As the dominant class during the days of Company Rule, Muslims resisted English presence and interventions, while Hindus positioned themselves strategically to gain through participating in the changes that the Company sought.106 Government contracts – the instrument for class building – went primarily to Hindus. In the new regime where upward mobility was a function of education and how well people could serve the new masters, Muslims lagged.107 It took longer for Bengali Muslims to achieve “intellectual” parity in part because they opted out of the secular education system that the British imposed, and continued madrasa education, that received limited to no funding. Because the incumbent rulers, the Mughals, were Muslim, Muslims were the easy enemy who refused to cooperate with the British for as long as they could and whose interests need not be addressed. Ultimately, it was a structural issue – the resistance to colonial rule in the form of non-participation ensured “inferiority” which, in turn, was internalized in the minds of (Bengali) Muslims themselves. While the production of difference during much of Company Rule was designed to manage workers in accordance with different types of work, the use of difference as a divide-and-rule strategy becomes increasingly clear once these divisions have been created. The rumor that cartridges – that have to be taken off with the mouth – were laced with pig and cow fat inspired rage and a rebellion that became the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, officially India’s first battle for independence.108 The common interpretation is that these rumors were meant to keep the Hindus and Muslims suspicious of each other, but instead came to symbolize the disregard the British had for Hindu and Muslim food prohibitions – and in turn the people. This reception spoke to the general view of the British as conniving and deceptive. In 1857 Company Rule gave way to the British Raj, following the failed Sepoy Mutiny. Great Britain became the empire upon which the “sun

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never set.” The British government was swift to use difference as facts as a way to manage the population, set up institutions to serve their interests, and jumpstart its civilizing mission. It went a step further when it conducted a census. The census that the British began to conduct beginning in 1871 would have long-lasting effects on what came to be known as communalism. As part of knowledge-building, the British not only wanted figures on population size, but also information such as age, occupation, caste, religion, literacy, place of birth, and so on. As historian Bernard Cohn points out, “[t]he published census reports not only summarized the statistical information thus compiled but also included extensive narratives about the caste system, the religions of India, fertility and morbidity, domestic organization, and the economic structure of India.”109 Collecting such information became the basis on which people could be classified to manage them better. The repercussions were more considerable, Cohn suggests: The British assumed that the census reflected the basic sociological facts of India. This it did, but through the enumerative modality, the project also objectified social, cultural, and linguistic differences among the people of India. The panoptical view that the British were constructing led to the reification of India as a polity in which conflict, from the point of view of the rulers, could only be controlled by the strong hand of the British.110

The empirical taxonomy of the British census made the relatively fluid caste hierarchy into a rigid one. Dalits or untouchables were counted as “Hindu” but without the ability to ever move up the hierarchy, thereby making class mobility difficult. The census was part of a larger project of institutionalization, however. European colonizers increased their control and power through institutionalization, ritualization, and “officializing” of everyday practices.111 They defined space (private versus public), classified people, redefined the role of religious institutions as record-keepers (of births, marriages, deaths, for example), and transformed schools into “civilizing institutions” to “produce moral and productive citizens.”112 The colonial establishment was based on historical practices, as if to show that the British cared about local culture. As Cohn writes, “knowledge of the history and practices of Indian states was seen as the most valuable form of knowledge on which to build the colonial state.”113 The colonial powers were hence able to enforce newer modes of control while claiming to maintain continuity with the past. This strategy made the changes appear almost inevitable, the logical next step, which in turn gave colonial institutions legitimacy. The ability of the British to root the

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newer schisms in a “past” is perhaps why even today, some claim that Hindu–Muslim conflicts, for example, predate colonial conquest114 and valorize colonial architecture and railroads (Manmohan Singh’s speech at Oxford University in 1999 is an example). Given the plural society that was revealed by the census, the use of divide and rule as a way of colonial management became commonsensical to them – popularly known as “British cunning” to South Asians even today. This strategy would pit not only different ethnic groups against each other but religious groups since they could encompass multiple ethnic groups within them. The most visible and violent divisions emerged between Hindus and Muslims, as the British strategically favored one over the other at different times, as they tried to curry political favor and political representation. The myth of Aryan superiority became an ideational tool to reinforce social hierarchies thus produced. This construction of the “Aryan races” is a shared myth among Europeans and Indians to denote an ideal, albeit imaginary, past of Aryan superiority and contact between Europeans and Indians. Romila Thapar describes how the Aryan identity developed in India in the nineteenth century via the collaborative hands of European scholars and upper-caste Hindus.115 For Europeans, the myth laid to rest questions such as how ancient India could be so advanced without European contact. For Indians, it gave them a history that set the Brahmins apart from the rest of the people in the Indian subcontinent. As Thapar points out, this myth is still prominent. If anything, the Hindu right insists that “Aryans were indigenous to India, were the authors of the earliest Indian civilization – that of the cities of the Indus and the northwest – and that wherever there was a language akin to Indo-Aryan it came through Aryan out-migrant from India.” These “interpretations” have found their way into school textbooks on ancient India, in an attempt to revise the past along communal lines.116 This was no accident. Dorothy Figueira shows that Hindu reformers like Raja Rammohan Roy, Vivekananda, and Tilak – those who sought to save Hinduism from itself, freed from Brahmin control – rewrote texts “to depict an ideal past in which certain religious practices (such as idolatry and sati) did not exist.”117 She points out that Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj “sought to make Sanskrit canonical sources available to a wider range of believers by developing a series of interpretive strategies to extricate Vedic revelation from its hermeticism and ritualism.”118 By glorifying the Aryan past, they allowed for the preservation of the caste system, for “it was clear that the Brahmin descendants of the Aryans would be the only true beneficiaries of this mythmaking.”119

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Thapar points to Hindu scholar Keshab Chunder Sen who wrote, “in the advent of the English nation in India we see a reunion of parted cousins, the descendants of two different families of the ancient Aryan race.”120 This worked well for the British who were able to racialize the Aryan/nonAryan (Dasa) binary along caste and class hierarchies to their benefit. The upper-caste Hindus were like the neo-English, aligned with British interests. That it was indeed a design is clear from Thomas Macaulay, February 2, 1835, “Minute on Indian Education” on February 2, 1979: [I]t is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern – a class of persons Indian in blood and color, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.

The integration of right-wing Hindu notions of (Aryan) greatness and the colonizers’ utilitarian use of divide and rule foretold the kind of social hierarchies that would sustain through the independence movement into the social fabric of independent India. Between the wide acceptance of Aryan superiority and the belief in the conversion theory, caste-based social hierarchy was not only limited within Hindus; upper-caste Hindus looked down upon those who belonged to lower castes as well as Muslims and Buddhists who converted to escape caste prejudice. 1.3.2

Social Hierarchies in the Contemporary Period

Religion In newly independent India, nationalism was based on highlighting certain identities. Partition based on religion, for one, turned Muslims in India into an embattled, oppressed minority, often treated as a homogeneous ethnic group. Indian nationalism – whether Gandhi’s fast unto death to bring Hindus and Muslims together or Bankim’s notion of the ideal man – was steeped in notions of Hindu nationalism. Perhaps the search for the common denominators across a large population, religion, and language came to define India’s national identity. At the same time, federalism meant that state-level or regional identities remained important as well. Alongside national identity there were subnational identities, which enjoyed support from both local and central governments. This multiplicity of identities fit in well with the notion of “unity in diversity” that characterized Nehruvian secularism in the early post-independent period. Yet there were contradictions.

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The Indian state catered to a largely Hindu population, as is perhaps “normal” in majoritarian systems. The Muslim minority, thanks to Partition, lost its middle class and became a low-income group, ghettoized, and segregated. Some of the colonial-era stereotypes found their way into postcolonial sensibilities and India’s social fabric. Despite some well-placed Muslims in high places, Muslims’ low-income status became acceptable. Stereotypes of Muslims’ disregard for higher education and intellectual work and preference for large families emerged to indicate their reliance on the state for their well-being. The logic of Partition based on the politicization of religion perhaps made it inevitable that, at some point, Hindustan would be seen as the abode for Hindus (only). It is also perhaps obvious that despite the rhetoric of secularism, the new nation-state would privilege its Hindu citizens. In a society divided by not just religion but caste, upper-caste Hindus were the primary beneficiaries of independence; they were also the ones the British courted and molded in their image to become the new elite in postcolonial India. This kind of deeply divided society is ideal for capital accumulation. The surprising element is not that society is hierarchical in terms of religion and caste (which it is) but that these divisions appear natural and acceptable even to those who suffer from it and for it. Neoliberal reforms came to India in such a context, where there was already significant inequality in terms of income, land holdings, and social status between Hindus and Muslims as well as between upper-caste and lower-caste Hindus. That the reforms ultimately benefited the already privileged came as no surprise. But these reforms gained a reputation as being progressive because of the widespread belief that capitalism promotes democracy. Capitalism is color-blind, the argument goes; it only cares about profit maximization, not about who participates in economic activities, and thereby encourages a meritocracy. Anyone can compete and get ahead. Theoretically, that is true enough, but as critics have pointed out such notions hide historical oppression and disallow competition on a level playing field. The world did not become flat, but certain low-skilled jobs became a little more diverse. For example, security guards and peons at multinational corporations have a relatively diverse workforce. These are the jobs that some pointed to in order to show “progress” in my interviews because Muslims can now enter predominantly Hindu (work) spaces. Language and Culture What should the national language be in a multiethnic space like India? Language, after all, refers not only to spoken language but to literature and culture. The use of English as India’s official language and its widespread appeal is perhaps among

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the most obvious signs of a colonial hangover. The valorization of English as the language of the powerful and skilled is hardly a postliberalization phenomenon. However, post-liberalized India is more globalized, and English-language abilities are beneficial. India is a hub for call centers for multinational corporations – a sector that has created jobs for young workers from middle- and lower-middle-class backgrounds. Post-liberalized India has also seen increased foreign investments and the rise of the service sector, which also prioritize English. Banks, including local ones, have strict codes about speaking in English and Hindi instead of regional languages. The logic is that these banks have a multiethnic customer base, and hence employees need to speak the official/national/global languages. If we look at the anticolonial cultural and political expressions in the pre-independence period, we find Bangla to be dominant – it was the language in which such sentiments were most often expressed and communicated. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many nationalist thinkers and scholars, from Bankim to Rabindranath, were Bengali. Therefore, many of the popular nationalist expressions were in Bangla, later to be translated into Hindi. The slogan “Vande Mataram” was originally “Bonde Mataram.” Bharat Mata (Mother India) was Banga Mata. India’s national anthem, “Jana-gana-mana,” was originally a Bangla song, “Jono-gono-mono.” Arguably, the existence of a rich body of anticolonial and nationalist literature in Bangla (which were later translated into Hindi to serve a nationalist purpose) speaks to an expectation among Bengali elites that Bengal would dominate the new country and the language would be widely spoken, whenever India achieved independence. Reading “Jana-gana-mana” with that in mind, it would appear that Rabindranath wrote it with the expectation that it would become the national anthem one day. A description of the lands from Punjab in the west to Bengal in the east, the song praises a victorious India – but one that leaves out Assam and the northeast. The Bengali Renaissance at the turn of the twentieth century was a period of cultural enrichment and enlightenment. It brought India on par with the West and elevated Bengal’s place in the national imagination; given its richness, it would only make sense for Bangla and Bengal to play a dominant role in independent India. Nationalist thinkers did not foresee that independence would entail the demise of Bengal. Seen in this light, Partition is not only about nation-statehood based on religion. Partition served to break Bengal into two parts, destroying the hegemony that Bangla enjoyed. In post-independence India, Bangla was not even a contender for national language. Hindi and English became the

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dominant languages based on commonality, even though people in southern and eastern India barely spoke Hindi. With independence, Bangla became a regional language, spoken primarily in West Bengal and parts of Tripura. Nevertheless, Bangla chorcha (practice) flourished. The Bengali bhadralok remained, too, and Bengalis prided themselves on being intellectually superior to other ethnic groups, for being more cerebral, for being thinkers – “what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow” is still a popular phrase in West Bengal, for example. Such pride in the language and culture is clear in the writings of more contemporary fiction writers like Sunil Gangopadhyay.121 Neoliberal reforms would turn this pride on its head. Capitalism, after all, has little patience for intellectualism if there are no profits to be made. While the Bengali bhadralok continued to convince themselves of their superiority and dominance, reforms produced a new sensibility that looked down upon such “unproductive” labor. Colonial-era prejudices of the weak, lazy Bengali reappeared. At a popular level, Bengalis’ supposed lack of business acumen and poor work ethics were used to explain why West Bengal lagged others in terms of economic performance.122 So, while Bangla’s national presence fell in newly independent India, it was not until neoliberal reforms in the 1990s that Bengalis as an ethnic group would be seen as inferior. With it, Bangla language and literature in India saw a decline that continues today. Take the Bengali film industry (Tollygunge), for example, which does not elicit the respect it once enjoyed even in the 1970s. The films of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak remain unparalleled. Market considerations meant that everything from books to films to plays had to cater to the masses. But with Bangla in decline at the mass level in West Bengal, Bangladesh emerged as a major market. Newer generations of Bengalis in West Bengal are conscious of Bangla’s demise. Many do not speak it. It is the third language in many public schools. The sense that English and Hindi are more marketable is pervasive across class. English and Hindi give people access to better service that Bangla does not; for example, Bengalis are stereotyped as being miserly, with limited ambition, and upwardly immobile. So, Bangla faces a crisis not just nationwide but also in West Bengal. Even in West Bengal, despite its 70 percent Bengali population, Bangla comes after English and Hindi. English and Hindi are spoken everywhere in urban spaces – a far cry from even a decade ago. On the one hand, it is a sign of cosmopolitanism, but it is also a sign that capital has attracted people from outside instead of employing locals. Thus, this cosmopolitanism comes at the expense of Bengali culture and people.

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In Assam, in contrast, the tensions between Axomiya and Bangla remain. There is a continued sense that Bangla is a threat to Axomiya, in terms of language and culture. These fault lines have colonial roots as well and have inspired concerns regarding the “foreigner” issue – that there are too many foreigners in Assam. The tensions between the two groups were fomented by language issues, too; the British had perceived Axomiya to be a dialect of Bangla. Many Bengalis still claim that Bangla is a richer language with stronger roots. The Assamese, unsurprisingly, find such claims condescending and disrespectful. That these two languages are indeed similar and use the same script (with some exceptions) allows for such claims and tensions. In post-reforms Assam, this old tension between Axomiya and Bangla lingers in a context where Hindi and English have taken up cultural space. Perhaps the Axomiya-Bangla tensions distracted people from seeing the slow and steady ways many signboards in Guwahati turned Hindi/English. While people focused on the anti-Bangladeshi threat as the contemporary face of the foreigner problem, Hindi songs became standard fare at roadside dhabas and taxis, and sarees and kurtas replaced more traditional sarongs. Like in West Bengal, knowing Hindi became sufficient to access Assam. Interestingly, neoliberal reforms allowed for the consolidation of linguistic nationalism in the form of Hindi imperialism, as Hindi serials reached different parts of India to immense popularity. Geographical Importance and Ethnic Identity The colonial period cannot be overlooked as the site of ethnic formations because of its effects on regional development. Yet, in the Indian case, we cannot draw a straight line between colonial control and economic development. Bengal was the center of colonial development, with Murshidabad as a capital. From steel production to salt cultivation, indigo cultivation, and jute mills, British exploitation began in the east (hence the name East India Company), and these areas are among the most impoverished today. In West Bengal, the inability to “win” the anticolonial battles they started corroborates the British stereotyping of Bengalis as weak. Although Polarshir Judhho, or the Battle of Plassey, in Murshidabad can be termed the first battle against the British, it ended up giving the British more power, thanks to Mir Zafar’s betrayal of Sirajudowla. In the present day, Mir Zafar is used as a slight, but also a reminder of Bengali fickleness.123 We can question whether it makes sense to judge Bengali morality based on how nawabs behaved given that their only connection to the people they governed were through taxes. We can also question whether we should judge their actions based on national consciousness

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that emerged much later. Yet, in popular parlance, the stigma of the Bengali’s lack of physical strength persists. Bangladesh’s War of Independence challenged the stereotype: Bengalis could fight, they could win, they were not afraid to resist oppression – they were not weak! West Bengal took due pride in the bravery of their Bengali kin across the border. Yet the formation of the new nation-state based on Bengali nationalism produced new challenges and anxiety. East Bengal, after all, was always seen as inferior to West Bengal by the Bengali elite; now, it was a nation-state, whereas West Bengal remained a regional state with declining national importance. Pride coupled with jealousy set the stage for cross-border Bengali solidarity. For Assam, the new nation-state posed a different kind of problem. When Bangladesh was East Pakistan, it was considered a national threat. Assam stipulated several legal procedures to deal with “Pakistani infiltration.” Assam and Delhi toed the same line with regards to the security threat that Pakistan posed. When Bangladesh became an independent state with Indian support, it became an Indian ally, creating a bifurcation between how Assam and the central government saw Bangladesh. In a context where Assam, too, sought independence, India’s support of Bangladeshi self-determination but suppression of Assam’s claim to independence highlighted the precarious and contentious relationship between Assam and Delhi. In the following years, Delhi ignored Assam’s fears while Assamese politicians cashed in on the rhetoric of how Bangladesh was making the Assamese a minority in their lands. Neoliberal reforms in India bypassed Assam except as a site of market expansion. Despite the rhetoric of development, India’s GDP grew at 6 percent while Assam’s grew at 3.3 percent between 1981 and 2000.124 This time, the “Bangladeshi” became easy scapegoats to explain Assam’s underdevelopment. Slowly but surely, the “illegal Bangladesh” became one of India’s biggest threats. The NRC and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 are the newest incarnations of the politicization of the “Bangladeshi problem,” but both have communal elements that complicate matters; it is only Muslim Bangladeshis who are threats; under the act, Hindu Bangladeshis would qualify as refugees escaping persecution. Geographical importance is not merely based on the nation and nationality. The advent of globalization has produced what Saskia Sassen calls the “global city.”125 In 1991, she theorized that globalization would not make cities less important, as some feared, but rather “global cities” would be where global corporations would cluster, becoming the sites from which scattered production processes would be controlled and hubs for global networks connecting financial services across the world. She also hypothesized that these cities would get disconnected from

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hinterlands and their national economies, producing both spatial and socioeconomic disparities. Much of what she wrote has come to fruition. Cities like Delhi and Mumbai have more in common with Tokyo and New York than with their surrounding villages. The global city is also the neoliberal city – governed in a hypermarketized style through the logic of SEZs, gentrification and purification, the valorization of the gig economy (and self-exploitation), and novel ways of commodification. In places like Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore, these find visibility in the form of new airport terminals, glossy malls, IT corridors, “knowledge parks,” skyscrapers, hotels, and gated-communities called “societies.”126 Kolkata and Guwahati are aspiring neoliberal cities. Kolkata’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport – built in 1924 and one of the oldest in the region – transformed from a small two-room airport to a massive, international airport in 2013. In 2019, Guwahati Airport – or Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport – came under the private ownership of the Adani Group, a multinational conglomerate based in Gujarat, with the expectation of a similar makeover. In both Kolkata and Guwahati, the roads that lead from the airport to the inner city are lined with lights, giving the appearance of gold necklaces strewn across the newly constructed flyovers, welcoming visitors. In these cities that increasingly value high-skilled workers, low-skilled workers have to fight it out. Anti-immigrant sentiments follow the old rulebook to keep both wages and working conditions poor. Bengali Muslims’ rural existence made them inherently inferior mentally but superior physically, which justified why they form the bulk of low-skilled, manual, and menial workers. Second but related, the Bengali Muslims’ co-ethnics in Bangladesh, who form the majority there, corroborate the image because, despite a thriving business elite and an emerging middle class, it matters that 70 percent of Bangladeshis still live below the poverty line of $2 a day. The fact that the RMG sector and remittance from “manpower”127 in the Gulf countries – both products of neoliberal policies in Bangladesh – are the biggest contributors to Bangladesh’s GDP also informs this global image. Quoting Kibria, “The global image of Bangladesh as a poor, corrupt, and hapless country is one that haunts those abroad, creating a lens through which they find themselves being assessed in the receiving society.”128 As Bengali Muslims internalize such stereotypes based on their kinship to Bangladeshis, they accept lower wages and weaker protections, ensuring that they remain on the lowest economic rungs in society. Intersecting Identities The intersection of religion, language, ethnicity, and region, along with gender, produces a dynamic, ever-changing

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hierarchy with regional variations across India. The dynamic nature is in part a product of combined and uneven development that becomes more obvious in the post-reforms period because it produces certain regions as economic hubs (Bangalore for IT, Gujarat for manufacturing, and so on) while others are subject to neoliberal neglect and decay. While certain identities find privilege across India, the specific ways the identities coexist (along with the variety of development trajectories) produce differences. In West Bengal, the elite, ashraf Muslims were and continue to be Urdu speakers, not Bengali speakers. The latter form around 90 percent of the Muslim population in West Bengal, and yet state support for Muslims takes the form of state protection of Urdu. The BJP criticizes Trinamool Congress (TMC) as a Muslim appeaser, but by promoting Urdu culture in Kolkata, even the TMC participates in the Muslim– Urdu conflation. Thus, in a popular sense, Bengali is the language of Hindus and Urdu the language of Muslims.129 As is clear, such imposed demarcations render the Bengali Muslim population invisible, not only politically but also in the imagination of people living in West Bengal and India. The creation of Bangladesh effectively robbed West Bengal of the political potential of Bengali nationalism. It took the name “Bangladesh” – coined by Rabindranath to refer to united Bengal. What remains, then, of Bengali nationalism in West Bengal? In the present neoliberal period, when the BJP made inroads across India, including in West Bengal, using a combination of neoliberal fantasy and Hindu chauvinism, Mamata Bannerjee is seen as a warrior who wields Bengali nationalism as her weapon. But what is Bengali nationalism devoid of Bangladesh, the only state to emerge based on Bengali nationalism? This becomes a particularly important question when Mamata Bannerjee espouses anti-Bangladeshi sentiments and refuses to visit Bangladesh as part of national delegations. Her refusal of treaties on water sharing shows that TMC’s Bengali nationalism is well contained within Indian national boundaries. Therefore, the Bengali Muslim can be forsaken as Bangladeshi, despite the trope of Bengali nationalism in West Bengal. Assam was once the state with ninety-nine separatist groups, all wanting self-determination.130 That is no longer the case. For all the claims about Assam still being antiestablishment, it fell for the oldest nationalist trick – unify against the common enemy. They have come to see Bangladeshi immigrants as the enemy who have spoiled the economy and their livelihoods and can turn Assam into greater Bangladesh. The Assam Movement of the 1980s showed how anti-Bangladeshi

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mobilizations effectively saved the Indian state and its territorial integrity by transforming nationalist aspirations in Assam to subnationalist ones. The mobilization around the National Registration of Citizens and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 also relies on popular antiBangladeshi sentiments. The history of benign neglect combined with colonial-style control from afar, along with newer neoliberal neglect and decay, can explain the xenophobia, but mobilizations in Assam harp on incompatibility based on identities – ethnicity, language, religion, and finally (and ironically) nationality. Bengali Muslims are “othered” in both Assam and West Bengal, but there is variation in treatment. In West Bengal, anti–Bengali Muslim sentiments are a function of caste politics, where ghreena or disgust, not hatred, leads to exclusion. In Assam, the anti–Bengali Muslim sentiments are a continuation of the perceived economic threat posed by Bengalis. In recent times, both Assam and West Bengal have been the site of mob lynching of Muslims for “smuggling cows” or for refusing to say “Jai Matadi (Victory to Mother India)” or “Vande Mataram (Mother, I praise thee).” While these attacks appear to be motivated by nationalism and xenophobia, the history of disgust and fear in these two places allowed such nationalist violence to thrive. The hierarchies produced by religion, ethnicity, and language overlap to form multiple layers of discrimination and hierarchy; Bengali Muslims, by virtue of language, ethnicity, and religion, are triply discriminated against. This is why biopolitics matters. This discrimination is a function of the lack of demand for Bengali Muslim bodies. But it is not just the identity factors that are relevant. The fact that Bangladesh – a Bengali Muslim–majority country whose citizens are popularly deemed “illegal immigrants” – borders India on the east negatively affects biopolitics, too. Bengali Muslims are the perfect foreigners within India because Bangladesh is a relatively weak state that cannot intervene on behalf of co-ethnics in India, even if it did recognize the marginalization. Bengali Muslims as a group are very poor and geographically hidden away in inaccessible areas, primarily in Assam and West Bengal near the Bangladeshi border. They are visible only to the extent that is strategically useful. 1.4

Conclusion

In South Asia, preexisting differences as colonial remnants justified variations in the exploitation of different labor groups in the neoliberal period. Higher-skilled workers became the “good” workers with words like “productive,” “hard-working,” and “efficient” ascribed to them,

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while low-skilled workers, despite their productivity and hard work, became the ones who are simultaneously undesirable and indispensable. Even when we wear uniform, employers use “fictional racial ‘characteristics’ to determine who are the most ‘reliable’ and ‘efficient’ workers for different tasks.”131 Today, the image of the perfect worker in India is someone who has strong work ethics but also looks a certain way – cosmopolitan, smart, hard-working, well dressed, civil, clean, softspoken, nonargumentative, docile – much like the colonial requirements of civility and Thomas Macaulay’s vision of the Indian middle class in his infamous “Minute on Indian Education.”132 Although state- and substate-level factors and “generalized” perceptions help us understand how stereotypes form, it is insufficient. Local conditions and relationships are important too, even as they may contradict some of these general arcs. In this chapter, I have highlighted general tendencies or proclivities towards identity valuation. In the next chapters, I will assess how social hierarchies are produced dialectically through the engagement between norms produced structurally and locally in the context of borderlands and hinterlands.

2

Borders as Sites of Strength and Vulnerability

Could I pass off as a Bangladeshi? Yes. No, I don’t look Bangladeshi. I look like you. I am Bangladeshi. But you look Indian.

(Conversation between a borderlander and me on the Indian side of a border checkpost.)

Far away from the diplomatic enclaves and visa offices of the hinterlands, borders and borderlands are sites where the everyday relationship between states is performed by border guards and borderlanders on both sides of the border, who often have ties across the border. Not all share the pomp and ceremony of the Wagah crossing. At the India–Bangladesh border, borderlands are sites of generalized economic decay due to neoliberal neglect. In the popular Indian imaginary, the eastern borderlands are sites of criminality where “illegal Bangladeshis” engage in all sorts of illegal activity. More importantly, from the perspective of rightwing nationalism, the “infiltrators” foil the image of strong national borders. The resulting liminality of borderlander identity transcends national identity but allows for the easy conflation of Bengali Muslims and Bangladeshis. The border runs along West Bengal for 2,216.7 km, Assam for 263 km (221 km is fenced), Meghalaya for 443 km, Tripura for 856 km, and Mizoram for 318 km. The Bangladesh–India borders are hardly uniform: hills overlap with the border in Meghalaya and parts of Tripura; the southern part of the border along West Bengal is riverine, as is most of the border with Assam, inspiring innovation to seal riverine borders through the CIBM. In the 1950s, the first border stones or pillars were put in place. In the 1960s, the Border Security Force (BSF) appeared at checkpoints to process documents and operate customs inspection centers. Some fencing began in the 1980s along Assam following the Assam movement. In 1986, the Indian parliament, with Rajiv Gandhi as prime minister, 68

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authorized the construction of a border fence along the Bangladesh border. The Assam movement was crucial in starting the project, but its construction only began in 1989 due to the high costs and “resistance in West Bengal.”1 What started in 1989 was part of a ten-year project which fenced 854 km (512 miles) – mainly along the Indian state of West Bengal. In 2000, the Indian government began a second and much more expansive phase of fence construction which covered nearly all of the Bangladesh border. The border fence itself, in compliance with the Indo–Bangladesh Border Agreement of 1974 and the Joint-Indo– Bangladesh Guidelines of 1975, lies 150 yards within Indian territory creating a complicated buffer zone.2 Before 2000, the Bangladesh–India border was more or less open and lightly guarded.3 The border fence expansion in 2000 was a critical juncture in that it represented an openly anti-Bangladeshi stance of the BJP with words such as “encroachers” and “infiltrators” becoming commonplace about Bangladeshis. In 2004, then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, at a BJP election campaign rally in Assam, stated that “the foreigners are welcome as guests. But we will not welcome those who want to grab our land. India helped Bangladesh to achieve independence. The Bangladeshis should remain happy inside the territory of their own country.”4 This dual, dichotomous representation of Bangladeshis as desirable tourists or unwanted infiltrators was already in vogue. By 2017, half of the 4,096-km border had been fenced. The BSF planned to complete the project by 2019, but reportedly, land acquisition was a major challenge. In this chapter, I argue that nation-states and border regimes have not weakened but have been strengthened in the neoliberal period. Neoliberalism has promoted free trade but thrives on virulent nationalisms; it demands commercial access across borders but criminalizes borderlanders. Neoliberalism produces strong borders with weak borderlands. Small government has not been the model in neoliberal India, but the interventionist state we see in the eastern borderlands contrasts with the pro–big business state apparatus elsewhere in India. Here, the BSF is the face of the state – imposing, militarized, intrusive. The heavy presence of border personnel and infrastructure (checkpoints, surveillance towers, custom and border offices and storage facilities, and godown, elaborate fences) daily impinges upon and shapes the lives of those who reside nearby. In the first part of this chapter, I analyze various contradictions that shape borders and the lives of borderlanders in the neoliberal era. In the second I use interviews and participant observations in two commercial ports, land enclaves (chhit mahal), and their adjacent areas to show the

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dynamic nature of the borderlands and how they contrast with the simplistic view of “infiltration.” I argue that in the border areas the received ideas about neoliberalism and free trade correspond more readily with the lived experiences of the inhabitants, who do not see the border as a natural barrier or as one that needs protection. To understand the lives of Bengali Muslims, their “flexible” or “suspect” citizenship (depending on your perspective) and their views on mobility and trade, this chapter shows how neoliberalism impacts lives and livelihoods in the borderlands. The paradox of formal ports and informal economies inverts, to some extent, the logic of neoliberalism as well as people’s expectations. Informal, supposedly illegal economies are the ones in which people protect each other and where seamless networks of kinship and trust bind people together – displaying some of the virtues that neoliberalism falsely claims – while formal trade either blocks or slows movement. Both the significance as well as the relative meaninglessness of national identity are visible in the ways people move through the informal economy and how they negotiate their space and identity. Excluded from the networks of formal trade, borderlanders survive through daily negotiations that lend a flexibility to their identity; hardened identity stereotypes that exist in other spaces do not operate here. Occupying this liminal space, Bengali Muslims thus have a degree of agency in defining their identity, but they are also easily labeled as Bangladeshis. This conflation means that law enforcement and nationalists perceive borderlanders as criminals, even as the informal cross-border trade sustains lives in these forgotten parts. Law enforcement and military might seek to secure and maintain national boundaries, but borderlanders’ daily transgressions show that identities are not actually hegemonized by the state. For those who live around it, the border is often arbitrary, even illegitimate. For some, the border is a source of national pride; for others, it confounds their sense of belonging as it imposes a daily negotiation of their loyalties to nation, ethnicity, family, and community. 2.1

Neoliberal Borderlands

India’s eastern borderlands have long been sites of neglect, but this neoliberal period is different for a number of reasons. First, Bangladesh’s early adoption of neoliberal policies enshrined in the popular psyche a sense of wanderlust. It normalized the idea that greener pastures beyond borders are no longer out of reach, and that free-market principles should automatically translate to open borders (as explained in Chapter 1).

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Second, the onset of neoliberal policies, first in Bangladesh and then in India, significantly increased trade between the two countries – much of it through land routes. Since 2002, seventeen land ports have been created along the border to facilitate bilateral trade.5 While it might appear to harken to the pre-Partition days of unfettered mobility, this new setup is different. To state the obvious, it is the formation of two distinct national economies that allows the accumulation of profit through price differentials and differences in exchange rates. The creation of land ports in rural areas produced commerce-friendly infrastructure that displaced people from their lands while increasing the surveillance of, and intrusion into, their daily lives. These land ports along the Radcliffe run through paddy fields, rivers, even homes, and continue to disrupt lives there as they drive home the message that the borders are open only to commerce, not to people. Third, the existence of enclaves of the other country within the borders of both Bangladesh and India, which had been a thorn in bilateral relations for decades, meant that notions of territorial integrity and sovereignty had to be somewhat fluid. Their rural locations, far from the capital cities fraught with jingoistic political rhetoric, allowed for the emergence of a new kind of border relations that relied on the humanity and care of neighbors; in effect, a new chhit identity emerged, distinct from their national identity that brought them no privileges. Fourth, following the practice and culture of neoliberalism in mainland India, there appears to be an attempt to create a more Hinduized borderland in the name of cultural celebration as “relationship-building exercise.” For example, there are mandirs for Hindus to pray at BSF camps where locals are encouraged to pray daily. As many of these districts along the border are Muslim-majority,6 these changes appear odd and only serve to force Islamic cultural practices indoors, signaling to Muslims their “otherness.” Unsurprisingly, the Bangladeshi side mirrors such developments, forcing Hindu practices indoors. 2.1.1

Strong Border, Weak Borderlands

State propaganda and popular culture in India have normalized the idea of a fortified border, justified on the basis of the perceived threat on the western border with Pakistan. Along the eastern border with Bangladesh, however, there is no equivalent security threat – Bangladesh hardly has military parity, let alone nuclear weapons. The rapid development of land ports, border haats or markets, and border-games indicate that this border is meant to be a hub of economic transaction and exchange.7 Yet, the language of security has found a way to talk about eastern borders,

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too, boosting the desire for strong borders despite (or because of ) the weakness of the borderlands. Strong borders under neoliberalism are fortified and militarized but open for formal trade. They exist alongside weak borderlands, characterized by informal trade and undocumented migration, and seen as lawless, chaotic, and a security threat. This view of the border as simultaneously strong and weak allows political actors to manipulate information to suit multiple purposes based on national security. For one, it legitimizes the aspiration for militarized borderlands. Considering evidence that undocumented migration has actually decreased worldwide, Justin Akers Chacón and Mike Davis suggest that increased militarization is not necessarily for border protection per se but to rein in and control people who live in border areas, often with ethnic ties across the border.8 In the context of the Bangladesh–India border, then, it matters that Bengali Muslims in West Bengal and Assam live in districts bordering Bangladesh. Irrespective of whether they are in fact from Bangladesh, their Bengali Muslim identity can make their citizenship status suspect, especially in the context of an ascendant Hindutva culture. Indeed, border control becomes not about keeping “enemies” or “infiltrators” out, but about controlling the borderland population and presenting them simultaneously as under attack and as threats. The BSF’s role thus becomes dual and contradictory – it is to restrict some and facilitate others as they cross the border. Restriction follows the logic of securitization: restrict movement to save the nation from the security threat that mobility poses. This means the “security threat” must be kept alive through sensational stories of smuggling, racketeering, money laundering, and drug and sex trafficking. Facilitation follows the logic of free trade and liberalization – to facilitate commerce for economic gains. While the difference between the two is clear in the abstract, it is not so clear on the ground, especially when the difference between traders and smugglers is a matter of perspective. Because of the enmeshed nature of economic and security concerns, the BSF has discretionary power to allow or disallow trade, producing a thriving culture of bribery and corruption. In the post-reforms period, this “illegality” is useful for capitalists because it allows for unfettered access to both goods and people (labor) at low cost while presenting the nation as being under threat from “illegal infiltration.” 2.1.2

A Look at BSF’s Public Statements

How does the eastern headquarters of the BSF see their role? In probing this question, I examine the welcome letters on the webpages of the three

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BSF headquarters relevant to Bangladesh by the three Inspector Generals (IG) who headed them in 2018: P. S. R. Anjaneyulu in the South Bengal Frontier, Ajmal Singh Kathat in the North Bengal Frontier, and K. C. Mahali in the Mizoram and Cachar Frontier (see Appendix 2 for the text of the public letters). Although they are short, they provided an insight into the self-image that they wanted to portray for public consumption. I see their views here as a baseline to understand the BSF’s public facing actions and rhetoric. What stood out is that all three IGs saw the protection of the borderland population as crucial to their job. While it is a statement of fact, at least from a civilian point of view, it could also be a recognition that security interests that are inherent to the border from a nationalist point of view, often collide with the interest of the local, borderland population. Kathat’s point on the need for a paradigm shift stood out in particular – in both interactions with locals and with Bangladesh. Indeed, the history of the BSF with Bangladesh is ridden by border killings. Felani’s case became spectacular because it caught the attention of the international press, but there are many such Felanis who get killed trying to cross this perilous border. A paradigm shift would be welcomed by both locals and neighboring countries. The need for a paradigm shift also raises the question of the possibility that India would stop treating its neighbors as hostile, especially now that India is the largest, most powerful country in the region. It is fitting that this understanding is espoused by a BSF IG, someone who has a better sense of the costs of hostile borders than politicians in the capital for whom it is not only abstract but only considered during conflicts. But what would the shift mean in practice? Would the borderlanders escape being scapegoated as criminal suspects? Although that is unclear, Kathat’s statement revealed a certain level of understanding about the nuances and contradictions of protecting the lives of the borderlanders and protecting the border. Instructive from Mahali’s note was how the BSF was not only mandated with protecting the border but also with counterinsurgency – a difference that emerges because oversight of the Myanmar–India border falls on this office. If the contradiction between protecting the people and the border were not complicated enough, including counterinsurgency provided an additional complexity that could go against the interest of the people living there. Already, there had been periodic episodes where authorities followed “insurgents” into neighboring countries (Myanmar, in particular, but Bangladesh also), raising concerns among neighbors about sovereignty issues and territorial integrity. A cynical view would see these contradictory roles as designed to allow for otherwise illegal incursion into neighbors’ territories.

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Anjaneyulu’s letter was different in that it addressed multiple issues and was much longer. First, it identified certain activities as criminal and clarified that it is their job is to prevent such criminal activities. Second, it attempted to show compassion to those who live in the borderlands. Could this empathy for the border population be strategic? Did it mean to say that locals were “trusted and tested friends and force multiplier?” My reading is this: using the right approach, the borderland residents can become the eyes and ears of the BSF; people can be encouraged to spy on their neighbors and report them; effectively, the people can assist the border force (hence “force multiplier”). At the same time, the fact that he had to specify the need to be sensitive (as is telling from the allusion to human rights, local culture, and selfrespect), tells us that that had not been the norm, that the borderland communities probably treated the BSF with suspicion. Anjaneyulu’s letter recognized that changing that perception would be advantageous to the BSF. In the second section of the letter, Anjaneyulu specified the “transborder crimes”: illegal migration and smuggling. If the approach was to be sensitive to the border population, could these activities be deemed criminal? After all, the border crossed their lives and livelihoods, as immigrant activists remind us every so often: locals had no say in how the boundaries were to be drawn. At the heart of identifying these as crimes was a stipulation to restrict mobility. At a time when the border areas were underdeveloped, these “crimes” were a source of livelihood. Could the people then have a positive view of the BSF? Interestingly, he portrayed CBMP as a way forward in order to ensure the humane treatment of “criminals.” At a time when lethal weapons were used often, this would offer a “non-lethal strategy.” What was left unsaid was that the use of lethal weapons along the border was hardly a function of belligerent or over-enthusiastic border personnel. Rather, it was encouraged by policies such as “shoot to kill.” Anjaneyulu’s letter indicated that the BSF was trying to move away from such policies through more “collaborative” ways. The question is, in the name of collaboration will the BGB become more trigger-happy? Or will the BSF become more humane? The third section and last section of Anjaneyulu’s letter highlighted the “heavy constraints” to remind people that the Indian state is always under threat, in response to which the border forces are always on alert. This conclusion to the letter conveyed that the priority was ultimately to mitigate the threat that borders posed. Ultimately, it is this understanding of the BSF that helps contextualize their various policies and actions more generally.

2.1 Neoliberal Borderlands

2.1.3

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“We Call It Smuggling; They Call It Trade”

If the notion of strong borders and weak borderlands is ideological, its concrete manifestation is in the difference between formal trade, on the one hand, and informal trade and migration, on the other. A strong border becomes justifiable in the face of market liberalization because neoliberal India does not want any trade other than regulated, formal trade, which renders all informal trade (which characterized the region for decades, if not centuries) “illegal,” thereby posing a “security threat.” By this logic, not only economic migrant “infiltrators” but all those associated with informal trade pose a security threat as well. Inspector General Anjaneyulu, whom I interviewed in 2018, was at first quick to assign blame for criminality at the border on Bangladeshis: Wherever it’s not fenced, the border is challenging. There are parts of Calcutta too that’s challenging. Calcutta, you have the cattle smuggling. You have gold. Gold comes and ornaments go back. Phensidyl. Yabba tablets. These are in high demand by Bangladeshi people. Narcotics. Border Guard Bangladesh is highly opposed to these things. Many women also consume narcotics. So, there is a huge market for it. FIC [fake Indian currency] used to come through Kaliachak [in Malda], but after demonetization, that racket has taken a beating. They are trying, but the quality is not so good.

He was careful, however, to balance out his report when referring to recent successes of the BSF in Malda. Malda is known in these parts as a “criminal” hub. Reports point to poppy cultivation (for opium), fake currency notes, and an illegal weapons market, dealing mostly in country-made crude arms.9 These would indicate that supply chains for these products are well laid out. While touting the success of demonetization and other government actions to cut down illegal border trade, Anjaneyulu suggested that there is a degree of hyperbole when talking about “criminal activities” at the border. He claimed that the West Bengal state government successfully put a stop to poppy cultivation. “Poppy cultivation was high in 2016 but in 2017, it was struck down. [The] West Bengal state government used drones. It has nothing to do with the border. It is an economic activity. Just because Bangladesh borders it doesn’t mean it has something to do with it. I won’t agree with that. But the FIC has entered through Bangladesh. That particular region of Malda – Kaliachak – somehow has taken into it, for some reason. After demonetization, it has taken a beating. Illegal [activity is] not as rampant as it’s made out to be.” I asked the Inspector General how pervasive infiltration from Bangladesh was. Anjaneyulu smiled and said, “Infiltration is not zero.” This, I gathered, was in response to the official Bangladeshi stance. He continued,

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Over a period of time, the visa to come to India has become a little more relaxed for medical treatment – three months, six months. The Indian High Commission of India does visa mela (fair). They are encouraging people to enter India legitimately, primarily for medical purposes. Because of that, there has been a reduction. However, people who want to migrate for better opportunities – that always continues. As I said, it’s a total porous border. There are touts, middlemen – that continues to go on. But there is a reduction. People are apprehended. We study [the data]. Send them to [West Bengal] police. It could be trafficking of children, women. We work with NGOs. There is a little reduction.

I read his response as performing two tasks: maintaining the narrative of the border as a site of constant infiltration, while claiming there was some reduction because of policy changes. What is unstated is that these changes in the visa regime catered to middle-class Bangladeshis and would have no effect on possibilities for low-income Bangladeshis, for whom “illegal” routes would remain the only option. His views also speak to the debate over formal and informal mechanisms for crossing borders. Formalization of the visa regime allowed more middle-class Bangladeshis to spend weekends shopping in Kolkata, but again, it would have little impact on their existing “challenges.” This kind of formalization is neoliberal because it is aimed at attracting business and expanding market bases. Data indicate that the highest number of tourists to India in the year 2017–2018 were from Bangladesh – mostly for medical tourism. These border crossings are welcome, but others are not. Of all the commodities traded across the border, both formally and informally, none seem to evoke as much righteous rage in India as the trade in cows. If “cow vigilantism” routinely claims the lives of Muslims and Dalits in the Indian hinterland, the demand for crackdowns on the border cattle traders are growing. On the other side of the border, in Bangladesh, there is little more than a bemused raising of eyebrows.10 “We call it cattle smuggling,” said Anjaneyulu, “they call it trade. They are welcome to take it. They have … a unique system. Every cow that passes, Bangladesh collects tax over it. Bangladesh makes money over it. They have cattle corridor reports. They give us authentically how much cattle has entered. They have data because they collect data. Bangladesh Customs collects tax. If a smuggler takes cattle across, it becomes legitimized the moment that the cattle cross the border, a stamp is put, tax is collected.” In BSF-speak, “they” often refers both to borderlanders and the Bangladeshi state. Cattle smugglers are thus either Bangladeshis or, if Indians, in cahoots with the Bangladeshi state. Anjaneyulu simultaneously casts doubt on the borderlanders’ national loyalties and implicates Bangladesh’s state apparatus in legitimizing “illegal trade.”

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In reality, the Bangladesh government does not treat the cattle as traded goods for which taxes are levied; rather, cattle are labeled as confiscated or seized goods for which the traders pay a penalty or fine for which they receive a receipt. As Malini Sur’s ethnographic work shows, these receipts make cattle a “legal” commodity,11 and provide cover for border officials who can claim that they have done their jobs by subverting “illegal trade” and seizing the contraband, while also allowing for the passage of cattle through unofficially designated “animal corridors.” The process distinguishes “Bangladeshis who were ‘tax’ payers” from “Indians who managed ‘dubious deals,’” as Sur writes. In these instances, cross-border solidarities are undermined as traders emphasize their national identities.12 We are confronted by the following paradox: the border must exist for borderlanders to actually gain from the informal trade that allows them to buy cheap (in India) and sell dear (in Bangladesh) due to exchange rate differentials. The transactional function of the border plays a dual role. On the one hand, it sustains these border economies. On the other hand, it is what makes the borderlands “ridden with infiltrators,” although they are not economic migrants in the traditional sense but informal traders or seasonal/migrant workers who use the border as a way of sustenance. Welfare-enhancing transactions like these may well have been part of what informed the hopes about globalization. However, neoliberal globalism in practice has meant formal “connectivity” through the commercial trade of goods and services, as well as the criminalization of day-today transactions that are theoretically in line with free-market principles. By virtue of militarized borders, undocumented migrants are forced into an invisible existence, primed for exploitation. Chacón and Davis write in the context of the US–Mexico border: border fortification has amplified anti-immigrant sentiment and pushed migrants further into the shadows, setting the stage for further crackdowns. It has helped to create the sensationalist spectacle of the modern conquest of an illusory “no-man’s land,” while establishing new markets for the defense industry and convincing low-paid workers … that Border Patrol is keeping their jobs safe.13

This holds true at the Bangladesh–India border as well. Neoliberalism is not merely about trade but about formalizing trade; this is the lesson that the BSF has been inculcated with. To quote Anjaneyulu again: “To reduce informal activities, there needs to be more scope for formal activities.” From a state perspective, then, there is no contradiction between increased connectivity and stronger borders.

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2.1.4

Can You Fence a River?

Gloria Anzaldúa wrote, “But the skin of the earth is seamless. / The sea cannot be fenced, / el mar does not stop at the borders,”14 but in a move that speaks equally of human ingenuity and hubris, the Indian government has invested heavily in fencing rivers. With the BJP’s constant drumbeat for a stronger border, and given the fact that physical fences are impossible in the vast riverine portions of the border with Bangladesh, “modernization” and “enhanced borders” have become the buzzwords. BSF Director General K. K. Sharma told news agency PTI in 2018 that “the maiden testing of technical surveillance and alarm gadgetry was operationalized on the 55-km-long stretch in Dhubri, across the Brahmaputra” successfully.15 In March 2019, the Union Home Minister inaugurated the Border Electronically Dominated QRT Interception Technique under the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS) in Dhubri, Assam, where the river Brahmaputra enters Bangladesh. According to a government press release, the information and technology wing of the BSF fast-tracked the installation of sensors. According to the press release, Now, the entire span of River Brahmaputra has been covered with data network generated by Microwave communication, OFC Cables, DMR Communication, day and night surveillance Cameras and intrusion detection system. These modern gadgets provide feeds to BSF Control Rooms on the Border and enable BSF Quick Reaction Teams to thwart any possibility of Illegal Cross Border Crossing/Crimes [sic].16

Dhubri is one of the “vulnerable” areas, so the BSF values success in increasing surveillance on this front. Once tested in Dhubri, they will doubtless be deployed elsewhere along the riverine border. And borderlanders can see this coming. “The BSF will restrict the interaction of common people across the border, even if by playing God and disrupting rivers,” an elderly woman told me. In the context of CIBMS, which seeks to seal India’s borders, the Land Boundary Agreement signed on May 7, 2015, makes sense. Negotiations on swapping enclaves that remained within the territory of the other country began in 1974 between Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Swapping would entail some loss of landmass on India’s part – and that was what prevented the negotiations from proceeding after Sheikh Mujib’s assassination in 1975. In a move that surprised many, it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government – a right-wing government – that agreed to take it up once more, at the prodding of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2015. Taken along with

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CIBMS, however, swapping these enclaves was a crucial step toward permanently sealing the border. The formal existence of Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and Bangladeshi enclaves in India meant that there have to be connections between citizens and the mainland of their countries – which in this case would be through the territory of the other country. Sealing the border without exchanging enclaves would have meant abandoning one’s own citizens in a foreign land. The fortress envisioned by the BSF and their handlers in Delhi would only be possible if the enclaves and their residents were swapped. Any resulting loss of land would be justified in the name of the national security state. In the borderlands, people talk about invisible fences in whispers, amid fear and disbelief. Well before news about the new technologies had become public, rumors had begun circulating about radar that could detect humans, and invisible fences that would electrocute people to death without warning. On one of my visits, villagers pointed out sites they thought would be used as mass graves. Thanks to “enhanced” borders and policing, Bengali Muslims, who live predominantly in border districts, are surveilled constantly and have to go through checkpoints for everyday activities like shopping or going to work/school, under the assumption they could be infiltrators, and on this pretext are often denied state provisions of welfare services and public goods. In turn, the lack of access produces incentives for people to seek services and opportunities across national borders. Residents in Malda (India), routinely go to Rajshahi (Bangladesh) because there are (better) hospitals there.17 For them, a porous border is necessary to access social services and livelihoods through informal trade. 2.2

Life and Identity in the Borderlands Negotiating Neoliberalism

To highlight how the border and the economic activities there participate in identity formation, in this section I focus on specific aspects of the borderlands from my time on both sides of the Bangladesh–India border between 2014 and 2018. This period saw the rise of Hindu nationalism as the BJP entered office in 2015, the entrenchment of neoliberal ideas with Gujarat as the poster for what development would be like elsewhere, and opposition to neoliberal policies in some parts. As these accounts will show, the political economy of borders affects not just Bengali Muslim existence. These borders are sites where we see Muslim–Dalit cleavages emerge in opposition to more organized entities who control “illegal trade.” We also recognize how class, status, and political connections turn informal trade into a service to be accessed. The ethnography

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in the borderlands corroborates Van Schendel’s finding that informal trade operates through mostanocracy – rule by thugs – even if the image of the “illegal trader” is that of a poor Bangladeshi.18 Yet, “petty” informal trade is important as it sustains rural communities at a time when neoliberal development bypassed them. Neoliberal neglect and the BSF’s everyday violence seemed to foster a sense of solidarity among borderlanders on different sides of the border. It was clear that borderland communities saw themselves pitted against the state machinery despite promises of development made to them during election campaigns. Cross-border networks served as their only key to survival. 2.2.1

Commingling in an Indian Land-Port Village

Paodinga is a small village in West Bengal, tucked between a border check-post for commercial purposes and a small section of the Bangladesh–India border. When I visited, the road leading out to Bangladesh was paved, but one entered the village on the Indian side along an unpaved road. The bustle of trucks at various stages of transit maintained a constant din around the check-post. A dirt path led me off the main “road” to a stereotypical rural scene of agrarian workers tending to the field. This particular check-post oversaw traffic going into Bangladesh and into Paodinga, a village that turned into a de facto occupied territory with heavy police presence, simply because of formal trade. Here, Muslims and lower-caste Hindus live in close proximity. They insisted they were fine there, that danga or rioting is a problem that plagues big cities, but not their village. “We live here together – mile mishe,” I kept hearing. I learned that this small village had two main roads, one outer and one inner: Muslims lived on the outer road, which you would have to cross to get to the inner road, along which lived the Hindu families. Unlike in Indian urban spaces, where working-class Muslims often live in poorer conditions than their Hindu counterparts even in bastis (“slums”) here there was little observable difference. They all lived in mud homes with thatched roofs. They indeed lived mile mishe, commingling as they went about their daily work, encountering each other on the narrow paths weaving in and out of the village, but gondho (odor), they said, kept them separated along the two roads. In part, odor is about different food practices which produce different ideas of what is fragrant and what is smelly. But it was more than that, as some women claimed they could smell a person’s jaat (caste), a reminder of how caste practices live on, unquestioned and normalized, in communities that deem themselves integrated.

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Jahanara, a young Muslim woman who worked at a welfare center in the village, was my host. She took me around the village on foot, introducing me to her relatives, friends, and neighbors. She filled me in on rumors of illicit trade and exchanges. She pointed out the homes of politicians who made money from illicit trade while condemning it in speeches. As I spoke to the villagers, a common refrain I heard was about pervasive unemployment. What was striking to me was that they were angry, not despondent. They felt cheated. One afternoon, while most villagers were indoors, Jahanara and I encountered a group of young men, sitting under a tree by a ravine. They appeared to be sitting idly, whiling away their time, like young idlers bored by their joblessness. Jahanara did not want to approach them but came along when she saw me go ahead. Later, she told me it was not because she was shy but because they were “Line Men” (she said these words in English) and she thought I could get into trouble for speaking to them. Line Men are the people tasked with maintaining a perimeter across the border to allow for the safe transport of goods. In this case, these “idle” men kept vigil with cell phones tucked away in their lungi. Their job was to monitor and report to others if they noticed any safety breaches. The men welcomed our intrusion. “No one ever asks us what we think,” said the man sitting closest to me. They laughed when I asked them their nationality. “I am Indian, but what does it matter? What is the Indian government doing for me? I can be Indian or Bangladeshi, no one cares here,” one of them said. Another chimed in to confirm, “I am Bangladeshi.” When I asked what he was doing there, he laughed said, “Hawa khai (taking in the air)!” before explaining that he came over to hang out with his friends. “See over there? That’s the border. It’s Bangladesh on the other side.” If they said it for shock-value, it got diffused when I told them I was Bangladeshi as well. We exchanged anecdotes about Bangladesh and the places we visited there. The mood shifted a bit. They were not joking around anymore. In the absence of tea, they offered me a bidi. “You know, then, that the roads on that side are paved roads, not dirt roads like ours. Maybe there will be some development if Bangladesh took over control,” one of them said. But that was frustration speaking. Quickly, two men rebuked him, saying, “Our livelihoods will disappear. What are you saying? What will we do without the border?” He smiled and nodded. The first man continued the conversation. “Go tell Didi [Mamata Bannerjee] we cross the border every day. Do you know why we do it? Because there is nothing else to do here. Go tell her that.” This expression of contempt paved the way for the group to share their views as well.

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“You know, it was fine. Difficult, but fine to make a living from petty trading,” another man continued. “But now illegal goods go through trucks officially, with the BSF’s seal of approval.” This was a shift from claims that informal trade must involve the BSF. Now the claim was that the BSF officers were the main actors behind informal trade. “It’s only criminal, illegal, if you are poor. If you are a TMC cadre, if you are a BSF official, it’s all fine. They want formal trade. That means everything will be run by the syndicate. Do you know what syndicates are? That has already started,” one of them explained, as the others nodded in agreement. “That would end our livelihoods,” he ended. Similar sentiments were expressed by many of my interviewees. The syndicate emerged as an almost mythical, omnipresent entity that the villagers could do little about. Indeed, Swagato Sarkar’s research shows that smuggling is organized in a pyramidal structure controlled by highly connected and highly secretive syndicates. These syndicates operate either directly in the smuggling or as middlemen between buyers and sellers.19 He shows that smuggling syndicates along the Charuigachhi border in West Bengal created a systematic trade regime in conjunction with the BSF, customs, district administration, police, and cattle suppliers.20 Cattle were driven in trucks to eastern India and protected through a nationwide token bribery system.21 Cows either went straight to Bangladesh or to local markets, where they could be bought and sold legally.22 The “black market,” as the villagers called it, thrived alongside the syndicate, but they pointed out that they were petty traders in comparison, eking out a life at just above subsistence level. The throttling sound of motorbikes racing by seemed fairly common, as if to compete with the roar of trucks across the village. A group of women I had sat down with for some rest told me that these men were influential traders because they traded beef. They had raw beef on ice stowed away in various compartments, the story went, to be taken over to Bangladesh. “This is the beef from cows like those,” one woman said pointing to her neighbor’s cows. When I looked confused, she said, “See how malnourished and unloved they look? That is because they are meant to be slaughtered and traded, not domesticated. Those are the cows that will be slaughtered to be transported by these men on bikes.” This was not something I could verify. There was no way to stop any of these men speeding by for a conversation either. Jahanara wanted to stay away from them and thinking of her social standing, I did not insist. What struck me was how all kinds of activities that were out of the ordinary were seen by villagers as being tied to the border economy. The hushed tones and the gossip made the border economy appear front

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and center in their daily lives – and one without which this tiny village would not survive. Almost all of the thirty people I interviewed in this village indicated that, in one way or another, people relied on this black market and in fact they would not survive without it. Informal trade required a whole network of informers, suppliers, traders, guards, lookouts, transporters, and so on. The network made trade efficient and seemed to successfully circumvent the surveillance state. It became clear to me that the entire village participated in this economy in varying capacities. That is perhaps why there was an openness, a broad-mindedness, and a prevailing common sense that open borders and the free movement of people are natural. I spoke to villagers who openly admitted, with no prompting, that they were Bangladeshi. It could be because I introduced myself as Bangladeshi (and who in their sane mind would in these parts?). I asked them why they told me; I am foreign to this place, an unknown entity. What if I were an informer? What if I complained? They laughed. Every time. And in that laughter, I sensed that the villagers protected each other. They were all in it together – they all knew. One woman said to me in response, “Why would you do something like that?” It was in this ojo-para-gaon (faraway village), where unemployment and underdevelopment characterized the entire space, that I saw what free trade can look like. Here were the petty criminals, the illegals, the infiltrators, leading lives defined by precarity – engaged in a kind of free trade that is efficient, community-based, and well-networked. Their gains were distributed evenly or fairly enough that the villagers protected each other, irrespective of religious differences. This kind of liberalization, which includes free mobility, is elusive in a neoliberal project vested in the territoriality of the nation. Here, in these marginal spaces, nationality did not matter. The peculiarity, of course, was that this free trade was penalized and criminalized. It was also these traders who helped sustain the myth of the “illegal Bangladeshi,” I realized. The BSF does not or cannot distinguish between traders and migrants, thereby inflating in their imagination the number of Bangladeshis who cross into India. I do not want to idealize this village as an idyllic rural place with creative flexible citizens with mobility across borders, however. The illegality within which they operate introduced another layer of vulnerability to their lives. The network did not maintain itself across borders and sometimes included coercion. Pre-Partition kinships and familial ties across borders provided a basis for such networks to be formed and sustained, but newer ties and kinship were formed through strategic marriages which were deemed necessary. Marriage played a key role in these networks because it provided legitimacy to cross-border mobility. If

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a person crossed the border to visit their family, and if they had documented connections across the borders, then the border guards have to aid that travel. Women here appear to “do nothing,” but they maintained the household, the children, and familial networks across the border through visits with family members. Quite literally, then women created and sustained the bonds across the border that allowed for the smooth operation of informal trade that, in turn, sustained the village economy. Take the example of Sudha who came to this village from Bangladesh after she married Gopal, a Paodinga resident. When I asked her how they met, she pointed to a house nearby (on the border) and said, “The woman in that house is a matchmaker. She arranged it.” That was her role in the network – to arrange marriages that would sustain the network. To what degree did Sudha have a say in her marriage? It was unclear. Her quiet demeanor and gentle, shy voice did not reveal much. When I asked her how she liked it here, she said bhaloi. Okay. “There is a lot of hardship here. Many women live alone because their husbands work in the city. My husband is here. He owns some land, and we cultivate to grow rice. At least we work in our own land.” Did she make peace with herself by focusing on the material/financial security her husband provided? This case was reminiscent of trafficking cases where women are brought over for (forced) marriages, prostitution, and so on. It revealed that the lines between migration and trafficking were not so straightforward when it is about maintaining networks for the sustenance of entire villages. Women participated, whether they liked it or not. There was this matchmaker, of course, but there were others who self-identified as housewives, and yet were involved in rearing cows with “less love” for trade. In more recent times, after the killings of cattle traders along the border as part of the BSF’s shoot-to-kill policy, these women began to slaughter cows and prepare the meat to be taken over, instead of whole cows. Women worked as informants to keep track of changes in border surveillance. They also operated as transporters of certain types of goods – sarees and costume jewelry and garments products – amid taunts from BSF officers at the check-post: “Are these for Bangladesh?” Such comments were a source of irritation as well as glee as some of them did maintain two households to maintain networks of trade. In contrast, formal trade in this borderland was marked by inefficiency and bottlenecks. Truck drivers had to stop at the check-post to show appropriate papers. Some had special passes with a validity period linked to their vehicles, but the trucks moved very slowly. The process of checking documents was time-consuming, creating a traffic jam not only for the trucks, but villagers going in and out of Paodinga. The slow

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and inefficient practices would appear comical if not for the burden it imposed on villagers. The BSF check-post as the facilitator of trade seemed like a bad joke, given that they had no sense of trade or commerce. One officer admitted to me that he found this job very difficult. He had never worked at a post that required him to manage both trade and people. Their job was to ensure that nothing went through the border illegally. Yet they did not have the technology to scan through trucks laden with bricks or potatoes. To manually perform this task, they had to keep the gates closed for hours. Truck drivers I spoke to, however, thought these gate closures had to do with the BSF flexing their muscles and showing who is in charge. No matter the reason, logjams were a common feature of formal trade at this border crossing. The adjacent site of commerce at the land port provided a glimpse of the effect of this development project. The construction of this land port provided an opportunity for petty traders to take up jobs – to load and unload trucks or break bricks in the kilns next to the highway meant for commercial traffic heading to Bangladesh. The port employed the invisible men behind trade – the men in this new category of “services” characterized by daily contracts and wages. This work gave them some knowledge of formal trade, but only as casual workers who could observe. Unsurprisingly, this work offered them few prospects for the future. The existing informal trade and mobility across the border despite high risks, I suggest, is a function of neoliberal neglect. The villagers know that their government will not help them, and hence there exists a kind of political apathy, if not disdain. They see their fates tied to themselves, the work they do, and the arrangements they can foster through existing and new networks across the border to continue the trade that has marked their existence from pre-Partition times. To the extent that neoliberalism is about individual responsibility and self-help as the model for progress, these border dwellers fit the bill. Whether through informal trade or migration, they have taken up their own cause. In this space of inverted neoliberalism, we see neoliberal subjects making a living through market freedom and exchange! There may be no place for Bengali Muslims in the service-oriented model of neoliberalism in urban spaces, but in their everyday existence in this border village, we see actual free trade and exchange of a kind that free marketeers theorize about but never allow in practice. This is what is “criminal” about Bengali Muslims, and as a penalty they face othering as Bangladeshis. In these borderlands, we see some of the benefits that are touted for neoliberalism: increased economic participation, entrepreneurial spirit,

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individual initiative, efficiency, gender balance, female participation, selfreliance, self-help, and non-reliance on the state. These speak to the entrenchment of neoliberal values, all the while characterized as outside the system. The BSF constrains both forms of trade, but the illicit and illegal nature of informal trade allows participants to bypass or buy off the BSF, whereas commercial formal trade cannot. Hence, in this borderland we see neoliberalism flipped on its head. This could be a story of rural Bengal. These citizens need not be Muslims – they were victims of development where there was no place for them except as brick breakers and truck loaders (not even truck drivers, as some lamented). In the borderlands, despite segregation, Hindus and Muslims knew they had to work together to maintain networks and to manage the BSF. The open anti-BSF sentiments speak to their view of the BSF as the common enemy. If we examine how the three components of neoliberalism – privatization, market liberalization, fiscal austerity – manifest themselves in the border areas, we see an interesting switch in priorities. Whereas the topdown neoliberal policies emphasize privatization and a friendly climate for business, the bottom-up neoliberalism in this border emphasizes free trade and free movement of people. In effect, the BSF is the antineoliberal bureaucratic machine that aims to maintain state power in these regions. No interest in small governments here. That is what I mean by inverted neoliberalism. 2.2.2

Chhit Lives, India inside Bangladesh

At first view, the India–Bangladesh borderlands in the north appear to be an “exception to neoliberalism” because of how underdeveloped the villages are. Mile after mile of pristinely maintained, bright green paddy fields; no signs of industry; homes made of clay; dirt roads, and the occasional glimpse of border fencing. But look a little closer and the underdevelopment of these spaces becomes visible. Hidden by the vast natural beauty and fresh air are deprivation, poverty, and a population whose status is akin to statelessness. These were the sites of the Indian chhits in Bangladesh. Although officially they were Indian, they were “forgotten” because of diplomatic stalemate. The chhit identity sat well within India’s nationalist framework because they could be whatever the state deems them to be; the state could decide whether and to what extent they belonged. For nearly seventy years (since Partition), residents of enclaves in India and Bangladesh lived precarious lives, enclosed by “foreign” territory.

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Bashfata was one of the smallest Indian chhits in Bangladesh in Neelkhoni. Without local knowledge, it would be difficult to distinguish this block of residences from the ones around it. A small signboard, halfhidden by bushes, with an arrow to mark the entrance with an arrow and only the serial number. The entrance was not remarkable either. A narrow dirt road that opened into a one-acre block of twenty-two bamboo huts with dhew-tin (corrugated tin) roofs, around a large shared uthan (yard). The shade from a large mango tree served as the gathering spot for residents to mingle, play, chat, and welcome outside guests like me. Naked children with tabiz on threads around their waist (to ward off evil) played together. “It’s like Eid here today,” a young man said. “You could also say it’s like Independence Day for us because we can finally be free!” It was August 2, 2015 – two days after the governments of India and Bangladesh agreed to swap enclaves, but the process had not begun. Still, they were celebrating. Bangladeshi flags adorned the entrance and the yard. Two partitions had left the residents without state support for decades. “We are apparently Indians, but they have mistreated us. They beat us when we go there. They tell us we are Bangladeshi. They require all kinds of paperwork from us. We are not Indians, nor Bangladeshi. We are chhit-bashi. We have to make do with these borders that we did not create. We have to live like beggars, at the mercy of Bangladeshi villagers and the Bangladeshi state,” he concluded. In this enclave, there was no pretense of relying on Bangladeshis for survival. It existed not like “India” but like a part of Bangladesh. “We grew up like this, in this chhit. We never knew better. We were told we were Indians. My parents were proud to be Indians, but to us growing up, it meant nothing. We knew we had to make our lives here in Bangladesh. We went to school in Bangladesh, our friends were Bangladeshi. To say that we were Indians was like a myth – like saying we were kings once upon a time – it made no difference,” said Karim Miah, who was born and raised in this chhit. His friend Jalil was agitated as Karim spoke. He chimed in: “This is a jail really. That is what India gave us. No one ever comes to check in on us, how we are doing. It is not that Bangladeshis have been wonderful to us, but India – they just left us in this jail to fend for ourselves with nothing. No access to food, to clothing, to education, to hospitals. Only God knows and we know how we survived all these years. Like scavengers. Like thieves. With no dignity.” He, too, grew up in this block. Despite trying to make a living elsewhere, he could not. With little education and limited social capital, he felt destined to kheti23 work in

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a nearby paddy field. He had to be grateful for this work because as a chhit-bashi he could not work outside the boundaries of the chhit. None of the twenty-two families would go to India. They joked about it at times, taunting each other with “What, you want to go?” But they decided to choose the path of certainty. In nearby Panch Moshla Kuti, a bigger enclave, there were signs of celebration as well. The residents had performed a ribbon-cutting ceremony at midnight as a symbolic gesture to “link” the enclave’s entry to Bangladesh. Tamjid, whose hut is by the entrance, greeted us and explained, “On the fifth, as the clock turned twelve, we started our celebrations. Anondo furti korsi. We cut a big cake, we lighted up the chhit with morich batti. We sang and danced all through the night. It was like we were born again as Bangladeshi. We will now have some dignity, some power. Ektu dapot, ektu khomota.” Twenty miles from the border was a larger chhit that resembled a tiny village. Compared to Bashkata, it appeared luxurious – with more trees, more animals, more space – until I realized it was merely a bigger “jail,” using Jalil’s words. This chhit, too, had no schools, banks, or hospitals. The residents got together to collect Tk 50,000 (about $600) to obtain electricity unofficially, line teney, although connecting every household was another task altogether that would require a lot more money. The residents also needed Bangladeshis’ help to survive. This dependent relationship made them vulnerable to fraud. Bangladeshis helped them access what citizens receive as rights – like electricity – and charged them for it. There are stories of how hospitals repeatedly tell them they are not entitled to care, unless they go through a (Bangladeshi) dalal. Some chhit-bashis who were able to save some money bought property. But as one resident, Azad, who was duped, explained, “We couldn’t get the property registered. We received no titles. We bought the land based on a contract written on stamp paper. But that is apparently not legally binding.” Kashem, another resident, said: I worked in mati kata but didn’t get paid. This has been a big issue. We would find petty jobs but wouldn’t be paid because of who we are. We couldn’t lodge complaints because we have no rights. Some of us got together to organize. We have been doing andolon, revolution, since the last decade. Moinul Chairman and Mostofa Bhai from the big chhit nearby were behind the efforts to bring all the chhitbashi from all the chhit together. We are all part of it. We demonstrate and protest to demand rights. With this treaty [Land Boundary Agreement, 2015], we feel we achieved some of these goals. The government will have to engage with us now.

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At the same time, everyday acts of kindness of Bangladeshi neighbors allowed the chhit-bashis to survive for decades with little to no support from the Indian government. Fatima, a mother of two school-aged children, said: Look around, there are no schools. Not only were we doomed to an existence of poverty and statelessness, but they also [authorities in India] want our children to grow up with no sense of belonging. They care so much about nationalism. We watch the news, too. They say terrible things about Bangladeshis. But these Bangladeshis are the ones who helped us all our lives. We could survive because of them. My friend in the adjacent [Bangladeshi] village allowed me to use her address so I could register my children to go to school. The school also knows that we are actually chhit-bashi. They feel bad for us and let us send our children as long as we can use a local address. My daughter is in class three. The Indian government has no doya-maya (care or mercy). They don’t even feel bad. We are supposed to be their responsibility, but they don’t care. We are choosing to stay in Bangladesh because of this. What will we do there? We have seen for ourselves how great the Indian government is.

Another young mother chimed in, “We have no electricity here, no water. We have to finish all activities by sundown. The moment we step out of this block, we are in a foreign land. Everything we do is ‘illegal’ – even stepping out for a bit. We are criminals, hahaha! Do you know what it is like to live like criminals without doing anything wrong? I don’t ask my children what they think of us. Shahosh hoy na [I don’t dare]. Finally [because of the treaty], we can hold our head high and walk, instead of scurrying in and out like rats.” Economic hardship and social stigma had become markers of chhit lives. Yet what seemed particularly difficult was how constrained they felt to live lives full of lies, not because they wanted to but because they felt compelled to by economic hardship. I was born here. I got married here. I am thirty-five years [old] and have two boys, three girls – and have been here all my life. Growing up, we were told we were chhit-bashi. Indian. We used to think this was India. We used to ask why we were so far from India. There were no responses. My mother used to say, “They didn’t take us. All their lives, all our lives, we had to lie. Lie to go to school, lie to admit our children to school. Wherever we go, we are asked where we are from. It is an innocent question, perhaps. But a difficult question for us. We have to keep lying. Kalughat, I say sometimes. Kodalpuri, at other times. Khali misa kotha. Kono shotto kotha nai. We have managed to lie and get educated, but we couldn’t get jobs by lying.

This was Jamila speaking, sitting with a few other women, all of whom were nodding as she spoke. A young woman with a suckling baby laughed, and said, “Our lives are a joke.”

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Lies found their way into marriages also. Julekha thought she was marrying Hanif from Neelkhoni in a marriage her parents had arranged. “I am actually from Kurigram,” she said. “My parents didn’t know Hanif was a chhit-bashi. After the wedding, when we came here, we realized what had happened. Ma Baba’r apsos hoisey. My parents were remorseful. But it was too late. What could be done? This place was like nothing I had seen before. It was like a morubhoomi, a desert, but with no oasis. The conditions were so bad. The people so poor, so helpless. At first, I couldn’t mingle with anyone – mishar upay nai. Now, having lived here for so long, I am used to it. Now, this is my home.” This was not only Julekha’s story. Right here in this chhit, at least ten others said they were “from outside, but married into the chhit” sometimes out of love, but for the most part unknowingly. “Perhaps he thought marrying me would be his ticket out of the chhit. Instead, it was my ticket into the chhit,” Julekha ended. Some did find ways to leave, however. Some who did well in high school or secondary school were able to secure jobs elsewhere, passing as Bangladeshis. Others were able to save money, buy land, and acquire citizenship documents either in Bangladesh or in India. Selima, an older woman who was respected by the community, said, “Those who could, left. They live outside. They bought homes, managed to get citizenship. But we are poor, and we have nowhere to go. We do get angry. Raag hoy. Against both governments for not being able to figure this out. There are no jobs here. The police harass us … Now that the treaty has been signed, we have been promised electricity and paved roads within three months. We will wait and see what [Prime Minister] Hasina does. We need jibika, work. Most of us are bonchito, deprived – poor, old, or disabled. Something has to change.” Yet, in this enclave of 140 families, only one person told me they would go to India. It was a young man with relatives there. He had put in an application with the district administrator. “I am young, and I have a support system there. I will be able to do something. I might fail, but it is worth taking a chance,” he explained. Despite hardships, most decided to stay. Sultan, a young man in his twenties, explained, “I have nothing. I do a small job – Tk 5000 [~US $60] a month. Now I am here to merely survive. I can’t hope for more. I will stay here because this is where my ancestors are buried. Bap dada, chouddo gushti’r kobor ekhane. Whatever little we have is here. We will be here. Who will guarantee a better life in India? There is certainty here. If India gives nirapotta, security, we might go. They say they will, but we have little trust. We have no reason to trust India.”

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Julekha added, “We lived here all our lives. What shukh [happiness] will we get there in India? Will we like it there? We worked so hard for so long. We can continue to work hard for the rest of our lives. We have learned to live like this.” Although they had decided to stay, as citizens they now had expectations from the Bangladeshi government. Selima, the one who has seen it all, said, “All we want is for the Bangladeshi government to ensure some development. All our men and boys are unemployed – find something for them. We don’t have high demands – educate our children, give us a clinic so we can treat this child who has polio. People should know how difficult our lives have been. If Bangladesh takes us, we want roads, electricity, hospitals. During Borsha (Monsoon season), there is so much water. We have to cut down banana trees to make rafts. Just accepting us is not good enough; we want a responsive government.” The choice made by the majority of enclave residents or chhit-bashis to take Bangladeshi rather than Indian citizenship curiously subverted the Indian narrative that Bangladeshis are keen to migrate to India. Here were thousands of Bengali Muslims, who were officially Indian but chose to remain in Bangladesh. However, it was unclear from our conversations whether they knew how to opt for India. When asked, they gave a number of answers, all of which involved significant bureaucratic processes that would be burdensome. It was not clear to me whether these served as deterrents. The fact that residents of enclaves within both India and Bangladesh chose to stay rather than move is revealing. It confirms the obvious, that it is impossible to govern in enclaves within other nation-states; the chhits thus belonged to this or that nation in name only and were left to fend for themselves. Yet, for several decades the Indian government refused to negotiate the Land Boundary Agreement, the talks for which began in 1974 and had involved Bangladesh giving India territorial control over South Berubari, a Bangladeshi enclave in Cooch Bihar. One of the reasons behind the years of stalemate was the Indian fear of losing land and gaining (Bengali) Muslims, and when the land was finally swapped, it was done by Hindu nationalists dedicated to a vision of Fortress India. Seen in this light, it is not so surprising that only a handful opted to go to the “parent” country. Neglected for decades, the chhit-bashis chose to stay on as citizens of the “other” nation. Indian nationalists may have been surprised at first by this turn of events, but the Hindu nationalists among them likely took it as evidence that Bengali Muslims are indeed Bangladeshi at heart.

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2.2.3

Check-Posts, Regulated Bodies

At the Gangchil-Gorur Hat land port, the same commercial activities manifest differently across the border. On the Bangladeshi side, at Gorur Hat, all activities related to commerce took place within a large walled compound. From outside, all I could see was an occasional crane moving from one spot to another. I could also see clouds of dust and hear machines in operation. Cement churner? Brick grinder? The single large gate only allows commercial vehicles registered with the Land Port Authority and staff members. The commercial check-post is within this compound. There was another check-post a little farther away that was open to people on foot, but only for viewing purposes. The BGB and BSF checkposts were about twenty feet apart along a dirt path. They looked more like bus stops, albeit with national flags and guards, rather than a border crossing. Bamboo sticks served as a barrier as you neared the post. But they would not let anyone actually go over to India. We could take a walk along Zero Point – apparently a popular tourist destination – but had to stay within a certain perimeter. A BSF officer who walked over to us confirmed the same and offered to take our photographs between the Indian and Bangladeshi flags. There were others – tourists – who were busy doing just that. It did not matter that I had an Indian visa, because there was no one to stamp my passport. In any case, the visa would need a separate entry for entering India using a land route, so even if there was an immigration officer, I could not have used this crossing. “This border is only open for commercial vehicles, not regular people,” the BGB guard said by way of explanation. But “regular people” would not know because there were no visible signs of commercial activities either. The dirt path looked more like a hiking path along a forest. As Tauhid Bhai, our local guide, and I retreated, a lungi-clad man approached us. He looked like a vendor. I had seen him talking to some of the tourists when we were talking to the border guards. “Byabostha koira dimu? Jaiben?” [Shall I make the arrangements? Will you go?] he asked. Tauhid Bhai responded before I could with moral admonishment. He turned to me and said, “Don’t do these things, you will get into trouble.” These were the famed dalal who make the borders a little more porous. On the Gangchil side, the land port was open, without boundary walls. It was right there, next to a small village, in all its incongruity. The checkpost to regulate entry into the land port also regulated the villagers – they were under constant surveillance and needed to always carry identification

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lest they be mistaken for Bangladeshis. Without proper documents, they risked getting stuck inside the village or outside. Waiting for permission from higher-ups gave me the opportunity to just sit and see what happens at this check-post. Sitting there, next to a border guard, I observed their work and their interactions – the change in demeanor depending on who they interacted with; how they made some people wait for trivial reasons; how they masked their ignorance with sternness; how they were unable to mask their physical discomfort, wearing thick uniforms in the heat with a single small fan struggling to cool the dense air. Identity cards were insufficient for those wanting to cross the checkpost. They needed passes that would get time-stamped on the way out and then on the way back. Guards treated those “going shopping” with suspicion and checked and rechecked their permission slips and inquired about which specific shops they intended to visit. Those entering the village/land port faced another round of interrogation by BSF officers: What did they do, who did they visit, what did they purchase, why did it take more (or less) time? Returning home meant standing in a queue along with truck drivers and motorbikes destined for Bangladesh. It also meant tolerating body searches and pat-downs, as well as taunts from BSF guards, such as, “What will you be smuggling to Bangladesh today?” Or “Are these sarees for Bangladeshi women?” Two female border guards were stationed at the post to take women aside to search them. In contrast to Malini Sur’s observations about Garo women’s higher mobility because women are not seen as smugglers, at this border, women were doubly scrutinized because they were “housewives with nothing better to do,” as Taslima, one such “housewife,” explained to me later.24 While I waited, there was another person waiting around – Shefali. Maybe because she did not come “from America” like I did, Shefali did not get a chair next to a fan while she waited. She came into the little room where the border guards (and I) sat every half-hour with the same “pass.” She was visiting her sister in the village. She had stepped out of the village to go to the bajar – she had some bags in her hand as evidence – but on her way back to her sister’s house, the border guards would not let her in. Apparently, her pass gave permission for a “single entry.” When she stepped over to the grocery store, she had effectively “exited.” Shefali kept hovering in disbelief. “Isn’t this India? Why can’t I go?” she kept saying. She asked if I could help her. I asked the border guards what she would need to go back in. They laughed. “You are stuck, too. You worry about yourself,” one of them said. It seemed like they did not know either.

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Commercial vehicles, in contrast, merely waved their passes and kept moving. To me, the check-post seemed friendlier to the lines of trucks and truck drivers that come and go from Bangladesh than to the villagers. The everyday interactions – or, rather, insults – that villagers faced served to alienate them from the state authorities, the BSF. It also made it clear to them that their only fault was living in the borderlands, that in the eyes of the Indian state, their identity was suspect. It is perhaps why labels like Bangladeshi or Indian meant very little to them. The check-post was a site of obvious contradictions: it facilitated the transportation of goods to and from Bangladesh through trucks while forbidding the same thing at the individual level. When I shared this thought with a villager after I was eventually allowed in, she said, “There are trucks going over to Bangladesh all day and night. We take one cow over, and the BSF will shoot at us. Where is the justice there?” This view was reminiscent of what I heard in Paodinga. In these parts, cows had become a symbol of the injustice that cow politics had introduced into the borderlands. In speaking to the villagers, I realized there was a knowledge gap between them and the authorities, which afforded the borderlanders a degree of protection from police brutality. The information villagers had on each other, as well as on newcomers, kept borderlanders safe. They could point to a house and say who lived there, where they were from, where their roots were. If there were informers pretending to be villagers, they got caught easily because of this knowledge network. As Rahima, a resident, told me, “It used to be that the same border guards used to patrol these areas. It became common knowledge that they participated in border trade, and now India and Bangladesh both decided they will rotate the officers. It has been a good thing because they have no idea who is who – who is Indian, who is Bangladeshi. We all know who is who, and we can protect one another. They are our relatives across the border. Of course, we will protect them, too.” Informal networks gave people mobility through informal warning mechanisms, despite new rules that require train border guards to switch around their routines and introduce randomness in their searches to catch people off-guard. These networks served not only as an early warning system for traders, but entire villages. The discrepancy in neoliberal practices across the border might explain why borderland sensibilities are not uniform. In Bangladesh, the walled premises of the land port (walled neoliberalism!) generated significant rumors and gossip about the activities going on there. The imposing walls were a reminder of what neoliberalism entailed in these parts – intense economic activities and commerce in enclosed spaces, amid widespread rural decay. On the Indian side, the coexistence of life

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and commerce forced a daily engagement between the villagers, BSF personnel, and traders. These interactions showed the preferential treatment that sanctioned/official trade received, and unlike in Bangladesh, were a constant reminder of the inequality that such trade relations produce. The confrontational and hostile stance of the BSF, as opposed to the BGB’s relatively calm presence on the Bangladeshi side, produced a more militant and righteous border identity in India that embraced Bangladeshis as their own. 2.2.4

By the Riverside

On the bank of Sharala River, on the Bangladeshi side, a group of ten men were having lunch. They were construction workers at a nearby site. They welcomed our intrusion into their adda or conversation. Someone muttered something about how life was boring. It was nice to just sit quietly, watch the water, chat – not usually how I imagine interviews would go. “That’s India on that side, did you know?” the man sitting closest to me said. “You could just swim over, ha ha!” That was a joke. Watchtowers lined the shore, perhaps monitoring our every movement. The river had expanded and changed course, in turn changing not only the border but the border dynamics. A rail track ended abruptly nearby. The other part of the rail track was across the river. “They are really scared of us. Look how many watchtowers they have,” someone quipped. When I asked about the economic situation in the region, they uniformly spoke about the lack of jobs. The paddy fields were there for cultivation, but they did not employ many workers. Many work in construction, in brick kilns, and as day laborers loading and unloading trucks – din mojuri, they told me. We sat quietly for a few minutes, when someone pointed to the river and said, “that’s what allows us to stay alive – the ability to cross over [to India] whether for petty trade or petty work.” After a pause, he continued, “I am breaking brick today. For the same job, I get Tk. 70 more in India. Why shouldn’t I have access to those jobs?” Rafiq introduced himself as the experienced, smart one. “The easiest way to get to India is through Dhubri. The border is varied – part water, part land. It’s difficult to monitor. That border is difficult for us, too – it requires physical strength and durability. Once you are in, you are in. Take the train and go wherever you want to go,” Rafiq said confidently. “I have been to India many times. I’ll go again tomorrow morning. I have lined up a job in Delhi. Ashraf Bhai’s son is in Delhi as well. I see him sometimes. Roni – Ashraf Bhai’s son – doesn’t have papers. That’s why

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he can’t come frequently. He sends money with me for his family. It’s the same work. Breaking bricks. It just pays more over there. I go. Work. Keep my head down. And then come home for a few days.” Rafiq’s situation was the ideal one, those sitting around agreed. He owned some property in India as well as in Bangladesh, which was why he could come and go legally. He had all the “documents.” Rafiq continued, “The Indian government thinks we want to live there. Who wants to live there? Especially now with how they treat Muslims? We don’t want to live there, but we want to work there. I will go, do the hard labor, and then come back. I never want my wife and children to go there and experience the hardships that I do.” Amal, who sat a little farther away, said, “I have a tiny bit of property here too. My wife stays here and looks after the home and the children. I go where I can make money. At the end of the day, or week, I come back home. But I don’t have papers like Rafiq. My risks are higher. The BSF is ruthless. All we want is work, a livelihood. That’s all.” Rafiq continued, “Bangalore is the nicest of all places I have been to in India. Delhi is too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. The people are also very crude. Kolkata is fine, but we are easily identifiable in West Bengal. They all speak Bangla as well and can tell the regional accents apart. Assam is fine that way, but there is no work in Assam. We mostly use it for transit. Bangalore is very nice. The people speak politely. Maybe that’s because the weather is nice. The weather is always the same, no matter the season – nice.” Tapan, who was quiet till then, spoke softly. “We just say we are from West Bengal. No one really cares. They just care about the work and the pay. But there is the question of safety. It is safest for us to go on our own. Risks increase when we have our families with us. This way we can at least rest assured that our families are safe. One less thing to worry about. It’s too bad the river became so wide,” he concluded, staring into the river. They knew that they were under surveillance, surrounded as they were by multiple checkpoints and border guards, and they were routinely scrutinized. The surveillance, in turn, justified the need for a networkbased economy. Corroborating the views I heard in Paodinga, they said that marriage provided a way to ensure loyalty and keep the sense of kinship alive across the border. Three of the construction workers eating lunch said that their in-laws lived right across the village. And this seemed to be common. Marriages ensured that the claims of familyacross-borders are legitimate, not a convenient fiction, to paraphrase one of the men.

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The men’s honesty surprised me because some of the activities they admitted to were borderline criminal. But that they were effectively admitting to “criminal” activities – crossing the border and trading informally – indicated to me that they did not see these as criminal at all. To them, it was the border guards who were on the “wrong side” for disrupting such natural exchanges. News of outsiders visiting sites of “decay” traveled quickly, it seemed. Our afternoon adda was interrupted by BGB personnel who wanted to know who we were and what we were doing there. When they could ascertain that we were “amader pokkher lok (people on our side),” they invited us to their camp to continue the conversation. Abdul Hamid, commander of the BGB camp, had much to share. Something happens every day, mainly smuggling – but that is actually business. It is true, Bangladeshis engage in excessive utpat (roaming around). But that doesn’t mean our lives are not valuable. The Indians are very patriotic. They have so much love for their country. From my experience with Indians, it seems to me that they love their country more than they love their children, their families. As a result, they don’t want us to cross the border, nor are they interested in entering our bhu-khanda (territory). They just want to be left alone. But every day we bug them. We are very needy. Very needy. We need their business. We are compelled by poverty, and we support them. The BSF has posts every 200 yards, each manned by multiple personnel. They try to be dhorjoshil (patient), I think. They kill us, but in the last moment. In the border areas, our people keep testing their limits. Earlier, they [the BSF] were beporowa (uncontrollable), but of late, they are more patient. Do we catch people trying to cross over? Yes, but sometimes we look the other way too. As someone in this profession and has to move every few years, I know what it is like to live away from family and children. If they leave their homes to cross the border to earn, I understand that they are not doing it for fun. I understand what propels them to take the risk. There is humanity to consider. The BSF complains that we do this, that, traffic things, cross the borders illegally. That’s fine. Yes, some of our people are doing all those. But so are your people. Your people are helping, and that’s why our people are doing this. Without help from your people, our people couldn’t do anything. Our people are not doing it alone. You have smugglers. We have smugglers. Illegal activities – your people are doing it; our people are also doing it.

Refreshing in this BGB official’s speech was the use of first person “we” in talking about the borderlanders. He saw his life intertwined with theirs, their experiences as his, in contrast to the BSF personnel operating in border areas who see villagers as a challenge. He saw the borders as arbitrary, and as having introduced new difficulties into people’s lives. He seemed acutely aware of the limited economic opportunities in these decaying rural areas. He suggested that it was unfair that the BSF vilifies

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these villagers for wanting to make a living. Arguably, the empathy that the BGB personnel have for the borderlanders differentiates them from their counterparts in the BSF. Materially, it means that the border on the Bangladeshi side is more fluid: a more humane border. Yet this fluidity on the Bangladeshi side also allows for the continued marginalization of Bengali Muslims on the Indian side. In the discourse of the construction workers as well as the BGB commander, there was an element of bewilderment at how seriously India takes its border, when it is the border that is new and, for many, a symbol of injustice. In their wonderment lay the normalized idea that borders, even when they exist, should not restrict mobility. There was also an understanding that there is no reason to be ashamed of the means of livelihood just because one day the government decided these were “criminal” activities. 2.3

Conclusion

This chapter highlighted the textured nature of borderland lives that defy the logic of territoriality and confound the ideology of nationalism. The Bangladesh–India borderlands are a testimony to Gloria Anzaldúa’s observation that at the border the “life blood of two worlds” merge together to form a “third country – a border culture.”25 This third country has to negotiate with the border that daily bifurcates it and with the border guards who strive to disrupt the coherence of its culture. It is in this third country that the everyday relationship between Bangladesh and India plays out. This chapter has shown that the utopian capitalist ideal of open borders and free trade is being realized by the constant and often clandestine interactions among the people in these villages, notwithstanding the violence of the forces of the state. The neoliberal state, which seeks to boost formal trade, criminalizes this population and their practices primarily for ideological reasons; nevertheless, the state apparatus itself is materially strengthened and fortified as a result. Formalization of trade comes with a slew of technical solutions intrinsically tied to the security state – crime-free zones along the border, integrated check-posts, invisible fencing, and surveillance. In the borderlands, the flurry of technological advancements had already given rise to mythmaking about the BSF’s power and (sometimes outlandish) rumors about their increased ability to kill with impunity – for example, by using electrified water that would kill people as they moved across borders. With increased surveillance – fence, floodlights, personnel, and watchtowers every three feet – the villagers are constantly monitored. As officials crack down on informal trade, locals claimed that

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formalization would allow the BSF to keep the entire profits of crossborder informal trade, while letting the “Bangladeshi” take the fall. Trade in the borderlands, needless to say, predates the era of market liberalization. What changes along with the entrenchment of neoliberal policies is the indignation with which borderlanders now engage in informal trade, despite the border being a site of bloodshed and killing. While there may have been some shame regarding the illegal activities people undertook, now there is contempt at the fact that informal, arguably more meaningful exchanges, are deemed illegal while trade involving big businesses and “syndicates” is sanctioned. The coexistences of modern infrastructure (albeit bareboned and minimal, in some instances) for the purpose of formal trade alongside villages with no electricity makes visible the stark difference between the state’s responsibility toward people versus commerce in some parts of the border. In others, the borderlands are sites of economic decay. The Bengali Muslim experience and existence varies with the vagaries of neoliberal development in these sites. The shared experience of economic neglect paves the way for camaraderie, network building across the borders, and solidarity amongst community members as they eke out a living. Neoliberalism has achieved the remarkable feat of equating national interest with commercial interest. Open borders are desirable to the extent that they produce commercial gains. Individuals’ use of the border in the same way is seen as antinational and criminal. This is not only state propaganda, but a view widely held by the masses. This contradiction plays out all along the Bangladeshi–India border. Especially since the number of land ports has increased, the sight of trucks crossing the borders are almost constant, as is the sight of people detained at checkposts. This limited form of neoliberalization reproduces and sustains the nationalism-laden tropes of borderlands as sites of criminality. Politicians in India have successfully presented and implemented an “Indian neoliberalism” that allows for the consolidation of commercial/capitalist interests while demonizing immigrants and minorities who can be scapegoated as immigrants. In contrast to what proponents of free markets would argue, capitalists have little interest in completely opening or closing the borders. Opening the borders would equalize wages and rights for workers, while closing borders would dampen the supply of “necessary and necessarily cheap labor.”26 As Choudry and Hlatshwayo write, “The policing of borders and tighter restrictions on immigration have never been meant to completely stop migration. Rather, various forms of migration and labor management policies seek to control and discipline pools of labor for capitalist exploitation.”27 In neoliberal times the border is a site of both

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labor importation and deportation and has to be strong and weak at the same time. The necessarily porous border, then, constantly reproduces “legal” and “illegal” as categories, which take on ethnic/racial/national characteristics and encourage “separate planes of consciousness.”28 In the Indian case, being “Indian,” “Hindu,” or a “citizen” becomes more desirable than being “Bangladeshi,” “Muslim,” an “immigrant,” or an “illegal,” even when both minorities and migrants lead precarious lives. This desirability encourages migrants to pass themselves off as locals, feeding into the narrative of “silent infiltration,” which again serves to make vulnerable those minorities with cross-ethnic ties. This “tenuous” citizenship ensures that the Bengali Muslim population, irrespective of legal status as Bangladeshi or Indian, remains subjugated. The social and political isolation of Bengali Muslims creates an environment in which the government can easily ignore them, and racists and vigilantes can carry out acts of violence against real or perceived undocumented immigrants. Using Chacón and Davis’s words, the border is an “act of political theater … to create an image of control.” The border is “a means to exploit the fears of and garner support from the broader public” even as it regulates the status of immigrants rather than keeping out “illegals.”29 I will end this chapter with two photographs that highlight the tensions surrounding migration and identity. I took the photograph in Figure 2.1 in front of the customs office on the Indian side of the border. In English, it says “Caution.” In Bangla, it says, “Shabdhan, Shamne Bangladesh.” The Bangla lettering looks like it has been scribbled on to the sign. While the English warning is simply about carrying passports because there is an international border ahead, the Bangla message is less specific, open to interpretation, and hence more ominous. I would translate it as “Beware, Bangladesh ahead,” and not “Caution,” the difference being in the kind of warning it is meant to be. When I took this photograph, there was a line of trucks on the road next to it, stuck in traffic. Some of the drivers had their doors open while assistants were walking around the truck, chatting. We had already bonded over Bangladeshi passports. I turned in their general direction and asked why it said “shabdhan.” They started to laugh. “It’s dangerous, that’s why!” someone exclaimed. Another mimicked, “Commercial vehicles only!” “What will happen if I go?” “No, no, don’t go.” “Why, what will happen?”

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Figure 2.1 Signpost on the Indian side of a border check-post

“Bipode porben. Jeyen na. You’ll get in a trouble, don’t go.” They were not laughing anymore. My local guide stopped walking. “I can’t go so close to the border,” she said. I kept walking and the truck drivers kept warning me, “Come back, don’t go. The BSF are not good people. Come back.” “Will they shoot me?” I stopped and asked them. They faltered, looked to others for affirmation, and one of them finally said, “No, I don’t think they will shoot you.” While as outside observers, we can read the sign in a number of ways, including as an example of shoddy translation, to those who live there, the message seemed clear: keep away or there will be repercussions. Repercussions that no one wanted to talk to me about. The second photograph (Figure 2.2) is from the wall of a corner store on the Bangladeshi side of the border. It is an advertisement for hiring maids in the Middle East through government bidding. This one poster indicated the entrenchment of neoliberal ideology of open borders even in the midst of rural decay. Not only were women increasingly part

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Figure 2.2 Poster advertising employment in Saudi Arabia at a roadside restaurant on the Bangladeshi side of a border check-post

of labor export, the idea of migrating for economic opportunities was commonsensical, supported by government policy. The two images speak to the incongruity in the state’s desire to fortify borders and enhance international exchanges. In a nutshell, they exemplify how the Bangladeshi/Bengali Muslim conflation is a function of India’s emphasis on security and the logic of free mobility across borders that defines neoliberal sensibility in Bangladesh.

3

Assam and the “Illegal” Other

In Assam, the effect of India–Bangladesh relations is mediated through the Assam–Bangladesh relationship, which has a long history characterized by contention and competition stirred by the British colonial administration. Unlike in the rest of India, where the economic threat from Bangladeshis is a recent construct, in Assam, the fear of the “foreigner” has been part of its socioeconomic fabric since migration in colonial times – first, when colonial administrators made Assam a part of India’s East Bengal province in 1905, with Dhaka as the capital, and second, when the British forced and “encouraged” migration to support tea and jute plantations and crop cultivation from across the subcontinent in the 1940s.1 Since then, there have been two more waves of migration – during Partition in 1947 and during Bangladesh’s war of liberation in 1971. In 1985, following the Assam Accord and amid much dispute, the Indian government labeled those who entered India after March 25, 1971 (when Bangladesh declared independence) “illegal immigrants.”2 Relative to the rest of India, neoliberalism in Assam is in its infancy, characterized by slower economic growth as well as dispossession – what I term neoliberal neglect. It is not neoliberal intensification and the resulting economic inequality that produces xenophobia, for xenophobia was already part of the socioeconomic fabric when neoliberalism slowly trickled into Assam in the late 1990s. What is different is the selective targeting of Bengali Muslims. To understand what happens under neoliberalism, then, we need to explain both the new and the old: what explains the preexisting xenophobia, how it has evolved, what allows for the conflation of Bengali Muslims and Bangladeshis, and why the Bangladeshi issue is particularly contentious in this current period. Whereas anti–Bengali Muslim and anti-Bangladeshi sentiments brought together strange, ideologically opposed bedfellows over the years, the aspirational neoliberal development that has enamored many in Assam relies on good relations with Bangladesh – the only geographical space that connects mainland India to Assam (beyond the narrow “chicken neck” corridor).3 103

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When the BJP central government decided to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in 2019/21, Assam saw the emergence of political mobilizations in the interest of khilonjia, or indigenous interests, under threat from migrants. Although the Assamese are not indigenous technically, activists used “indigeneity” as a way to differentiate the Assamese and the many tribes and ethnic groups in Assam from Bangladeshi migrants. The mobilizations sought to exclude and delegitimize migrants who, too, have been in the lands for generations but may have roots elsewhere (in Bangladesh). Implicitly, they also supported the new and emerging capitalist class as the indigenous elite. For the BJP, this was effectively a test case to gauge support for these inevitably controversial legislations in a state where they had just begun to win local elections (since 2016). The BJP could count on the Assamese to support the NRC on the basis of anti-Bangladeshi sentiments, but support for the CAA would depend on whether the Assamese saw Bengali Muslims as Bangladeshi in the same way the BJP did. This exercise in population control revealed a thorn in this new love-affair between the BJP and Assam for despite a common anti-Bangladeshi rhetoric; the BJP wanted a Hindu rashtra that would make space for Bangladeshi Hindus, while the majority of the Assamese wanted to hold the BJP accountable for its 2016 electoral promise of upholding the Assam Accord – that is maintain the cutoff date of March 25, 1971 and deport “illegal Bangladeshis” irrespective of religion. Accordingly, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal came under heavy critique for not taking a stand against the CAA.4 Because of the long history of anti-Bengali attitudes in Assam, in this chapter I follow a loose chronological order to explain how material conditions helped construct the “Bangladeshi threat.” The chapter has two main sections. The first provides a historical sketch and identifies critical junctures that produced the Bangladeshi scapegoat, and the second section takes on the question of what neoliberalism in Assam is and the consolidation of khilonjia interests in this period, which relies in part on the common enemy of the Bangladeshi. I show how contentions over property rights, land rights, separatist movements, and neoliberal aspirations find resolution in the fashioning of this threat. Political parties have used such threats opportunistically in recent years. Such threats allowed the BJP to make inroads into Assam, eventually winning in local elections and holding the Chief Minister position since 2016. While the perception of the “foreigner threat” is as old as Indian statehood, what is new in the neoliberal period is how the foreigner changes from anyone outside of Assam, to Bengali, and finally to “Bangladeshi,” amidst a bid

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to unite a fragmented and anti-India Assam under the khilonjia umbrella. While I primarily use historical, legal, and descriptive analysis to support my claim, I also rely on fifty interviews conducted in Guwahati between 2015 and 2018 to discern what neoliberal Assam connotes.5 Upward trends in the proportion of both the Muslim and the Banglaspeaking populations informs the popular notion that illegal immigration has been on the rise since the 1970s.6 However, it is not so straightforward because not all Muslims are Bengali; not all Bengalis are Muslim; not all (undocumented) Bangladeshis are Muslim; and not all (undocumented) Bangladeshis are Bengali. Population growth had fluctuated in tandem in the border and non-border districts, irrespective of the Muslim population over the past several decades, indicating that high population growth does not say much about the growth of illegal immigration. For example, according to the census of 2001, Dhemaji and Karbi Anglong were two districts with high population growth but a small Muslim population.7 The Muslim population was greater than 50 percent in four districts – Dhubri, Hailakandi, Karimganj, and Barpeta – but only in Hailakandi and Karimganj was the Bangla-speaking population greater than 40 percent. Cachar had a Bangla-speaking population of 37 percent, but its Muslim population was 35 percent. Nagaon, Marigaon, and Goalpara have Muslim populations close to 50 percent, but their Bangla-speaking populations hover at around 15 percent. Thus, although there were some districts with a high Muslim population and some with a high Bangla-speaking population, there were only two districts with a high Bengali–Muslim population: Hailakandi (58 percent Muslim, 41 percent Bangla-speaking) and Karimganj (58 percent Muslim, 42 percent Bangla-speaking). These two districts are located in Barak Valley, a well-known Bengali area historically, which indicates that the Bengali–Muslim population is “local” and not “foreign,” although their citizenship would come into question in the context of the CAA.8 3.1

Violent Manifestations of Marginalization

The marginalization that Bengali Muslims face has resulted in outright violence, often mimicking ethnic cleansing, that is well publicized. The Nellie massacre of 1983 was the first such case, and many argue that it left indelible scars and a lesson that would prevent another such case. Yet violence emerges often enough for it to be seen as a standard affair. July 2012 saw one of the deadliest incidents in recent memory that garnered national, if not international, attention. The episode began with the killing of two Bengali Muslims early in the month. On July 19,

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unknown assailants killed two more Bengali Muslims, followed by four men belonging to the Bodo tribal group the following day. Clashes broke out between Bodos and Muslims, each group blaming the origins of the violence on the other. During the ensuing riots, forty people died and 170,000 were displaced in the first week alone, amid burning houses, schools, and vehicles.9 Indian politicians and the media blamed “illegal Bangladeshis” for the violence. According to the popular argument, Bengali Muslims were Bangladeshis who crossed over to India illegally and ought to be deported.10 Those following the news at the time would notice that media coverage of Assam and Bodoland abruptly changed three weeks into the incident. A new buzzword appeared: exodus. The reports did not discuss an exodus from Assam but an exodus to the northeast. Assamese and other northeasterners who were currently residing in urban spaces elsewhere in mainland India, particularly Bangalore, Pune, and Chennai, began to flee, following rumors that Muslims in the big cities would retaliate against them for the persecution of Muslims in Assam. The exodus was remarkable in that it revealed the many layers of marginalization by exposing how the northeasterners thought the mainlanders saw them. The deep-set Islamophobia that is a staple of Indian politics did not assuage the northeasterners’ feelings of insecurity. That they felt the need to flee because mainland India would support Bengali Muslims speaks to their deep sense of alienation from mainland India. Assam–Bangladesh relations are thus mediated by not only India– Bangladesh relations but also Assam–India relations. The series of events were charged with communalism – as in earlier episodes of violence in 1992 (Babri Mosque) and 2002 (Gujarat), which saw hundreds of Muslims targeted. In other words, it can be seen as another instance of Hindu–Muslim conflict. But the violence also revealed a different fault line, one between Hindu insiders and Muslim outsiders, as well as between the northeast and mainland India – all of which find culmination in antiBangladeshi sentiments.11 Newspaper sources suggest that there have been five major riots involving Bengali Muslims since the Nellie massacre of 1983 that killed 3,000: 1. Bodo–Muslim violence in Kokrajhar that killed fifty, displaced 180,000 (1993); 2. Peasant massacre that killed 1,000, displaced 250,000 in Barpeta (1994); 3. Bodo–Muslim violence that killed fifty-three, displaced 200,000 in Udalguri (2008);

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4. July massacre in Kokrajhar that killed seventy-seven, displaced 400,000 (2012); 5. Election violence that killed twelve, displaced 300,000 (2014).12 A quick survey of these cases show that the Bangladeshi question had found its way into the logic of separatist movements, election campaigns, and contentions over land (see Appendix 3 for the details surrounding the attacks and state responses to them) – all of which bolstered the khilonjia mobilization decades later. It becomes clear that the easiest mobilizations were those that invoked the “immigrant question.” What Bengali Muslims face in Assam varies from everyday discrimination to outright violent attacks. One could make the case, as Suraj Gogoi and Abhinav Borbora do, that attempts at mobilizing based on Assamese nationalism have come at the expense of the Bengali–Muslim population – for example, the Official Language Act of 1960, which made Axomiya the state’s only official language; the Assam Accord of 1985 that allowed for identification, detention, and deportation of “Bangladeshis”; and the NRC process that aimed to differentiate “genuine citizens” from “illegal immigrants.”13 3.2

Colonial Divisions: Forests, Hills, Plains, and Encroachment

The geographical space called Assam varies depending on the period. Under colonial rule, Assam included Sylhet, which is now part of Bangladesh, and Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland – all separate states within India now. This section shows how colonial-era rulemaking set the stage for the postcolonial marginalization of Bengali Muslims. Since colonial times, the people of Assam have been characterized as either “hills” or “plains” people. Sanjib Baruah describes the people of the hills as “a ‘minority of tribal mountaineers’ who can be distinguished from the ‘lowland majority.’”14 The latter chiefly comprise ethnolinguistic groups, such as the Assamese and the Bengalis. “Assamese,” it is important to note, could refer both to a specific ethnolinguistic group and to the many tribes and ethnic groups who inhabit the territory of Assam as a whole. Assamese is also the English for Axomiya, one of the indigenous languages of the region, along with Bodo, Mising, Karbi, Manipuri, Garo, and Rabha. Other languages now present in the region, including Bengali, Hindi, Nepali, Oriya, and Santhali, arrived primarily through colonial migration practices.

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The distinction between the hills and plains people was made concrete by the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulations of 1873, which instated an “inner line” along the foothills, creating an arbitrary schism between the two while demarcating which locations would fall under British authority. The hills people were to be left alone “to manage their own affairs with only such interference on the part of the frontier officers in their political capacity as may be considered advisable with the view to establishing a personal influence for good among the chiefs and the tribes.”15 The Scheduled Districts Act of 1874 and the Frontier Tract Regulation Act of 1880 allowed the colonial government to exclude the hills from governance.16 From one perspective, the British exclusion may be seen as a liberal or progressive move to allow for self-rule in areas where the population was small and the culture distinct, different, and even sacred, and would be corrupted or eroded by the onslaught of British rule. The hills along the Brahmaputra Valley would certainly qualify. However, as Baruah writes: Limiting the movement of people into these areas was one of the important powers of the colonial administrator. Colonial officials believed that “the stage of development reached by the inhabitants of these areas prevents the possibility of applying to them methods of representation adopted elsewhere.” They believed that what people of the “excluded areas” needed most was not self-determination, but security of land tenure, freedom to pursue their traditional methods of livelihood, and the ability to follow their ancestral customs.17 Forest conservation policies enforced the separation between hills and plains as well. Lands designated as forest reserve could not be used for commercial use. However, it could be used for crop cultivation by peasants – and the colonial state also encouraged landless peasants to take up land there. Saikia writes: Many of the early settlers who came to Assam through state initiatives acquired the status of rich landholders. Because of limited supervision by a weak forest department, supported by the planter class whose hold over the colonial state has been likened to a Planter Raj, there was no opposition when early settlers extended their initial claim to forest land, substantially increasing thereby the size of the holdings under their control. These early settlers in effect carved out a domain within the Reserved Forests, in the process becoming rich peasant families with large landholdings.18

Tea gardens fell into this category of primary production as well. Baruah’s more recent work points out that the inner line was a way to fence off tea plantations for indirect rule in an attempt to create native elites and “pseudo-traditional elites” – who would work in the plantations in various capacities and uphold what they deemed to be a

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tradition. That is, they would continue to engage in primary production in the name of tradition.19 The practice of indirect rule through the creation of an elite to manage the area was not new. What was new, in the Indian context at least, was that they did not fashion a modern elite in the image of the British – with English education and sensibilities like in West Bengal – but an elite that would be reactionary. Baruah writes: [W]hile indirect rule as a cultural project may have failed, as a legal and political project it was an overwhelming success. In the administered excluded areas of Assam, customary laws that were reinforced by state power were able to impose group identities on individual subjects and institutionalize group life. Until this day, they define the ethnic boundaries of groups defined as “tribes” – almost always in variance with the historical practices of these groups. Not only have the legacies of indirect rule persisted under the postcolonial rule; the protocols designed for the excluded areas have occasionally been extended to nonexcluded areas – that is, to territories that were part of the settled districts in colonial times.20

Indentured labor allowed these plantations to grow into profitable enterprises. As the British expanded into jute plantations in the early twentieth century, they encouraged Muslim migrants from East Bengal to form settlements there. Company officials had complete control over plantation workers. Not only did they enforce labor contracts, but they could also arrest workers if they were caught fleeing if there were no magistrates within ten miles.21 Even after such practices were abolished legally, private surveillance and detention continued. The “planter Raj” maintained control and maintained a de facto system of servility through tyranny.22 Bodhisattva Kar labeled the inner line the “territorial frame to capital” that ensured that the valley was deserving of capital and modernity, while the hills deserved to remain backward.23 The Brahmaputra Valley became a site of tea and jute plantations and oil mining – with neatly demarcated spaces of control. Bengali Hindus became a beneficiary class in this arrangement. By virtue of their English education, they were able to take up new middle-class positions such as managers in these frontier regions as the British expanded their spheres of control.24 Assam’s forcible incorporation into the East Bengal province in 1905 and the characterization of Axomiya as merely a dialect of Bangla became a source of resentment among the Assamese, and a sign of Bengali (Hindu) domination. In this vein, Baruah argues that antiBengali sentiments were a response to the Bengali middle-class chauvinism of those times.25 Indeed, there might even be an element of “ethnic envy” toward Bengali Hindus, because in colonial times it was they who

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formed the dominant classes; Bengali Muslims were primarily peasants, who were transported to Assam to work in plantations. While anti-British sentiments consolidated some semblance of unity elsewhere in the subcontinent, the Assamese found themselves alienated by the caste prejudice and racism they encountered in the anti-colonial movement, as Yasmin Saikia outlines: [B]y the early twentieth century, in the encounter with Hindu communities within the shared political platform of anti-colonialism, the Assamese became aware of the outlook of the Indian Hindu communities toward them. They saw themselves through Indian eyes as depraved, low-caste Hindus who were polluted due to associations with tribal and other religious and ethnic groups of the northeast. The Assamese elite in particular had long desired to be included among the Aryan communities of north India … Since they were already placed outside the lineage of Aryans, people in Assam were excluded from high-caste Hindu history and thus identity. The image of Assam “as at the edge of Hindu civilization” was sustained by representing the people as peripheral, low communities.26

Partition further stoked this schism instead of resolving it, thanks largely to the Indian state’s willingness to justify repression in parts of the northeast in the interests of national consolidation. The logic of the inner line found expression in the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution after independence. It provides the legal framework for the administration of these excluded areas, now known as “autonomous administrative divisions.”27 In Assam, there are three such areas: Karbi Anglong Autonomous District, Dima Hasao Autonomous District, and, since 2003, Bodoland Territorial Area District (BTAD), each governed by a district council. BTAD is in the plains, which cuts against the logic of the inner line. The addition of BTAD to the Sixth Schedule changed the political dynamics because Bodoland is primarily plains territory rather than hills. Therefore, the original idea of the Sixth Schedule – to “protect the hill people from unscrupulous plains people” – seems to no longer hold. In addition to pitting the hills people against the plains people, the political cleavage began to pit tribal people against nontribals as well. Out of the territorial divisions emerged cleavages that were no longer simply dichotomous: hills (tribals) versus plains (tribals and nontribals), and plains (tribals) versus plains (nontribals). In addition to the Sixth Schedule, the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation of 1886 governs land allocation in Assam. Chapter X of this statute allows for the demarcation of tribal blocks and tribal belts, while section 161 prohibits the “transfer, exchange, lease, agreement or settlement [of] any land in any area or areas constituted into belts or blocks” to nontribals. Yet, the Congress government in Assam continued the

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colonial practice of encouraging landless peasants – many of whom were originally from East Bengal – to settle on forest land. Also, absentee Assamese landlords sought out poor Muslim peasants as sharecroppers because they were skilled in cultivating multiple crops at the same time, including jute, a profitable fiber, and because they were not organized politically and thus easier to exploit.28 There are also instances in which tribals have leased their land or subcontracted economic activities (e.g., mining) to nontribals, thereby enabling a de facto encroachment of tribal lands by nontribals.29 Activists allege that many of the nontribal subcontractors in the forests have political connections and refuse to leave the land even after the contract period is over. According to the Asian Centre for Human Rights, for example, nontribals reside in nineteen out of the forty-nine blocks in the BTAD. On the flip side, nontribal subcontractors become the target of armed attacks by tribal groups, often resulting in killings that can spiral into riots.30 In the absence of laws that rule definitively on the issue of property rights on forest areas and land subcontracting, the hillsversus-plains and tribal-versus-nontribal divisions result in conflict over territory. To this divide, we must add another complicating factor: Parts of the tribal areas, close to the Bangladeshi border, are adjacent to districts in Assam that have a high Bengali (both Hindu and Muslim) population, namely Kokrajhar, Dhubri, Karimganj, and Silchar. Because of this, many of the nontribal plains people happen to be Bengali. This demographic tendency effectively maps tribal–nontribal cleavages onto tribal– Bengali cleavages. Thus, while the tensions between tribals and Bengalis are not predicated on ethnicity per se, but on economic transactions over land use, political actors, particularly Bodo leaders in this area, have figured out that relabeling land encroachment issues as foreign encroachment is politically more rewarding. The dual process of immigration and peasantization that ensued allowed for deforestation and encroachment into the forests, but without property rights.31 It becomes fairly simple to understand how, without property or land rights, immigrant groups can be easily seen as encroachers. This is how the story of “land grabs” became one of Bangladeshi infiltration as well. 3.3

Assam: Independence, for Whom?

Assam has been systematically left out of development programs, even after independence. When Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru put forth a period of state-led development soon after independence, Assam – and the northeast – saw a period of not-so-benign neglect. When India

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implemented economic reforms to spur economic growth in the 1990s, Assam continued to remain underfunded. This section provides a brief overview of postcolonial politics that culminates in the Assam Movement, with the “Bangladeshi” as the threat to Assamese emancipation. India continued the extractive colonial relationship with Assam through the control of tea gardens, oil and gas fields, and forests. Although revenue from these industries is not high, the majority of the profits leave Assam either for mainland India or elsewhere. There were minimal investments in health care and education. Such neglect built on the stereotype of the northeast as perpetually backward, even barbaric. Bollywood representations of the Northeast, for example, show them as primitive tribes. The continuation of extractive practices amid economic decay in postcolonial times inspired separatist groups like the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) to take up the cause of national liberation. As if to compensate, since 1958 the central government exercises control through heightened security presence and militarization. In newly independent India, the forced incorporation of Manipur in 1949 remains a watershed moment in the history of relations between the northeast and the central government. In Assam, Prime Minister Nehru dismissed the Naga quest for independence. When Naga leaders proclaimed the creation of a Naga federal government in 1955, Nehru attempted to defeat the effort with a wave of repression. The repression was given legal sanction by the enactment of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), legislation that dated back to the colonial era. Suvir Kaul writes: It has its origins in British colonial law, which regulated subjects, not citizens. In August 1942, in the face of the Quit India Movement, Lord Linlithgow, then Viceroy, enacted the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Ordinance to allow the police and army exceptional powers against civilians. This is the ordinance that became the basis for independent India’s enactment of the AFSPA, 1958, to provide legal cover for inhumane army operations in Assam and Manipur. In sum, a colonial ordinance designed to legalize what were considered, even by colonial standards, extraordinary military methods to quell a nationalist anticolonial movement was revived and strengthened by independent India to legalize extraordinary military methods to repress political movements among sections of the population at its peripheries.32

The Indian state uses AFSPA to control and manage certain areas by invoking “disturbed area” for protection against “internal disturbances.” In the northeast, it uses AFSPA to legitimize control. While the act was revoked in Nagaland and Tripura in 2015, Assam continues to be governed by it. A high military presence has come to be normalized in Assam and the rest of the northeast in the name of (Indian) national

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security, even as it contributes to further conflict and alienation. In the popular imagination, Assam remains a hotbed of separatist movements and military crackdowns. 3.3.1

1950s: Post-Partition Bliss

Although Partition entailed quick population transfers and the sealing of borders in Punjab, in Bengal migration was a slower process involving multiple trips across the borders. It was perhaps in recognition of this fluidity that Section B of the Agreement between India and Pakistan on Minorities, 1950 signed by Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan (and hence also known as the Nehru-Liaquat Pact), specifically mentioned the plight of the people who lived in the eastern and northeastern states. The pact recognized the need for mobility and protection as Hindus and Muslims decided where to live: East Bengal, West Bengal, Assam, or Tripura.33 More specifically, the agreement guaranteed “freedom of movement and protection in transit” and the “freedom to remove as much of his moveable personal effects and household goods as a migrant may wish to take with him.” It declared that “there shall be no harassment by the Customs authorities” and that “rights of ownership in or occupancy of the immoveable property of a migrant shall not be disturbed.” Furthermore, even if a migrant decides not to return, ownership of all his immoveable property shall continue to vest in him and he shall have unrestricted right to dispose of it by sale, by exchange with an evacuee in the other country, or otherwise. A committee consisting of three representatives of the minority and presided over by a representative of government shall act as trustees of the owner. The committee shall be empowered to recover rent for such immoveable property according to law.34 The agreement shows that at least at the state and institutional level, there was an understanding of the plight of migrant and minority communities who had been created almost overnight; the two states had a favorable attitude toward these people, for whom the concept of the home had just been redefined. The ability to agree upon such terms indicates a degree of state cooperation as well. It is important to mark this period as “favorable” because its short duration often leads us to ignore it and claim falsely that India–Pakistan relations have always been contentious. It is important also because the political climate – local and bilateral – would soon turn grim, foretold by the Ammendment to the 1946 Foreigners Act and the AFSPA (see Table 3.1).

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Table 3.1. Agreements and Acts related to immigration in the 1950s Year

Regulation

Level

Purpose

1950

Nehru-Liaquat Pact

Bilateral Agreement

Protect migrants and minorities in their new homes with special provisions for eastern regions.

1957

Amendment to the Foreigners Act, 1946

Ministry of Home Affairs

Revise definition of foreigner as one who is not a citizen of India.

1958

Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Act

Parliament of India

Allow the use of force using “special powers” in “disturbed areas” as determined by the governor of the state.

Source: White Paper on Foreigners Issue, Home and Political Department, Government of Assam, May 22, 2015 (http://onlineedistrict.amtron.in/web/home-and-political-department/ white-paper)

3.3.2

1960s: A Grim Turn

The 1960s saw the emergence of Assamese nationalist mobilization centered on questions of language and “infiltration” from East Pakistan. The Axomiya language movement of 1960–1961 pitted the Assamese and Bengali communities against each other. Natural disasters such as floods destroyed agricultural land, producing a food crisis and a shortage of cultivable land. The food crisis alongside the language movement produced a political milieu that sought to blame “unrestricted migration from East Pakistan into Assam” for the scarcity in land, while Assamese landlords’ demand for East Bengali immigrant labor continued to rise.35 The second half of the 1960s saw the food crisis deepen as rice production fell and imports could not meet demand. Starvation and death among the peasantry in western Assam increased as commodity prices were fixed at a low price, despite shortages. Politicians took this opportunity to identify food smuggling and “infiltration” from East Pakistan as reasons for the food crisis.36 The 1960s saw a number of state-level and central-level changes that speak to how migrants would become criminalized, as shown in Table 3.2. Most crucial, perhaps, was the setting up of tribunals for the detection, deportation, and expulsion of Pakistani infiltrators based on

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Table 3.2. Government regulations pertaining to immigration in the 1950s Year

Regulation

Level

Purpose

1962–1964

Project Prevention of Infiltration into India of Pakistani Nationals (PIP)

Ministry of Home Affairs

Authorize creation of 180 police watch posts, 39 armed personnel along the border, with 219 subinspectors, 19 inspectors, 396 constables to stem “infiltration”

1964

Foreigners (Tribunal Order)

Central Government

Creation of Foreigners’ Tribunals to review cases

1965

Register of citizens

Government of India and state government

Issuance of ID cards and proposal of barbed-wire fence along border

1966

Drop the issue of ID cards and barbed fencing

1967

Enhance PIP

Include fingerprinting and photographs

Source: White Paper on Foreigners Issue, Home and Political Department, Government of Assam, May 22, 2015 (http://onlineedistrict.amtron.in/web/home-and-political-department/ white-paper)

the Foreigners Act, revised in 1964.37 This act was among the first institutionalized mechanisms to handle immigration from an unsympathetic stance. According to section 3(1) of the Foreigners (Tribunal) Order 1964: The Tribunal shall serve on the person, to whom the question relates, a copy of the main grounds of which he is alleged to be a foreigner and give him a reasonable opportunity of making a representation and producing evidence in support of his case and after considering such evidence as may be produced and after hearing such persons as may desire to be heard, the Tribunal shall submit its opinion to the officer or authority specified in this behalf in the order of reference.

The order did not specify who had the authority to make these allegations. Could citizens lodge complaints, or was it only up to law enforcement agencies? What safeguards were in place to protect people from harassment and religion-based discrimination? Moreover, although the idea of an “opportunity” to produce evidence sounds good on paper, at a time when borders were legally porous and people had no documents to

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prove citizenship (national ID cards, passports, and so on), presenting proof for review was by no means straightforward. The act/order hinted at the kind of bureaucracy and backlogs the tribunals would create. The 1964 order thus marked a clear shift in state-level attitudes toward newcomers and migrants that aligned with political mobilizations on the ground. The India–Pakistan war of 1965 impacted the northeast, although it was fought on India’s western front. The war saw the northeast’s borders being patrolled no longer by the Assam Border Police (ABP) but by the Indian Border Security Force. This transfer of authority from local to central law enforcement had two competing impacts: (1) it turned the border areas into militarized zones, reinforcing the idea that those beyond the borders are enemies, an unfamiliar concept in a region where Partition migration took a long time, and (2) it undermined local authorities, raising questions as to the trust that the central government placed in Assam and its institutions, exacerbating the local–center gulf that had emerged upon Partition and solidified during the 1962 war. In 1971, when Bangladesh emerged as a new independent state, from a general Indian perspective an archenemy changed into a friendly state – an ally even. From Assam’s perspective, however, fears only intensified because the new bilateral friendship would mean the center would not deem Bangladeshis a threat. Further, as part of the Indira–Mujib Pact, only those who came after March 25, 1971 would return to Bangladesh, indicating that those who entered India between 1947 and 1971 could stay.38 In the years to come, this sense would become more prominent and be seen as evidence of center’s continued neglect of Assamese interests. This geopolitical shift is important in recognizing how the outsider or foreigner in Assam became Bangladeshi. 3.3.3

The Assam Movement of 1979–1985 and Its Repercussions

State elections in 1979 triggered an uproar when the electoral roll revealed that the number of registered voters had increased from 6.3 million in 1972 to 8.7 million in 1979. The All Assam Student Union (AASU) and All Assam Gana Shangram Parishad (AAGSP) objected to what they saw as a sudden increase in the number of voters, claiming that the roughly two million new voters were “illegal” Bangladeshi immigrants. The elections, they argued, would legitimize the immigrants and allow them to pass as locals once they were on the voter rolls. Supporters of the AASU and AAGSP movements saw these new voters as encroaching on “Assamese” land and coopting political power and influence that was not legally theirs. In protest, the All Assam organizations called for a boycott of

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the following national elections, scheduled for 1983, until the identities of the new voters could be confirmed and any “illegals” deported. Such calls polarized the population, as Bengalis – both Hindu and Muslim – supported the elections. The Bodos also supported the elections, as part of the Plains Tribal Council of Assam (PTCA), to resist the “Assamization policy of the state government.”39 The Assam Movement came at the tail end of the 1970s, which had seen heightened tensions over land scarcity, land reforms to protect sharecroppers known as ryots,40 and the politicization of “encroachment.” The Assam Tenancy Act of 1935 was revised and adopted in December 1971 to provide occupancy rights to ryots who cultivated the land for three consecutive years (as opposed to twelve years) with the added provisions of the right to transfer and inheritance as well as the legal transfer of ownership to the tenant under certain conditions. Between 1973 and 1985, the government claimed to redistribute close to 700,000 acres of land to 200,000 landless peasant families, mostly sharecroppers, using the Ceiling Act to limit the size of landholdings (to 75 bigha (30 acres) in 1970 and then to 50 bigha (20 acres) in 1972) despite efforts by landlords to increase the limit.41 East Bengali–Muslim sharecroppers who used to rent from absentee landlords were the greatest beneficiaries of these land reforms. Landlords, unhappy with the land reforms and land redistribution, sought ways to hold onto land – mostly through holding land in the name of family members and kin and creating fake cooperatives.42 Most significantly, they began to distance themselves from the Muslim East Bengali ryots who benefited from the land reform and joined the Assamese nationalists who presented them as encroachers. As Saikia writes: Giving tenancy rights to Muslim sharecroppers altered agrarian relations in Assam. It shook the Hindu–Muslim divide that characterized the landowner– peasant relationship. As the Assamese Hindu landlord lost social and economic privileges, they joined the Assamese nationalists and mobilized around immigrant issues. In these shifts, they fomented the idea that immigrant tenants were behind “land alienation.”43

Amid the tensions surrounding land reforms, in 1976, the Ministry of Home Affairs authorized the Assam State Police to act against “illegal” immigrants under the Foreigners Act of 1946. The de facto justification for this shift was the 1971 war and the refugee influx that created the fear of a “minority threat.” By the end of the decade, such fears found their way into mass mobilizations with the emergence of the Assam Movement. At the center of the issue was the cutoff date after which Bengali migrants would be labeled “illegal.” The AASU wanted the cutoff year

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to be 1961, but in 1985 they agreed via the Assam Accord to 1971, the year that Bangladesh became an independent state. Many in Assam saw this as a defeat, further fortifying their feelings of alienation, and the perception of the central government as exercising colonial control.44 The cutoff debate is revealing. The AASU (and its allies) had demanded 1961, a decade before the 1971 war, as the cutoff year. If illegal immigration from the newly independent Bangladesh, that is, “illegal Bangladeshis,” had been at the heart of the AASU’s grievances, the logical cutoff year would have been 1971, at Bangladeshi independence, rather than ten years earlier, before the 1962 India–China war. In effect, the identity construct was directed toward Bengali Muslims from East Bengal – regardless of whether they came from East Pakistan before 1971 or Bangladesh following independence.45 This allowed for the broadening of the understanding of outsiders from “foreign Bengali Muslim” to “Bengali Muslim,” to encompass even those who had been in the region since the early twentieth century. Although the 1985 accord established the cutoff year in 1971, the significant change that resulted from the Assam Movement’s six years of mobilization against the “illegal Bangladeshis,” however, was the conflation of the identities of “foreigner,” “Bangladeshi,” and “Bengali Muslim” in the public consciousness. From a post-Partition understanding of the need to accept migrants, the political climate shifted to one that was openly xenophobic. The justification for much of the xenophobia is based on population figures that “prove” illegal migration from Bangladesh had been rampant. The Assam Movement, and the subsequent Assam Accord of 1985, were shaped by xenophobia that had been simmering over the previous decade. Sanjib Baruah has described how the Assam Movement used inclusive politics and forged an Assamese unity – but also rebranded what it meant to be a foreigner in Assam, changing the rhetorical meaning of the phrase from “those who are from outside Assam” to “those who are from outside India.”46 Political activists in the 1979–1985 period mobilized over fears that illegal immigration from Bangladesh was “turning the Assamese into a minority in Assam.”47 This rhetorical development concretized the concept of a foreigner. I would add that this rhetoric was strategically inclusive, in that it only included those who agreed that all Bengali Muslims could potentially be Bangladeshis. Many Bengali Muslims with legitimate claims to Indian citizenship and residency were thus excluded from these coalitions. The movement demanded that the government detect individuals who had entered Assam any time following 1951 to remove them from the electoral roll and nullify their right to vote. Longer-term goals included

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the deportation of all such immigrants, whom the movement depicted as either illegal or not authentically Assamese or Indian. The movement gained ground, and Indira Gandhi engaged in several rounds of negotiation with the AASU. Throughout the next couple of years, drafts of an Assam Accord, an agreement enumerating terms of governmental action, went back and forth between the state, which wanted to move the citizenship cutoff to 1971 rather than 1951, and the AASU, which was unwilling to compromise. The movement began to lose support at the end of 1981, but a year later, in 1982, Gandhi announced that she was going to hold the election without passing the current draft of the Assam Accord. Because the AASU and the government did not come to any agreement, the electorate roster would remain unchanged.48 The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) came into existence in this political milieu and marked the entry of the landed gentry into electoral politics. They campaigned based on the immigrant questions but worked to ensure that the economic and social interests of landlords would be maintained – opposing efforts to provide rights to the landless, including the Assam Tenancy Act, and effectively preventing the government from reforming tenancy rights.49 The movement lasted around six years, and elections progressed, by and large. Authorities canceled polls in twelve out of 126 constituencies. Elections were followed by escalations in protest violence, including the murder of a political candidate, the imposition of emergency rule, and twenty-three rounds of negotiations between AASU and the central government. It is in this context that the Nellie massacre occurred in 1983, killing somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 people (see Appendix 3 for details). As Gogoi and Borbora wrote: Every major artifact of Assamese nationalism – the Official Language Act of 1960, which made Axomiya the state’s only official language; the Assam Accord of 1985, which provided for the detection of so-called foreigners, the deletion of their names from electoral rolls and their eventual deportation; the updated citizens’ register, which aims to separate “genuine citizens” from “illegal immigrants” – stands on a foundation stained with violence. The complicity of the press, as well as the silence of victims, has helped expunge this violence from popular history to build a myth of consensus.50

Yet the silence is deafening to anyone who is paying attention. 3.4

Neoliberal Assam

Globalization and multiculturalism are not new to Assam. As Sanjoy Hazarika writes,

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Assam and the “Illegal” Other

The region has been one of the most globalized parts of the subcontinent for well over a century. It was where the prosperous tea gardens and companies in Assam and Barak valleys were set up, connecting to the international markets, especially London. Steamers and ferries took goods and people from as far as Dhaka and Kolkata to Dibrugarh in upper Assam and back. Large reserves of oil and gas were discovered here in the nineteenth century and still supply a substantial part of India’s energy needs.51

But, as Sanjib Baruah points out, Assam was not only a resource frontier but a settlement frontier where land becomes the “ultimate natural resource” to be extracted.52 While resource frontiers are disengaged from ecology and livelihoods, settlement frontiers are often more organic – with people migrating onto frontiers voluntarily and organically. In Assam’s context, the history of forced settlements meant that it was anything but natural.53 In the decades since Partition, migration was deemed illegitimate because of the connection to forced settlements in the colonial period. The demographic changes have had long-term effects on ethnic relations, with “migrant groups” withstanding the worst of chauvinistic Assamese nationalism, since the Assam Movement is its newest avatar.54 This section analyzes neoliberalism in Assam in this context where globalization came early amid tropes of backwardness to ultimately show how the Bangladeshi question gains particular traction and becomes a unifying force for a different set of interests. I suggest that, in this period, anti-Bangladeshi sentiments stand in for anti-migrant sentiments. When I first visited Assam, I was taken aback by the open animosity expressed by those I interviewed, be it a taxi driver, a shopkeeper, or a college student in Guwahati. Within the first thirty interviews, a common story had emerged, which found corroboration during subsequent interviews: First, Assam is underdeveloped and has severe resource constraints, and second, Bangladeshi infiltrators were to blame for economic backwardness, (increased) crimes, and social disturbances, including rising numbers of hijra (transvestite) in the community (!). I asked them, if Assam is underdeveloped, why do they come from Bangladesh? The common answer was, “Because there is nothing in Bangladesh except dirt roads. It’s worse there than it is here.” During the interviews, many of them pointed out “Bangladeshis” to me: Rickshaw pullers, construction workers, and sweepers were all Bangladeshi – you could “tell by looking at their faces.” It was then that I realized that they did not recognize me as a Bangladeshi; Bangladeshis were necessarily poor with a precarious existence, and I, a professor at an American university, did not make the cut. When I asked them to guess where I was from, most laughed and said, “NRI [non-resident Indian]! NRI!”55

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Yet among them were some who refused to buy into a linear depiction of the “Bangladeshi problem.” A university professor told me, “The Bangladeshi threat is enough of a diverting force to keep political entrepreneurs happy for a while – you know, anyone who is shallow, who has a very short-term view of the world, needs to make a quick buck and needs to mobilize about sixty to eighty people to form a group will pick up the idea of the “illegal” immigrant. It’s right-wing. We have inherited a cheap political vocabulary from India.” A student at the same university who is active in left politics said, “We have to talk about ethnicity and hatred, and only then will the central government pay any attention. When we want to talk about class politics, no one hears us. It is only when we are ‘under threat’ that we have an audience.” To understand what characterizes neoliberalism in Assam and how the Bangladeshi question fits within it, I will explore four key issues: the pervasive idea of Assam as a primitive space; the rise of Guwahati as a neoliberal city; the separatist movements in the 1990s and 2000s; and the aspirational development that relies on regional cooperation and prosperity. 3.4.1

“Underdevelopment”

It is not surprising that sites of extractive colonization are labeled “backward” despite, or rather because of, being a source for natural resources – tea, oil and gas, coal, silk, and timber in Assam’s case. The image of vast lands with natural resources and “primitive” people creates useful propaganda to make extractive projects acceptable to all. Whatever the logic, the rhetoric of wastelands and primitiveness foregrounds the need for development among various actors. Government agencies as well as NGOs consistently point to underdevelopment as the source of all kinds of problems, be they the sense of alienation, ethnic conflict, or militarization – as if to say that development will resolve all the tensions in the region. For instance, the central government has a Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MDONER) – the only region in India with a ministry dedicated to development.56 Its website declares that its “vision is to accelerate the pace of socioeconomic development of the Region so that it may enjoy growth parity with the rest of the country.”57 Yet underdevelopment in Assam is the product of the extractive institutions and practices put in place during the colonial period, only to continue in the postcolonial period with little impetus for change, in line with the argument that economists Acemoglu and Robinson put forward on the persistence of colonial institutions and economic performance.58

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Reforms imposed in 1991 resulted in high levels of economic growth in India, but not in Assam. Even though tea and oil ensured a source of revenue, Assam remained underdeveloped. While Assam supplied around 25 percent of India’s petroleum needs and 50 percent of tea, Assam’s per capita income in 1998–1999 was 45 percent below the national average.59 Between 1981 and 2000, the Indian economy grew by 6 percent, but Assam’s state GDP grew only 3.3 percent.60 Economists argue that the problem lies in the dominance of agriculture – 90 percent of the population is employed in the rural sector – and its continued low productivity because of frequent floods, soil erosion, and other natural calamities.61 However, the dominance of agriculture is in line with what we see in the rest of India, where 42 percent of all workers were employed in agriculture and another 30 percent in related sectors like fishing, mining, and animal husbandry in 2019, according to the World Bank.62 Then, the dominance of agriculture alone cannot explain the disparity between Assam and mainland India. In the postreforms period, some diversification is notable in agriculture in Assam: the increase in the production of cash crops, nonfarm allied services (such as money lending and microcredit), and construction work. If we look at high-growth sectors, construction is among the fastest-growing sectors for employment. Tea continues to form the main export commodity. Assam’s export bundle includes petroleum-related products and chemicals as well as locally manufactured products like ginger, dried chili, fruits, vegetables, coal, and limestone – all of which are land- and labor-intensive with very little returns on investments.63 Corollary to the dominance of agriculture is the lack of industrial growth, which is seen as another factor for Assam’s underdevelopment. As explanations, scholars point to Assam’s physical isolation (landlocked) from mainland India, poor infrastructure, political instability, recurrent ethnic strife, and militant activities. They also point out that the industries that exist rely not on local markets but outside markets, in India and elsewhere. Investment levels – private and foreign – are low as well. There was no “industrial revolution” as a result of the reforms. The few industries that exist form an enclave-type economy – with little to no linkage with the rest of the country primarily because of lack of transit (through Bangladesh), according to the 2002 Assam Development Report.64 The service sector has seen significant growth, contributing 50 percent of the state GDP in 2012–2013, indicating that although agriculture employs two-thirds of the workforce, the service sector drives aggregate economic performance. As M. P. Bezbaruah points out, the most visible

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effect of economic reform was the proliferation of consumer goods and shopping malls across the region.65 It is not merely that the agriculture sector is not productive or that there is not significant industrial development; Assam does not have some of the exploitative features of states like Gujarat and Haryana – such as the proliferation of special economic zones (SEZs), intense financialization, or the creation of IT hubs and call centers – which have resulted in unprecedented levels of capital accumulation in mainland India. To say that neoliberalism is at a nascent stage in Assam is to say that it has not seen the kind of worker exploitation pervasive in places with more entrenched neoliberal policies. Because the idea of neoliberalism is for the most part theoretical or ideological – and not grounded in the experience of working in SEZs, for example – such policies find positive reception in Assam. Yet it would be incorrect to say that neoliberalism has had no effect. The logic of competition, efficiency, and productivity have become commonsensical, along with a disdain for government-owned enterprises for being bureaucratic and corrupt; all the while the state remains the largest employer. This has translated to an increased value placed on more profitable production processes. In Assam, this matches regional variation in production and the reification of ethnic cleavages alongside the different types of production. Upper Assam, particularly places like Dibrugarh and Tinsukia, is a wealthy area with a concentration of the state’s revenue-generating businesses as well as natural resources. It is the site of tea, oil, gas, and coal fields. While the Marwaris and Assamese form the elite in these areas, the working class is multiethnic. It is here that the notion of “tea tribes” was constructed to label those who work in the tea plantations and was racialized as such, according to historian Jayeeta Sharma.66 This is also the area where ULFA set up its headquarters to control the means of production. The neoliberal period, points out Dolly Kikon, has seen private entities taking up the task of oil exploration and drilling around the foothills.67 The state’s security apparatus has broadened its mandate to secure oil rigs, pipelines, and collection points, showing once again how “development” and “security” are seen as co-constitutive. Despite the class divisions such endeavors produce, there is also a sense that those in Upper Assam are better off than others, especially those in Lower Assam, in terms of not only wealth but status, culture, and proximity to modern civilization. Lower Assam is the site for crop cultivation: rice, jute, and sugar cane. The ecology is vulnerable, and the land is susceptible to landslides. Each

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year, floods wash away around 13 percent of food produced.68 Lower Assam, from the inner line, is also where East Bengali Muslims settled a century ago and continues to be dominated by Bengali Muslims. When the British arrived, this area was not densely populated, likely because of the precarious ecology. Immigrant Muslim peasants, skilled in cultivation methods to withstand climate pressures as well as produce multiple crops, were able to make the region habitable and productive. In this neoliberal period, these peasants are not merely producing for subsistence but are engaged in commercial paddy production. They diversified their crops to include vegetables and fish as they honed their techniques to turn precarious char areas and riverine areas into lands producing high-yielding crops. The post-1990s period also saw the rise of ancillary businesses – manure and other fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, and a credit economy – that allowed the rural economy to thrive despite precarity.69 Bengali Muslims, still called immigrants, are ridiculed and looked down upon for concentrating in these lands where no one else would live; at the same time, the marginal gains they have made recently become evidence that immigrants gain disproportionately in Assam. Such sentiments build on the perception of Bangladesh. As a taxi driver in Guwahati told me, “There is nothing in Bangladesh. There is no work, just people. That’s why they [Bangladeshis] come here and are willing to live in the char areas. No one in Assam wants to live there. It’s a horrible place of floods and disease.” This view is representative of how the perception of Bangladesh as poverty-stricken justifies the belittling of those seen as Bangladeshi. Arupjyoti Saikia points out that the increased commercial activities in Lower Assam may have led to capital formation, but the beneficiaries have been traders and creditors, not the small peasants whose life may have changed only marginally.70 The resulting outmigration of peasants into towns and cities, near and far, to work in low-skilled sectors has made them “victims of aggressive urban political exclusionism” emblematic of neoliberal cities.71 3.4.2

Neoliberal City

The neoliberal city has become a stand-in for sites of intense economic activity, capital accumulation, cosmopolitanism, and glamor as if to bear testimony to how prosperous the wider region is. Whether it is New York, Tokyo, London, or Mumbai, scholars have shown the paradoxes of city-centric development.72 Guwahati serves this post as the economic hub of the region. In the post-reforms period, Hindi cultural symbols and practices have become ubiquitous: Bollywood music provides the

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background music in shops and taxis; billboards use Hindi lettering; there are signs advertising pani-puri and Indian-Chinese (food) all across Guwahati. On the face of it, Guwahati appears as a growing Indian city. Although Guwahati is still on its way to becoming a full-fledged neoliberal city, it already embodies the contours of one. The small middle class resides here, proud of their middle-class sensibilities and desires, branded belongings, posh parties, fancy hotels and restaurants, access to multiple languages (particularly English), and English-language education. The Assamese youth now go all over the country, if not the world, for higher education and work, giving parents bragging rights while inculcating a cosmopolitan culture at home.73 The popularity of Assamese pop-singers in Bollywood – like Papon – gives Assam a new image of prosperity and belonging among the new Indian middle class who are adept at fashioning their global-local image.74 There is a sense that they have arrived as citizens of this globalized world, between increased mobility, connectivity, and access to various media forms. Enamored by riches, this middle class has learned that politics is dirty, something to keep away from. This middle class can shelter themselves from bandhs (general strike), insurgencies, or riots in their newly constructed apartment complexes. The most conspicuous feature of neoliberalism might be the shopping malls, some with multiplexes, that have sprung up all across the city as well as large grocery chains like Big Bazaar catering to the middle class. These new gated malls host international brands and compete with one another in terms of how flashy and “elite” they are. As Hazarika writes, “New malls, houses, and construction are on an aggressive upward spiral in a handful of cities, indicating the growth of disposable incomes.”75 Although technically they are public places, the understanding is that the poor are not allowed to enter these spaces. There are guards in place for gatekeeping purposes. At a prominent boutique, I observed a shop attendant tell a working-class woman that she had to leave. Then, she shouted at the guards loudly for not doing their job properly. The woman appeared a little stumped – or maybe I was projecting – for no explanation was given for why she had to leave. Such literal gatekeeping with armed guards is a common sight across Indian cities. Unsurprisingly, the same ethnic culture that is shameful for not passing muster in anglophile circles, becomes commodified for consumption by the aspiring neoliberal citizens. To cater to them, restaurants serve ethnic food, or “grandma’s cooking.” The food itself may be mediocre, but the restaurants take care to provide an “authentic atmosphere” with symbols of tradition on display – using woven gamusa and bamboo furniture, for example, for decor. It is as though ethnic symbols are better

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appreciated as nostalgia – to point to as a reminder of dark days gone by and the relative well-being that neoliberalism had ushered in. In 2014, when I visited, the single five-star hotel – the Radisson Blu – was far from the city, with views of the hills in Meghalaya. Their decor was mostly inspired by Western sensibilities, but with small markers of Assamese culture – such as the use of Assamese silk on the murals and traditional dishes on their menu. The wealthy would come here casually for a fancy meal or to use the gym. Two more five-star hotels have since opened, catering to this growing class. “Conclaves” such as Paan Bazaar and Fancy Bazaar near Cotton University have been cultivated as popular spots for the middle-class youth. The BJP’s victory in Assembly elections in 2016 saw Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal promoting Guwahati’s business potential. In January 2016, the central government selected Guwahati as a “smart city,” the mission of which was to achieve high economic growth. Sonowal claimed he will change the city’s destiny. In February 2018 he hosted an investors’ summit called “Advantage Assam” to showcase the region as an investment site to India’s business world. On advertising billboards, Sonowal’s words were: “Assam is the land of 3Ps: Potentiality, Possibility, Prosperity.” PM Narendra Modi’s photograph appeared on billboards, too, with the caption “Assam: The new engine for economic growth.” BJP’s candidate Himanta Biswa Sarma became the Chief Minister in May 2021, indicating continued popular approval of the BJP in Assam. Scholars who work on neoliberal cities remind us that the glamor of the city often hides an underbelly of poverty, racism, and violence.76 The Manhattanization (or Mumbaization, for that matter) of cities produces an informal workforce, desperate for employment and continually subjected to the threat of eviction and displacement. Although scholars like Sanyal often speak of such marginalized spaces and spaces of stagnation and redundancy, I would argue that the parallel growth and decay of the neoliberal city is by design because the city requires not only high-skilled workers for capital accumulation but also low-skilled workers for other types of work.77 Policies of privatization and deregulation – often in global-local partnerships – produce both technology-led growth and technology-led job loss. The unemployed, or rather informal workers and day laborers, play crucial functions in the maintenance of cities. Bengali–Muslim peasants who are unable to thrive in their rural settings have found their way to the city, inspired by the prospects of neoliberal development. Here, they join the Bihari, the other group engaged in low-skill work. Bengali Muslims fleeing poverty in Lower Assam have found themselves being called Bangladeshi in Guwahati. It is

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not a surprise, then, that Guwahati is a hot spot of economic activity in the vastness of “underdevelopment” as well as the “heart of the antiimmigrant movement that has triggered such deeply anti-Bangladeshi sentiments and statements,” as Hazarika points out.78 3.4.3

Insurgencies

The 1990s brought on periods of insurgency by the ULFA and the BLT, bouts of violence involving different ethnic groups, and a climate of xenophobia that cut against the visions of plurality and unity. This period is also characterized by the onset of neoliberalism in India – although what that meant varied by location. In the northeast, it would take another decade or two for neoliberalism to become visible to all in terms of infrastructure and urban development. Yet it is worth examining how the demands for autonomy were linked to neoliberalism and identity. In this period of uncertainty, as inequality became starker, insurgents turned into political actors with political and social capital. The emergence of the Assam Movement soon after Bangladesh’s independence speaks to how the new nation produced new fears, legitimate or otherwise, and new strategies for mobilization by centering the “illegal Bangladeshi.” A Bangladeshi threat was easier to manage, easier to mobilize around, and easier to use strategically because unlike people from (East) Pakistan, they did not pose a “real” security threat. Mobilizers could also count on the fact that the new nation would not respond to allegations of infiltration for fear of affecting relations with India. At the same time, mobilizers could not discount how India’s intervention in Bangladesh closed off any chance for the independence of the northeastern states. Thus, the mobilizations surrounding separatist interests in the wake of the Assam Movement openly or implicitly used the “Bangladeshi issue” either as proof of India’s neglect/indifference/domination or as a way to highlight the need for indigenous rights, all the while taking advantage of the porous borders and seeking safe harbor in Bangladesh and Myanmar. If we only focus on insurgencies, the Bangladeshi question appears almost peripheral. But taken alongside the longer history of antiBangladeshi sentiments, it serves to normalize “complex xenophobia” – that is, xenophobia that people think is justified because it is complicated by a history of colonialism, alienation, and forced migration, as anyone in Assam will tell you. ULFA at the Helm of Neoliberalism The United Liberation Front of Assam was founded in 1979, around the same time as the mobilization

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surrounding “Bangladeshis.” Baruah writes that the ULFA “grew out of the contentious politics associated with the Assam Movement of 1979–85, which raised serious questions about the foundational assumptions of nation and citizenship in post-Partition India.”79 Although the ULFA started as a radical fringe of the Assam Movement, it grew quickly as people mobilized around the question of self-determination. The ULFA found further support when the leaders of the Assam Movement formed the political party AGP following the Assam Accord and gained political office. As Baruah points out, “A number of influential AGP leaders close to ULFA became ministers in the first AGP government of Assam (1985–89), and they felt obligated to extend patronage and protection to ULFA.”80 They aimed to establish a swadhin, or independent, Assam because it had been “locked in a colonial relationship with New Delhi since decolonization.”81 They proclaimed that the name “Northeast India” was an attempt to “impose Hindi culture on Assam and the region as a whole.” While the ULFA did not frame the Bangladeshi issue as a threat, they did see the central government’s “indifference” to border issues as a sign of neglect and continuation of colonial administration. This view became mainstream in the ensuing decades, although it was the China–India War of 1962 that cemented the idea of India’s neglect.82 This trope of the migration problem as a sign of Indian apathy contrasts the Bangladeshi perspective of India’s dominance over Bangladesh to its detriment. ULFA’s rise and the subsequent mobilizations speak to the fluidity of relations between the different groups in Assam, between Assam and India, between Assam and Bangladesh, and between India and Bangladesh. ULFA’s definition of Axombaxi was broader and more inclusive than what is captured by “Assamese people” – anyone who, irrespective of their “prior identity, regards Assam as motherland, treats Assam’s problems as their own.”83 This allowed for a united front against alienation from mainland India. With the Bangladeshi question tacked on to the sense of alienation, it is unsurprising that khilonjia interests see the migration problem through xenophobia. ULFA’s actions in this period are noteworthy because of the timing – at the helm of neoliberal policymaking. They formed headquarters in Dibrugarh in upper east Assam, an economic hub and site of capitalist power, to facilitate their Robin Hood–style operations of extorting money and assets from the many tea industrialists and traders for their noble cause.84 A university professor I interviewed put it aptly, “The ULFA were peasants fighting that last battle before things were to change.” Their dominance began to wane during the last days of the first AGP government, when Assam’s old business class raised the issue

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about the state government’s inability unable to control the ULFA with the central government in New Delhi, leading to ULFA being banned in 1990.85 Along with it, New Delhi imposed President’s Rule,86 declared Assam a “disturbed area” under the AFSPA, and “the Indian Army was ordered to launch a counterinsurgency campaign against it.”87 Operation Bajrang and Operation Rhino – the military operations to dismantle the ULFA – exemplified the normalization of military intervention in political life. What the authorities could not gauge at that point, perhaps, was how the banning of ULFA would not only drive them underground, producing a set of new challenges, but also introduce a new capitalist class in Assam that would challenge the old, amid neoliberal reforms in India that would deepen structural adjustment policies. That the AGP and the ULFA were seen as allies by the center – as well as sections of Assamese society – speaks to how the question of the immigrant threat belied the desire for independence. Even though ULFA’s message was more about autonomy and resisting colonization, the equating of the Bangladeshi question with the center’s neglect made it appear as though the ULFA were mobilizing around the Bangladeshi issue as well. By way of an explanation, an interviewee said of the ULFA, “If they want to remain relevant in their lifetime, they have to talk to the Indian state; the Indian state only talks when you talk the language of hatred. Invoking the Bangladeshi question was strategic.” Bodo Peoples Movement The Bodo people are a recognized plains tribe who claim to be among the earliest settlers of the region. They were a politically dominant group during the colonial period but were not given any permanent land grants. In postcolonial India, unemployment, growing population density, and the state’s decision to make Axomiya the official state language produced a sense of disquiet. In response, the region’s plains tribes, with the Bodos as a majority, formed the PTCA, an advocacy group arguing for formal tribal land recognition and autonomy.88 Inspired students in the 1970s took up the cause and formed the All Bodo Student Union (ABSU) to emphasize the Bodo identity.89 This was a turning point, because in supporting other student movements, like the AASU, the ABSU picked up the vocabulary of xenophobia as they mobilized to expel “nontribals,” especially Muslims, from areas they considered to be “essentially tribal belts” during the Assam Movement.90 If the neoliberal moment (if we can call 1990 that) saw the banning of ULFA, it also saw appeasement become the strategy of choice to deal with the Bodos. In 1993, the first Bodo Accord was signed, creating the

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Bodo Autonomous Council (BAC), consisting of forty council members who would not be able to legislate but could write bylaws and otherwise administrate. The conflict-inducing point in the accord was a clause indicating that “To provide a contiguous area, the villages having less than 50% tribal population shall not be included.”91 Thus, exclusion and inclusion were based on the population demographics of the village. Bodo militants knew, especially following the Assam Movement, that demographics can be changed by force and populist rhetoric. As the news magazine Realpolitik wrote in 2013: This flawed clause was enough to lead a section of people in the area to target Muslim settlers and the Adivasis, where their majorities were slim. After all, Bodo minority villages could turn into Bodo majority villages if the other communities could be ousted.92 The declaration also meant that Bengali–Muslim settlements in the area could be deemed illegal if they did not make up the majority in a village. This was a crucial juncture: The autonomous territory given to the Bodo set up a permanent conflict with the Muslims in the area who had been living there for many years. Low-scale mobilization ended in 2003, when the newly formed Bodo Liberation Tigers negotiated a revised accord with the state.93 The 2003 Terms of Settlement did not grant total independence to the region, however, which meant that the land issues remained. The Bodo strategically used the Bangladeshi question to gain momentum and support in their demand for autonomy. A third revision of the Bodo Accord – the Bodoland Territorial Region Accord – was signed on January 27, 2020, by the various Bodo factions with a commitment to end violence and a promise to give up their quest for self-determination in return for state provision to uplift the Bodo. Signatories included the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), the ABSU, and United Bodo People’s Organization (UBPO). The Bodoland Territorial Region Accord effectively renamed the existing BTAD as BTR. Villages that have a majority tribal population contiguous with the Bodo Council area were incorporated into BTR, whereas villages within the Bodo Council area that have a majority of nontribal people and are contiguous with areas outside the council were excluded. Along with revoking violence and separatist demands, and a system whereby the state government and the central government would contribute Rs. 250 crore (~US$35 million) each for development of the BTR every year for three years, we are to expect “peace.” The crucial factor is, to what degree will the Bodo leaders attempt to use ethnic violence (or cleansing) to shift the demographics that would allow territorial control? It is unclear.

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Both the ULFA and Bodo mobilizations demanded autonomy, selfdetermination, and rights; yet both used (and continue to use) the Bangladesh/Bengali–Muslim conflation instrumentally and strategically to make their mobilization visible and gain support from the wider population, where xenophobia is more salient. In neither case were Bengali Muslims the real enemy; rather, they are simply pawns to highlight their marginalization and neglect. There is a difference, however. ULFA mobilized based on economic exploitation and Assam’s colonial relationship with mainland India, with the goal of freeing Assam. The Bangladeshi issue was simply an example of how the colonial Indian state paid no heed to Assamese interests. The Bodo movement was limited to acquiring “Bodoland” and saw the Assamese state as an aggressor as well. The Bangladeshi issue was relevant in that they claimed that Bangladeshis or Bengal Muslims had encroached upon their land and had to be removed by force. That the Bangladeshi question became part of the two main separatist groups in Assam, for entirely different reasons, speaks to how the broad base of the anti-Bangladeshi constituency, which has found political expression in the more recent khilonjia mobilization. The “new” vocabulary based on indigenous claims means there is no longer any need to invoke ULFA or Bodo sympathies that have negative connotations. 3.4.4

SULFA, the New Capitalists

In terms of the politics around the economy, the banning of ULFA and the implementation of economic reforms in 1990 had a discernible effect in Assam. As the government cajoled and coerced ULFA members to surrender and work as informers to expose other ULFA members, the SULFA (for surrendered ULFA) emerged as the new capitalists in the late 1990s and early 2000s.94 Labeled “ceasefire capitalism” by Sanjay Barbora, this scheme involved bribing midlevel ULFA members with grants, licenses, contracts, and permits for businesses in return for information on former comrades.95 It had two effects. First, almost overnight, a class of entrepreneurs emerged that could threaten the more traditional business class, ostensibly the Marwari, with state support. Second, with the SULFA as informers, the state began its regime of “secret killings” through death squads as a strategy for counterinsurgency.96 There is very little written about the SULFA beyond the fact that they are the surrendered ULFA rebels and were complicit in the secret killings of ULFA members and their sympathizers.97 Yet most Assamese are well aware of their rise as the nouveau riche with mafia-like behavior, which

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may explain the dearth of literature, at least in Assam. In my interviews, many said they had a “distant cousin” who participated in ULFA activism or had been a victim of SULFA’s “snitching.” Locals in Guwahati can also point out businesses and buildings that were made with “SULFA money” – which range from malls and movie theaters to apartment complexes. “The SULFA wallahs also dominate the coal, sand, and real estate businesses, made easier after reforms,” a college student told me casually. Another student said, “These are former insurgents who, one generation ago, might have been peasants, but now are contractors and making lots of money.” Aruni Kashyap’s 2013 novel The House with a Thousand Stories does what academic work has been unable to do: write about the SULFA, its effect on Assamese society, and the complicity of the political elite. Early in the novel, we are introduced to Hiren, who was able to afford a Maruti 800 because he was SULFA. This becomes an occasion for a primer on ULFA and SULFA by the adolescent narrator: The SULFA owned a lot of the business enterprises in the state since they got large bundles of notes from the generous Assam government as compensation when they surrendered arms and went back to the “mainstream.” Everyone in our village was scared of the SULFA since they carried carbines and AK-47s with them all the time and roamed around everywhere at will; they needed those to protect themselves. People also said that they were allowed to do so by the government, since the ULFA were jealous of the SULFA’s nouveau-riche status. While the ULFA suffered from jaundice, malaria, mokhlong fever, hunger, rain, sun, and malnutrition, fight for the cause of Assam’s independence from India, the SULFA basked in their wealth. No wonder the ULFA wanted to kill them … But everyone only spoke about the SULFA, didn’t write about them. How they roamed around carrying guns. How they married whoever they wanted to since the girl’s family didn’t have the courage to refuse them (even if they did, the SULFA would take the girl away by force). How they started new business enterprises and generated employment for the local youth. How friendly they were with the political leaders. How they gave out information about the ULFA and conspired to kill them or to force them to surrender and take large bundles of notes from the government to become rich businessmen.98

Because the SULFA members were officially disarmed, they always had to watch their back for having snitched on former comrades. Their hold over real estate and the formation of the gated apartment complex (or “societies” as they are called in India) was to shield themselves from ULFA members who might exact revenge. This arrangement speaks to how economic reforms were not meant for broad-based economic development but were very clearly geared toward creating and maintaining a capitalist class that would work alongside the state’s repressive machine as it tried to maintain not only law and order but territorial integrity. It

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also reveals that questions of development, whatever that might mean, are always tempered through security. With the incorporation of the SULFA into the neoliberal order, the state signaled that even their staunchest critics could be tamed. This setup brought the Assamese nationalists and (former) separatists together into a tacit alliance to counter the Marwaris – the “traditional” capitalists. Yet the counter to the Marwaris manifested in attacks against working-class Hindi speakers – Marwari and Bihari. But what becomes critical, again, is how economic restructuring produces identity-related violent outcomes based on certain preexisting relationships. As one of my interviewees explained, “In my village, if you are Hindi speaking, there’s a generation of people which includes people like me, who will not take very kindly to you because you came as spies, you came with the military, you are responsible for torturing us, and you didn’t offer any solidarity. If you are Bangla-speaking, in my opinion, you are not a threat, but a nuisance. The Hindi speakers are the real threat.” Another explained, “Hindi-speaking people are very centrally identified with the counterinsurgency establishment. From 1996 to even now, all generals, all policemen, all informants, everybody, every businessman, everybody who was making money off counterinsurgency is Hindi speaking.” Even as people recognize the problems with SULFA as “the ceasefire capitalist,” to borrow Sanjay Barbora’s term, the unfortunate targeting of Hindi speakers is informed by a distaste for Hindi imperialism. Implicit in this notion is the idea that the SULFA is at least Assamese.99 The targeting of Hindi speakers does not preclude the antiBangladeshi sentiments in this period. Anti-Hindi sentiments are a product of historical envy. Even as the Assamese view Hindi speakers with anger, their feelings toward Bangladeshis are not necessarily of anger or envy but disdain. A writer based in Assam explained, “The Hindi speakers are not outsiders even if we don’t like them. The Bangladeshis – and they may not be Bangladeshis – are seen as the lowest of the low with no legitimate rights in Assam. There is a difference.” 3.4.5

Aspirational Neoliberalism

Although we see the rise of a new capitalist class and signs of urban development that correspond to neoliberal development, Assam is very much at the nascent stage, where neoliberalism is aspirational. The prospect of Gujarat-style development has enamored many and explains in part the BJP’s popularity in Assam. The hopes surrounding neoliberal development are not only about economic possibilities but about the crucial role that Assam and the rest of the northeast can play as a gateway

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to Southeast Asia, as part of India’s Look East Policy, showing the region’s geopolitical and strategic importance.100 Integral in the developmental vision of the northeast are the various plans for development corridors, which would necessitate infrastructure development, a traditional site of resource extraction. The northeast will potentially become a resource frontier not just for India but for Southeast Asia. Coal and timber extraction have been ongoing since the 1980s. Next in line would be hydropower generation and deforestation to get wood. All of these expectations rely on roads that will run through Bangladesh; indeed, the only way that Assam can be the gateway that its leaders imagine is if Bangladesh allows its territories to be used as transit. This produces a necessary tension at a time when anti-Bangladeshi sentiments are strong. There are several plans, the most prominent of which is China’s One Belt One Road Initiative, an ambitious multi-country project to increase connectivity as Asia’s idea of globalization challenges the West’s with 125 countries on board. “A near neighbor is better than a distant relative,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said on September 7, 2013, in his first public address regarding the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In this speech, President Xi harkens back to the Silk Road, where envoys, caravans, and scholars linked a 4,000-mile passage across Asia and Europe. President Xi expressed his desire for interconnectedness, trusting relations and economic prosperity find acceptance in Assam.101 There are competing connectivity plans as well, such as the BCIM (Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar). In the 1990s it was known as the Kunming Initiative, spearheaded by a think tank in Bangladesh. In 2014, representatives of the four countries met in Kunming, China (the provincial capital of Yunnan), which borders Myanmar, to formally endorse the plan to link Kunming to Kolkata (India), preliminarily via Mandalay (Myanmar), Silchar (India), Chittagong (Bangladesh), and Dhaka (Bangladesh). These and other connectivity efforts, notably by Japan, have captured the imagination of many who see these efforts rooted in the Silk Road as the Asian response to America-led capitalism. The argument goes that Western colonizers came on ships, not by roads, the traditional means of connectivity in Asia. If Asia is to challenge Europe and America, its people have to rely on historical precedence to create a new future: to rely on roads and infrastructure – not sea and air travel.102 The expectations are immense: infrastructure development; creation of industrial zones; boosting of logistics related to processing, manufacturing, and trade; and cooperation on issues of investments, energy, water management, education, science, and technology. For India, the connectivity potential for the northeast is a significant highlight.

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These plans show very little regard for local people, beyond a general claim that these developments would increase livelihoods. A college student I interviewed said that she worried that those who criticize such plans or want a share in the potential gains would be termed insurgents. Interestingly enough, the potential routes avoid “insurgent areas” and go through Silchar instead. Although civil society organizations have been part of the discussions on development projects, there is a sense among common people that the central government will impose these policies top down, with little regard for locals’ views. How do anti-Bangladeshi sentiments fit into this project that clearly relies on Bangladesh’s goodwill? Another college student who was particularly worried about these plans had this to say: “There is no communication between the people of Assam and Bangladesh. The state-level relationship between India and Bangladesh is imposed on us. India sees Bangladesh as an ally. What if we don’t? Before, Bangladeshis used to come across the border secretly. Now, will they come on buses now that there are new bus routes as an indication of good relations? People-to-people communication has to be established, but of course the state will not allow that because they don’t really want us to be friends. They benefit from the xenophobic atmosphere. They cultivate that atmosphere. All this talk of connectivity is about commerce, but they will speak about India–Bangladesh friendship in the interest of businesses.” Establishing connectivity while fomenting anti-Bangladeshi sentiments may well undermine the entire project. Yet if there is one lesson to draw from the borderlands (see Chapter 2), it is the state’s ability to create adjacent spaces of contradiction in the interest of commercial interest. Along with designing these routes, they will put in place plans or “safeguards” to ensure safe passage for goods and services, irrespective of what locals might think. We might even speculate that hostility and xenophobia will become instrumental to ensure that it is only goods that travel, not people. 3.5

Exclusion and Inclusion through Population Registers

In this section, I use two recent legislations sponsored by the BJP government and the mobilizations surrounding them to examine the Bangladeshi issue in Assam in terms of national belonging: the 2018 NRC and the 2019 Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), legislations that coincided with a period of low economic performance and scandals over corruption and kleptocracy nationally. While the Assamese saw the NRC process as a way to resolve the “Bangladeshi problem,” they saw the CAA as a mechanism to undo it, by encouraging

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Bangladeshi Hindus to take a safe passage into India. Given the history of antiestablishment and separatist agitation, it is important to analyze how Assamese nationalism and Indian nationalism came together in an attempt to exclude (and strategically include, as the case may be) Bengali Muslims. The legislations provided an opportunity to highlight their different set of concerns as the Assamese adopted the language of indigenous struggles – khilonjia – to unite people from different political and ideological views. 3.5.1

National Register of Citizens

The National Register of Citizens (completed in Assam in 2018) was a government initiative to identify citizens and noncitizens.103 While it was led by the central government, it was implemented by the local (state) government. With popular support, Assam updated its register in an attempt to identify Bangladeshis living in its midst and released the final draft of citizens in July 2019. Some thirty million people applied for the register.104 While many called it a witch hunt, the NRC had support in Assam because the various ethnicity-based groups there, including East Bengalis (the ones conflated with Bangladeshis), supported it as a way to “resolve” the citizenship questions once and for all, allowing them to move forward – that is, focus on more important issues like the economy.105 Hiren Gohain, a prominent scholar of Assamese politics, called it a compromise based on a consensus among different parties.106 However, in formulating this “consensus,” the various groups may well have given into Axomiya hegemony, which ultimately is nationalistic and chauvinistic in character. The linking of “tribal rights” and “national claims” – generally seen at odds – became the basis of khilonjia mobilization. In this framework, the na-Axomiya (new Assamese) – East Bengali Muslims who settled in the Brahmaputra Valley and adopted Assamese as their first language – are integral.107 The inclusion of East Bengali groups has made it easy to mobilize based on consensus; if those who are most vulnerable to the NRC process support it, then it must be the process through which this question can be resolved to protect them from further scapegoating. Yet, the Miya Muslims were opposed to the NRC. In 2016, amid the politicization of the Bangladeshi issue, emerged the Miya who reappropriated the “Miya” slur to assert that they are not “Bengali origin immigrants” but were born in Assam and rightfully Assamese. Composed of Muslim youth of East Bengali origins, they rightfully pointed to the irony that, had they not identified themselves as Assamese speakers,

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Assamese’s claim to be the official state language would be weaker.108 Their political identification found expression in the form of literature and the arts. A new genre of poetry and music emerged in Miya that speaks to their struggles. Social media plays a key role in popularizing such works, giving them a global reach but causing consternation at home.109 Hiren Gohain, for example, accused the group of “playing into the hands of outsiders” for writing in Miya, instead of in Axomiya. A writer I interviewed explained that the assertion of Miya identity was opportunistic and divisive. There are also Bengali origin Muslims who do not want to highlight these struggles and would like a less political approach to stake their claim to Assamese identities – such as the naAxomiya (new Assamese) who support the NRC. Such views speak to the class position of these leaders, who are well established in Assam and have all the proper documents to prove their ties. In this “caste Hindu hegemonic project” that is the NRC process, while the Miya are shoved aside as divisive, the non-Assamese-speaking Muslims are silenced. Around 1.9 million people were excluded from the NRC, many of whom were Hindus (see Appendix 4 for a list of necessary documents). Instead of recognizing the problem with the NRC process, the BJP government decided to move ahead with two projects: the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which was completed on December 11, 2019, and the National Population Registration repeatedly promised by Amit Shah, India’s Home Minister, but yet to materialize. The CAA would address the exclusions by giving amnesty to excluded Hindus, it would seem. 3.5.2

Citizenship (Amendment) Act (2019)

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) of 2019 put forth some crucial amendments to the Citizenship Act of 1955. First and most important, it would officially grant citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The stated intent is to provide refuge to persecuted minorities from these three neighboring countries. It identified a cutoff date of December 31, 2014, making it clear that it was about providing amnesty to undocumented immigrants from these countries unless they are Muslim. The bill also reduced residency requirements from eleven years to five years for people belonging to the six religions in these three countries as a general rule. This was a bold step by Narendra Modi in realizing the dream of a Hindu rashtra (Hindu state), a homeland for Hindus worldwide. The passage of the Citizen Amendment Bill (that produced the Citizenship Amendment Act) resulted in panic and speculation amid

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news reports indicating that Adhaar cards (national ID cards), voter ID cards, and passports would not be considered proof of citizenship.110 The only official list available was the one used for the NRC process in Assam. The decision validated Amit Shah’s promises (or threats) since 2019 that the NRC/NPR would be enacted by 2024.111 Here are three illustrative tweets: April 11, 2019: We will ensure the implementation of NRC in the entire country. We will remove every single infiltrator from the country, except Buddha [sic], Hindus, and Sikhs.112 April 23, 2019: First the CAB will come. All refugees will get citizenship. Then NRC will come. This is why refugees should not worry, but infiltrators should. Understand the chronology.113 May 1, 2019: First we will pass the Citizenship Amendment bill and ensure that all the refugees from the neighboring nations get Indian citizenship. After that NRC will be made and we will detect and deport every infiltrator from our motherland.114 In the wake of protests, however, PM Modi appeared to backtrack, saying the NRC and the CAA are not linked. “Has anything happened with the NRC yet? Lies are being spread,” Modi said at a BJP rally in Delhi. Further, he said: After my government came to power, from 2014 to now, let me tell the 130 crore citizens of this country, nowhere has the NRC word been discussed, been talked about. Only when the Supreme Court said, then we had to do it for Assam. What are they talking about? Spreading lies.115

Yet in the following days, news broke that the Union Ministry had allocated Rs. 13,000 crores (~US$1.8 million) for the NPR process, with the caveat that no documents would be required.116 The government appeared to conflate the NPR with the census, strategically so in all likelihood. Mass protests involving hundreds of thousands emerged across India to protest the CAA. The Chief Ministers of West Bengal, Kerala, and Punjab declared they would not implement it. Those who supported the CAA read it at face value: as a way to provide refuge to persecuted minorities who fled their homes in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The Intelligence Bureau estimated in 2019 that 31,313 people belonging to these religions lived in India on long-term visas. They had sought refuge in India based on religious persecution. Of them, 25,447 were Hindu, 5,807 were Sikh, 55 were Christian, 2 were Buddhists, and 2 were Parsis.117 For its part, the Border Security Force

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said that illegal crossings across the border had decreased significantly. This means that the number of people to whom the act would apply is very small, given a population of more than a billion. Most of the protests across India focused on this aspect of the CAB/ CAA: It barred Muslims from India’s neighboring countries from acquiring Indian citizenship, and thus breached the right to equality and secular citizenship as espoused in the Indian constitution. To put it differently, nationalism informed the protests as they claimed that this kind of discrimination was unacceptable in the world’s largest democracy; India’s founding fathers would be horrified.118 Protesters understood that the CAA was not about providing refuge to those fleeing persecution. They recognized that the CAA had to be seen in conjunction with the NRC/NPR. By feat of the CAA and NRC, citizens will have to prove that they are citizens – they will turn into “petitioners” as Arundhati Roy said in an interview while joining the protests in Delhi.119 Some protesters likened it to demonetization, where after the invalidation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, the onus was on the people to prove they were not corrupt. In Assam, a different kind of concern was brewing because such an act would be antithetical to the 1985 Assam Accord that used the cutoff date of March 26, 1971. Protests erupted across Assam – in Guwahati, Jorhat, Golaghat, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Sivasagar, Bongaigaon, Nagaon and Sonitpur – opposing the CAA not because it targeted Muslims, but because it would legalize Bengali Hindus from Bangladesh who had been in Assam between March 26, 1971 and December 31, 2014. They argued that this move would induce a refugee influx from Bangladesh claiming persecution and the presence of “Bangladeshis” will change their culture and society or, worse, turn the Assamese into a minority in their own land. It put Assam’s BJP Chief Minister in an awkward position as a committed activist during the Assam Movement. An easy slippage that equated the Assamese with indigenous people – khilonjia – emerged to protest the CAA on the streets based on protecting indigenous people. In trying to maintain the party line, CM Sonowal tried to assure the Assamese that the number of Bangladeshi in Assam were negligible, and the CAA would ensure that “no new people” would be coming from Bangladesh.120 Progressive activists insisted that they were not xenophobic – it was the state that they were disgruntled with.121 Scholar-activist Ankur Tamuli Phukan explained, “Yes, the abstract entity driving the protests is the socalled foreigner, but the fight is not against the foreigner; it is against the Indian state, which insists that we must accept refugees on their terms despite an agreement we have with them on this subject.”122 The

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protesters argued that they were against the communalism the BJP was fomenting. By that, the protesters meant two things: (1) they have nothing against Assamese Muslims, and (2) they are equally against Bangladeshi Hindus and Bangladeshi Muslims, and accordingly, they do not want the state to provide amnesty or refuge to anyone from Bangladesh, whatever their religion may be. Their position was oblivious to the fact that because of their lower socioeconomic position, it would be the Bengali Muslim, and not the Bengali Hindu, who would be unable to produce citizenship documents, land titles, or birth certificates. Curiously, this apparently anticommunal, anti-state mobilization was not only ethno-nationalistic but also aligned with the nationalist rhetoric of strong borders. It is unfortunate that they chose to mobilize on the basis of xenophobia to articulate the anti-statism and the critique of Indian-style federalism whereby the center is perceived as a dictator in matters of the periphery. Yet, there is a progressive element in that their voice is among the many whose existence within the Indian state is experienced as oppressed and represents the failure of decolonization that coincided with the emergence of Bangladeshi state (as discussed in Chapter 1). While much of the protests followed the above logic, there were competing political demonstrations that took an opposing view, highlighting an underlying rift between Brahmaputra Valley and Barak Valley. Bengali Hindus in Barak Valley demonstrated in support of the CAA, buying into the idea of India as the homeland of all Hindus.123 It was an indication of their disregard of the Assam Accord. For our purpose, this difference provides an opening to reflect on some of the less-talked-about effects of Partition and the Bangladesh War of 1971. Barak Valley consists of three districts: Cachar, Hailakandi, and Karimganj. Karimganj was part of Sylhet, a Bangla-speaking, Muslimmajority district in Assam that became part of Pakistan on the basis of a referendum in 1947. Karimganj, however, remained as part of Barak Valley in Assam (India) despite having a Muslim majority due to the influence of vested politicians.124 Partition-related violence and anxiety saw thousands of Bengali Hindus leaving Sylhet for Barak Valley. As discussed above, migration continued even post-Partition. Barak Valley became a de facto Bengali region, with an 80 percent Bengali population, divided roughly equally between Hindus and Muslims. In 1961 they announced their own Bengali Language Movement to protest Assam’s imposition of Axomiya as a state language, effectively taking a political stand and establishing their difference.125

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In 1971, 347,555 of the 10 million refugees from East Pakistan went to Assam.126 While there is no data on the religion of the Bengali refugees, there is a sense that a large portion of them were Hindu, many of whom may have stayed behind – in Barak Valley, alongside the existing Hindus of East Bengali descent, bolstering the Bengali Hindu community there.127 It might not matter how large this population was; what does matter is what it signified. Arguably, the Bengali Hindu in Barak Valley bears the trauma of Partition, Pakistani persecution, and living in a state that they construe as hostile. Unable to find common grounds with Assamese Hindus, they have aligned themselves with the BJP, playing their part in mobilizing around beef-consumption and “love jihad.” At the same time, they appear to have bought into Assam’s narrative of being overrun by “illegal Bangladeshis,” who, from their point, are Muslim. José Montalvo and Marta Reynal-Querol have shown that it is when ethnic groups are fairly equal in size that it has a polarizing effect and increases the likelihood of conflict.128 The religion-based polarity among Bengalis in Barak Valley is reminiscent of that. Yet, it is not only the Muslims that they see as threats. When the CAA was modified to include protections for tribal land and those identified as Assamese, the Bengali Hindus of Barak Valley found them exclusionary. As the Assembly elections came up in 2021, the distinction between Brahmaputra and Barak Valleys became a source of careful politicking among different parties. Between 2019 and 2021, during tours to Assam, neither Modi nor Amit Shah discussed the CAA, arguably for fear of alienating some no matter what, but kept up a refrain that the CAA would not hurt the Assamese, that there were misunderstandings. When the BJP won again, the new Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, touted a more aggressive line, relative to his predecessor Sarbananda Sonowal. “No Hindu is a foreigner in India,” he claimed to the chagrin of those who held close the politics of the Assam Movement.129 With the Covid-19 pandemic creating newer, more lifethreatening challenges, the public discussions of the CAA receded. But as it stands, Sanjib Baruah rightly points out that “[s]ince the CAA legally sanctifies the idea that a Hindu can never be a foreign national in India, a ‘Bangladeshi illegal’ can now only be a Muslim. The Bangladeshi illegal is stigmatized as a people; the category is oblivious to a person’s formal citizenship status.”130 The BJP may be counting on this conflation already being commonsensical in Assam by virtue of “complicated” history.

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3.6

Conclusion

Critics can point to Assam and say that xenophobia, particularly toward Bangladeshis, is not new, nor does it have anything to do with neoliberalism. Indeed, it is not new, but it does take a new form and plays a different role in this period. This chapter has shown how (1) neoliberal neglect combined with the center’s colonial-style control over Assam, and (2) Assam’s assumption of strong India–Bangladesh relations based on India’s help during Bangladesh’s War of Independence exacerbated anti-Bangladeshi sentiments. This complex finds expression during the Assam Movement, the periodic attacks against Bengali Muslims, and separatist mobilizations. Most recently, anti-Bangladeshi sentiments and the “migrant threat” have led to the strategic use of “indigenous interests” to bring together various groups – harkening back to an older form of anti-Bangladeshi sentiments that were based on ethnicity instead of religion. Banning ULFA, appeasing the Bodos, and promoting a sound business climate through rewarding (former) rebel leaders have all led to a kind of ethnic and class reconfiguration that saw the “indigenous” Assamese rival the traditional Marwari capitalist class. This class configuration in turn legitimized prejudice against Hindi speakers for their role in historic oppression and imperialism, on the one hand, and Bangla speakers, on the other, for being Bangladeshi and a constant source of economic threat and pulling everyone down. Despite the prejudice, Hindi speakers cannot be dehumanized in the same way as Bengali Muslims. This is because, despite the rhetoric of Indian imperialism, the Assamese have accepted the logic of Indian nationalism, culture, and its borders, making Hindi speakers acceptable even if unlikable. Bengali Muslims – and Hindus, too – can be deemed garbage.131 Yet, the bifurcated class position of Bengali Muslims and Bengali Hindus and the stereotype of the Bangladeshi as poor, often donning Islamic attire – lungi, cap, veil, burkha – means that it is the Bengali Muslim who actually gets scapegoated. While the debates and mobilization around the NRC and CAA are informed by historical grievances and oppression, the neoliberal period has made it clear that the Assamese – however defined – have a common enemy in the Bangladeshi, an iterant migrant worker. The political work of the BJP has been to ensure that this enemy is cultivated in the form of the Bengali Muslim. Periodic mobilizations and political rhetoric have kept alive a sense of xenophobia, but in this neoliberal period, it meshes with neoliberal ideology. The aspirations tied to neoliberal development forged a sense of unity based on an alignment of Indian and Assamese nationalism,

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which in turn singles out Bangladeshis as not only burdensome but a source of Assam’s underdevelopment. Although we see the emergence of the self-identified Na-Axamiya and the Miya population as a form of resistance to the politics of othering, the segregated existence of the Bengali–Muslim population in lower Assam, and the segmentation in terms of class position and work, means that they are out of sight, even when they work in the centers of development. This allows political actors to include and exclude them strategically for the political agenda of the day – for example, in recognizing that the Na-Axomiya are not Bangladeshi. This also explains why it is in the urban center of Guwahati that we find open disdain for Bangladeshis, but such sentiments become nuanced, and sometime disappear, the closer we get to lower Assam or the borders with Bangladesh, in line with what we saw in Chapter 2 and corroborating the work of scholars who see everyday interactions among different ethnic groups as peace-inducing.132 The consolidation of khilonjia interests, which found expression during the mobilizations surrounding the NRC/CAA, is as much about neoliberal aspirations as it is a product of the history of grievance that highlighted the Bangladeshi threat. The BJP expects to capitalize on the commonsensical idea of the Bengali Muslim as the de facto foreigner that is the product of Assam’s “complicated” history.

4

Whatever Happened to Bengali Nationalism? The “Appeased” Muslims of West Bengal

In contrast to Assam, in West Bengal Bengali Muslims do not have to fear xenophobic violence that teeters toward ethnic cleansing. If we define peace as the absence of physical violence, we might even be tempted to think of West Bengal as a bastion of communal harmony and unity. Indeed, Bengali nationalism is an oft-cited explanation for why West Bengal enjoys said communal harmony.1 Even in the face of riots in Asansol and Basirhat in 2018 that targeted Muslims, people told me that outsiders, or non-Bengalis, were behind the anti-Muslim riots. Bengalis are secular and share a deep bond, the argument goes. The sense of Bengali pride is steeped in Bengali literature and culture and the sense that Bengalis are intelligent, erudite, and sophisticated, “in contrast to crass and money-minded North Indians,” as one interviewee put it. They love to tell the story of how the British divided Bengal into two provinces in 1905 but had to reunite them in 1911 because of the strength of Bengali kinship. They lament the Partition of Bengal in 1947 and explain it as a top-down imposition. What was lacking was not nationalism but the physical and mental strength to fight British cunning. When I asked people about anti-Muslim sentiments in West Bengal, many responded by saying how much they love the people from Bangladesh, the Dhakai (jamdani) sarees, and Ilish maachh (hilsha fish) from there (apparently, the water is sweeter on the Bangladeshi side and hence the fish is tastier!).2 Such views show that Bangladeshis stand in for Bengali Muslims, irrespective of attitudes toward them, rendering native Bengali Muslims invisible – more so because of the popular view that Muslims in West Bengal speak Urdu, based on the fact that Muslims in Kolkata are mostly upper-class Urdu speakers (ashraf). Even Amit De, one of the most prominent scholars of Bengali Muslim identity, focuses primarily on Bangladeshis as Bengali Muslims and not on Bengali Muslims in West Bengal, in Murshidabad and Malda, when he writes about Bengali Muslims’ political attitudes and aspirations. In both popular parlance and in much of the academic literature, Bengali 144

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Muslims and Bangladeshis are synonymous in the contemporary period. Predominantly poor, peasant, and rural, they form 90 percent of the Muslim population in West Bengal, but for all the talk of Bengali sentimentalism, Hindu Bengalis have effectively written off this Bengali Muslim population. Ethnic and cultural pride among Hindus in West Bengal, then, not only participates in the subjugation of Bengali Muslims but renders them invisible. The BJP’s inroads into West Bengal in recent years brings attention to a latent Islamophobia that has now come out into the open. The identity of Bengali Muslims is shaped by bilateral India– Bangladesh relations and differential neoliberalism, as well as West Bengal–Bangladesh relations and “local” neoliberal sensibilities. West Bengal and Bangladesh constituted the Bengal Province during the colonial period. While there is scholarship on the effects of Partition on divided Bengal and on West Bengal’s supportive role during Bangladesh’s War on Independence, there is little work on how the creation of Bangladesh affected Bengalis in West Bengal.3 How did the division of Bengal affect Bengali nationalism? Many among the middleclass (West) Bengalis I interviewed said that the borders may have turned Bengal into two nation-states, but they are still linked: it is opar Bangla, or Bengal on the other side (of the River Padma), after all. Arguably, the creation of Bangladesh had a contradictory effect on the West Bengali psyche – pride on behalf of their ethnic kin but also a sense of loss – because it was premised on Bengali nationalism and it was not clear where, if at all, Bengalis in West Bengal fit into that struggle. Some have argued that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s worries about irredentism and the possibility that East and West Bengal would unite prompted her to step in to resolve the question of Bangladeshi statehood.4 Since then, Bengalis have had to reckon with their national identity vis-à-vis their ethnic identity, especially as neoliberalism intensified Hindi imperialism and the BJP made political inroad into West Bengal. In an attempt to align Bengali nationalism with Indian nationalism, even minor differences in speech, demeanor, and everyday practices became sharp, discernible, and meaningful to conceptualize the “Bangladeshi other.” In this chapter, I parse how the relationship between West Bengal and Bangladesh affects identity valuation in the neoliberal period. This exercise is necessarily complex because the nuances and contradictions are important in explaining the everyday tensions that underlie Bengali Muslims’ existence in West Bengal. I delineate the explicit and subtle changes brought along with the creation of Bangladesh and later neoliberal reconstruction. The role of Kolkata in shaping neoliberal rhetoric and rationality means that the marginalization of Bengali Muslims is part

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of urban-rural divisions and renders them almost invisible, in addition to the older forms of prejudice based on caste and class. This invisibility in turn allows for exclusion and strategic inclusion. This chapter discusses how the “old” and the “new” shape identity and analyzes the salient and intersectional identities that are politicized to exclude Bengali Muslims in West Bengal: language, religion, and ethnic kinship to the majority of Bangladeshis. While such social hierarchies appear to privilege Bengali Hindu domination on the basis of “cultural superiority,” the neoliberal insistence on productivity and profits means that this historically privileged group can no longer rely on its cultural capital to ensure economic privilege either. This chapter is organized into three sections. The first section provides a brief overview of colonial policies that divided Bengal and the socioeconomic position of Bengal Muslims in the postcolonial period. I analyze the form that neoliberalism takes in West Bengal and the rural-urban divide it exemplifies because the exclusion of Bengali Muslims is part of the decimation of rural economies amid neoliberal neglect. The third section examines the effect of neoliberal pressures and ideas on identity – in particular, national identity, caste, ethnicity, and language. Because of the competition over who “owns” Bangla and Bengali culture, the question of the value of the Bangla language is particularly important, the answer to which can only be assessed through a comparison of Bangla’s status in West Bengal and Bangladesh. As sensibilities in neoliberal, Kolkata-centric West Bengal strive toward an upwardly mobile lifestyle in the context of Hindi and English hegemony, Bangladesh becomes the site of Bangla chorcha or practice. In West Bengal, Bangla language and culture becomes associated with backwardness, unable to keep up in a global world, and hence inferior. The prejudice that Bengali Muslims in rural West Bengal face, then, is predicated on the very identity that gives West Bengal its reputation. 4.1

Early Predisposition

A brief background on Bengal’s colonial past is necessary to see how colonial policies and practices predisposed Bengali Muslims in India to political and social exclusion, despite forming the majority of the population in united Bengal. Bengali Hindus’ upper-caste and upper-class status ensured a secure position politically, which remained intact in the postcolonial period. Of particular import was the creation of a predominantly Hindu upper class and landowner class (zamindari), which excluded Muslims.5 This policy included a segregated education system aimed at creating a class in its own image to serve as civilian bureaucrats

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to manage the colonial state’s revenues. Hindus were the beneficiaries of this English education as well.6 This would have far-reaching consequences as Muslims continued their education in low-quality madrasas that received limited funding and received neither patronage nor the touted secular education. Such structural changes created and reinforced differences between the two groups on the basis of class and education but attributed to ethnicity and religion. The inequality thus produced fomented fears of Hindu domination among Bengali Muslims, which prompted them to form communal Islamic organizations that could help unify them. Religious identity became a central aspect of political mobilization. Muslims, who were largely peasants in rural Bengal, increasingly allied with rich peasants and urban ashraf, in opposition to their own material interests.7 As Iftekhar Iqbal writes, “Peasants were persuaded by their ‘modern’ fellow co-religionists that salvation rested in a communal alliance that would prevent the intrusion of the Hindu ‘outsider’ into their socio-economic space.”8 The formation of the first Muslim ministry in Bengal in 1937 marked a distinct change in the province’s social and political structure. Until the end of the nineteenth century, there was hardly a Muslim middle class that could politically assert itself. The Bengali Muslim aristocracy were the only ones to demand more rights for Muslims. By the early twentieth century, a small Muslim middle class had emerged, but it was timid, and its political activities were limited to petitioning the Raj for quotas on a community basis in education and employment. Tazeen Murshid calls them the “quiescent loyalists” who recognized advantages that partition brought them during the 1905–1911 partition of Bengal through patronage. In the 1920s, Murshid argues, they became bolder and eventually, by 1937, openly and effectively assertive in politics. Several factors made this possible: the formation of not just a Muslim middle class but a middle-class intelligentsia in Bengal;9 British policy to encourage Bengali Muslim self-assertion to counter Bengali Hindus; the recognition of a demographic shift that made Muslims the majority community; and the rising importance of community-based politics, identity politics, and communal solidarity in the electoral process.10 The formation of the Muslim ministry was proof that the Bengali Muslim middle class had finally established itself; in the following decade, this middle class continued to grow. What was crucial in terms of identity and valuation was that the British introduced a new concept of respectability, status, and power, based not on superiority of birth but on education and wealth. Education became a marketable commodity, virtually replacing the earlier system

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of free education maintained through endowments and trusts. Land, too, became a salable item in the mid nineteenth century. The British followed a policy of concentrating power in their own hands. The effect was to strip the Muslim aristocracy of its principal sources of income: landholding, administrative positions, and military positions. The agrarian, educational, and administrative policies adopted to achieve this aim had far-reaching effects on the Indian polity – it transformed the existing social order, created new classes breaking across caste barriers, set an unprecedented degree of social mobility, and in many cases weakened the power of hereditary status groups. British officials described it as “a time of upheaval, the old order as changing and the old families who had long held the neighboring zamindaries were dying out, or encumbered with debt, were being forced to relinquish their possessions.”11 The ensuing reorganization of Indian society saw Bengal Muslims as “a race ruined under British rule.”12 Class divisions among the Bengali Muslim population meant that the wealthy could escape the prejudices that came with Bengali identity by adopting the Urdu language and fashioning themselves as having nonBengali roots or connections. In this way, elite Bengali Muslims tried to strategically use the “casteless” religion (Islam) to escape the caste prejudice that saw Bengali Muslims as tied to rural poverty. While this strategy explains the persistence of the Bengali–Urdu divide along class lines, it is worth noting that this strategy was not always successful. Even as the Muslim elites fashioned themselves as upper caste, the Bengali Hindu bhadralok saw them as inferior. As Partha Chatterjee writes of the peasant rebellions against Hindu landlords: The crucial element which deflected peasant agitations into anti-Hindu movements was not that most zamindars were Hindu and that the grievances of the predominantly Muslim tenantry consequently took on anti-Hindu overtones, but the fact that Muslim rent-receivers, where they did exist, were considered part of the peasant community whereas Hindu zamindars and talukdars were not. The evidence points, in fact, to structures of political authority and ideology quite autonomous from the straightforward representation of the agrarian structure.13

The British thus patronized both the Hindu and Muslim groups as a way to counterbalance one another. In so doing, Bengali Hindus emerged as the upper-caste bhadralok and a middle class emerged among Bengali Muslims that allowed them upward mobility. Yet class mobility could not allow the Bengal Muslim to transcend the caste prejudice underlying the peasant denomination. Events such as the Calcutta killings and the Noakhali riots brought Mohandas Gandhi to Bengal in 1946. He fasted, spun cotton, and

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meditated to unite Hindus and Muslims. But again, as Chatterjee reminds us, Gandhi relied on Hindu philosophy and spirituality together with the idealization of India’s Hindu past to unite people.14 As Ambedkar wrote in Annihilation of Caste, caste as an ideology and a set of institutional arrangements pervades Indian life – so much so that caste cannot be separated from Hinduism.15 A spirituality based on caste hierarchy could not be emancipatory or inclusive for Bengali Muslims. On the eve of independence, rural Bengali Muslims in Bengal found themselves in a double bind as they weighed the prospects of domination by Hindus against domination by the ashraf. Partition seemed to signal the latter, and yet in the wake of Partition the upper and middle class among Bengali Muslims moved to the new state of Pakistan, leaving behind a minority in West Bengal who would not see upward mobility for the next seventy years. Partition saw the influx of Bengali Hindus from East Bengal, identified as refugees – refugees who would become citizens. Native locals labeled them Bangal, a negative word that invoked their rural origins in East Bengal to mean unsophisticated and uneducated; the natives, or the Ghoti, were the sophisticated ones.16 Yet there were divisions between the Bangal as well. Those who came before 1947 were the educated upper and middle classes. As Shamshad points out, they were the bhadralok from East Bengal.17 This first group of Partition refugees was able to integrate easily in Kolkata as a result of their education and networks. Those who arrived after 1950, in contrast, were poor and often Dalit, with no capital or contacts in West Bengal.18 The ruling congress state government treated the newcomers not as citizens but as a burden, expendable. The rehabilitation plan was essentially to relocate them outside Bengal, in Dandakaranya, “a place where the hungry, the thirsty, the lame and the sick hopelessly waited for the merciful release of death or tried with their last twitches of a fading energy, to get up and stumble away.”19 Unsurprisingly, such measures were unpopular among the East Bengali and those sympathetic to their plight. It created a space for left parties to mobilize on a platform that highlighted economic oppression, of which the “refugee” problem was a part.20 By 1973, 25 percent of West Bengal’s urban population (about 15 percent of total population) was Hindu East Bengali.21 In 1977, the Communist Party of India Marxists (CPI(M)) formed the West Bengal state government with Jyoti Basu, a Bangal, as the chief minister. What is instructive for our purpose is how the Ghoti-Bangal divide relies on a certain kind of provincialism based on perceived economic status – sophisticated, educated urbanites versus philistine rural

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peasants, such that the East Bengali bhadralok were deemed inferior to the West Bengali bhadralok. Over time, the Bangal “redeemed” themselves through hard work and perseverance. Between Rabindranath’s “eastern” sensibilities and the successful careers of Amartya Sen and Sushmita Sen, East Bengalis have also come to be seen as a source of Bengali pride. The incorporation of the Bangal into society resolved the Bangladeshi question for West Bengal in a popular sense. Given the pushback and hostility East Bengalis faced as refugees, the logic of Partition became a mantra to make space for them. Bangals’ tenacity and perseverance allowed them to own and flip negative attributions/stereotypes that pertain to everyday practices and language use. For example, once a marker of provincialism, the Bangal language became simply a descriptor of a certain way of speaking. Very few will take issue with the use of kon instead of bolun (said). Yet a patronizing condescension remains. Many of the youth I spoke to, for example, said something along the lines of, “I really enjoy speaking to my grandmother in Bangal,” as though that is how everyone in Bangladesh speaks. Implicit in such statements was how they had transcended that kind of geyo (rural) speak, whereas Bangladeshis must not have – ignorant of the fact that Bangal is a West Bengali construct, a combination of the various dialects that Partition refugees spoke in West Bengal. The Bangal position at once helps normalize the logic of religion-based homelands and participates in situating the Bangladeshi as a monolithic outsider, a remnant of the past. Resolving the Bangladeshi question on the backs of the Bangal meant that the Bengali Muslim would have to be nonexistent or invisible. 4.2

Socioeconomic Conditions of Bengali Muslims in West Bengal

The inability of a middle class to emerge in the last seventy years, despite periods of high economic performance that saw generalized upward mobility, speaks not just to invisibility but to willful and systematic neglect of Bengali Muslims. This section begins with an analysis of my survey of West Bengal companies as a way to assess the preference for workers from different ethnic groups. Then, I provide an overall picture of the socioeconomic marginalization of Bengali Muslims in West Bengal based on data from the census and think tanks based in West Bengal. In March 2018, I surveyed forty-one firms in West Bengal to gauge the degree to which ethnicity matters in employment. My survey, titled “Employee Characteristics of Firms in West Bengal,” asked questions that would shed light on the makeup of the workforce in terms of

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ethnicity, gender, religion, and education level in the different sections of the firms. I sent the survey to 1,000 firms, randomly selected from a list of companies registered with the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation. Personnel in human resources or administration in only forty-one firms responded.22 Seventeen of the firms were located in Kolkata, and the rest were located in Howrah, Hoogli, Jalpaiguri, and North 24 Parganas. The firms ranged from agricultural and industrial manufacturing to IT and banking. The survey results align with the expected ethnic hierarchy along skill levels. High-skilled workers were 90 percent male, Hindu, Englishspeaking, and from Kolkata. Only six of the forty-one firms mentioned they had Muslims among their high-skilled workers. By contrast, lowskilled workers included equal proportions of men and women, but they were predominantly rural and Muslim, and included “illegal” immigrants. Even with a low response rate, the bifurcation was clear. An open-ended question on the pressure to use English or Hindi yielded some interesting insights. Several responded by saying that their employees are already fluent in English and Hindi. Some were more direct. Respondent 10 said, “English is a clear preference as a language for business national and international.” Respondent 12 said, “English is the only way to do work if you want to be present in the global scenario. Most employees are reluctant and do not want to learn the language properly, or do not take adequate efforts towards self-development.” Respondent 41 said, “There is no pressure but speaking/writing experience in English is preferred.” Along the same lines, respondent 40 said, “No, we prefer employees who are multi-lingual.” Respondents who indicated feeling no pressure said it was because their clientele spoke Bangla. In response to a question asking if there was a preference for people from certain areas or regions, most respondents said skill sets were the most important criteria. If they were able to find “qualified professionals from Bengal,” they did so, but did not feel restricted to this pool only. Some took the opportunity to justify why they may not hire Bengalis. Respondent 8 said, “Bengali workers [are] absent much more than others. So, we prefer outsiders for critical positions.” A survey on questions regarding attitudes toward workers of different ethnicities is certainly controversial in West Bengal, if not in India. The response rate indicates a reluctance as well. In a multiethnic place with a history of ethnic tensions, this discomfort is understandable. It is also why a survey-based quantitative analysis would be very limited. I refrain from placing too much importance on the views expressed in the responses, but two things become clear: (1) Muslims are severely

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underrepresented in the workplace, especially in the skilled sector; and (2) the importance of English and Hindi in the workplace in this period is significant. The marginalization of Bengali Muslims is not reinforced through labor practices, as I had imagined, but by their exclusion from meaningful employment. In the post-independence period, Chatterjee writes that there were no capitalists who could take up the vacuum left by the withdrawal of British capital in West Bengal.23 Nor were the middle class tied to the land, in part because of the demise of zamindari and because Partition separated landlords from their lands and landholdings. What resulted was a Bengali middle class that was bound to urban areas, Kolkata in particular. The domination of upper-caste Hindus reemerged as the Muslim middle class dispersed to Pakistan. Upper-caste Hindu domination of the urban middle class continues in almost all aspects of political and cultural life in the state amid an ethic that values education and pursuits of the mind. Bengali Muslims are almost nonexistent, except in their connection to Bangladesh. Around 20 million of the 24.6 million Muslims in West Bengal are Bangla-speaking Muslims according to the 2011 Census. Perhaps that is where the BJP’s estimate of the number of “illegal Bangladeshis” comes from. Someone in Kolkata may not realize as much, given the preconception that Muslims are Urdu speakers, more so since Kolkata Muslims (20 percent of the city population), including Bengali Muslims (who form 12 percent of the city population), speak and practice Urdu as the language of the ashraf class, as per census data. The vast majority of the Bangla-speaking Muslim population – 82 percent – lives in rural West Bengal, away from media attention or political attention, in places like Murshidabad (65 percent), Malda (52 percent), South 24 Parganas (34 percent), Birbhum (34 percent), and Uttar Dinajpur (33 percent). It needs repeating that they are rarely the subject of “Muslim appeasement” – a popular trope used to critique the Trinamool Congress’s attempts at inclusive policymaking. Rural existence requires a closer look because it has not been spared from neoliberal restructuring. That neoliberal restructuring in rural West Bengal was the handiwork of the CPI(M) government was a surprise, especially given the role it had played in the 1970s and 1980s to enact land reforms to redistribute land to the poor. First, in the period 1967–1976, the state reduced land ownership from 25 acres per person to 12.3 acres of irrigated or 17.3 acres of unirrigated land per household. The surplus created was then redistributed to poor and landless peasants. The second phase began in 1977 under the leadership of the CPI(M)-led Left Front government in a more expansive fashion. Reforms included

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land redistribution and enforcement of tenancy rights, as well as registration of tenants under Operation Barga to allow sharecroppers (bargadar) to retain a larger share of the crops they produced.24 Between land reforms and technological innovations in irrigation, agricultural growth in West Bengal increased in the 1980s but declined steadily in the 1990s. Agriculture’s role in the state GDP kept declining, but it employed more than 50 percent of the state’s workers, as we saw in the last section. The 2001 census revealed that there were more agricultural workers than cultivators. It became clear that the reforms did not create the small peasant-based economy they were meant to. Instead, they produced “a situation of significant proletarianization emerging in the economy without dynamic accumulation.”25 If Permanent Settlement and the zamindari system explains the exploitation of peasants, why didn’t its abolition in the 1950s and these later land reforms significantly improve the condition of the peasantry? This question has animated scholarly discussions and forced an explanation rooted in the peasant.26 Some, like Sugata Bose, argue that the dominance of elite or rich peasants resulted in continued exploitation: Instead of investing in capitalist farming, the rich peasants diversified their trade and invested in trading, credit provisioning, usury, and so on.27 Others, such as Partha Chatterjee, argue that communal interests, versus class consciousness, have meant coalition building with coreligionists, often in opposition to their own material interests.28 Maidul Islam argues that we have yet to see the full extent of the benefits from these land reforms, especially for Muslims.29 But it remains unclear what, exactly, the reforms were meant to accomplish. There is some debate surrounding the degree of redistribution, but even if we assume there had been significant redistribution, what gains can we expect from owning small parcels of land? My interviews in rural North 24 Parganas in 2018 indicate that owning land did not lead to much upward mobility. While they no longer feared homelessness, farmers I spoke to say the land could not sustain a family of five. Just as they did before, they still had to work for daily wages; land ownership provided only a limited pathway toward empowerment. “We need jobs, we need industry here,” I kept hearing. The data on work participation rates (defined as the percentage of the working-age population of 15–65 years who are actually working) corroborate this. As reported in the 2013 report Living Realities of Muslims in West Bengal, the work participation rate for rural Muslims in West Bengal was about 45 percent, according to Pratichi’s survey of 31,600 individuals. That means 55 percent of the working-age population did not work. The statistic was driven in part by the low work participation rate among

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Muslim women (varying from 2.8 percent to about 9 percent for most districts, with the exception of Murshidabad and Maldah, where the rates were significantly higher at 21 percent and 13 percent, respectively). But even among those who did work, many were part of the working poor, which means that their earnings only allowed them to stay afloat; they were unable to escape poverty. To be more specific, among the Muslims in rural West Bengal, about 47 percent of those who work were either agricultural workers (on someone else’s land) or nonagricultural day laborers as per Pratichi’s survey – the lowest employment categories in terms of income generation. Adding to their vulnerability, people took on daily-wage work, as opposed to agricultural work, which was more stable despite its seasonal nature. Contrary to popular perceptions of rural West Bengal as a peasant economy, the data from the Census and Living Realities show that between 2011 and 2013, the percent employed in agricultural work decreased from about 39 percent to 21.7 percent. This indicates that more people form part of what we might call the precariat. Underlying these dismal economic prospects is low educational attainment. The Living Realities of Muslims (LRM) survey showed that 47.7 percent of adult Muslims were “either functionally illiterate or could not complete the primary level of schooling, including schooling at Madrasa and Maktabs.” The LRM report shows that this was a function of a lack of schools, rather than a lack of interest in education among Muslims, as is often claimed, which expressed itself in terms of rural-urban differences in educational attainment in college education. Path dependency becomes the biggest challenge, since without secondary schools, students quite obviously cannot pursue higher education. Path dependency also meant that people did not acquire relevant skills for the job market. On the one hand, there could be mismatches between skills demanded and the skills the people have. On the other, the lack of a job market – for any jobs – becomes a disincentive to pursue skills training. The working-poor category remains large and stagnant because of a combination of low human capital and low income. Looking at district-level data, we see that three districts had the highest proportion of people below the poverty line in the aggregate in 2012 according to the World Bank: Purulia, Uttar Dinapur, and Murshidabad with 31–38 percent below the poverty line.30 Pratichi’s report provides disaggregated data based on ethnic identity, presented in Table 4.1, which shows the percentage of Bengali Muslims below the poverty line in rural and urban areas of the twenty-two districts of West Bengal (using 2011 and 2013 data). The fourth column provides the percentage of the Muslim population in each district to give us a sense of

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Table 4.1. Muslims as a percentage of total population in the districts of West Bengal and the percentage of Bengali Muslims who live below the poverty line Rural (2013) Bankura Bardhaman Birbhum Dakshin Dinajpur Darjeeling Howrah Hoogli Jalpaiguri Cooch Behar Kolkata Malda Medinipur Murshidabad Nadia N 24 Parganas Purulia S 24 Parganas Uttar Dinajpur West Bengal (total)

80 81.4 87.5 83.5 75 69.7 67.3 92.8 75 N/A 75.2 81.3 78.6 90.8 79.7 88.6 76.1 87.9 79.9

Urban (2013) 75 15 66.3 55 68.3 63.3 70 80 75 55.9 76.7 80 61 70 67.5 70 69.2 78.8 64.7

Muslims as a percentage of the total population (2011) % 8.08 20.7 37.06 24.63 5.69 26.20 15.77 11.51 25.54 20.60 51.27 20.87 66.28 26.76 25.82 7.76 35.57 49.92 27.01

how large this community is. What is remarkable is that when we look at poverty among the Bengali Muslim population, the numbers skyrocket. Rural existence is clearly more ridden with poverty than urban existence, except in Hoogli and Malda, but even then, the difference is marginal. Coincidentally or otherwise, the two Muslim-majority districts – Murshidabad and Malda – are border districts. Uttar Dinajpur, with a 49 percent Muslim population, is also a border district. These are also the poorest districts in West Bengal. Kolkata is the only place where more than 70 percent are not below the poverty line. In West Bengal as a whole, 80 percent of the rural and 65 percent of the urban Bengali Muslim population live below the poverty line. Rural Nadia and Jalpaiguri are the worst off, with more than 90 percent of the Bengali Muslim population below the poverty line. What is surprising is that concentrations do not seem to matter much. It is not that districts with a higher Muslim population are better off. Nor is it the case that districts where Muslims form a tiny minority are where they are particularly marginalized. Murshidabad, with the largest proportion of Muslims, is less poor, with 61 percent below the poverty

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line; Jalpaiguri, which has one of the lowest percentages of Muslims, has the highest incidence of poverty among Muslims at 92 percent. The uniformity with which around 80 percent of the Bengali Muslim population is below the poverty line is quite astounding. It speaks to systematic denials that defy the strength in numbers. The other outlier is urban Bardhaman where only 15 percent of the Bengali Muslims live below the poverty line. Rural Bardhaman remains as poverty laden for Bengali Muslims as elsewhere at 80 percent. It might matter that Bardhaman district is known as the rice bowl of South Bengal. It is one of five districts that were sites of the Green Revolution in the 1960s, when technological innovation increased agricultural productivity and production. The eastern part is an agricultural haven because of the fertile land, while the infertile western part along the Durgapur–Asansol belt is a site for coal mines and heavy industry.31 Despite being an agricultural hub, even in Bardhaman Muslim peasants have not been able to escape poverty. Nevertheless, this number is lower than elsewhere. In urban Bardhaman 15 percent of Bengali Muslims have managed to lift the tide; this indicates that the inflow of public and private investments in the region in the mid-2000s – particularly in labor-intensive sectors such as power and steel – has made progress. 4.3

The New Economy

What has been West Bengal’s experience with neoliberal reforms? In this section, I examine rural and urban development to reveal the dispossession that neoliberal reforms created in rural areas as well as the promotion of a city-centric agenda based on a reliance on high-skilled workers. This description is necessary to understand neoliberal sensibilities and how the exclusion of Bengali Muslims in the economy is a by-product of this kind of development. 4.3.1

Nandigram and Singur as Symbols of Neoliberal Rural Development

What characterizes neoliberal decay in rural West Bengal is not simply neglect but active dispossession. In 2006, the CPI(M) government devised a plan for industrialization that involved appropriating peasant land by incentivizing capitalists to invest in West Bengal, much in line with the neoliberal logic of the day. The state’s Minister for Industry, Nirupam Sen, claimed all the people of the state would benefit from such endeavors.32 Accordingly, 997 acres of agricultural land from farmers in Singur in Hoogli District were to be transferred to Tata Motors to build a plant to

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produce the Tata Nano – a Rs. 100,000 (around USD $1400) people’s car that would give the middle classes access to car ownership. In a similar but bolder move, Chief Minister Budhhadeb Bhattacharya authorized 25,000 acres of land for the construction of a special economic zone in Nandigram in East Medinipur District.33 It was hoped that these projects would rejuvenate industrialization in West Bengal, which had been in decline.34 When farmers realized that their lands that were being taken over in the name of eminent domain and being given to a private company, they organized together and resisted through rallies, demonstrations, road blockades, and so on. As the police and CPI(M) cadres and thugs forced a resolution to acquire the lands, the state government drew condemnation from NGOs and activist groups, locally, nationally, and internationally, as well as the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the main opposition party at the time. Mamata Bannerjee, the leader of TMC, went on a twenty-five-day hunger strike in support of the peasants.35 The concern was that the takeover would set a precedent for how lands could be acquired forcefully with little consultation, minimum compensation, use of force, violence, and rape, massive displacement, and no rehabilitation.36 The colonial-era Land Acquisition Act of 1894 provided the state the legal authority to allocate the Nandigram land for “public use.” Challenges in the High Court ended in January 2008, when the Court ruled that “public purpose does not cease to be so merely because the acquisition facilitates the setting up of industry by a private enterprise and benefits it to that extent.” 37 As Nielsen and Nilsen write, “the courts have concomitantly come to apply a very wide, or diluted definition of ‘public purpose,’ in effect supporting the neoliberal policies of state governments over the rights of vulnerable sections of society.”38 The eruption of protests opened up an opportunity for change. After several years of debate surrounding the amendment of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, in 2013 the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act passed in the Lok Sabha, effective January 1, 2014. It clarified what constituted “public purpose”: infrastructure projects relating to agriculture, agricultural processing cold-storage facilities; industrial corridors and mining activities, national investment, and manufacturing zones; and projects for sport, health care, and tourism. As Nielsen and Nilsen write, “A state government could acquire land ‘for its own use’ for any of these very broadly defined ‘public purposes.’”39 There were certain safeguards, too. A social impact assessment would have to be completed, and if private companies were involved, the 70-30 and 80-20 clauses would apply for public-private partnership and private companies,

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respectively, meaning that the government would help acquire and transfer 30 or 20 percent of the land after the private entity had ownership over 70 or 80 percent of the land already.40 However, the act’s Fourth Schedule listed thirteen statutes that could be used for land acquisition but would not be under the purview of the new act, including the Land Acquisition (Mines) Act, 1885 and the Coal Bearing Areas Acquisition and Development Act, 1957, both of which have been used heavily since 2010 in mineral-rich states. Moreover, under BJP’s leadership, some of the critical safeguards would be dismantled. A December 2014 ordinance eliminated the 70-30 and 80-20 clauses for defense, rural infrastructure, affordable housing, industrial corridors, and infrastructure project. No social impact assessments would be necessary for those categories either. Nielsen and Nilsen write: This combination of seemingly generous provisions for resettlement and rehabilitation with a widening of the definition of public purpose that constitutes the locus of the attempt to negotiate a compromise between dominant and subaltern groups that will enable land acquisition – and more generally, the project of neoliberal restructuring – to proceed in the long run.41

In West Bengal’s case, two issues shroud the question of rural precarity: Is the land safe from confiscation? If so, is the land a sufficient source of livelihood? The answer to both is tenuous. Ninety percent of the new landowners cannot find yearlong employment in their own land. They continue to be agricultural laborers who work for wages. That their land can be taken away for public purposes adds another layer of precarity.42 This kind of rural vulnerability disproportionately affects Bengali Muslims because 82 percent of the Bengali Muslim population lives in rural West Bengal. This insecurity is produced structurally, and participates in rendering the Bengal Muslim population almost expendable. Singur and Nandigram provide prime examples of the neoliberal pressures and the opposition to them. The TMC won elections in 2011, adopting the populist slogan of ma, mati, o manush – mother, motherland, people – and promising land protection. Yet the TMC markets West Bengal as an ideal place for business, illustrated by the many signboards in Kolkata and elsewhere claiming “Bengal means Business.” In practice, neoliberal policies have been directed toward services rather than industry. Reforms to make India “digital” and the the gig economy are the two most visible aspects of neoliberalism. In a bid to promote business friendliness, the government declared the IT sector a utility in which there can be no strikes. In the next section, I focus on the city-centric neoliberal project, but it is worth pointing out that when cities expand, it is at the expense of rural economies and often entails a similar kind of dispossession as seen in Nandigram and Singur.

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4.3.2

159

City-Centric Neoliberal Development

Economic liberalization under the Left Front saw significant investment in West Bengal, which brought with it a state-sponsored effort to make Kolkata business-friendly. Kolkata saw infrastructure development in the form of fancy flyovers and a subway. It attracted international companies like IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers and national ones such as Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant, Wipro, and Satyam. All new economic activities were located around Salt Lake, New Town, and Rajarhat – sites of the most conspicuous signs of neoliberal development. With its malls and glitz, the city-centric development had little room for its low-skilled, multiethnic masses. Most contentious were the “renewal” and “regeneration” measures that the state undertook. Pablo Bose writes: One of the best known was the euphemistically titled Operation Sunshine in 1996, waged against hawkers and pavement dwellers, which included their forced removal and relocation to urban fringes in order to clean up the streets of Kolkata. A later series of campaigns for the “beautification of Calcutta” (2003–2005) similarly included evictions of slum and pavement dwellers.43

This was a classic neoliberal move, reminiscent of New York that was “cleaned up” for corporations in a similar way in the 1970s. However, it is New Town, on the outskirts of Kolkata, that is most emblematic of the urbanization we see in neoliberal India, and not New York. Whereas gentrification was the way in which cities in the West were “revitalized,” in Kolkata (and elsewhere in South Asia) we see what Bhattacharya and Sanyal call the “bypass model.”44 They argue that there is no gentrification per se, only the outskirts of urban centers are developed with “immaterial labor.” The old metropolis remains the same because of the resistance put forward by city dwellers who oppose gentrification. It is not so straightforward, however. While there was resistance to Western-style gentrification and rejuvenation, neoliberalization disrupted traditional lifestyles such that, almost overnight, renters could no longer afford their houses. They had to move into poorer neighborhoods. Some middle-class homeowners found their property values increase, while renters were displaced. There is a clear pattern whereby neoliberalism comes along with dispossession, particularly from land. While Bose writes, “Among many middle-class Bengalis and Kolkatans, there is today a great deal of confidence and optimism about the future,” in my research I have found it to be a mixed bag.45 New Town is no Gurgaon or Bangalore, let alone New York City. The hope that development once generated has given way to skepticism and a recognition that locals will not benefit as they had hoped. But equally

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important is the fact that New Town did not take off in the way expected. There are tall shiny buildings, fancy hotels and malls, a variety of parks, but they are quite literally hollow inside, with vacant apartments and offices everywhere. New Town barely has the feel of Kolkata in terms of the ambience, the language, or the culture, but for the most part, people appear to be proud of it. Speaking in Bangla is treated with blank stares or with disdain, as though the speaker has not kept up with the times. Yet there are those who say with pride that the “city of joy” has become the “city of flyovers.”46 A particular source of pride for many has been the surge in building construction in and around the city since 2000, especially in the number of “international-style” luxury condominiums. I attribute that to a desire for development, irrespective of class and ethnicity. This is where the question of the bhadralok ethic becomes relevant. Upwardly mobile Bengalis have not only accepted the stereotype but aspire to be the laidback, intellectual, cerebral bhadralok. With that comes the shunning of wealth and glitter to lead the life of the modern poet, if you will, with not just a jhola but a cap. With it also comes a romanticization of Kolkata’s “decay” – the old buildings with peeling paint, mosaic floors, floor commodes. They create an aesthetic that combines minimalism and shabby chic. Even wealthy Bengalis live modestly, taking pride in the many trees that surround them instead of material possessions. These are the “classy” Bengali, in touch with their culture, as opposed to the “crass” Marwari, who only care about wealth accumulation, conspicuous consumption, and everything glittery or glamorous. Bengalis point to newer, shinier apartment buildings/societies with modern amenities – adjacent to South City Mall, for example – and say, “Those are Marwari.” From the Bengali perspective, Marwari is another word for the crass, capitalist elite. On the flip side, Marwaris, Panjabis, and Biharis – who form a significant minority in Kolkata – point to these same traits to show how lazy Bengalis are, how lacking in ambition and deficient as entrepreneurs. Shiva S., an executive director, whom I interviewed at a steel company, said they invariably hire other Marwaris. Partly it is because of language – the company mostly uses Hindi as its language of communication, so it is easier to hire Hindi speakers. There are some jobs for which they do not mind Bangla speakers – guards, cleaners, and kitchen staff. He said that there is an unspoken sense that Bangla speakers will not be very hardworking. My interviews indicate that much of the urban working class would like to see more development. The new economy in urban spaces is filled with Uber and Swiggy drivers. There is a feverish demand for ratings,

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which effectively determine the earning potential of this new class of “self-employed” workers, taught to valorize self-exploitation. This is very much part of neoliberal sensibility: belief in the developmental mantra that espouses individual responsibility and the entrepreneurial spirit to set individuals free. In all this, the state can quietly take a back seat. It is among these workers that the sentiment that Bengalis are lazy finds expression. Non-Bengali taxi drivers ridicule Bengali taxi drivers for taking too many breaks or Bengali shopkeepers for closing down shops for their afternoon naps. Non-Bengali Uber drivers make fun of Bengali taxi drivers for not using ride-sharing apps and continuing to operate meters. According to the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation that seeks to promote West Bengal’s business and investment climate, “West Bengal has 12 growth centers for medium and large-scale industries for electronics, software technology, and export processing.”47 Major industrial areas of West Bengal are Haldia, Kolkata, Asansol– Durgapur region, and Kharagpur. There is an impressive list of projects intended to showcase West Bengal as an ideal investment destination which indicates that neoliberalism is still very much in its infancy: a leather complex in Kolkata, spread over 1,100 acres; road development projects under public-private partnerships; three steel parks in Raghunathpur with an investment of about US$5.9 billion; more textile factories to generate employment for 10 million people; seven “smart cities” under the Smart City Program (in New Town Kolkata, Bidhannagar, Durgapur and Haldia); an Innovation Center to support start-ups in areas like analytics, data science, animation, and block chain; develop and modernize existing Industrial Parks and Growth Centers to attract investment. We can divide these into two categories – infrastructure development and IT sector development, both of which would require land. The aspirational mode indicates that neoliberalism is still in its infancy – the state continues to set up institutions conducive to investment. Its infancy has been a prolonged one. The New Town project started earlier than Gurgoan, but New Town is no Gurgoan (and many like it that way). I have read pamphlets that say, “Let’s make West Bengal like Gujarat,” for example. Viewed from Kolkata, neoliberalism operates within certain tensions. Many of the development programs are about private-public partnerships that see IT as the center of growth, despite the rhetoric of job creation. There is a demand for low-skilled industrial jobs, particularly among low-skilled Biharis and those from Uttar Pradesh. There is also a fear of neoliberalism that arises from a fear of exploitation, especially among young Bengali low-skilled workers. Here is where we see

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some variation by ethnicity. The TMC has kept its promise to not give away public land for commercial use, although there are disputes over fair price for land, particularly in the model towns of Rajarhat/New Town. The government wants to say it is pro-business, pro-worker, and pro-farmer all at the same time, and it is unclear who believes what or, more important, where state loyalties lie as it balances finances and votes. As we think about where Bengali Muslims, or even rural Bengalis in general, fit in this economy, it is perhaps easy to imagine them working at construction sites, brick kilns, and steel plants – that is, doing exactly what they are doing now. It is not surprising that rural men and women choose flexible, daily-wage work over which they appear to have control versus working on someone else’s field in perpetuity. Even in rural areas that have been untouched by “development,” the working-age population appears to harbor dreams of self-sufficiency and control over their own labor, a core premise of neoliberal ideology. It is unlikely that there will be any place for them in digital India. This means their existence is likely to remain in the working-poor category. It is likely that this daily-wage work will be seen as those jobs that set them free from poverty. 4.4

Identity-Based Hierarchy in the Neoliberal Period

Caste, class, and ethnic differences have been salient sources of fissures in West Bengal at least since colonial times. Today these same features are present but are impacted not only by neoliberal policies but by the existence of Bangladesh. Attitudes toward Bangladesh and Bangladeshis now have consequences on how social and political cleavages align. Neoliberalism has affected how economies are organized and how aspirations – individual and national – are shaped. A renewed competition for jobs and resources has brought to the fore questions about identity and what people value. The appeal of market liberalization gives way to a vision of a borderless world, although the openness encouraged by international institutions yields not open borders but open markets – borders open to commerce, not people. Yet depending on prevailing neoliberal sensibility, this vision is interpreted differently in India and Bangladesh. It is perhaps impossible to determine whether Bangladesh impacts West Bengal’s polity more because of its emergence as an independent state or because of what I have called “differential neoliberalism” because the two are intertwined: (1) Bangladesh came into being with help from India in 1971, and hence is expected to always remain beholden to the

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regional hegemon. (2) Bangladesh is an early adopter of neoliberal policies. As early as 1976, Bangladesh began privatization and market liberalization, which were implemented in India only in the 1990s, and in West Bengal even later. (3) A critical element of Bangladesh’s neoliberal turn has been manpower export. Although India, too, sees significant levels of economic migration, in Bangladesh it is more commonsensical, synonymous with upward mobility, especially among the working class.48 (4) India’s eastern borders have been more fluid historically and (multiple iterations of ) migration is a common feature. (5) Indian neoliberalism came alongside an emphasis on strong borders and the beginning of a fencing project to keep out “illegal immigrants.” The new is not new per se. It draws upon the old, it reanimates the old, and in doing so it rewrites history, or at least reinterprets it in a way that aligns with the present in a linear fashion. The “competition” with Bangladesh over who controls Bangla culture gives rise to a question of what constitutes secular Bangla culture. For example, even atheists in West Bengal would identify Durga Puja as a Bengali festival when those in Bangladesh see it as a religious festival, albeit one that is popular among Bengali Muslims as well – particularly those who want to be seen as secular. That there is a huge Durga Puja festival every year in Banani, adjacent to where Dhaka’s rich and elite live, is a reminder that secularism is not just about the role of religion in state and governance but about status, as the Muslim elite in Dhaka attend puja as a way to perform secularism. Bangladesh’s claim to Bangla culture has meant that West Bengal interrogates its communal biases while proclaiming to be secular and left-leaning, in contrast to “Muslim” Bangladesh. One would imagine this competition would also break the myth that Bengalis are Hindu, but it persists, for all of West Bengal’s history of communist rule – and West Bengal participates in the “Indian view” of Bangladesh as a Muslim polity. Neoliberalism has affected West Bengal in a way that deepened older structures and clawed onto remnant stereotypes from the colonial era that linked ethnicity to work, productivity, and work ethic. Although the Bengali bhadralok of yesteryear could salvage their dignity on the basis of intellectual prowess, they experienced a decline in terms of what is valued in neoliberal India – an ethic of profit maximization. However, that had an effect on ideas and culture, for the rise of the “business class” came with Hindi-Hindu hegemony and dominance. In Bangladesh, a sense that history began in 1971 and a largely homogeneous population meant that they did not “remember” the colonial-era stereotypes, and it did not matter if they did, because in a Bengali nationstate, there were few “others.” (This did not prevent colorism or other

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forms of colonial hangovers.) In the realm of culture, one could point to the rise in English as the language of the elite and to the influence of Hindi culture, thanks to the proliferation of Indian cable television in the post-reforms period. As we analyze the effect of neoliberalism on ethnicity and language in Bangladesh and West Bengal, their divergent histories become relevant. As we will see in the following discussion, ethnic and linguistic identities in West Bengal are shaped by notions of nationality, citizenship, and the acceptance of rigid borders. Hierarchy in this period is informed not merely by class, caste, ethnicity, and language but also by Bangladeshi identity. 4.4.1

Hierarchy Based on National Identity

This section examines attitudes toward Bangladeshis to show how they participate in producing a nation-based hierarchy that sees West Bengali identity superior to Bangladeshi identity, even though West Bengal is a state whereas Bangladesh is a nation-state. This hierarchy is particularly important in the context where the sense that Bangladesh is the homeland for Bengali Muslims allows for the widespread idea that West Bengal is the homeland for Bengali Hindus, even as secular credentials in West Bengal rely on a romanticization of Bengali nationalism across the Padma. Given that tourism from Bangladesh has been a source of significant revenue, I show how tourism paints a contrasting image to the poor Bangladeshi migrant worker – of the wealthy nouveau riche who travel to Kolkata on weekends for quick shopping trips. While people in West Bengal can appreciate class divisions among Bangladeshis, allowing for a more nuanced view, unlike in the rest of the country, the logic of Partition groups the native Bengali Muslim population with them, which provides another reason to examine attitudes toward Bangladeshis. The first thing to notice is the lip service given to Bengali nationalism – so much so that many would still like to call it “East Bengal.” Culturally, even politically, there is a kinship that is valued and romanticized. People like to think of Bangladeshis as their long-lost kin. They take pride in Bangladesh taking Bangla to global heights – as a United Nations language, for example. They take pride in Bangladeshis fighting back again Pakistan in 1971, debunking the colonial stereotype of Bengalis as weak and servile. They see Bangladeshis taking Bengali culture to heights unimaginable in West Bengal – whether in terms of experimental (Bangla) music or arts. Whereas in West Bengal Bangla is stifled under Hindi’s dominance, in Bangladesh it is a thriving language.

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Romanticism aside, there is a superiority complex among West Bengalis, in part because Kolkata still operates as Bangla’s cultural capital. Kolkata’s intellectuals, supported by Dhaka’s intellectuals, maintain that West Bengal’s Bangla practice is superior – whether in terms of films, plays, books, or merely spoken accent. In fact, Dhaka-based intellectuals often speak with a generic Kolkata accent as a marker of their superior cultural competence. This aspiration among Bangladeshi intellectuals to assimilate to Kolkata-centric Bangla culture could indicate an embedded inferiority complex, along the lines that Bangladeshi writer Ahmed Sofa articulated in his 1976 essay, “Bangali Musolmaner Mon” (Mind of the Bengali Muslim).49 He argued that Bengali Muslims’ consciousness was stuck in the middle ages, stagnant, much to the chagrin of Bangladeshi writers like Faruk Wasif.50 Writing a year after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination and two years after a famine that wrecked the peasantry – this essay can be read as a lamentation, even anger that Bengali Muslims could not fashion an uprising, or a nationalism, with peasants and the working class at the forefront. As a result, Bangladeshi Bangla literature, instead of centering punthi shahityo, a form that exemplifies Bangla folk literature, centers the literary style of the West Bengali bhadralok – a marker of Bengali Muslim inferiority. This kind of inferiority persists in Bangladeshi cultural spaces, amidst denial and tensions, making space for the superiority complex in Kolkata. This superiority complex hides overt anti-Bangladeshi sentiments with condescension regarding rural life. “East Bengalis” are still rural peasants who speak crudely in rural dialects and are ostentatious, loud, crass, and uncivil philistines who do not match up to the genteel, educated, sophisticated, cerebral Bengalis of West Bengal. In a way, the attitude toward Bangladesh is an extension of how Ghotis see Bangals. Bangals can ultimately be redeemed, however, because they are Hindus, many upper-caste Hindus. For Bangladeshis, this is not so. Eating fish and beef, on top of everything else, they are an affront to upper-caste sensibilities. The pani drinkers will forever be inferior to jol drinkers.51 While wealth and class position can mitigate some of the prejudice, to the Bengali bhadralok, Bengali Muslims and Bangladeshi are synonymous – and both are crass. Maybe rich and crass, but crass, nevertheless. “You can’t buy class, after all,” they will say. This kind of invisible prejudice becomes visible in the context of state politics. Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee is seen as a Muslim appeaser by the right, and yet the TMC is not very popular in Bengali Muslim– dominated districts. In places like 24 Parganas, TMC politicians are seen as goons, establishing control by force. It is also the TMC that has

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objected to sharing water equitably between India and Bangladesh. Whether it is the Farakka or the Teesta barrage, Mamata Bannerjee has put forth a “West Bengal first” rhetoric to control water upstream, causing both floods and droughts in Bangladesh. In the wake of the introduction of the National Register of Citizens in Assam, Mamata opportunistically said West Bengal would house those left out of the NRC in Assam, but then sent troops to prevent people from coming in, revealing that her populism is limited to rhetoric. Park Street for Bangladeshis As I pointed out in Chapter 1, West Bengal benefits significantly from Bangladesh in terms of tourism and trade. There are areas in Kolkata that rely heavily on Bangladeshi tourists to remain in business. Five-star hotels have special deals for Bangladeshis to support their shopping trips. To understand the reception of Bangladeshis in these tourist areas, I chose two adjacent locations where I conducted participant observations and interviews: the Oberoi Grand Hotel on Chowringhee Road, a five-star hotel popular among middleand upper-class Bangladeshi tourists, and New Market, a shopping complex – or arcade, as it is called – within walking distance from the hotel on Lindsay Street, also popular among Bangladeshis. The complex itself has 2,000 shops, but the surrounding area is lined with shops as well. In fact, the walk from the Oberoi Grand Hotel to New Market is lined with permanent, semipermanent, and makeshift shops. It is worth pointing out that there are many smaller hotels in the area that also cater to Bangladeshis. Because of the proximity to Park Street, Bangladeshi tourists refer to this entire area as Park Street or New Market. “Park Street is for Bangladeshis, Park Circus is for Muslim fundamentalists,” they will quip. The most remarkable aspect of the area businesses is the easy use of the Bangladeshi taka. Some shops will take the currency; others will find a dalal (a middleman) to change the currency (yes, it is always a man). Either way, there is no need to worry about having enough, or even any, Indian rupees. My observations at the Oberoi Grand Hotel – or simply the Grand, as locals call it – and New Market occurred over a period of three weeks in April and May 2018. I would spend the mornings in the hotel lobby observing interactions among people, and then would walk over to New Market at around 10 a.m., often as the shopkeepers were beginning their days. This became a good strategy because many Bangladeshis who stayed at the hotel would walk over to New Market to go shopping after breakfast. It gave me a chance to befriend some and walk along with them, even pretending to be a shopping tourist on a few occasions.

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The first few days were unremarkable. I looked around the different stores and got lost in the many mazes. Soon, the layout made more sense, and I found a place to sit and observe without drawing attention to myself – by a set of steps from which I could see people walk into the main hall. I found out soon I was not the only one pretending to be a shopper. There were a number of men who would lurk around the place – they were middlemen on the lookout for Bangladeshi customers. These middlemen followed Bangladeshis around, asking what they wanted to buy. Sometimes people ignored them, but at other times, these men became tour guides of sorts – showing them different things and taking them to shops with “good deals.” In return, they were given a commission from the shopkeepers/owners. These middlemen perfected the art of identifying Bangladeshis by merely looking at them. One of my new Bangladeshi acquaintances told me. “Amaderke dekhei ora bujhe amra Bangladeshi – amader kopaale chhaap dawa” [They can just look at us and tell we are Bangladeshis – as though it’s stamped on our forehead]! When I asked how they could tell, a middleman named Kamal said, “Bangladeshi women always wear a dupatta with their kurtas. They wear more makeup than women in Kolkata. They behave like tourists – they look like they are on vacation. They smile more, they look a little confused, and take their time shopping. Once they speak, their accents give them away too.” He ended with, “Shobi onnorokom” [Everything is different]! Shopkeepers are savvy, too, and coordinate with these middlemen. Even before customers reach the store, shopkeepers are alerted of their arrival by a quick phone call or text. They then bring out wares from “inside” that they think would be attractive to Bangladeshis. They have a keen sense of market conditions in Bangladesh that lead the middle classes to go to Kolkata for shopping. Saree shops – selling Benaroshi and Kanchivaram – are popular, as are gold and silver jewelry stores. Partly, this is because Bangladeshis go to Kolkata for wedding shopping. The traditional trousseau, for example, where a brides take a suitcase full of sarees to her new home, forms a market for traditional sarees, which are often up to ten times more expensive in Bangladesh. Shopping in Kolkata is attractive for the emerging middle class because not only are the flights short and cheap, almost everything is cheaper in Kolkata than in Dhaka or Chittagong, even accounting for transportation and lodging costs. That they can continue to speak in Bangla and enjoy pani-puri (in contrast to the phuchka) and other street foods unavailable in Bangladesh adds to the desirability. More important, women, who form a large percentage of tourists, find Kolkata to be safer to walk around and shop, especially in the evenings.

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Shopping tourism has given Bangladeshi tourists a reputation among shopkeepers. The owners of the bigger shops in New Market, who are mostly Marwari, find Bangladeshi shoppers easier to do business with. One said, “Bangladeshis are more udaar [liberal]. They don’t bargain too much. And they all buy things in bulk. Nuts are very popular. See these [copper] tumblers? One Bangladeshi man bought all of them and wanted more. If you want them, I can arrange for that. Drinking water from them is very healthy; it purifies the body.” Some of this appreciation is inspired by the famed antagonism between (West) Bengalis and Marwaris. The Marwari shopkeepers have clearly exempted Bangladeshis from their stereotypical understanding of West Bengalis as miserly. Interestingly, however, in my conversations with them it also emerged that they saw these Bangladeshi tourists as the nouveau riche who like shiny things and are not very cultured – much like the West Bengali stereotype of Marwaris! Although most shop owners expressed such sentiments very subtly, some were open about it. “They have money, but not necessarily good taste. New money, you know, but what do I care?” Yet another expressed surprise when I said I was from Bangladesh because he had never seen an “articulate and well-spoken Bangladeshi” before! These are loaded statements, as language and speech are markers of class and status. Only the educated elite speak English well. They also speak shuddho, or proper Bangla – the subtext being that Bangla with other accents is improper or impure. The Bangal accent, which they think is the East Bengali (and hence Bangladeshi) accent, is not just impure but to be mocked. It is how Bengalis outside of Kolkata, Bengali Muslims in particular, are othered on the basis of accents. This is why a discussion about language in West Bengal and Bangladesh is necessary to understand the tensions of competing claims to authenticity. What I found most revealing about the shopping arcade are the contradictions in attitudes and how they are informed by money. On the one hand, yes, these shopkeepers love Bangladeshi tourists. In places like New Market, Sudder Street, and around the Bangladeshi consulate, Bangladeshi shoppers get the royal treatment. Vendors and shopkeepers offer them tea and snacks as they browse. Yet one cannot deny that this love is a product of the emergent shoppers’ class. This love is mediated by a superiority complex and a contention over who gets to represent Bengali culture and identity. Bangladeshi tourists I spoke to at the Grand uniformly told me what a wonderful place Kolkata is. How loved they feel there. How being in Kolkata feels like being at home, especially in these parts. Some of them parroted the stereotypical anti-Bengali spiel to explain why everyone

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from darwans and bellboys to shopkeepers like Bangladeshis: “Bengalis in West Bengal are miserly; Bengalis in Bangladesh are not.” This speaks to the acceptance of neoliberal reasoning among the Bangladeshi middle class, as they equate wealth with value, desirability, and ultimately love. This makes some of them oblivious to the slights pertaining to culture. For others, these slights are signs of jealousy for being unable to attain “success.” Attitudes toward Bangladeshis take on these contradictory themes: love for the idea of Bangladesh in the abstract and a love for Bangladeshi tourists who can be found on Park Street, but a dislike of Bangladeshis and Bengali Muslims looking for economic opportunities or to escape rural poverty, as well as an “understanding” of why some do not like Bangladeshis. Sanjay Gopal Sarkar, assistant vice chancellor of Jadavpur University, said to me, We like people from Bangladesh because of our common culture. We love the way Bangladeshis speak. Many of us have roots in Bangladesh. India–Bangladesh relations are very strong. We get many students from Bangladesh. It is not only because Jadavpur University is a good university. It is because people want to protect their children from crises like the Rohingya crisis. There are crises like that from Bangladesh in India. I might not believe in communalism. You might not. But you have a Muslim name, and that will have repercussions, especially now when religious sentiments are strong and have political support.

Among middle-class Bengalis, there is a fascination with Bangladesh. Knowing Bangladeshis and Bangladeshi literature and music gives them a kind of intellectual or cultural capital. People read Bangladeshi authors and quote them as proof. While reading or quoting, some use a Bangal accent as a signifier of authenticity. It is almost a Bangladesh-philia. In it is the pride of Bangla being a global language recognized by the UN, thanks to Bangladesh’s status as an independent nation-state. At a time when most of the regional languages in India face some form of Hindi aggression, Bangla is relatively safe globally because of Bangladesh. 4.4.2

Hierarchy Based on Caste

More than thirty years of left rule did leave its imprint on public culture and consciousness, popularizing the language of workers’ and peasants’ rights, but caste identity and caste prejudice are, like elsewhere in the subcontinent, deeply rooted even in West Bengal. Public displays of religiosity may be more discreet here than in the Hindi-Hindu belt (although that is fast changing), but caste practices permeate life across the land. I posit that Bengali Muslim invisibility serves as an index of the

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prevalence of caste prejudice and untouchability. Popularly thought of as low-caste Hindu converts, poor Bengali Muslims face exclusion and invisibilization as citizens and further endure the double oppression of class and caste prejudice, despite caste denialism in West Bengal. In the neoliberal city, caste denial has become easy because of the obvious, even crude, class disparity that has emerged in the postliberalization period. Between the shiny blue lights that adorn the many new flyovers, the proliferation of malls that employ private security guards to keep the poor out, and the lure of aspirational neoliberalism that sees in the gig economy a rising tide that lifts all boats, it is easy to point to wealth inequality as the most important issue of our time. Hence the reluctance to accept that class and caste are inextricably connected and mutually reinforcing. Nevertheless, one can observe casteist attitudes even among progressives, and sometimes in the oddest incidents – when a dinner invitation is canceled because of conservative parents who do not want to share their plates; when someone changes their seat on a bus because the person sitting in the next seat “smells Muslim”; when they use separate plates and utensils for “outsiders” and “servants.” When Maroona Murmu, associate professor of history at Kolkata’s Jadavpur University made a comment about in-person exams during the COVID-19 pandemic in September 2020, she became the target of casteist anger. Murmu received hate mails and threats that forced her to change her residence and caught many by surprise. In an interview with Caravan Magazine, she said caste prejudice should not surprise anyone: I would say West Bengal has always been casteist as I have been working on the caste question. I have [interviewed] various Adivasi individuals – people who teach in schools, people who teach in universities, people who are there in the bureaucracy. Everywhere, it’s the same … I would say this myth [of being casteless] exists because it’s only the savarnas who keep saying that “this is a casteless state, this is a liberal state.” It’s only [in] recent times we have started talking about the sort of caste discrimination because we feel so belittled by this.52

Dalit scholar Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd has long argued that liberals in West Bengal speak of class at the expense of caste and identity issues. At a public meeting in Kolkata on September 23, 2018, he said, “My appeal to Bengali intellectuals is please start a serious discourse about caste in Bengal. In Bengal, there is a caste cancer without diagnosis.”53 To this, we must add that anti-Muslim attitudes are a part of this caste prejudice. The widespread acceptance of the conversion theory – that Muslims are actually low-caste Hindus – feeds into this prejudice and becomes evident when we look at food practices and living places.

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I interviewed singer-songwriter-turned-politician Kabir Suman in 2018. He said every Hindu he knows, with the exception of his father, sees Muslims with ghrina (disgust). As an MLA from a district with a large Muslim population (Jadavpur), he has seen how systematically underfunded Muslim neighborhoods are. “Without fail, it is the Muslim areas where there is still no electricity, where water gets cut off, where the sewage pumps break down. In turn, these are used against them to show that Muslims have poor hygiene and are a source of pollution,” he said. So even if violent conflict is unlikely, Bengali Muslims cannot escape what we might call everyday communalism that is steeped in caste prejudice. 4.4.3

Hierarchy Based on Ethnic Identity

Among non-Bengali communities, the Marwaris are notable because they form the bulk of West Bengal’s traditional capitalist class. Seen as an enterprising class of bankers and finance capitalists, their prominence in business predates independence. They migrated to centers of British domination/occupation – Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras – to establish business links with them, and in Calcutta they flourished and formed a sizable community.54 Most well-known among them is J. D. Birla who entered the West Bengal market by establishing Birla Jute Mills. The Birlas have since become one of the wealthiest business families not just in West Bengal but across India. The Birla family owns one of the largest conglomerates in India, the Birla Group of Companies. Birla’s name appears all across Kolkata – Birla Planetarium, Birla Museum of Science and Technology, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Birla Mandir, and so on. Concomitant with the growth of Marwari economic power, in recent decades there has been a decline in prestige associated with the identity of the Bengali babu and bhadralok. In the name of old-school charm, cultural competency, and education, Bengali Hindus retain a sense of superiority and look down upon other ethnic groups or language groups. This is a continuation of the ethic that entered Bengali society in the late nineteenth century – the ethic of the new middle class in which social respectability was a product not of wealth but of education, an ethic that demanded hard work, devotion to learning, professional excellence, and a somewhat self-righteous condemnation of easy wealth.55 This gave the middle class dignity, even pride, in having emulated the English in the best aspects of the knowledge and culture but having done so without losing its identity. It is this elitist and exclusive social construct that sustains the Bengali middle class as it faces economic demise in the neoliberal period.

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This ethic manifests in the laidback spirit observable among middleclass youth in Kolkata. Many recent college graduates I spoke to seemed content in their jobs – they make a modest living that allows them to buy the things they like, eat out, watch plays, go to concerts, adda, and they are fine. They are not ambitious in the way many are in capitalist economies where college graduates work long hours to chase high-paying jobs. Some of these students appear immune to consumer fetishism. They decided they do not want better homes and new cars; they are happy where they are. To a certain extent, they sound like millennials in the United States who, having seen their parents’ hard work go to waste as the economy crumbled and bankrupted them, refuse to follow the same path, and refuse to be enamored by material things and consumption. That is where the similarities end. These students are invariably caste Hindus who choose a minimalist lifestyle, arguably because their caste position affords them social privileges that others would not have access to. In a certain way, their caste position liberates them from material want. It is this laidback attitude that non-Bengalis refer to as laziness and a reason why West Bengal is not as “modern” as it could be. This ethic of minimalist living that is liberating for new generations of Bengali Hindus is the same ethic that makes them unattractive to capitalists. Some Bengali Hindus may even see this as their way of resisting capitalist incursion into everyday life. Yet given the pervasiveness of capitalist ideas of success and well-being, this is the ethic on the basis of which colonial-era stereotypes of weak and lazy Bengalis are used by upwardly mobile groups, whatever the ethnicity. In subtle (and not so subtle) ways, Bengali Hindus have become increasingly marginal to the economy. If you were to walk around Kolkata, you would see posters and signboards extolling Bengali heritage and West Bengal’s business prowess. At a time when Bengali identity is under threat for their lack of business acumen, the signboards serve as a public relations campaign directed toward both investors and the public to encourage, even forcefully establish, a capitalist sensibility that would take pride in rejuvenation and capitalist development. Such campaigns necessarily exclude rural Bengal, where the majority of the population lives, and with it the Bengali Muslim population. 4.4.4

Hierarchy Based on Language: Bangla in West Bengal and Bangladesh

In this section, I explore the status of Bangla in West Bengal and Bangladesh to show how neoliberalism and nationalism together affect

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the desirability of the language and thereby the people who speak in those languages. West Bengal – Kolkata in particular – is the cultural capital of Bangla according to intellectuals on both sides, even though Bangla is a state language in India but the national language in Bangladesh. This tension produces a cultural rivalry that, in the neoliberal period, appears more cosmetic than real because of the greater impact of Hindi domination, particularly in West Bengal. Does it make a difference that West Bengal is a state in India whereas Bangladesh is a nation-state? What difference does it make that in West Bengal Bangla has to contend with both English and Hindi as hegemonic languages, whereas in Bangladesh the only threat Bangla faces is from English, and in a limited sense? In both West Bengal and in Bangladesh, English is the language of the business class and the nouveau riche. In this neoliberal period, the ability to speak in English with a “good” accent brings with it significant cultural capital. In West Bengal, Hindi, as the language of the enterprising Marwaris and Punjabis and as the national language, also garners significant respect. So, on the one hand, Bangla in West Bengal is deemed superior to Bangla in Bangladesh because Kolkata is the historical site of Bangla chorcha, or cultural practice, but on the other hand, Bangla is under threat because of the hegemony of English and Hindi. This contradiction allows for both a superiority and an inferiority complex, both of which impact attitudes toward Bengali Muslims, who are seen as inferior because of their rural roots or their connection to Bangladeshis. I was in Kolkata during Ekushey in 2018. The day commemorates an event in February 21, 1952, when police fired at students in Dhaka protesting the imposition of Urdu as the national language of Pakistan, replacing Bangla in East Pakistan. The public suppression of Bangla became a rallying force against West Pakistan’s oppression of the East. Arguably, this incident was a game changer as it made visible West Pakistan’s disregard for Bengalis in East Pakistan and therefore legitimized demands of a separate state nineteen years later. How are we to read the Ekushey celebrations in Kolkata every year in light of shared Bengali nationalism? In 2018, the occasion was marked by a three-day concert by Udichi Shilpigoshti (from Bangladesh), a concert with Kolkata’s popular singers, and all kinds of celebrations, including talks and discussions on the value of language where people read out Mahbubul Alam Chowdhury’s poem “Kandte ashini, phanshir dabi niye eshechi” and excerpts from Syed Mujtaba Ali and Shahid Qadri. There were billboards around the city with greetings. At a book club in Rabindra Sarobar, by Madiuli Lake in South Kolkata, I had the opportunity to join a group of twenty readers who

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had gathered to discuss and reflect on Ekushey. I was curious to know what Ekushey meant to a population that does not share the history of sacrifice and violence but shares Bangla, the language? What were they celebrating? Responses ranged from how it was a day of self-exploration, a day of celebrating Bengali culture, a day of celebrating all the languages in the world. To some, it was a nationalist endeavor – Bangla, Bangla, Bangla – upholding the great Bengali traditions. “Bangalee’r Hindi Chorcha” (The Practice of Hindi among Bengalis) was one of the articles being discussed. It made the case that there was no reason to fear Hindi domination. It might actually be useful in an instrumental way – it was a bajaari or market-related necessity for jobs, for communicating with the wider Indian population. The article concluded that there was no reason to fear that Bangla will die.56 A younger woman, who was in her twenties, read an article that critiqued this “instrumental use” defense of learning Hindi, arguing that language is not merely an instrument or a tool to serve a certain purpose, such as communication, but something more. By that she meant, I suppose, a sense of self, identity, or individuality, separate from a skill. “I speak three languages, write in two, but dream in one [Bangla],” she said. In this group of middle-class, educated Bengalis I observed two intertwined strands of thought: defensiveness and denial, both of which make the claim that Bangla is not under threat. The defensive strain is based on Bengali’s inherent superiority. “Bangla is different in that it is difficult to learn and difficult to forget,” said one. “Bangla can coexist with other languages because it is a superior language,” said another. The denialists see no threat to Bangla because of its inherent richness. But Bangla is under threat in West Bengal. In this post-liberalization period, Bangla’s popularity has slowly eroded. Business elites in West Bengal have traditionally not been Bengali. But as the West Bengal government branded itself as an ideal destination for investments, the culture slowly shifted. Many firms, including state-operated ones, now openly require English and Hindi to be spoken at workplaces and discourage the use of Bangla. In public schools, many students take Bangla as their third language after English and Hindi, whereas traditionally Bangla would be either the first or the second language. I call this a cultural shift not only because Bangla’s desirability has receded in recent times, but because this has happened as the value of education for its own sake has eroded too. In this neoliberal period, education (and hence language acquisition) is geared toward the job market. A business sector that devalues Bangla thus has far-reaching effects. In mid-2019, in the wake of Amit Shah’s speeches on making Hindi the national language,57 a popular meme read: “Yes, you can impose

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Hindi on Bengalis, par tum khub regret korega.” The obvious interpretation of this meme is this: You can impose Hindi on Bengalis, but we will destroy your language by speaking it in this mishmashed fashion. There is another reading, which is less funny: Many in West Bengal, in Kolkata in particular, already speak like this – in a hodgepodge of English, Bangla, and Hindi – and hence imposing Hindi makes no sense; people will resist that imposition in this Hindi-English-inflected Bangla, which would carry little meaning. A cleaner who worked in the apartment complex I stayed at said she was Bengali and spoke Bangla but could not hold a conversation in Bangla. After a few days of miscommunication, she admitted that her Bangla had deteriorated after working “here.” What is here? South Kolkata? This apartment complex? In a similar vein, a vegetable vendor I interviewed claimed she was a Bangla speaker as well. When I switched to Bangla, she kept replying in Hindi. When I asked her, she said, “Yeh hi toh Bangla!” (This is Bangla!). But isn’t Bangla under threat in Bangladesh, too, because of neoliberalism? Given Bangladesh’s intellectual and cultural hold among the Bengali middle class in Kolkata, it is useful to compare how language practices differ and how each one copes with the neoliberal pressures to acquire “global languages.” The debate surrounding language in Bangladesh has to do with the charge of corrupted Bangla, or bikrito Bangla, used on TV and radio. Of particular interest is the khaisi-porsi – or colloquial Bangla – as opposed to formal Bangla, which arguably would have made the dramas appear pretentious, given that few people spoke so formally in real life. The khaisi-porsi Bangla involves the truncation of words (for example, from korechhe to korse, a threesyllable word to a two-syllable word) and using consonants such as /s/ that are easier on the tongue than /chh/, giving it a slightly different cadence. In Bangladesh, the khaisi-porsi Bangla is really a further colloquialization of cholti (everyday) Bangla – or making cholti Bangla more cholti. In the early 1990s, little magazines such as Shongbed published short stories written in khaisi-porsi Bangla to reflect how “real people” speak and interact.58 Such language then found its way into the “package natok” or privately produced television dramas in the 2000s as a result of the sudden provision for private TV channels that saw the end of the monopoly of the state-owned television channel Bangladesh TV or BTV and the emergence of tens of TV channels. These newer platforms provided the space for producers like Mostofa Sarwar Farooki to create TV dramas that used such khaisi-porsi Bangla to represent everyday life in urban Bangladesh. A departure from the use of formal Bangla in such natoks, this served as a way for product differentiation and the creation of an

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alternative mode of expression. As crude as the khaisi-porsi Bangla might sound to refined ears, it was a resistance against shudhho Bangla, or correct Bangla, used in West Bengal (and supported by the literati in Bangladesh) to suggest that colloquial Bangla – which we might call Bangladeshi Bangla – is a living language, and hence more dynamic, flexible, and fluid. Two decades later, however, it is no longer the case that these TV channels are trying to depict how real people speak on a daily basis, but the other way around – TV dramas and radio channels now model how people should speak. A new variation on the khaisi-porsi Bangla has emerged – we can call it the cool khaisi-porsi Bangla. It departs from khaisi-porsi Bangla in the use of a generic American/English accent when speaking Bangla. This changes the throwing of the words and also the pronunciation of some of the letters. Most conspicuously, the /r/ is no longer soft, but a rolled /r/. As people take to this form of speech, we could compare it to Bangal in West Bengal, but with a key difference. Bangal formed endogenously, combining various rural dialects of Bangla in East Bengal – Chatgaiyya, Sylheti, Rajshahi, Mymensinghi – that in West Bengal became one and formed a linguistic identity for Partition refugees. I suggest that this cool Bangla in Bangladesh is a product of neoliberal times when English is seen as not only a global language, but the language that promises job security and upward mobility. The neoliberal period saw English become more entrenched as the language of the elite; the media picked up on that to transform the khaisi-porsi Bangla to this generic English-accented khaisi-porsi Bangla, as if to compensate for the lack of English-language capabilities in a majority Bangla-speaking country. A young university student told me, “Speaking in this kind of Bangla makes it look like we speak English mostly, which is why our Bangla is accented. This gives us the privileges that English speakers have access to.” This purposeful construction of a new style of Bangla is much like how shuddho Bangla was created artificially as the language of the elite a hundred years ago in Bengal. Media outlets – particularly private radio stations – tout this cool Bangla as the way young people today should speak to keep with the (neoliberal) times. As such, it has become the language of the upwardly mobile middle class. It is common to hear the youth making fun of it, but even as they make fun of it, they almost always speak it. In this neoliberal period, the cultural capital that comes with English in both Dhaka and Kolkata signals a certain class position, and more importantly a link to global capitalism. A person is deemed deserving of good service, behavior, and help if they are perceived as having

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value – educated, with influence. The ability to speak English provides that value. In West Bengal, given that India’s official language is English, many learn English in school. In Bangladesh, that is not the case. In the absence of actual English-speaking abilities, English-accented Bangla stands in for English. It is an attempt to access the cultural capital that English provides. It is not uncommon to hear “Ami Bangla bolte parina” (I cannot speak Bangla properly) in a caricatured American accent. The aspiration to access what English can buy explains the effect on Bangla language in both spaces. In Kolkata’s context, such caricature or corruption of language is not necessary. Many speak other languages, and hence the challenge is a different one – of extinction. While the debate in Dhaka/Bangladesh is about the quality of Bangla language practice, the concern in Kolkata/ West Bengal is how limited its use has become. Especially in newer developments such as New Town, not knowing Hindi can in fact be a problem. Most shopkeepers, retail workers, and taxi drivers speak Hindi primarily, even if spoken to in Bangla. While upwardly mobile urban residents in Dhaka and Kolkata have been able to figure out how to access English, directly or otherwise, as a way to accumulate cultural capital and enhance their value to society, rural residents have not. Bengali Muslims in rural West Bengal are unable to access English education, nor are they privy to the “trick” that makes it seem like they can speak English. At a time when Bangla faces an existential threat, the monolingual Bengali Muslim faces yet another layer of marginalization. In Bangladesh, in contrast, the rural poor do not face the same kind of marginalization because the national language is Bangla, and it is not under threat. Despite experimentation, there is still a demand and desire to practice formal Bangla in both urban and rural spaces. The proliferation of music and dance schools at the neighborhood level speaks to this desire. A cultural activist I spoke to said, “There will always be experimentation with living languages. It is only when a language is dead that people try to hold on to ‘correct’ versions of it.” Implicit in this statement was a widely shared view in Bangladesh that Bangla in West Bengal is staid, dead. The examination of caste, ethnicity, and language in neoliberal West Bengal and Bangladesh indicates that the marginalization of Bengali Muslims is not an isolated oversight. While the dismal conditions in rural West Bengal and the precarity of low-skilled workers explain the economic marginalization, the effect of neoliberalism on identity provides a way for us to recognize the multiple layers and sources of discrimination that underlie Bengali Muslim existence. It makes clear that “development” would not be sufficient without considering biopolitics.

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4.5

Conclusion

Colonial history foretells the exclusion of Bengali Muslims from social and political life based on class and caste disadvantage and the British strategy of divide and rule. In the postcolonial period, the Bengali Muslim population in West Bengal is one without a middle class. Neoliberal sensibilities in West Bengal emerged on the basis of a “revitalized” Kolkata and a preference for high-skilled technical workers, again leaving out the rural poor. What stands out, however, is West Bengal’s relationship with Bangladesh and the claim to Bengali nationalism, which renders tenuous the position of Bengali Muslims in West Bengal through their ethnic kinship to the Bangladeshi other. More specifically, this chapter has shown that Bengali Muslims’ exclusion from economic and social life is part of urban-centered development and culture that precludes rural West Bengal. The effect of India– Bangladesh relations and West Bengal–Bangladesh relations in the context of differential neoliberalism has split the image of the Bangladeshi – an undocumented, poverty-ridden, migrant worker and a wealthy but culturally inferior tourist. Neoliberalism’s effect on identity necessitates a comparative analysis of the competition over cultural ownership – something scholars of Bengali culture have overlooked, perhaps because of the assumption of Indian and West Bengali superiority. This engagement has shown how preference for non-Bengali traits in the neoliberal period sits alongside a desire to hold on to the status of Kolkata as the cultural capital of Bangla language and culture. This desire is elitist, however, for it has no room for the Bengali Muslim population that makes up much of rural Bengal. West Bengal is seen as a progressive, educated state in the Indian nationalist imaginary because of its history of left rule. The fall of CPI (M) revealed how its version of class politics left little room for identity politics, which hid the fact that the left in West Bengal was Savarna Hindu, elitist, even casteist.59 The latent Hindutva support was revealed by the 2021 Assembly elections, where the BJP won seventy-seven seats, a stark increase from the three they won in 2016. Not only did former CPM activists join the BJP, voting patterns indicated that many of the left districts voted saffron.60 These election results in the wake of the CAA also suggest support from the immigrant Hindu vote – for the idea of Hindu rashtra would be appealing to them. Arguably, this is the fallout of inculcating an exclusionary kind of Bengali nationalism. For now, TMC’s leader and Chief Minister Mamata Bannerje has managed to hold onto political office (despite losing her own seat in Nandigram), but her fight agaist the BJP and the fascism it espouses on the basis of Bengali

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nationalism may prove to be counterproductive.61 If Bengali nationalism in West Bengal is a celebration of Hindu chauvinism and ultimately nationalistic on the basis of not ethnicity but nationality, then the TMC is effectively paving the way for the BJP with even more dire consequences for the Bengali Muslim population in West Bengal.

Conclusion

The loss of the Bengali Muslim middle class to East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 left the Bengali Muslim outside Bangladesh vulnerable to marginalization. Silenced by Bangladesh’s gratitude to India, and caught up in the friction between West Bengal, Assam, and Bangladesh, Bengali Muslims became susceptible to scapegoating as Bangladeshi “infiltrators.” In the post-reforms period, positive economic growth gave rise to a thriving informal sector, particularly in the borderlands. The flexibilization of labor increased part-time work for many rural workers. Consequently, a group that would otherwise have been “dispensable” is arguably no longer so, but still finds itself on the margins of development because of the precarity of employment in the new economy. Uneven development under neoliberal norms reanimated questions about identity and belonging, as the preceding chapters have shown. When I began the research on this book, I wanted to examine how labor practices across different workspaces informed social hierarchies and observe how Bengali Muslims were treated relative to other workers in different sectors. I quickly realized that I would not be able to observe this because Bengali Muslims were segregated into particular areas and particular jobs in a deeply segmented and segregated labor market. I was forced to take a step back and examine the role Bengali Muslims played in the overall economy, which revealed to me how identity becomes instrumental in excluding certain groups based on their “insufficient” contribution to the “productive” or “accumulating” economy. In this neoliberal period, the demand for labor is such that it maintains and reproduces the historical hierarchies that make Bengali Muslims appear dispensable to economic and political life. Perhaps Max Weber was right to view markets as “hierarchical arenas” that produce both wealth and power inequalities as by-products of efficiency.1 In this book, I have found it productive to engage with the different forms that neoliberalism takes in India and Bangladesh, in rural areas as well as in the urban sprawls of Kolkata, Guwahati, and (to a lesser extent) 180

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Dhaka, because I found that how groups view themselves and others differs depending on the depth of reforms and on how public support was garnered for them. In the India–Bangladesh borderlands we see rural areas sustained by a vibrant informal economy at a time when the “productive economy” is unwilling to share the surplus with the “need economy.” Informal trade across Bangladesh and India, although officially deemed illegitimate, follows the same logic of market liberalization and free trade. It makes little sense to deny the pervasiveness of neoliberal sensibilities that sustains this thriving informal economy. This applies in other contexts as well. Think about, for example, how women working in factories and participating in interest-bearing microfinance schemes counter stereotypes about what is permissible in Muslim countries where women are expected to be homemakers and interest is haram. I propose that our understanding of neoliberalism ought to make space for such received neoliberalism and the paradoxes it produces as it morphs to find a place in local sentiments. Doing so helps us account for the endurance of neoliberal ideas and policies despite their role in exacerbating existing inequalities. Neoliberalism no doubt originated in the West and spread through a variety of coercive practices, but it is also highly adaptable to local conditions. We can see how insidiously it seeped into diverse spaces, reanimating pre-existing differences to align with neoliberal ideas that measure human value as a function of productivity. In both West Bengal and Assam, neoliberalism saw the intensification of economic activities in urban areas, and the withdrawal of state support in rural areas (except for corporate land grabs). However, an urban-rural divide does not explain the variety of experiences. Take the example of mufassils, which count as urban areas in much of northeast India but are quite rural compared to cities like Delhi or Kolkata. These are still spaces with intensifying economic activities, albeit ensconced in the informal economy. Guwahati represents one such transitioning city hoping to become a megacity or a neoliberal city, whether Delhi or New York! Aspirational neoliberalism here serves to propagate neoliberal ideals, based not only on experience but on dreams and desires. To understand neoliberal sensibilities and their entrenchment, one has to pay particular attention to space, location, and position. Instructive for me was the fact that borderlanders use the same neoliberal language of personal responsibility, of the benefits of free trade and open borders. Without knowing any of the jargon, they speak about the importance of continued cross-border trade for their survival. They find absurd the idea that the same trading activities undertaken by organized merchants is criminal and illegitimate when carried out by individuals. “Many cows can go to Bangladesh on trucks,” in the words of an interviewee, but a

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single cow taken over the border by a teenager could get a person killed by the border guards. Borderlanders see this as hypocritical, and the double-standard is particularly stark at land ports that see intense commercial activity in close proximity to the impoverished villages that house these “criminals.” Land ports promise jobs in these areas left behind by uneven development but can only provide villagers the most menial of jobs – breaking bricks, loading and unloading trucks, and so on – necessitating not just continued informal trading along the borders, but producing a slew of informal work – such as truck-loading – that is part of formal economic exchanges. Despite the creative ways borderlanders have been able to find livelihood, most borderlanders remain poor, with din mojuri (daily wage labor) the only legal employment for locals. Their poverty is stark, even astounding, when compared to the intense commercial activity that surrounds them at the land ports. India–Bangladesh relations and differential neoliberalism have had the effect of producing a general sensibility that deems Indians superior to Bangladeshis. Add to that the prevalence of anti-Muslim sentiments and Bangladesh’s weaker status (or, as cynics would say, Bangladesh’s subjugated status) and it is easy to see why Bengali Muslims can be targeted without fear of retribution. A sense of Indian superiority and chauvinism came to be normalized as Hindu majoritarianism and dreams of development were deployed to create consent for neoliberal policies. Such sensibilities are internalized not merely by Indians but Bangladeshis too. It is not merely psychological but a product of bilateral relations, Bangladesh’s quietist diplomacy, and its inability to take a strong stand on key issues such as water and transit. When India expressed concern over Bangladesh’s increased economic ties with China in 2020, foreign minister Abul Momen had to reiterate that Bangladesh and India share blood ties.2 These unequal relations bode ill for Bangladesh’s Hindu minority population as well. Anti-imperialism finds expression in attacks against the Hindu minority; at a time when activists are unable to actually challenge the Indian establishment, the Hindu minority serves as a classic proxy. In turn, this becomes fodder for the BJP in India, as they legalize the notion that Hindu Bangladeshis in India are refugees while Muslims are infiltrators (as part of the CAA). Although in this book I have mainly focused on the Bengali Muslim in India, the logic holds in a more general sense: State-level interactions have implications for the vulnerable in both countries based on exclusion from national belonging. In distant cities and towns hinterlanders invoke the border to justify their rigid notions of national identity, but in the borderlands, identities are fluid and seen as arbitrary and artificial. As this book has shown, a

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close look at West Bengal and Assam makes it clear that local histories and relationships between people, while influenced by state-level relations, often challenge them too. In Assam, the exclusion of Bengali Muslims is righteous, planned, and popular, making them vulnerable to violent attacks. In West Bengal their conflation with Bangladeshis renders them invisible. In Assam, while the Nellie massacre of 1983 produced astonishment, guilt, and calls for reflection and atonement, today “illegal Bangladeshis” are seen as deserving of abusive treatment; thus, the negative association with Bangladeshis is commonsensical, public, and pervasive. In West Bengal the “othering” is more nuanced and discreet, but just as pervasive; here, even minor differences in speech and accents become a source of suspicion and slights. Political propaganda feeds such ideas. The popularity of the BJP in recent times and the Hindutva variant of identity politics feed on exclusions produced by neoliberal capitalism. Let’s return to Assam and West Bengal again. The BJP’s Sarbananda Sonowal became Chief Minister of Assam in 2016 on promises of supporting the Assam Accord. The introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019 seemed to most Assamese to go in the opposite direction, and yet the BJP won again in 2021, and the new Chief Minister Himanta Biswas Sarma appears to be more vested in the Hindu Rashtra project and has made no promises about the Assam Accord. My take is that aspirational neoliberalism and the promise of development shapes attitudes towards the BJP. During my fieldwork, I found BJP supporters excited by the so-called Gujarat Model, confidently asserting that such development could only be achieved by the BJP. In this period when the Assamese middle class seeks to align themselves with India and the working class is in dire need of jobs, the view that only the BJP can provide this is the critical factor behind the BJP’s support. That the promise of development might be false is something that can be dealt with later. The BJP campaigned vigorously in West Bengal. Although Mamata Bannerjee of the TMC maintained her position as Chief Minister since 2011, the BJP’s support has risen significantly since then, as it has gone from three seats in the Legislative Assembly in 2016 to seventy-seven in 2021. Mamata Bannerjee’s strong vocal opposition to the BJP’s majoritarianism has led to speculations about her running as a Prime Ministerial candidate in 2024. Yet, her embrace of minorities is limited to the Urdu-speaking Muslim middle-classes, most of whom nevertheless cannot find homes to rent in Kolkata. Rural Bengali Muslims do not figure in her political calculations. With no alternatives, Muslims would vote for the TMC, seems to be the rationale. Mamata Bannerjee has been

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fighting Hindu nationalism with Bengali nationalism when Bengali nationalism has developed its own brand of exclusive politics. The long history of Left Rule in West Bengal means that people recognize the pitfalls of Gujarat-style neoliberal development. The BJP’s inroads, then, are not a function of aspirational development as in the case of Assam. Rather, it is an index of the degree to which Hindu chauvinism has already embedded itself within the exclusive Bengali nationalism of the TMC kind. The variation in West Bengal and Assam speaks to what Edward Anderson and Arkotong Longkumer have described as “the dynamic and idiosyncratic ways in which Hindu nationalism has evolved over recent years, often into increasingly mainstream and normalized (but also obfuscated) forms of rhetoric and mobilization.”3 To answer the question I raised in the Introduction about Modi’s audience in his inflammatory speeches, Bangladeshis represent the foreign Muslim other and also provide an excuse for economic devastation in eastern and northeast India where, the popular view goes, porous borders become sites of infiltration. The use of the Bangladeshi is not simple xenophobia, but strategic to reinforce the BJP’s electoral mandate of what we might call Hindutva neoliberalism. As the preceding chapters should have conveyed, this trope allows for strategic invisibility – to deny certain aspects of Bengali Muslim existence while spectacularizing others to create a malleable other. As I have shown in this book, the infiltrator-citizen binary, which functions to reinforce a Hinduized Indian national identity, operates on ignorance and, more significantly, obscures and obfuscates the realities of border economies. These borders are sites where national identities are daily being contested, and where a new kind of identity and flexible citizenship emerges based on a broadly understood kinship and brotherhood, one that fosters and sustains networks of communication and trade across the border. In this context, then, “infiltrator” is an absurd term. From the perspective of borderlanders, Bangladeshis are hardly infiltrators but kinfolk who are part of a border network, and to be foreign is to be from outside this network. Formal papers have little meaning here, even as the government institutionalizes the fetishizing of documents through registration programs. What stands out is various forms of individual resistance, refusal, and transgression. While the labor market stratifies communities along ethnic lines based on stereotypes about productive and non-productive people, we also see resistance to these stereotypes and the formulation of newer identities – we may call them identities of resistance. In the borderlands, anti-Bangladeshi rhetoric is undermined by the fluidity of people’s conceptions of ethnic and national identity. The borderlanders refuse to be

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characterized by the border, while at the same time they use the border for daily sustenance – and in doing so resist how the state characterizes them. They are part of both countries, and part of neither – a recognition that bolsters cross-border connections and solidarity, without which these lands would only be sites of economic decay and death. In Assam, a group long persecuted as Bangladeshi, whose language sounds significantly more like Bangla than Assamese, and whose music could easily be mistaken for Bangla folk songs, reclaimed the slur of “Miya” and sought to cultivate their distinct sense of identity and language, but within the Assamese national sphere.4 Their claim that this Bangla-sounding language is a dialect of Axomiya is a reversal of the colonial-era insistence that Axomiya was a dialect of Bangla. The Miya have thus sought to distance themselves from Bengalis while at the same time questioning the practice of assigning legitimacy to groups based on language. Ironically, in the hinterlands of West Bengal, where Bengali nationalism supposedly protects Bengali Muslims, Bengali Muslims are voiceless: betrayed by Partition; ignored for decades by communists for whom “identity politics” was a distraction from the class struggle; and cast aside by neoliberal restructuring of the labor force. The invisibility of lowincome, Bangla-speaking Muslims produced by neoliberalism aligns with Grace Hong’s “structure of disavowal” or what Andy Clarno calls “neoliberal apartheid” that produces second-class citizens out of disparate economies. These are but different ways of describing the disregard for those who are left out of the “accumulating economy” and instead form part of the “need economy.”5 The mass mobilizations against the Citizenship Amendment Act and a proposed National Register of Citizens (CAA/NRC) in 2019 offered a glimmer of hope for India’s Muslims until they were brutally crushed and disbanded just before the Covid pandemic hit and the country went into lockdown. But it remains to be seen whether this presages any relief for Bengali Muslims, particularly in Assam. There, the anti-CAA/NRC protests were informed not by compassion for marginalized Muslims but by the fear that the new law would violate the Assam Accords by granting citizenship to Bangladeshi Hindus who arrived before 2014, while opening the door for further immigration based on religious persecution in Bangladesh. Indeed, the Assamese stance was more reactionary than the BJP’s, which is willing to make room for “foreign” Hindus, albeit in the name of creating a Hindu Rashtra. In the lead up to the passing of the CAA, Modi promised Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that the new law was about India’s internal politics, and that it would not affect Bangladesh. The day the law came

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into effect, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Momen canceled his trip to India, indicating disapproval, but predictably did not say he canceled it because of the CAA, claiming instead that he was overextended because of Victory Day celebrations in Bangladesh. More egregiously perhaps, he said that if there were a process for identifying Bangladeshis in India then Bangladesh would take them back, seemingly unaware that he was offering cover for the ethnic cleansing fantasies of Hindu nationalists. Momen’s approach is in keeping with Bangladesh’s quietist line which diplomatically skirts any discussion of India’s “internal affairs.” By refusing to speak about it, Bangladesh allows India to propagate the myth of the “illegal” Bangladeshi unchallenged.

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Appendix 1 List of Land Ports

1

Benapole Land Port Bangladesh side: Benapole, Sharsha, Jessore Indian side: Petrapole, Bongaon, 24-Parganas, West Bengal, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: January 12, 2002 Date of operation: February 01, 2002 Storage capacity: 40,000 MT Total land area: 61.7052 acre

2

Burimari Land Port Bangladesh side: Burimari, Patgram, Lalmonirhat Indian side: Changrabandha, Mekhaliganj, West Bengal, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: January 12, 2002 Date of operation: April 09, 2010 Storage capacity: 2,000 MT Land area: 11.15 acre

3

Akhaura Land Port Bangladesh side: Akhaura, Brahmnbaria Indian side: Ramnagar, Agartala, Tripura, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority

4

Bhomra Land Port Bangladesh side: Sadar Upazila, Satkhira Indian side: Gojadanga, 24-Parganas, West Bengal, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: January 12, 2002

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Date of operation: May 19, 2013 Total land area: 15.7298 acre Handling labor (manual): 1,800 persons 5

Nakugaon Land Port Bangladesh side: Nalitabari, Sherpur Indian side: Dalu, Barangapara, Meghalaya, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: September 30, 2010 Date of operation: June 18, 2015 Land area: 13.46 acre

6

Tamabil Land Port Bangladesh side: Goainghat, Sylhet Indian side: Dauki, Shillong, Meghalaya, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: January 12, 2002 Date of operation: Yet to start Land area: 14.72 + 9.00 = 23.72 acre

7

Darshana Land Port Bangladesh side: Damurhuda, Chuadanga Indian side: Gede, Krishnanagar, West Benga, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: January 12, 2002 Date of operation: Yet to start

8

Belonia Land Port Bangladesh side: Belonia, Feni Indian side: Belonia, Tripura, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: February 23, 2009 Land area: Land acquisition is under process

9

Gobrakura-Karaitali Land Port Bangladesh side: Haluaghat, Mymensingh Indian side: Gachhuapara, Tura, Meghalaya, India

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Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: June 14, 2010 10

Ramgarh Land Port Bangladesh side: Ramgarh, Khagrachhari Indian side: Sabroom, Tripura, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: November 7, 2010 Land area: Acquisition of land is under process

11

Sonahat Land Port Bangladesh side: Bhurungamari, Kurigram Indian side: Sonahat, Dhubri, Assam, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: October 25, 2012 Land area: 14.68 acre

12

Tegamukh Land Port Bangladesh side: Tegamukh, Barkal, Rangamati Indian side: Demagri, Mizoram, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: June 30, 2013 Land area: Acquisition of land is under process Date of operation: Yet to start

13

Chilahati Land Port Bangladesh side: Chilahati, Domar, Nilphamari Indian side: Holdibari, Cooch Behar, West Bengal, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: July 28, 2013 Land area: Acquisition of land is under process

14

Daulatganj Land Port Bangladesh side: Daulatganj, Jibon Nagar, Chuadanga Indian side: Mazdia, Nadia, West Bengal, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: July 31, 2013 Land area: Acquisition of land is under process

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211

Dhanua Kamalpur Land Port Bangladesh side: Bokshigonj, Jamalpur Indian side: Mohendragonj, Ampoti, Meghalaya, India Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: May 21, 2015 Land area: Acquisition of land is under process

16

Sheola Land Port Bangladesh side: Sheola, Bianibazar, Sylhet Indian side: Sutarkandi, Karimganj, Assam Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: June 30, 2015 Land area: Acquisition of land is under process

17

Balla Land Port Bangladesh side: Balla, Chunarughat, Hobiganj Indian side: Paharmura, Khoai, Tripura Operator: Bangladesh Land Port Authority Date of declaration: March 23, 2016 Land area: Acquisition of land is under process The information in this section is from the Bangladesh Land Port Authority website: http://bsbk.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/ files/files/bsbk.portal.gov.bd/page/1da6d5ad_5287_4dc7_8146_ 0326260b1894/overview%20(Sep’16).pdf.

Appendix 2 BSF Public Statements

In this section, I analyze public statements made by the Inspector Generals of SBF, NBR, and MC – officers in charge in posts alongside the Bangladesh border – as well as the interviews I conducted of them in an attempt to answer some of these questions in the context of the rhetoric of increased connectivity and trade (the features of neoliberalism in the border areas). Their views are worth examining because their voices get amplified in the inlands where people point to the border to support their xenophobic views. Public Statements by Inspector Generals, BSF Following are the three relevant public statements – “letter from the Inspector General” – as they appear on the SBF, NBR, and CMF websites, respectively (2019). Inspector General P. S. R. Anjaneyulu of South Bengal Frontier It is a matter of great professional satisfaction to command the South Bengal Frontier which is a very sensitive segment of the Indo-Bangladesh border. Operational challenges being faced by the rank and file of the force in South Bengal Frontier are manifold. Besides countering transborder crimes and smuggling, there is need to make perceptible changes in the attitude of the border population towards border management. While enforcing the law of the land, we should bear in mind the respect for human rights, local culture and customs, and self-respect of the border population. They have always been our trusted and tested friends and force multiplier. Particular focus needs to be kept on the youth so that no unscrupulous element misguides them toward cross-border crimes. Management of cordial relations with our counterpart is yet another important aspect in effective border management. The Coordinated 212

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Border Management Plan (CBMP) and non-lethal strategy is an important step in that direction. It is imperative that the spirit of CBMP is correctly understood by all ranks and the same implemented while upholding the mandate of the force. Constant interaction with sister agencies and gathering their support is important for proactively managing the border and shall always remain high on agenda. Efforts are required at all levels to coordinate our actions with sister agencies in curbing various trans-border crimes with focus on illegal migration, smuggling of cattle, gold, FICN, arms and drugs. Implementing decision taken at the DGLT must also receive adequate attention. Despite heavy constraints, all ranks of South Bengal Frontier, particularly those deployed in BOPs, are discharging their duties at the border with commendable grit and dedication. Therefore, it is enjoined on all supervisory staff to do their best possible in making the life of our men and their families comfortable, to provide leadership by personal example and keep the flag of BSF flying high. We should all constantly strive to keep our borders and country safe. I wish all ranks of the frontier the very best of luck in their endeavors in living up to the expectations of the force and the Nation. Inspector General Ajmal Singh Kathat of North Bengal Frontier On having assumed the charge of Inspector General North Bengal Frontier on July 1, 2018. I convey my best wishes to all Seema Praharis of the North Bengal Frontier. I consider it a privilege to have been entrusted the command of this very important frontier. The area is not only important from the point of view of border management but also crucial to the security of the nation. Management of this 932.39 km of international boundary with Bangladesh is going to pose several challenges, especially, in view of the recent confidence-building measures and dialogue initiated between the two governments and also the heads of two counterpart border-guarding forces. We have to find ways of synergizing the border-guarding efforts of both BSF and BGB to achieve the aim of ensuring a secure and peaceful environment for the most important stakeholders, that is, the border population. The recent initiatives towards ensuring mutual cooperation require a paradigm shift in the psychology of praharis deployed in day-to-day operational activities. The website of North Bengal Frontier is aimed at giving out maximum information about the frontier and we are continuously striving to upgrade the same. We welcome the suggestions to enhance the quality of information available and also the appearance of the website.

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Inspector General Dr. K. C. Mahali of Mizoram and Cachar Frontier Mizoram and Cachar Frontier with its headquarters at Masimpur, Silchar (Assam) is the youngest frontier of BSF, which became operational on Nov 1 2006. Built upon the foundational infrastructure of erstwhile ad hoc Baramulla Ftr of Jammu and Kashmir, it has three Sectors viz: Silchar, Mizoram and Manipur (CI OPS) under its wings. The frontier is very aptly called Suryodaya Frontier taking cue from its logo. Officers and men of this frontier deployed in Cachar (Assam) and Mizoram are guarding the international border with Bangladesh in trying conditions. Cachar has a humid and sub-tropical climate with extremely heavy rainfall. Mizoram has hilly terrain covered with dense evergreen forest, interspersed with narrow rivers which run through deep gorges. Many Border Outposts in Mizoram have no surface link with the rest of the Country and are air maintained. A sizeable force of this frontier is deployed on counter insurgency operations in Manipur. An important task of a “border man” is to promote welfare of the border population. Towards this end, BSF in Mizoram and Cachar Frontier is deeply committed and is intimately involved in improving the life of border population by creating infrastructure and providing basic amenities under civic action programs. BSF Officers and men reach out to the border population by involving themselves in their day-to-day activities, organizing free medical camps, adopting schools, organizing study tours, etc. To provide opportunities to the local population, recruitment to various ranks is being organized at BSF campuses at Masimpur, Imphal, and Aizawl. This website has been designed to inform its visitors about various facets of the functioning of BSF in general and Mizoram and Cachar Frontier in particular. The public at large can now visit this website to gain information about recruitment, training, career prospects, tender notices, and auction notices in this frontier. I congratulate the officers and staff of the frontier who have designed the website and I hope they will keep on updating it regularly.

Appendix 3 Details of the Anti-Bengali Muslim Attacks in Assam*

The Nellie Massacre of 1983 In 1978, Hiralal Patwari, a member of the Lok Sabha from the Assamese parliamentary constituency, died while in office. As per the due process, Indian state officials held a special provisional election to choose his successor. In preparation for the election, armed police and military forces maintained the peace. The preparation for the elections had seen diffuse acts of violence, resulting in injuries and deaths from the electorate as well as from AASU volunteers amidst an uproar that Bangladeshis have found their way into the electoral roll.1 It ignited what is now famously called the Assam Movement (more on this later). On the day of the elections at approximately 8:00 in the morning, massive crowds of people began to descend on the village of Nellie, inhabited primarily by Bengali Muslims (believed to consist entirely of “non-Indian” illegal immigrants from Bangladesh), ostensibly to prevent them from voting in the election. The crowds approached the village from three sides, armed with daggers, spears, machetes, bows and arrows, and a few firearms, according to survivor Mohammad Muslimuddin, who hid in a field of linseed until he was relieved by Central Reserve Police forces at approximately 15:00.2 Until dispersed by the military at some time during the afternoon (accounts vary, beginning from about 12:30), the crowd, innumerable in size but most likely several tens of thousands, killed somewhere between 600 and 1,200 people indiscriminate of age or sex and fired most of the village of Nellie. The violence was particularly brutal, with many survivors bearing permanently disfiguring wounds from machetes and spears and multiple accounts of infants being killed.3

*

Alan Dowling compiled this data/information.

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Similar waves of violence occurred contemporaneously in thirteen other villages of similar demographic backgrounds. The official death toll for the day was 2,191 although this number is generally assumed to be inaccurate. Estimations at the actual death toll vary disparately but some exceed 5,000.4 Several details of the event itself are unclear, in part because the 600page Tiwari Commission Report is not publically available (though the AUDF has been campaigning for its availability for several years.) A particular topic of controversy is the identity of the perpetrators, both in literal terms of identities and in more abstract terms of ethnicity and background. The number of people formally suspected of involvement in the massacre was 688, a paltry number considering the size of a crowd necessary for the murder of several thousand and the destruction of fourteen villages. Of this number, 378 cases were dismissed before charging due to a “lack of evidence.” Further, when the AGP, the AASU’s formal political party, was voted into power in the 1985 elections, they dropped charges on the other 310 suspects.5 The mobs targeted Muslim settlements under the assumption that they were Bangladeshis. Mohammad Akbar Ali, an older survivor of the massacre told one investigative journalist “we are not Bangladeshis. We are very much Indians. We have been staying here for ages.”6 Pator also wrote, of his personal experience with some of the victims, “I had seen them since my childhood and they are not Bangladeshis.”7 If a majority or plurality of the victims were in fact “Indian” Assamese or Bengali Muslims instead of “Bangladeshi” immigrants from within the previous thirty years, then the aggressors either were poor at discerning the difference or more realistically, those differences were un-discernible and fueled by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, did not understand or care about the difference. Perhaps this marks an early point in the growing trend of Bangladeshi/Bengali Muslim conflation which remains present in current Assamese, even Indian, politics.8 Bodo-Muslim Violence in Kokrajhar That Killed 50, Displaced 180,000 (1993) The spurt of violence against Kokrajhar area Muslims in October 1993 resulted in the death of fifty people and the displacement of more than 150,000 people. It received very little press coverage, however. Most news analyses tend to focus on the Barpeta massacre of the following year. Firstpost, for example, merely says that “About 50 people are killed in clashes between people from the ethnic Bodo tribe and immigrant Muslims in Assam’s western district of Bongaigaon.”9

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The timing is important, however, as the violence emerges in the wake of the Bodoland Autonomous Council (BAC) Accord of February 20 1993 and indicates its failure to provide a viable solution to the demands of the Bodos’ demands for autonomy (more on this later). Militants attempted to ethnically cleanse villages of Muslims, utilizing the “illegal Bangladeshi” argument – reminiscent of the rhetoric that served so well during the Assam Movement.10 This points to a change in Bodos’ mode of operation. Whereas previously, Bodo militants used tactics of assassination, abduction, and bombings, in this phase they opted to mobilize based on the Bangladeshi threat – which may well speak to the salience of such fears. After October 1993, the government deployed some peacekeepers to the region, yet the violence continued in smaller bursts, building tension among the Muslims and Bodo people, escalating towards the Barpeta massacre of the following year. That massacre is the legacy of these initial changes in tactics on the part of the ABSU and BPAC as well as state-level apathy. It also raised the question of whether the Bodo Movement’s territorial and autonomy wishes could be met short of total independence. Peasant Massacre That Killed 1,000, Displaced 250,000 in Barpeta (1994) Following the Bodo Accords, pockets of Bodo militants realized that the demographical balance of villages in which Bodo people formed a minority could be shifted towards a Bodo majority by displacing and killing members of other ethnicities. The Bengali Muslims, conflated with “illegal Bangladeshis,” which found themselves the targets of the Assam Movement of the 1980s made for the best target. The first Bodo attempts at the ethnic cleansing of these villages occurred in October of 1993, resulting in approximately fifty deaths and large numbers of displaced families.11 The violence continued into the following year, with another outburst in “early” 1994, resulting in approximately fifty more deaths and countless displacements from the Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon regions. Again, the state sent in peacekeeping forces and established more relief camps for the displaced.12 Affairs seemed to quieten somewhat after that point, with state officials offering numerous statements assuring the protection of the people within the relief camps.13 The worst, however, was yet to come. In July, the largest single wave of violence since the Nellie massacre broke out across the Barpeta district. In a concerted attempt to cleanse Bodo areas of Bengali Muslims or Bangladeshis, dozens of joint

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attacks occurred near the extremes of Bodo territory, including the regions around Gobardhan and Anandabazar. News reports indicate that the militants, unlike the perpetrators of the Nellie massacre were “heavily armed” with firearms and ample supplies of ammunition. According to early estimates, militants displaced an excess of 50,000 people within four days, although the actual displacement numbers probably ended up much higher.14 The apex of the violence occurred within the now infamous, state-run Bahnbari (Bansari) relief camp. At midnight, several days after the wave of violence began, Bodo militants launched an attack on the relief camp itself, “firing indiscriminately on the refugees with sophisticated weapons and attacking them with crude cleavers.”15 The state had just that day insisted to the residents of the camp that the military had the situation under control and assured them of their safety, assurances which ultimately proved false. Militants killed about a hundred people at the camp in one night’s attack and potentially injured more than 1,000. When the July wave of attacks finally subsided, the death toll approached 1,000. Militants displaced potentially hundreds of thousands of people, although the number is extremely nebulous, by burning over sixty villages to the ground.16 In the aftermath of the July massacres, a few things became quite clear. First, the Bodo militants were displeased with the terms of the Accord and were willing to use any tactic possible to alter the arrangements of their autonomy. As such, it is hard to say that the killings were hatemotivated rather than strategic. As Hussain points out, the Bengali Muslim communities attacked were highly “Assamized” by the time of the attacks, and the Bodo militants had a track record of using ethnic cleansings, abductions, bombings, and assassinations, choosing the violent tactic that they believed would better serve the end purpose of forcing a renegotiation of the Accord or grabbing more territory by force. The ethnic killings, therefore, appear to be tools in achieving the strategic aims of the Bodo militancy, more than expressions of ethnic or religiously fueled hatred. Bodo-Muslim Violence That Killed 53, Displaced 200,000 in Udalguri (August and October 2008) Protesting an increase in the harassment of Bengali Muslims in the name of “immigrant detection,” a small Muslim student organization, the Minority United Students Association, called for a “bandh” on August 14, 2008, within the regions of Udalguri and Darrang.17 These had been tension-ridden areas since 1978, where the Darrang district reported a

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large number of new voters, that partly informed the Assam Movement. On this day, a group of Muslim activists purportedly killed a Bodo youth, sparking a series of riots that ended with seventeen deaths and an excess of 17,000 people displaced. The government reacted quickly to end the riots.18 The violence subsided but the tension remained within the community and an event in October sparked a new, larger wave of violence. According to the Indian Express, on the night of October 3, a group of armed Muslims abducted Bodo youth Rakesh Swargiary during his patrol around the Bodo area of the village of Mohanpur. His compatriots on patrol went after him and the two groups fought a battle, kicking off weeks of violence.19 Taking a strangely even-handed approach, the “People’s Democracy” publication from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) allows that possibility as well as the possibility that Rakesh and his patrol might have wandered, accidentally or deliberately, into Muslim territory, thus prompting retaliation by violating the neutral zone.20 This publication also posits that the violence was, in part, due to a deliberate BJP attempt to seed “Islamophobia” in the region. Violence erupted nevertheless and over the week, 55 people from a broad variety of backgrounds were killed and at least 212,000 people were displaced into nearly 100 refugee camps, following the damage or destruction of over 2,500 houses in 54 villages. The government cracked down hard and quickly, deploying an additional fourteen companies of paramilitary police, who were authorized to shoot on sight anybody who appeared to be engaging in rioting or violence. The police crackdown on both parties was so intense that reports indicate twenty-four of the fiftyfive deaths were from police gunfire.21 A few days in, somebody raised a flag depicting an upside-down crescent in a Bodo village called Jhargaon. Several Indian organizations began to complain to the state, arguing that the flag was Pakistani and indicative of the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence. The government treaded water ineffectively for a few days while the flag scandal raged, until the state health minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma found video recorded material of the flag, pointed out that it was upside down, something no Muslim would do, in a Bodo village into which no Muslim would go one day into the violence. Chief minister Tarun Gogoi, after having had his problem solved for him, agreed with the statement, and insisted that it was someone trying to stir up more trouble.22 In the aftermath, many parties blamed illegal Bangladeshi immigrants for starting the violence, as well as the usual complaints about infiltration. Gogoi insisted that none of the parties involved in the violence, however, were foreign. Bodos, Bengali Muslims and everyone else involved were all

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Indian citizens and he was aware of no foreign involvement or intervention at any level whatsoever.23 The ruling coalition of INC and the Bodo Congress Party (BCP) blamed the violence on the NDFB, despite their having agreed to a formal ceasefire three years prior. All in all, the event resolved no grievances between anyone. Its only legacy was the displacement of two lakhs of people, widespread destruction, ethnic contention and suspicion, conspiracy theories about Pakistan, and increased focus on “illegals,” despite Gogoi’s insistence that Bangladeshis had nothing to do with this episode. July Massacre in Kokrajhar That Killed 77, Displaced 400,000 (2012) On May 29, 2012, a Muslim constituency held a bandh in Kokrajhar. The New York Times reported that it was “to protest the removal of a signboard from a mosque.”24 The RSS, in contrast, reported that the bandh was called for “demanding reservations in the Bodoland Territorial Council.”25 The strike and the contrasting interpretation could be seen as a sign of what is to come. Floods in mid and late June arguably exacerbated the various forms of inequality. On July 20, “unidentified miscreants” killed four Bodos near the Kokrajhar police station. In “reprisal” attacks, Bodos killed five Muslims and injured several more on the following day. In an attempt to control the spread of the violence as quickly as possible, the police ordered a curfew beginning that evening.26 The violence escalated and then turned episodic, with Muslims and Bodos killing and injuring each other, burning down homes, and forcing people, primarily Muslims to flee to escape further violence. By August 8, the total death toll had risen to 77 dead and over the course, approximately 400,000 people, again primarily Muslims, were displaced.27 Displaced28 Muslims were shuttled into relief camps, reminiscent of refugee camps, even concentration camps – as the government reported fifteen deaths, including the deaths of seven children, within the relief camps in August alone.29 The state and national governments tried to take an active role in prevention, with visits from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other government officials as well as a large aid package reserved for those who were injured or had lost relatives in the killings.30 But, it did little to stem the fear among Muslims that they were made not only home-less but state-less as a result of these attacks. The question of timing appears to be of import. According to most newspaper sources, including the Guardian, the Assam Tribune, the Indian Express, the Hindustan Times, the Times of India, and the press

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releases of state and political parties involved, particularly the BJP and the RSS, the massacre began on July 20, 2012, with the murder of four Bodos. In claiming so, they blame the violence on Muslims. If one argues that the massacre began on July 19, which it appears to have, then it becomes a case of Bodo aggression and Muslim retribution, not Muslim aggression, and Bodo retribution. NDTV news reported that “unidentified assailants,” killed two Muslims in early July and then again on July 19. The New York Times corroborated this finding.31 The32 NDTV report also pointed out that the Bodos killed on the 20th were not simply “youths” (a term loaded with connotations of innocence and victimhood) but also ex-members of the Bodo Liberation Tigers,33 which at the very least speaks to political murders, versus community killings. The decision of publishing a start date of July 20 versus July 19 appears deliberate and politically charged because it portrays the onset of this episode of violence as informed by bigotry and not political enmity. As such, the entire Muslim community becomes the “perpetrators.” However, that was not the end. Quickly, more and more news sources blamed “Bangladeshi Infiltrators” as primary agents, and therefore responsible for the violence in a more general sense. Several members of the media quietly suggested the idea that Bangladeshi immigrants had caused the attacks, as well, unsurprisingly, as the BJP and RSS in public statements. Other news sources were less veiled. Writing for Firstpost, Venky Vembu (2012) said, One of the red herrings being tossed around in the context of the ongoing riots in Assam is that the Muslims who attacked the Bodo tribals and drove them out of their homes are Indians and that it breaks their bleeding riotous hearts to be branded Bangladeshi settlers … But it does represent another effort to draw the curtain on the foundational problem that underlies both the latest riots and the simmering tensions in Assam and elsewhere in the North East: the problem of unchecked infiltration of Bangladeshis into India.34 Furthermore, the New Delhi–based Asian Centre for Human Rights (who, in an official document, also lists the start date of the massacres as July 20) places the blame entirely on the immigration problem, citing the “Greater Bangladesh” argument, namely that Bangladesh is deliberately exporting “infiltrators” to cause problems and change the ethnic demographic of Assam over time, to facilitate the eventual annexation of the region by Bangladesh.35 This organization, like the RSS, BJP, and several other parties and factions aligned against the “foreign threat” attacked the INC for not preventing the violence and for not solving the “immigration problem,” issues which these groups say are inexorably linked.

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Although most of the mainstream media sources touted the xenophobic line, some opposed the xenophobia that came with such arguments. In an investigation of the demographic groups involved in the violence, the National Commission on Minorities reported to Prime Minister Singh that the violence “was not between some exodus of Bangladeshi immigrants and the Bodos, but between Bodos and the resident Muslims of the BTAD.” They also noted that the violence appeared in retrospect to be of a more “ethnic cleansing” nature than a “communal violence” one because, “when Muslims abandoned their villages, their houses were looted and gutted (which) might indicate a design to see that they do not return to their villages.”36 Writing for the Shillong Times, Barun Das Gupta went further, indicting the mainstream media itself for the misrepresentation of facts and mongering conspiracies: The specter of a conspiracy to create a “Greater Bangladesh” is being raised. People are being warned that Assam is soon going to be devoured by Bangladesh. Wild statistics are being concocted and bandied about on the incredible rise of the Bengali Muslim population in Assam without citing their sources. Sensational stories of a United Muslim National Army, formed in June, being behind the July riots are circulating freely. It is taken for granted that a Muslim whose mother tongue is Bangla is, ipso facto, a Bangladeshi.37

Regardless, here we can directly see the factionalism and paranoia which emerged later in the 2014 campaign rhetoric. More so than ever, this violence accomplished nothing besides the further alienation of the Bengali Muslims and Bodos, and the increased insensitivity and paranoia expressed by politicians and the mainstream media regarding the “foreign threat.” Election Violence That Killed 12, Displaced 300,000 (2014) On April 26, 2014, the fifth parliamentary constituency, Kokrajhar, and several others voted for their Lok Sabha candidates. The Kokrajhar region, which is home to swathes of Bodo territory, was the seat of Bodo hopes for a Bodo member of parliament from the Bodoland People’s Front, the formal political party of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland. Although the release date of the election results was not until May 16, a leader of the Bodoland People’s Front released the following statement: Everything was fine till April 23. We were assured that we would get about 80 per cent Muslim votes in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Kokrajhar on April 24. But all Muslim votes went in favor of Naba Kumar Sarania alias Heera Sarania.

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Additionally, according to the Times of India, The Songbijit faction had warned of retaliation against the killing of three Bodo youths by police branding them its cadres in Tezpur in upper Assam on April 30. “So, we the revolutionaries decided our tit-for-tat retaliation against both the governments of Assam and India as soon as possible for their mistake,”

the outfit had said.38 If these statements were meant to incite violence, they were successful. Beginning April 30, well-armed militants on bicycles and motorized vehicles had killed forty-three Muslims, primarily women, and children. Eleven went missing, according to Chief Minister Taurin Gogoi.39 The consensus between state and press is that Bodos carried out the attacks, specifically by a faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, led by separatist I. K. Songbijit, the group which the state formally blamed for the attack.40 However, a public spokesperson for the NDFB, with whom the state of Assam has held a formal ceasefire since 2005, released a statement on May 3, the last day of violence, saying “we ask the Assam government and its officials to stay away from such accusation without the slightest justification.” The spokesperson continued to add that “it was a political conspiracy hatched by Assam government to bring about a confrontation between the two victimized Bodo and Muslim communities.”41 Setting aside the question of secret election results became public knowledge, this episode of violence indicates how malleable the Bengali Muslim population is for propaganda. They could be targeted by the Bodo for being encroachers into tribal land or withholding support for Bodo leaders; they could also be targeted by the state at a whim. The spokesperson’s claim that the state had pitted the two most vulnerable groups against each other is not verifiable, but certainly, in line with how colonizers rule – and in Assam, the state is often viewed as a colonizer.

Appendix 4 NRC Assam: List of Permissible/ Admissible Documents

There will be two requirements for inclusion of names of any person in updated National Register of Citizens (NRC): A. The first requirement is collection of ANY ONE of the following documents of List A issued before midnight of March 24, 1971 where name of self or ancestor* appears (to prove residence in Assam up to midnight of March 24, 1971). 1951 NRC OR Electoral Roll(s) up to March 24, 1971 (midnight) OR Land & Tenancy Records OR Citizenship Certificate OR Permanent Residential Certificate OR Refugee Registration Certificate OR Passport OR LIC OR Any Govt. issued License/Certificate OR Govt. Service/ Employment Certificate OR Bank/Post Office Accounts OR Birth Certificate OR Board/University Educational Certificate OR Court Records/Processes. Further, two other documents viz (1) Circle Officer/GP Secretary Certificate in respect of married women migrating after marriage (can be of any year before or after March 24, (midnight) 1971), and (2) Ration Card issued up to the midnight of March 24, 1971 can be adduced as supporting documents. However, these two documents shall be accepted only if accompanied by any one of the documents listed above. B. The Second requirement arises if name in any of the documents of List A is not of the applicant himself/herself but that of an ancestor, namely, father or mother or grandfather or grandmother or great grandfather or great grandmother (and so on) of the applicant. In such cases, 224

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the applicant shall have to submit documents as in List B below to establish relationship with such ancestor, i.e., father or mother or grandfather or grandmother or great grandfather or great grandmother etc. whose name appears in List A. Such documents shall have to be legally acceptable document which clearly proves such relationship. Birth Certificate OR Land document OR Board/University Certificate OR Bank/LIC/Post Office records OR Circle Officer/GP Secretary Certificate in case of married women OR Electoral Roll OR Ration Card OR Any other legally acceptable document Points to remember: Providing any one of the documents of List A of ANY PERIOD up to midnight of March 24, 1971 shall be enough to prove eligibility for inclusion in updated NRC.

Appendix 5 Full Text of the Statement and Factsheet by Assam Study Circle

On July 30, 2018, a complete draft of the NRC was published in Assam. The individuals who had applied for inclusion of their names in the NRC numbered 4,007,707. Out of them, 40,07,707 applicants were unable to find their names in this draft. However, the manner in which this was reported across the country was riddled with factual inconsistency and sensationalism. A section of the media inaccurately started implying that these 4 million people in Assam were going to be ‘deported’ or become ‘stateless’. Knee-jerk reactions led to many irresponsible comments from across the political spectrum. Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal remarked, “The situation cannot be tolerated. There will be a civil war, bloodbath in the country.” Adding further fuel to the fire, Telengana MLA T. Raja Singh Lodh said that ‘immigrants’ should be ‘shot’ to make India ‘safe’. These condemnable remarks are not limited to elected representatives. An atmosphere of fear is being invoked by sections of the media. Horrendous social media trials and smear campaigns have begun with people from Assam being indiscriminately labelled as ‘xenophobic’. There have been a few vile attempts to equate the situation to a form of ‘ethnic cleansing’. And references to Nazis and fascism are being freely thrown around. Ironically enough, this dissemination of factually incorrect information has created a Goebbelsian nightmare of monstrous proportions. And in this tragedy of errors, the legitimate concerns and anxieties behind the NRC updating process have been ignored and suppressed. In the light of these propaganda, provocations, and perversions of truth, we feel it is necessary to shed light on the basic concerns behind NRC that are either being deliberately misrepresented or not being reported at all. ***

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Q) What is NRC? Why is it being updated? A) NRC is the register containing the names of Indian citizens. It was first prepared in Assam after the census of 1951. But since 1951, no data is available about the actual number of Indian citizens and foreigners in the state. There has been a constant fear of ‘illegal immigrants’ from Bangladesh outnumbering the indigenous population. The state has witnessed agitations and political violence over the issue – with 855 protesters losing their lives during the Assam Movement (1979–1985) – and a decade-long armed insurgency being triggered as a by-product. In 2014, the Supreme Court directed that NRC of 1951 be updated. This is expected to be a conclusion to the issue of illegal immigrants. The updated NRC will include the names of Indian citizens in Assam born since 1951; or citizens whose names had not been in the NRC of 1951. For inclusion of their names in the NRC, an applicant must produce documents proving their or their ancestors’ presence in Assam or in any parts of India on or before March 24, 1971. NRC authorities are under the supervision of Supreme Court, and not under Union or State governments. The updating process is not being conducted at the behest of any political parties. *** Q) What is so specific about the date March 24, 1971? A) The provisions for Indian citizenship are separate for Assam from the rest of the country. For the rest of the country, individuals who had migrated to India before July 19, 1948, are eligible for citizenship. For Assam this date is March 24, 1971. So, Assam has already accommodated twenty-three years of excess migrants in comparison to the rest of the country. This special provision is in accordance with the Assam Accord of 1985 and the Citizenship Act of 1955. The Government of India promised to detect and expel foreigners who came to Assam on or after March 25, 1971 under the Clause 5.8 of the Assam Accord. *** Q) Is the draft released on July 30, 2018, the final NRC? A) No. This is only a complete draft. THIS DRAFT IS NOT THE FINAL NRC. Applicants whose names are not in this draft can submit claims and objections from August 30, 2018 to September 28, 2018. The claims and objections against errors and omissions in this

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draft will be settled before the final NRC is submitted. Among the 4,070,070 names excluded from the complete draft, applications of 37.52 lakh have been rejected while applications of 2.48 lakh who include doubtful/disputed voters and their descendants and those whose names have been referred to foreigners’ tribunals and their descendants, have been kept on hold. *** Q) Has this draft NRC declared anyone as ‘illegal immigrants’? A) No. The detection of an individual as an ‘illegal immigrant’ can only be conducted by the Foreigners Tribunal in Assam. This is a process that requires judicial scrutiny and NRC authorities cannot conduct this. *** Q) Many have claimed that coercive actions (e.g., deportation) can be taken on the basis of this draft? Is it true? A) No. A bench of the Supreme Court has already observed that the ‘complete draft NRC’ of July 30 is only a ‘draft’. Thus, it cannot be the ‘basis for any action by any authority’. No actions against any individuals can be taken on the basis of this draft; and no action are being taken. *** Q) Do these 4 million excluded people belong to a specific linguistic or religious community? A) No. NRC authorities have not released any linguistic or religious composition of these 4 million applicants. This has been done to ensure their privacy. And no discernible patterns can be yet identified. For instance, Dhubri district has the largest percentage of Muslims in the state (79.67 percent in 2011). But only 7.49 percent of the district’s applicants have been excluded from the draft NRC, which is much lower than many other districts. The rate of exclusion is also lower (also 7.49 percent) in Hailakandi and Karimganj districts, both with a Bangla-speaking majority. The attempts by sections of media to communalize the issue in terms of conveniently convoluted binaries is not only heinous, but also may lead to further escalation of existing ethnic tensions in Assam.

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Here, one must also mention that for the last two years there has been a series of protests in Assam against the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016. The government has proposed through the Bill to grant citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jains and Parsis migrating from Pakistan and Bangladesh to India. But, both Assam Accord of 1985 and NRC makes no such religious distinctions of immigrants. Opposing the Bill, civil society in Assam has reached a consensus that no religious criteria must be used for detection of foreigners, the clauses of the Assam Accord must not be violated, and the NRC updating process must not have any religious basis. The collective will in the state has been against unchecked illegal migration, not the identity of the migrants. *** Q) Who in Assam have supported the NRC updating process? And for what reasons? A) In a rare moment of solidarity, most of the organizations in Assam across ethnic, religious, and ideological divides are in agreement for a fair and error-free NRC. Organizations representing numerous indigenous ethnicities of Assam support the process under the impression that such an arrangement will help identify illegal immigrants and settle the issue of illegal immigration once and for all. Organizations representing the religious minority of East Bengal origin have run awareness campaigns about how to correctly apply for NRC updating. For them, NRC is a matter of utmost significance, as many believe that once they are recognized through NRC as legitimate Indian citizens, their continued harassment by chauvinist forces and government authorities will cease. Ainul Haque, a resident of Nellie, a region hit by a massacre of mostly East Bengal–origin Muslims in 1983 said while speaking to media, “I have no problem with the NRC. It will prove who is illegal and who is not, and finally, living with names Ali and Ahmed won’t be a burden.” *** Q) Is the fear exhibited by the indigenous inhabitants of Assam against “illegal immigration” legitimate? A) In the last two centuries Assam has seen numerous phases of migrations, due to myriad reasons including colonial economic/ military interests, Partition, and Bangladesh Liberation War. The

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indigenous groups in the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual state have never enjoyed a comfortable majority to assuage their fears of being outnumbered. The share of speakers of Assamese (57.81 percent in 1991 to 48.38 percent in 2011) and tribal languages are decreasing rapidly vis-a-vis Bengali speakers (21.67 percent in 1991 to 28.91 percent in 2011). Safeguarding the cultural, linguistic, and political rights of the indigenous inhabitants has always been a persistent concern. Many of the smaller tribes are facing acute land alienation and displacement. And the pressure on the scant resources (that are often siphoned away) of the underdeveloped and disasterprone state is high. Thus, the fear against immigration is a product of both identity and livelihood. But if this sense of insecurity is not addressed then the specter of ‘illegal immigrants’ will continue to be exploited by chauvinist and divisive forces. Surpassing this political bottleneck is the need of the hour for a resolution. *** Q) Is the fear exhibited by 4 million applicants excluded from the draft legitimate? A) The prospect of becoming stateless (and being persecuted as a result), is frightening. Proper assistance and channels must be provided to the excluded applicants to justify their claims for citizenship and inclusion of their names in the final NRC. The state and civil society must ensure that they do not face persecution in any form. Meanwhile, the media and the public must refrain from creating an atmosphere of paranoia until the issue is resolved. However, most of this fear results from the glitches in the updating process and frequent human errors. The uncertainty over the Doubtful Voters has also not been settled. The emphasis on documentary evidence can be an enormous hindrance to the marginalized without paperwork. And no concrete framework has been suggested regarding what will happen to the non-citizens after the final NRC is submitted. One cannot remain apathetic to these concerns, and a mechanism must be worked out to address the issues in the aftermath of the final NRC. *** While one can certainly question certain procedural and ethical limitations of the NRC, rejecting the process in toto is plainly a disruption. NRC is not an all-encompassing panacea, but definitely a

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step forward (if somewhat unsavory) to address the decade-old demographic conundrum in Assam, and to break the political status quo. The patronizing and ill-informed lenses of sections of the media, politicians, and of civil society across the country towards NRC is alienating the people of Assam by denigrating their struggles and decrying their agency. It is breeding a fertile ground to be exploited by communal and divisive forces. These conflated narratives that whitewash indigeneity, and views Assam’s political milieu through reductive templates and anachronistic vocabulary is merely reiterating the clichés of ahistoricity, tokenism and peripherality projected to India’s northeast. Despite this rampant hubris, we resolutely stand behind a humane and error-free NRC; and hope for a non-coercive resolution. And we sincerely thank the people of Assam for maintaining composure amidst numerous incitements and provocations by vested interests.

Notes

Introduction 1 “Come May 16, Bangladeshi Immigrants Must Pack Up: Narendra Modi,” NDTV, September 22, 2015, www.ndtv.com/elections-news/come-may-16bangladeshi-immigrants-must-pack-up-narendra-modi-559164. 2 I use the word illegal within quotation marks to mark my stance that no human can be illegal. 3 I use Bengali to indicate the ethnicity and Bangla the language. Similarly, I use Assamese to indicate the ethnicity and Axomiya the language. 4 I use the word “infiltration” within quotes because there is no evidence to suggest that the kind of secret population movement the word invokes actually has happened but is part of vernacular vocabulary. 5 R. Jagannathan, “Dimapur Rape and Mob Lynching: Five Lessons from This Double-Crime,” Firstpost, March 7, 2015, www.firstpost.com/india/dimapurrape-and-mob-lynching-five-lessons-from-this-double-crime-2140921.html. 6 Joya Chatterji, “The Bengali Muslim: A Contradiction in Terms? An Overview of the Debate on Bengali Muslim Identity,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 16, no. 2 (1996): 16–24, https://doi .org/10.1215/1089201X-16-2-16. 7 Tazeen Murshid points out that this argument was made by census analysts Beverley, Risley, Gait, and Wise, based on “doubtful and unscientific anthropological studies of blood groups, and the nasal heights of lower caste Hindus and Muslim jail inmates. No similar comparison was made between uppercaste Hindus and respectable Muslims such as Syeds and Pathans.” Tazeen Murshid, The Sacred and the Secular: Bengal Muslim Discourses, 1871–1977 (Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1995), 30. 8 Murshid, The Sacred and the Secular, 31–33. 9 Richard Maxwel Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760. Vol. 17. Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). Rafiuddin Ahmed, The Bengal Muslims, 1871–1906: A Quest for Identity (Delhi; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 10 Richard Maxwell Eaton, “Who Are the Bengal Muslims? Conversion and Islamization in Bengal,” in Understanding the Bengal Muslims: Interpretative Essays, ed. Rafiuddin Ahmed (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 26. 232

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11 Eaton writes that in the Bengali context, the ashraf generally included those Muslims claiming descent from immigrants from beyond the Khyber, or at least from beyond Bengal, who cultivated a high Perso-Islamic civilization and its associated works of literature in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. Soon after the Turkish conquest of the delta in 1204, Muslim immigrants from points west settled in cities like Gaurm Pandua, Satgaon, Sonargaon, and Chittagong, principally as long-distance traders, administrators, soldiers, and literati. From 1342 to 1574, however, under the rule of a succession of independent Muslim dynasties, Bengal became isolated from north India, and immigration from points west was largely curtailed. In the wake of the Mughal conquest of 1574, however, Muslim immigrants from north India once again settled the delta in such numbers that it was their understanding of Islam that came to define ashraf religious sensibilities in modern Bengali history. Eaton, “Who Are the Bengal Muslims?” 26. 12 Eaton (“Who Are the Bengal Muslims?” 43–44) points out that Islam was reinterpreted depending on which social classes were deemed to be its representative. In the thirteenth century, Islam was the religion of the elite Turkish conquerors and seen as such. During the Mughal period, others were allowed into the ashraf – immigrants from the west who were administrators, soldiers, mystics, scholars, or long-distance merchants. In both instances, the ashraf maintained a distance from peasants. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, peasant cultivators of the eastern frontier became the upholders of Islam due to its demographic expansion. Among them, Islam did not involve conversion but the rise of “the cult of Allah” that merged creatively the sociocultural realities with the norms of Islam. 13 Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760. 14 Aihwa Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006). 15 Home Minster Amit Shah has repeatedly identified Bangladeshis as termites coming in from Bangladesh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Bangladesh a sibling, at a speech in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2015. In 2021, Modi visited Bangladesh to attend its fifty-years celebrations and said he participated in his first satyagraha in 1971 for Bangladesh. 16 Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception. 17 Indian Home Minister termed Bangladeshi migrants “termites” during a speech on Septermber 23, 2018. 18 Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot, Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 2. 19 Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Rizwana Shamshad, Bangladeshi Migrants in India: Foreigners, Refugees, or Infiltrators? (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017). 20 Willem van Schendel, The Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia (London: Anthem, 2005). 21 Debdatta Chowdhury, Identity and Experience at the India–Bangladesh Border: The Crisis of Belonging (New York: Routledge, 2020).

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22 Malini Sur, “Danger and Difference: Teatime at the Northeast India– Bangladesh Border,” Modern Asian Studies 53, no. 3 (May 2019): 846–73, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X18000082; Malini Sur, Jungle Passports: Fences, Mobility, and Citizenship at the Northeast India–Bangladesh Border: The Ethnography of Political Violence (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). 23 Annu Jalais, Forest of Tigers: People, Politics and Environment in the Sundarbans (London: Routledge, 2011). 24 Jason Cons, Sensitive Space: Fragmented Territory at the India–Bangladesh Border (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016). 25 Sahana Ghosh, “‘Everything Must Match’: Detection, Deception, and Migrant Illegality in the India–Bangladesh Borderlands,” American Anthropologist 121, no. 4 (December 2019): 870–83, https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13313. 26 Delwar Hussain, Boundaries Undermined: The Ruins of Progress on the Bangladesh–India Border (London: Hurst & Company, 2013), 107. 27 David E. Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia. The New Cambridge History of India, IV, 4 (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 188. 28 Romila Thapar, The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to A.D.1300 (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2015), 80. 29 Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 66. 30 There were also Muslim women who used rakhi bandhan as a way to protest communalism. In doing so, however, the women reached across the aisle, so to speak, which Rabindranath did not. He used a practice well within the tradition of his own upbringing but new to his Muslim counterparts. 31 In Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, Chatterjee writes that this renaissance had “no historical links with the revolutionary vision of a progressive bourgeoisie seeking to create a nation in its image” (14). This project, like nationalism, was derivative. Modernity, progress, science, rationality, liberalism, and capitalism could only be defined regarding the classical cases from Europe. In this nationalist moment, we see the revival of Hinduism. As Chatterjee writes, “It urged the new middle class to regenerate and reform the institutions of national culture – the national ‘religion,’ as Bankim calls it – and to do it as a political task. The spiritual conception of the nation evoked powerful sentiments in the minds of the new nationalist intelligentsia” (18). To the degree that “Eastern values” were part of the Bengal Renaissance was the valorization of spirituality. Bankim argued that while knowledge of the world and self would have to be learned from the West – since their “material culture” was superior – it is from Hindu Shastra that India would learn the knowledge of God (18). The disregard for the majority population of Bengal – Muslims – was clearly political. The anti-Muslim element comes from its elitism, too. Only the “enlightened” and the “brave” could take on the task of liberating the motherland – not the masses, not the peasants, not the lower classes – all of whom, incidentally, were Muslim. This ignorance is willful and speaks to how Bengali Muslims were made invisible politically even in the earliest phases of the nationalist movement.

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32 Kabuliwallah is about an Afghan man who befriends a young Hindu child. It is a moving story of a Hindu–Muslim friendship. Yet, given the paucity of Muslim characters in Rabrindranath’s work, it is remarkable that this is a friendship with an Afghan man, a “foreigner.” The Indian Muslim remains frustratingly invisible. “The Story of a Mussalmani” is more nuanced. Written in his final years, it may be the only work with a Bengali Muslim protagonist – Habir Khan – a complex character but one who is open hearted and broad minded, who places humanity above orthodox and violent Hindu traditions. 33 Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal 1903–1908, (New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1973). 34 Neilesh Bose, Recasting the Region: Language, Culture, and Islam in Colonial Bengal, 1st ed. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014), 5. 35 Ibid., 7. 36 Ibid., 7. 37 Ibid., 10. 38 Salimullah Khan, Ahmed Sofa Bishoye Salimullah Khan (Salimullah Khan on Ahmed Sofa), TV show “Shaat Rong,” August 22, 2012, www.youtube .com/watch?v=1VLxlM8sVKg&t=593s. 39 For a critical analysis and historiography of the bhadralok, see Tithi Bhattacharya, “In the Name of Culture,” South Asia Research 21, no. 2 (September 2001): 161–87, https://doi.org/10.1177/026272800102100202. 40 Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947; Partha Chatterjee, “Partition and the Mysterious Disappearance of Caste in Bengal,” in The Politics of Caste in West Bengal, edited by Uday Chandra, Geir Heierstad, and Kenneth Bo Nielsen, First South Asia edition. Exploring the Political in South Asia (New Delhi; London; New York: Routledge, 2016). 41 Quoted in Bose, Recasting the Region, 38. 42 Khan, Ahmed Sofa Bishoye Salimullah Khan (Salimullah Khan on Ahmed Sofa). 43 Bose, Recasting the Region, 199. 44 Ibid., 149–50. 45 Ibid., 199. 46 Ibid., 198–202. 47 Ibid., 51. 48 Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of TwoLevel Games,” International Organization 42, no. 3 (1988): 427–60, www .jstor.org/stable/2706785. 49 David B. Carter, “The Strategy of Territorial Conflict,” American Journal of Political Science 54, no. 4 (October 2010): 969–87, https://doi.org/10.1111/j .1540-5907.2010.00471.x; Paul R. Hensel and Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, “Issue Indivisibility and Territorial Claims*,” GeoJournal 64, no. 4 (December 2005): 275–85, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708–005-5803-3; Paul K. Huth, Standing Your Ground: Territorial Disputes and International Conflict (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996); Todd L. Allee and Paul K. Huth, “Legitimizing Dispute Settlement: International Legal Rulings as Domestic Political Cover,” American Political Science Review 100,

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51

52

53

54

55

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no. 2 (May 2006): 219–34, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055406062125; John A. Vasquez and Marie T. Henehan, Territory, War, and Peace (New York: Routledge, 2010); David B. Carter and H. E. Goemans, “The Temporal Dynamics of New International Borders,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 31, no. 3 (2014): 285–302. David Carter, “History as a Double-Edged Sword: Historical Boundaries and Territorial Claims,” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 16, no. 4 (November 2017): 400–21, https://doi.org/10.1177/1470594X17737949; Carter and Goemans, “The Temporal Dynamics of New International Borders”; Allee and Huth, “Legitimizing Dispute Settlement,” 6. Kenneth Neal Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1979). Waltz posits that the international structure is defined by anarchy (absence of world government), functionally identical states as unitary actors, and the distribution of military capabilities. Changes in the distribution of capabilities, then, compel states to behave aggressively. Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005); Robert Owen Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977); Joseph M. Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism,” International Organization 42, no. 3 (1988): 485–507; Kenneth A. Oye, ed., Cooperation under Anarchy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986). Keohane and Nye had another agenda – to show how international peace and stability can be maintained in the wake of declining American hegemony (the premise was that in the postwar period, hegemonic stability theory explained the absence of conventional wars). Richard N. Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest in the Modern World (New York: Basic Books, 1986). Interestingly, both of these schools of neoliberal thought sought to distance themselves from classical liberals. For neoliberal institutionalists, it was the acceptance of realist assumptions that freed neoliberalism from idealism and moralism. For neoliberals, it was the recognition that there was nothing natural about free markets. Amitav Acharya, “Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds: A New Agenda for International Studies,” International Studies Quarterly 58, no. 4 (December 2014): 647–59, https://doi.org/10.1111/isqu.12171. Also see, Amitav Acharya, “Advancing Global IR: Challenges, Contentions, and Contributions,” International Studies Review 18, no. 1 (March 2016): 4–15, https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viv016. bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1984). For some recent work highlighting the ethnocetricm and exclusions in IR, see: Amitav Acharya, Whose Ideas Matter: Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009); J. Ann Tickner, “Retelling IR’s Foundational Stories: Some Feminist and Postcolonial Perspectives,” Global Change, Peace & Security 23, no. 1 (February 2011): 5–13, https://doi.org/10.1080/14781158.2011.540090; Swati Parashar, “Feminist (In)Securities and Camp Politics,” International

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58 59

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Studies Perspectives 14, no. 4 (November 2013): 440–43, https://doi.org/10 .1111/insp.12040; Meera Sabaratnam, “Is IR Theory White? Racialised Subject-Positioning in Three Canonical Texts,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 49, no. 1 (September 2020): 3–31, https://doi.org/10 .1177/0305829820971687. Christian Davenport, “The Dark Side of International Studies: Race, Racism, and Research in International Studies,” International Studies Perspectives 9, no. 4 (November 2008): 445–49, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-3585.2008 .00348.x; Randolph B. Persaud and R. B. J. Walker, “Apertura: Race in International Relations,” Alternatives 26 (2001): 373–76; Sabaratnam, “Is IR Theory White?; Alexander Anievas, Nivi Manchanda, and Robbie Shilliam, eds., Race and Racism in International Relations: Confronting the Global Colour Line, Interventions (London; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015). Persaud and Walker, “Apertura: Race in International Relations,” 373–76. Bina D’Costa, “Learning/Unlearning in International Relations through the Politics of Margins and Silence,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 75, no. 6 (November 2, 2021): 596, https://doi.org/10.1080/ 10357718.2021.1992130. Bina D’Costa, “Marginalized Identity: New Frontiers of Research for IR?” in Feminist Methodologies for International Relations, ed. Brooke A. Ackerly, Maria Stern, and Jacqui True (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 130. Cedric J. Robinson et al., Cedric J. Robinson: On Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, and Cultures of Resistance (London: Pluto Press, 2019); Karen E. Fields and Barbara Jeanne Fields, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life (London: Verso, 2014). Ranabīra Samāddāra, The Marginal Nation: Transborder Migration from _ Bangladesh to West Bengal (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999); Shamshad, Bangladeshi Migrants in India; Claire E. Alexander, Joya Chatterji, and Annu Jalais, The Bengal Diaspora: Rethinking Muslim Migration (London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2016); Nazli Kibria, Muslims in Motion: Islam and National Identity in the Bangladeshi Diaspora (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011). Schendel, The Bengal Borderland; David N. Gellner and Willem van Schendel, eds., Borderland Lives in Northern South Asia (Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2014); Hussain, Boundaries Undermined; Cons, Sensitive Space; Chowdhury, Identity and Experience at the India–Bangladesh Border; Ghosh, “‘Everything Must Match.’” Schendel, The Bengal Borderland; Gellner and Schendel, Borderland Lives in Northern South Asia; Sunil S. Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013); Alexander et al., The Bengal Diaspora. Shamshad, Bangladeshi Migrants in India. Brooke A. Ackerly and Jacqui True, Doing Feminist Research in Political and Social Science (Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 202.

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67 Ackerly and True, Doing Feminist Research in Political and Social Science, 2. 68 Ibid. 69 Kathy Charmaz and Robert Thornberg, “The Pursuit of Quality in Grounded Theory,” Qualitative Research in Psychology, June 22, 2020, 18: 1–23, https:// doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1780357. 70 Ackerly and True, Doing Feminist Research in Political and Social Science, 20. 71 Antony Bryant, Grounded Theory and Grounded Theorizing: Pragmatism in Research Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017); Antony Bryant, The Varieties of Grounded Theory (New York: Sage Publishing, 2019); Charmaz and Thornberg, “The Pursuit of Quality in Grounded Theory”; Anselm L. Strauss and Juliet M. Corbin, eds., Grounded Theory in Practice (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997). 72 I refrain from using the word “informant” to acknowledge the hierarchy between knowledge and information and highlight their role in knowledge production as opposed to collating information. 73 It took several years before I could write down what respondents shared with me. I do not want to romanticize the simplicity and openheartedness of ordinary people, but I was overwhelmed by the openness with which they invited me into their homes and lives, even for short periods of time, treating me like someone they knew all along. Part of it may have been our shared ethno-liguistic identity, part of it may have been the fact that they never had an outsider share this identity with them, part of it may have been the generalized isolation they faced. It felt jarring to be sitting at my desk in Hamilton, New York, in a landscape vastly different from my field sites. These feelings on my part reinforced for me the idea that research ethics is not about risk to individuals at the time of interview, but about presenting them in our writing in a way that protects them as individuals and as communities in specific locations. Only then could I write. 74 Inclusion criteria: men and women within the working age population (18–65). Rationale: maintain gender parity and represent various occupations in the specific locations in Assam, West Bengal, and northern Bangladesh. 75 For a discussion on the power inequalities between researchers and respondents, see Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998). 76 Charmaz and Thornberg, “The Pursuit of Quality in Grounded Theory.” 77 Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, 4. paperback printing (New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine, 2009). 78 D’Costa, “Marginalized Identity: New Frontiers of Research for IR?” 79 I am grateful to my partner and my father who took on this stereotypical role, despite their more enlightened positions on the matter.

Chapter 1 1 I use the colonial period as an analytical starting point where contact with colonial capital had the effect of solidifying differences in undivided India through various colonial practices.

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2 For ethnographic studies that link capitalism, race, and migration, see Karen Brodkin, “Global Capitalism: What’s Race Got to Do with It?” American Ethnologist 27, no. 2 (2000): 237–56; Kitty Calavita, Immigrants at the Margins: Law, Race, and Exclusion in Southern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 3 Jalal Alamgir, India’s Open-Economy Policy: Globalism, Rivalry, Continuity, 1, Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series 14 (New York: Routledge, 2009). 4 Navine Murshid, The Politics of Refugees in South Asia: Identity, Resistance, Manipulation (New York: Routledge, 2013), 113–17. 5 Ibid. 6 Shamshad, Bangladeshi Migrants in India. 7 The Maoists did not support Bangladesh’s national liberation struggle, denouncing it as “petit bourgeois,” thanks in large measure to their alliance with China (Pakistan’s ally and “strong friend” in the region). The emergence of ties between the communist parties of East and West Bengal was nipped in the bud when the Indian state began its crackdown upon Naxals followed by Emergency Rule, whereby state laws were suspended. Instead of recognizing their similarities with Bengalis as oppressed people, Kashmiris chose to ally with Pakistan because (West) Pakistan was geographically closer, a potential liberator, and upheld the “right” Muslim vision that Bengali Muslims appeared to have little respect for. As for those in the northeast, they could not agree among themselves, let alone solidarize with Bengalis, and each “viable” ethnic group came forward with its own plan for secession. 8 Sanjib Baruah, “The Politics of Non-Citizenship in Assam,” Seminar: The Monthly Symposium Post Box, January 2022. 9 Gary J. Bass, Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2013), xvii. 10 Every few years there are films based on separatist movements that conclude with the “terrorists” being defeated and everyone reaffirming the greatness of the Indian state. 11 Ali Riaz, “Indo-Bangladesh Relationship: ‘Saath Saath’ (Together) or Too Close for Comfort?” Indian Politics and Policy 2, no. 1 (2019), https://doi.org/ 10.18278/inpp.2.1.4. 12 Staff Writer, “I Was 20–22 Years Old When I Did Satyagraha for Bangladesh’s Freedom: PM Modi,” Mint, March 26, 2021, www.livemint.com/politics/ news/i-was-20-22-years-old-when-i-did-satyagraha-for-bangladesh-s-free dom-pm-narendra-modi-11616762317251.html. Accessed January 5, 2022. 13 “Sarbananda Sonowal vs Union of India & Anr on 12 July 2005,” https://in diankanoon.org/doc/907725/?__cf_chl_f_tk=Bux_TSe5nv9fd9Ta_.Sx. bZZlQIzwk1Zrh3bz480IKQ-1642524566-0-gaNycGzNCNE. Accessed January 18, 2022. 14 Ibid. 15 TNN, “B’desh Migrants Pose Security Threat: House Panel,” Times of India, April 19, 2008, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/bdesh-migrants-pose-secur ity-threat-house-panel/articleshow/2962709.cms. Accessed January 18, 2022. 16 Scott Carney, Jason Miklian, and Kristian Hoelscher, “Fortress India,” Foreign Policy (blog), https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/20/fortress-india/. Accessed January 18, 2022.

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Notes to pages 30–35

17 “Bangladesh to Press India Not to Continue Anti-Dumping Duty on Jute Goods,” Financial Express, https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/economy/ban gladesh-to-press-india-not-to-continue-anti-dumping-duty-on-jute-goods1626489940. Accessed January 29, 2022; “India Begins Anti-Dumping Probe on Bangladesh Glass,” New Age, www.newagebd.net/article/143648/ india-begins-anti-dumping-probe-on-bangladesh-glass. Accessed January 29, 2022. 18 Tayeb Husain, “Controlling Remittance Outflow to India,” Daily Star, January 8, 2015, www.thedailystar.net/controlling-remittance-outflow-toindia-58831. Accessed November 23, 2021; “Remittance Flows Worldwide in 2017,” Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project (blog), www .pewresearch.org/global/interactives/remittance-flows-by-country/. Accessed November 29, 2021. 19 “India: Foreign Tourist Arrivals by Country of Origin 2019,” Statista, www. statista.com/statistics/207005/foreign-tourist-arrivals-in-india-by-sourcecountry/. Accessed April 11, 2021. 20 “Over 50% Medical Tourists to India Are from Bangladesh,” Sunday Guardian Live (blog), August 4, 2018, www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/ 50-medical-tourists-india-bangladesh. Accessed January 13, 2022. 21 The decision was a good one, particularly for those who lived in the enclaves and could not access services from either country. The swapping of the enclaves along with the autonomy over where to live was a progressive one. Yet, it forms part of the BJP’s mandate of ensuring the borders are sealed off to others, in this case Bangladeshis. 22 Achin Vanaik, The Painful Transition: Bourgeois Democracy in India (London: Verso, 1990). 23 “Bangladesh Cabinet Approves Revised Trade Agreement with India,” Economic Times, April 27, 2015, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/ economy/foreign-trade/bangladesh-cabinet-approves-revised-trade-agreementwith-india/articleshow/46835858.cms. 24 David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Reprinted (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2005), 2. 25 Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited (New York: W.W. Norton & Company). 26 Rodrik, The Globalization Paradox; Easterly, The Elusive Quest for Growth, (New York: Norton). 27 Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception. 28 Hussain, Boundaries Undermined. 29 Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception; Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik, A Theory of Imperialism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017); Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik, Capitalism and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2021); Lamia Karim, Microfinance and Its Discontents: Women in Debt in Bangladesh (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011); Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham, Assembling Ethnicities in Neoliberal Times: Ethnographic Fictions and Sri Lanka’s War (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2019). 30 Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception.

Notes to pages 36–39

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31 Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism; Damien Cahill, “Beyond Neoliberalism? Crisis and the Prospects for Progressive Alternatives,” New Political Science 33, no. 4 (December 2011): 479–92, https://doi.org/10.1080/ 07393148.2011.619820; Laina Y. Bay-Cheng, “Living in Metaphors, Trapped in a Matrix: The Ramifications of Neoliberal Ideology for Young Women’s Sexuality,” Sex Roles 73, no. 7–8 (October 2015): 332–39, https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11199–015-0541-6. 32 Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception; Karim, Microfinance and Its Discontents. 33 One can liken this approach to Waltz’s discussion of the distribution of capabilities in his 1979 book Theories of International Politics. But while Waltz was interested in state behavior, I am interested in how communities with cross-border ethnic ties are perceived, especially in a context where the rhetoric of “illegal immigrants” is pervasive. 34 Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, 160. 35 Omar K. M. R. Bashar and Habibullah Khan, “Liberalization and Growth: An Econometric Study of Bangladesh,” SSRN Electronic Journal, February 1, 2007, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1601609. 36 Karim, Microfinance and Its Discontents. 37 Bashar and Khan, “Liberalization and Growth”; David Hulme and Michael Edwards, eds., NGOs, States and Donors: Too Close for Comfort? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 38 Arunabha Ghosh, “Pathways through Financial Crisis: India,” Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations 12, no. 4 (August 3, 2006): 413–29, https://doi.org/10.1163/19426720-01204006. 39 Ashok Kotwal, Bharat Ramaswami, and Wilima Wadhwa, “Economic Liberalization and Indian Economic Growth: What’s the Evidence?” Journal of Economic Literature 49, no. 4 (December 1, 2011): 1152–99, https://doi.org/ 10.1257/jel.49.4.1152. 40 Salil Tripathi, “Bangladesh’s Long Journey from ‘Basket Case’ to Rising Star,” Foreign Policy (blog), April 10, 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/ 04/10/bangladesh-independence-anniversary-basket-case-rising-star/. 41 Shantanu Bhagwat, “The Nonsense about the ‘Hindu Rate of Growth’…,” Times of India Blog, February 8, 2013, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ blogs/reclaiming-india/the-nonsense-about-the-hindu-rate-of-growth/. 42 Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism. 43 Ibid., 20–21. 44 Akhil Gupta, Red Tape: Bureaucracy, Structural Violence, and Poverty in India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012); Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, 71. 45 Neil Davidson, Patricia McCafferty, and David Miller, eds., Neoliberal Scotland: Class and Society in a Stateless Nation (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010); Colin Crouch, “Privatised Keynesianism: An Unacknowledged Policy Regime,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 11, no. 3 (August 2009): 382–99, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467856X.2009.00377.x; Cahill, “Beyond Neoliberalism?” 46 Aihwa Ong, “Neoliberalism as a Mobile Technology,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 32, no. 1 (2007): 3–8, https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1475-5661.2007.00234.x.

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Notes to pages 40–42

47 Naomi Hossain, The Aid Lab: Understanding Bangladesh’s Unexpected Success (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 48 Karim, Microfinance and Its Discontents; Nadine Shaanta Murshid and Navine Murshid, “Intergenerational Transmission of Marital Violence: Results from a Nationally Representative Sample of Men,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 33, no. 2 (January 2018): 211–27, https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0886260515604413. 49 Dina M. Siddiqi, “Do Bangladeshi Factory Workers Need Saving? Sisterhood in the Post-Sweatshop Era,” Feminist Review 91, no. 1 (February 2009): 154–74, https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2008.55. 50 Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah and Nadine S. Murshid, “‘Techno-Market Fix’? Decoding Wealth through Mobile Money in the Global South,” Geoforum 106 (November 2019): 253–62, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum .2019.08.012. 51 It would be a mistake to think of this dynamic as one that pertains only to the working class. Middle- and upper-middle-class Bangladeshis harbor similar ideas about going abroad to earn a better living. There is a widespread idea that Bangladesh offers limited opportunities for upward mobility, irrespective of class position. We can see its manifestation in the high number of students who apply to foreign colleges to pursue their education, the high rates of application to Canada and Australia that offer skill-based paths to citizenship, as well as applications for the visa lottery to migrate to the USA. 52 Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done about It (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 53 Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA), www.bepza.gov .bd/. 54 Firoze Alam’s interview of Taslima Akhter, Canada Bangladesh Social Justice Action Research Alliance. January 19, 2022. “Facebook,” www.facebook .com/firoze.page/videos/1328657237582240. Accessed January 19, 2022. 55 “Overseas Employment and Remittances From 1976–2021 (Up to December)” Government of Bangladesh, Bureau of Manpower, Employment, and Training, www.old.bmet.gov.bd/BMET/stattisticalDataAction. Accessed January 26, 2022. 56 Ibid. 57 Bangladesh Bank Economic Data. Available online: www.bb.org.bd/econ data/bop/bop_remittance.php. Accessed January 2021. 58 Jason Beaubien, “They Pump $15 Billion a Year Into Bangladesh’s Economy – But At What Cost?,” NPR, June 3, 2019, www.npr.org/ sections/goatsandsoda/2019/06/03/722085193/they-pump-15-billion-a-yearinto-bangladeshs-economy-but-at-what-cost. Accessed January 13, 2022. 59 Anu Muhammad, “Bangladesh – A Model of Neoliberalism: The Case of Microfinance and NGOs,” Monthly Review (blog), March 21, 2015, https:// monthlyreview.org/author/anumuhammad/. 60 Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013). 61 Arundhati Roy makes a more general argument along these lines in Capitalism: A Ghost Story (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014).

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62 Karim, Microfinance and Its Discontents. 63 Ibid. 64 Quoted in Lamia Karim, “Demystifying Micro-Credit the Grameen Bank, NGOs, and Neoliberalism in Bangladesh,” Cultural Dynamics 20, no. 1 (2008): 14. 65 Muhammad, “Bangladesh – A Model of Neoliberalism.” 66 Kotwal et al., “Economic Liberalization and Indian Economic Growth,” 1167. 67 Jagdish N. Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, Why Growth Matters: How Economic Growth in India Reduced Poverty and the Lessons for Other Developing Countries (New York: PublicAffairs, 2014), 91. 68 Jalal Alamgir, India’s Open-Economy Policy: Globalism, Rivalry, Continuity, 1. publ, Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series 14 (New York: Routledge, 2009), 122. 69 Alamgir, India’s Open-Economy Policy, xi. 70 Atul Kohli, Poverty amid Plenty in the New India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 7. 71 Aaron Amaral and Ashley Smith, “Authoritarianism and Resistance in India (Part 2),” Tempest (blog), February 1, 2021, www.tempestmag.org/2021/01/ authoritarianism-and-resistance-in-india-2/. 72 Shapan Adnan, Land Grabs, Primitive Accumulation, and Resistance in Neoliberal India, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), https://doi .org/10.1093/oso/9780198792444.003.0004. 73 Aaron Amaral and Ashley Smith, “Authoritarianism and Resistance in India (Part 1),” Tempest (blog), January 14, 2021, www.tempestmag.org/2021/01/ authoritarianism-and-resistance-in-india/. 74 Kohli, Poverty amid Plenty in the New India, 46. 75 Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism. 76 For ADR’s research on corporate donations, see “Association for Democratic Reforms | Improving and Strengthening Democracy in India,” https://adrindia .org/. 77 Shapan Adnan, “Alienation in Neoliberal India and Bangladesh: Diversity of Mechanisms and Theoretical Implications,” South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 13 (April 22, 2016), https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.4130; Adnan, Land Grabs, Primitive Accumulation, and Resistance in Neoliberal India. 78 Michael Levien, From Primitive Accumulation to Regimes of Dispossession, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/ 9780198792444.003.0003. 79 Kohli, Poverty amid Plenty in the New India, 59. 80 Narendra Modi, “Indian Prime Minister Claims Genetic Science Existed in Ancient Times,” Guardian, October 24, 2018, www.theguardian.com/world/ 2014/oct/28/indian-prime-minister-genetic-science-existed-ancient-times. 81 The question of illegal Bangladeshis in India is politically charged; various actors in Indian politics claim there are between 20,000 and two million illegal Bangladeshis in India. There is hardly any discussion of such issues in Bangladesh, since officially there are no illegal Bangladeshis there. For the purposes of my work, it is unimportant whether there is “rampant infiltration”; what is important is that such rhetoric is popular.

244

Notes to pages 47–53

82 There are student groups organized around demanding visa-free travel across the world. 83 Bhagwati and Panagariya, Why Growth Matters. 84 Ibid. 85 Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, 160. 86 Malini Sur, Jungle Passports: Fences, Mobility, and Citizenship at the Northeast India-Bangladesh Border (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021), 85. 87 Barbara Harriss-White, India Working: Essays on Society and Economy (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 4. 88 Pranab Bardhan, “A Global Agenda for Labour,” London School of Economics (blog), April 6, 2018, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2018/ 04/06/a-global-agenda-for-labour/. 89 Martha Alter Chen and Françoise J. Carré, The Informal Economy Revisited: Examining the Past, Envisioning the Future (London: Routledge, 2020). 90 Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–79. Translated by Graham Burchell. Lectures at the Collège de France (New York: Picador). 91 Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000); Cedric J. Robinson, On Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, and Cultures of Resistance (London: Pluto Press, 2019); Robin D. G. Kelley, “What Did Cedric Robinson Mean by Racial Capitalism?,” Boston Review, January 12, 2017, http://bostonreview.net/race/robin-d-g-kelley-what-did-cedric-robinsonmean-racial-capitalism; Karen E. Fields and Barbara Jeanne Fields, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life (London: Verso, 2014); Barbara Jeanne Fields, “Ideology and Race in American History,” in Region, Race, and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward, ed. J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 143–77; Achille Mbembe and Steve Corcoran, Necropolitics, Theory in Forms (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019). 92 David R. Roediger, Class, Race, and Marxism (London: Verso, 2017); Charles Post, “Comments on Roediger’s Class, Race and Marxism,” Salvage, October 25, 2017; Melvin M. Leiman, The Political Economy of Racism (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2010); Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2016). 93 Post, “Comments on Roediger’s Class, Race and Marxism.” 94 Fields and Fields, Racecraft, 16. 95 For an overview of how the term racialization has been used in the social sciences, see Bianca Gonzalez-Sobrino and Devon R. Goss, “Exploring the Mechanisms of Racialization beyond the Black–White Binary,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 42, no. 4 (March 12, 2019): 505–10, https://doi.org/10.1080/ 01419870.2018.1444781. 96 Perera-Rajasingham, Assembling Ethnicities in Neoliberal Times; Mbembe and Corcoran, Necropolitics. 97 Rotter, Empires of the Senses. 98 Rotter. In the present day, the blandness of British food appears comical to most South Asians. South Asians also celebrate the various “sounds” –

Notes to pages 53–57

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whether the thump of the dheki (rice breaker) as it separates the husk from rice or the blaring horns at busy intersections. While there is a certain romanticizing of quiet conversations over tea among the middle class, conversations generally are heated and loud. So, even though the British tried to impose certain sensibilities pertaining to the senses, there has been resistance to those ideas – except in the context of odor! 99 Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking of the British India (London: Little, Brown, 1990). 100 Andrew Jon Rotter, Empires of the Senses: Bodily Encounters in Imperial India and the Philippines (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019); Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge. 101 Quoted in James, Raj, 20. 102 James, Raj. 103 Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge; James, Raj. 104 Iftekhar Iqbal, The Bengal Delta: Ecology, State and Social Change, 1840–1943 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), http://site.ebrary.com/id/ 10445708; Neilesh Bose, Recasting the Region: Language, Culture, and Islam in Colonial Bengal, 1st ed. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014); Sugata Bose, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal since 1770, 1st ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1993), https://doi.org/10.1017/ CHOL9780521266949; Sugata Bose, Agrarian Bengal: Economy, Social Structure and Politics, 1919–1947 (London: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 105 Ali Riaz, “State, Class and Military Rule in Bangladesh: 1972–1982” (Dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1993), 60. 106 Riaz, “State, Class and Military Rule in Bangladesh: 1972–1982.” 107 Tazeen M. Murshid, The Sacred and the Secular: Bengal Muslim Discourses, 1871–1977 (Calcutta; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). 108 James, Raj. 109 Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India, Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 8. 110 Ibid., 8. 111 Ibid., 4. 112 Ibid. 113 Ibid., 5. 114 Ajay Verghese, The Colonial Origins of Ethnic Violence in India, Studies of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016). 115 Romila Thapar, “The Theory of Aryan Race and India: History and Politics,” Social Scientist 24, no. 1/3 (January 1996): 3, https://doi.org/10 .2307/3520116. 116 Romila Thapar, The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to A.D.1300 (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2015), 79. 117 Dorothy Matilda Figueira, Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity, SUNY Series, the Margins of Literature (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), viii.

246 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

127 128 129 130 131 132

Notes to pages 57–69 Figueira, Aryans, Jews, Brahmins, viii. Ibid., ix. Quoted in Thapar, “The Theory of Aryan Race and India.” Sunil Gangopadhyaya, Āmī ki Bāṅāli? (Kalakātā: Patra Bhāratī, 2011). Ishita Dey, Ranabira Samaddara, and Suhit K. Sen, Beyond Kolkata: Rajarhat and the Dystopia of Urban Imagination (New York and London: Routledge, 2016). Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? Third World Books (London, Totowa, NJ: Zed Books for the United Nations University ; US distributor, Biblio Distribution Center, 1986). Kaushik Deka February 27 et al., “Assam: Bridge to the Future,” India Today, www.indiatoday.in/magazine/state-of-the-states/story/20210308-abridge-to-the-future-1773691-2021-02-27. Accessed April 11, 2021. Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). Binti Singh, “Cultural Resurgence, Place Making and Urbanism,” Indian Anthropologist 48, no. 2 (2018): 7–20, https://doi.org/10.2307/26757762; A. Appadurai, “Spectral Housing and Urban Cleansing: Notes on Millennial Mumbai,” Public Culture 12, no. 3 (October 1, 2000): 627–51, https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-12-3-627; Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, trans. Edwards A. Shils and Henry A. Finch (New York: Free Press, 1949), 520. The Government of Bangladesh terms Bangladeshi migrants working abroad, particularly in the Middle East, as “manpower export.” Kibria, Muslims in Motion, 17. Suman Nath, People-Party-Policy Interplay in India: Micro-Dynamics of Everyday Politics in Contemporary West Bengal, c. 2008–2016, 1. South Asia edition 2020 (London and New York: Routledge, 2020). This is said rhetorically in South Asia. I do not know if there were actually a hundred separatist groups concurrently at any time! David R. Roediger and Elizabeth D. Esch, Production of Difference: Race and the Management of Labor in U.S. History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay and G. M. Young, Speeches: With His Minute on Indian Education, 1st AMS ed. (New York: AMS Press, 1979).

Chapter 2 1 Reece Jones, “Agents of Exception: Border Security and the Marginalization of Muslims in India,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 27, no. 5 (October 2009): 879–97, 884, https://doi.org/10.1068/d10108. 2 Duncan McDuie-Ra, “The India–Bangladesh Border Fence: Narratives and Political Possibilities,” Journal of Borderlands Studies 29, no. 1 (January 2, 2014): 81–94, 82, https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2014.892694. 3 Reece Jones, Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move (London; New York: Verso, 2017).

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4 Sushanta Talukdar, “Protect Border with Bangladesh, says Vajpayee.” The Hindu, April 7, 2004, www.thehindu.com/2004/04/07/stories/ 2004040705660100.htm. 5 Official website of the Bangladesh Land Port Authority, Ministry of Shipping, Government of Bangladesh, www.bsbk.gov.bd/. See Appendix 1 for a list of land ports. 6 Chowdhury, Identity and Experience at the India–Bangladesh Border. 7 Rajeev Tiyagi, “Border Games,” Hindu Business Line, October 11, 2019, www .thehindubusinessline.com/blink/shoot/border-games-between-india-bangla desh/article29654862.ece; Azad, “Bangladesh Land Port Authority”; Nikita Singla and Sanjay Kathuria, “Connecting Communities through India and Bangladesh’s Cross-Border Markets,” World Bank Blogs, September 24, 2018, https://blogs.worldbank.org/endpovertyinsouthasia/connecting-com munities-through-india-and-bangladeshs-cross-border-markets. 8 Justin Akers Chacón and Mike Davis, No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2018). That their work focuses on the US-Mexico border speaks to a generalized logic of borders in the neoliberal period. 9 Pooja Mehta, “Demonetization Ka Side Effect: Illegal Opium Trade in West Bengal’s Malda Goes up in Smoke,” DNA India, November 22, 2016, www .dnaindia.com/india/report-demonetization-ka-side-effect-illegal-opiumtrade-in-west-bengal-s-malda-goes-up-in-smoke-2276000; Soudhriti Bhabani, “India’s Own Afghanistan in West Bengal, Where Heroin Is Villain,” India Today, January 11, 2016, www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/ story/indias-own-afghanistan-in-west-bengal-where-heroin-is-villain303035-2016-01-10. 10 “India: Vigilante ‘Cow Protection’ Groups Attack Minorities,” Human Rights Watch, February 18, 2019, www.hrw.org/news/2019/02/19/india-vigilantecow-protection-groups-attack-minorities. 11 Sur, Jungle Passports: Fences, Mobility, and Citizenship at the Northeast India– Bangladesh Border, 84. 12 Ibid., 84–85. 13 Akers Chacón and Davis, No One Is Illegal, 198. 14 Anzaldúa, Borderlands. 15 “First Smart Fence Operationalised along Bangla Border in Assam: BSF DG,” Outlook India, April 11, 2018, www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/first-smartfence-operationalised-along-bangla-border-in-assam-bsf-dg/1286888. 16 Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, March 4, 2019. 17 Samir Kumar Das, “Border Economy and the Production of Collective Subjects in India’s East and the Northeast,” India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs 70, no. 4 (December 2014): 299–311, https://doi.org/10 .1177/0974928414545929. 18 Schendel, The Bengal Borderland. 19 Swagato Sarkar, “The Illicit Economy of Power: Smuggling, Trafficking and the Securitization of the Indo–Bangladesh Borderland,” Dialectical Anthropology 41, no. 2 (June 2017): 185–99, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624–016-9444-3.

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Notes to pages 82–105

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Sarkar, “The Illicit Economy of Power,” 190. Ibid. Ibid. Work related to cultivation. Sur, “Danger and Difference.” Anzaldúa, Borderlands. Akers Chacón and Davis, No One Is Illegal, 171. A. A. Choudry and Mondli Hlatshwayo, eds., Just Work? Migrant Workers’ Struggles Today (London: Pluto Press, 2016), 3. 28 Akers Chacón and Davis, No One Is Illegal. 29 Ibid., 193.

Chapter 3 1 Given that Assam and Bengal were contiguous regions, there is a longer history of cross-migration, according to Jayeeta Sharama, who points out that “priests, mendicants, artisans, and occasionally Bengal traders” went to Assam from Bengal during the rule of Ahom Kings. Jayeeta Sharama, Empire’s Garden: Assam and the Making of India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 96–97. 2 Willem Van Schendel, “Stateless in South Asia: The Making of the India– Bangladesh Enclaves,” The Journal of Asian Studies, 61, no. 1 (February 2002): 115–47; M. Tajuddin, “The Stateless People in Bangladesh,” in State Development and Political Culture: Bangladesh and India, ed. B. De and R. Samaddar (New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 1997), 203–22; Murshid, The Politics of Refugees in South Asia, 82. 3 Per the 2011 census, of Assam’s total population of 26.6 million, 8.2 million were Muslim, a third of whom were Assamese, and two-thirds were Bengali. 4 Sanjib Baruah, “The Politics of Non-Citizenship in Assam,” Seminar: The Monthly Symposium Post Box, January 2022. 5 The interviews were conducted in public places such as shopping areas and universities with a view to equal representation on the basis of gender, class position, and age. See the methodogy section in the introductory chapter for details. 6 Various outlets, including the Assam portal administered by the Assamese government, report that (1) Bengali Muslims at present identify as Assamese speaking, thus inflating the size of the Axomiya-speaking population, and (2) tribal groups traditionally identified as Assamese speaking but in recent years do not, thereby explaining why the Assamese-speaking population is increasing more slowly. Such trends are important to explain population shifts, but there seems to be no empirical evidence to back up such conjectures beyond anecdotal evidence and perceptions. (See the Assam Government web portal: http://online.assam.gov.in/web/guest%20/people?webContentId=173732). 7 I use the data from 2001 instead of 2011 because the 2011 did not have data on languages spoken or mother languages.

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8 Navine Murshid. “Assam and the Foreigner Within: Illegal Bangladeshis or Bengali Muslims?” Asian Survey 56, no. 3 (June 1, 2016): 581–604, https:// doi.org/10.1525/as.2016.56.3.581. 9 “Violence-Torn Assam State Remains Tense,” BBC News, July 26, 2012, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-18993833. 10 “Riots and the Bogey of Bangladeshis,” The Hindu (India), August 8, 2012, www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/riots-the-bogey-of-bangla deshis/article3739896.ece. Accessed July 29, 2014. 11 One might argue that Hindu nationalism thrives on these lines of conflict, as it tries to create a false impression of unity among Bodo Hindus and Hindus in the rest of the country, but Bodo demands for a separate state, if not a separate nation, sit uneasily alongside the aggressive Indian nationalism of the right-wing Hindutva variety. The yoking of Bodo to (Indian) Hindu identity ignores the alienation that India’s policy of “benign neglect” created among the Bodos. While expressing fear of “belligerent Muslims,” the exodus also testified to Assamese mistrust of the Indian state’s protection, as rumors proved capable of triggering an ethnic exodus from India’s reputedly “cosmopolitan” and multiethnic urban spaces. 12 To get a sense of the scale of violence and its pervasiveness, I used newspaper sources to identify violent episodes and riots involving Bengali Muslims in Assam using the criteria of at least 500 deaths or 50,000 displaced, half of what counts as civil war as per James Fearon and David Laitin’s 2003 article “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War” (American Political Science Review 97, no. 01 (February 2003): 75–90). The justification for using displacement as a criterion comes from observing of “modern” communal violence in India: in modern times, the aggressor’s aim is not to kill but to displace people and render them homeless; it serves the same purpose of undermining and weakening the opponent without blood on anyone’s hands. 13 Suraj Gogoi and Abhinav P. Borbora, “Assam’s NRC Consensus: Lack of Public Disorder after Draft List Didn’t Mean Absence of Violence,” Scroll.in, December 23, 2019, https://scroll.in/article/944214/inside-the-nrc-consen sus-the-lack-of-public-disorder-does-not-mean-the-absence-of-violence. 14 Sanjib Baruah, India against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), p. 17. 15 Ibid., 29. 16 Ibid., 25. 17 Ibid., 35. 18 Arupjyoti Saikia, “Forest Land and Peasant Struggles in Assam, 2002–2007,” Journal of Peasant Studies 35, no. 1 (January 2008): 39–59, https://doi.org/10 .1080/03066150801983402. 19 Sanjib Baruah, In the Name of the Nation: India and Its Northeast (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020), 33. 20 Ibid., 34. 21 Ibid. 22 Amalendu Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj: Freedom Struggle and Electoral Politics in Assam 1826–1947 (New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1977).

250

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23 Bodhisattva Kar, “When Was the Postcolonial? A History of Policing Impossible Lines,” in Beyond Counterinsurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast, ed. Sanjib Baruah (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009), 52. 24 Sanjib Baruah, Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of Northeast India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005). 25 Baruah, In the Name of the Nation: India and Its Northeast. 26 Yasmin Saikia, “Religion, Nostalgia, and Memory: Making an Ancient and Recent Tai-Ahom Identity in Assam and Thailand,” Journal of Asian Studies 65 (2006): 41. 27 At the institutional level, by giving the autonomous district councils executive and legislative authority over their districts in most though not all matters, the Sixth Schedule created an added layer of bureaucracy that took over additional functions such as the appointment of village chiefs. According to Chaube, Shibani Kinkar, Hill Politics in Northeast India, 3rd ed. (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2012), the district councils created a midlevel bureaucracy that favored the elite as opposed to “people’s political aspirations” and allowed for vested interests, the mining industry in particular, to dictate policies pertaining to economic development. 28 Saikia, “Forest Land and Peasant Struggles in Assam, 2002–2007,” 319. 29 Arupjyoti Saikia, A Century of Protests: Peasant Politics in Assam Since 1900 (New York: Routledge, 2015). 30 “Assam Riots: Preventable but Not Prevented,” Asian Centre for Human Rights, September 2012. 31 Saikia, A Century of Protests; Saikia, “Forest Land and Peasant Struggles.” 32 Suvir Kaul, “Indian Empire (and the Case of Kashmir),” Economic and Political Weekly 46 (2011): 73. 33 At this point, Assam also included Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, and Mizoram. 34 Agreement between India and Pakistan on Minorities, “Liaquat-Nehru Pact,” signed April 8, 1950, New Delhi. 35 Saikia, A Century of Protests, 304. 36 Ibid., 305. 37 Foreigners (Tribunal) Order, 1964, Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, September 23, 1964, New Delhi, GSR 1401. 38 Rizwana Shamshad, Bangladeshi Migrants in India: Foreigners, Refugees, or Infiltrators? 1st ed. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017). 39 Myron Weiner, “The Political Demography of Assam’s Anti-Immigrant Movement,” Population and Development Review 9 (1983): 280. 40 Ryots are tenants and sharecroppers who worked for absentee landlords for years without rights to the land. 41 Saikia, A Century of Protests, 308. 42 Ibid., 309. 43 Ibid., 320. 44 Sanjib Baruah, “Immigration, Ethnic Conflict, and Political Turmoil–Assam, 1979–1985,” Asian Survey 26 (1986): 1192. 45 In terms of outcomes, one can agree that there is little difference – people had come in before and after 1971 and the locals wanted to deport all of them. But

Notes to pages 118–122

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57 58

59

60 61 62

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qualitatively, the implications are more complex. Should a new state be responsible for the former state’s “liabilities”? If not, they would be rendered stateless. Further, tribunals were set up in India itself; that illegal immigrants were not detected and deported was the failure not of Pakistan or Bangladesh but of the tribunals and of border patrol. In such circumstances, what option did the Indian state have but to use 1971 (and not 1961) as the cutoff date, especially when strategic interests were involved? The least that India could do for a new state that it helped gain independence was to try to promote good relations and cultivate an ally. Bangladeshi self-determination could mean that India no longer had to worry about the possibility of two-front wars; a crucial way to ensure that would be by not imposing arbitrary and unfair migration rules. Baruah, “Immigration, Ethnic Conflict, and Political Turmoil.” Baruah, Durable Disorder, 131. “83 Polls Were a Mistake,” Assam Tribune, February 19, 2008, http://web. archive.org/web/20120207000801/www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details. asp?id=feb1908/at02. Saikia, A Century of Protests, 325. Gogoi and Borbora, “Assam’s NRC Consensus.” Sanjoy Hazarika, Strangers No More: New Narratives from India’s Northeast, (New Delhi: Aleph Book Company, 2018). Baruah, In the Name of the Nation, 76. Ibid. Anti-migrant sentiments existed well before Indian independence. I suggest that, in the contemporary period, they take a different form by singling out the Bangladeshi. Non-resident Indian (NRIs) have particular cachet in India as wealthy foreigners. BJP’s support from NRIs in the US, for example, is well known. For a discussion of how the NRI phenomenon fits into Indian foreign policy, see Itty Abraham, How India Became Territorial: Foreign Policy, Diaspora, Geopolitics (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018). Baruah, In the Name of the Nation, 45. Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, North East India, https:// mdoner.gov.in/about-ministry. Accessed January 3, 2021. Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” The American Economic Review 91, no. 5 (2001): 1369–401. www.jstor.org/ stable/2677930. “Strategy for Assam’s Development,” Assam Development Report (2002), Union Planning Commission and Government of Assam with the assistance of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), New Delhi, India. https://niti.gov.in/planningcommission.gov.in/docs/plans/state plan/sdr_assam/sdr_assch1.pdf. “Strategy for Assam’s Development.” Hazarika, Strangers No More. “Employment in Agriculture (% of Total Employment) (Modeled ILO Estimate) – India | Data,” https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR .EMPL.ZS?locations=IN. Accessed April 11, 2021.

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Notes to pages 122–128

63 Sandhya Goswami, “Assam: A Fractured Verdict,” Economic and Political Weekly 44, no. 39 (September 26, 2009): 159–63, https://doi.org/10.2307/25663622. 64 “Strategy for Assam’s Development.” 65 M. P. Bezbaruah, “Land Tenure System in North East India: A Constraint for Bank Financing,” Dialogue Quarterly 8, no. 3 (2007): 138–45. 66 Jayeeta Sharma, Empire’s Garden: Assam and the Making of India, Radical Perspectives (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011); Jayeeta Sharma, “‘Lazy’ Natives, Coolie Labour, and the Assam Tea Industry,” Modern Asian Studies 43, no. 6 (2009): 1287–324, https://doi.org/10.2307/40285014. 67 Dolly Kikon, Living with Oil and Coal: Resource Politics and Militarization in Northeast India (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019). 68 Hazarika, Strangers No More, 344. 69 Saikia, A Century of Protests, 322. 70 Ibid., 323. 71 Ibid. 72 Sassen, The Global City; Erich Kolig, Vivienne S. M. Angeles, and Sam Wong, eds., Identity in Crossroad Civilisations: Ethnicity, Nationalism and Globalism in Asia (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009), 9–12; Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (London: Verso, 2006). 73 For analyses on migrants from the Northeast to mainland India, see Duncan McDuie-Ra, Northeast Migrants in Delhi: Race, Refuge and Retail (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012); Dolly Kikon and Bengt G. Karlsson, Leaving the Land: Indigenous Migration and Affective Labour in India, 1st ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2019). 74 It is worth pointing out that Papon is not the first Assamese musician to make it outside Assam. Bhupen Hazarika, for example, is a revered “Indian” artist despite his Assamese roots. 75 Hazarika, Strangers No More, 344. 76 Arjun Appadurai, “Deep Democracy: Urban Governmentality and the Horizon of Politics,” Environment and Urbanization 13, no. 2 (2001): 23–43, https://doi.org/10.1177/095624780101300203; Davis, Planet of Slums; Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism; Sassen, The Global City; Arjun Appadurai, Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006). 77 Kalyan K. Sanyal, Rethinking Capitalist Development: Primitive Accumulation, Governmentality and Post-Colonial Capitalism (London: Routledge, 2007). 78 Hazarika, Strangers No More, 167. 79 Baruah, In the Name of the Nation, 133. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid., 134. 82 Concretely, the China–India War of 1962 confirmed the feeling that they mattered little to policymakers in New Delhi – which made ULFA’s political goals attractive to many. Buddheshwar Gogoi, former chairman of the ULFA, offered this perspective on the war in a conversation with Yasmin Saikia: “In 1962, during the ‘Chinese aggression,’ as the attack is known, Indian authorities abandoned the local people and recommended that they flee their villages for protection. Paradoxically, while the Indian government did

Notes to pages 128–134

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nothing to safeguard the people, the Chinese invaders took stock of the abandoned rice fields and harvested the grain and even stored it in the barns. When the villagers returned after the invading army withdrew, they found to their utter surprise that the Chinese, their so-called enemies, had saved them from starvation and destitution that year” (Saikia, “Religion, Nostalgia, and Memory,” 42). 83 Baruah, In the Name of the Nation. 84 Sanjay Barbora, “Remaking Dibrugarh in Contemporary Assam,” The Newsletter (International Institute for Asian Studies) 77 (Summer 2017): 40. 85 Sanjay Barbora, “Rethinking India’s Counter-insurgency Campaign in North-East,” Economic and Political Weekly 41, no. 35 (2006): 3805–12. 86 In most instances, President’s Rule suspends the state government, and the state is governed by the central government. 87 Baruah, In the Name of the Nation, 134. 88 Sudhir Jacob George, “The Bodo Movement in Assam: Unrest to Accord,” Asian Survey 34 (1994): 881–82. 89 Hiren Gohain, “Bodo Stir in Perspective,” Economic and Political Weekly 24, no. 25) (1989): 1377–79. 90 George, “The Bodo Movement,” 878. Unlike the AASU, the ABSU saw the AGP government dominance of Assam following the 1985 elections as a threat to its ultimate aim of autonomous Bodoland, fearing that the AASU and AGP would settle with what they had already achieved. In 1987, the Bodo Movement arose. 91 “Memorandum of Settlement (Bodo Accord),” Peace Accords Matrix, http://peaceaccords.nd.edu/wp-content/accords/Bodo_Accord_-_1993.pdf. Accessed June 22, 2014. 92 “Assam: There Is a Method in Madness,” Realpolitik 8 (2013). 93 As part of the renegotiation, 2,641 military cadres of the BLT surrendered, and the state granted limited authority over specific villages organized into four contiguous districts north of the Brahmaputra to the newly reformed Bodo Territorial Council. “Bodo Liberation Tiger Force,” South Asian Terrorism Portal, www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/assam/ter rorist_outfits/bltf.htm. Accessed June 27, 2014. 94 Barbora, “Remaking Dibrugarh in Contemporary Assam,” 40. 95 Ibid. 96 Baruah, In the Name of the Nation. 97 Dixita Deka, “Living without Closure: Memories of Counter-Insurgency and Secret Killings in Assam,” Asian Ethnicity (July 11, 2019): 1–19, https:// doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2019.1639492. 98 Aruni Kashyap, The House with a Thousand Stories (New York: Penguin Books, 2013), 11. 99 Barbora, “Remaking Dibrugarh in Contemporary Assam,” 40. 100 Baruah, In the Name of the Nation. 101 “President Xi Jinping Delivers Important Speech and Proposes to Build a Silk Road Economic Belt with Central Asian Countries,” www.fmprc.gov. cn/mfa_eng/topics_665678/xjpfwzysiesgjtfhshzzfh_665686/t1076334.shtml. Accessed October 29, 2020.

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102 Relatedly, there are also river diversion projects by India that would disrupt major waterways and have devastating effects to create “connectivity” through the Look East policy. Again, the interest is in finding business-safe routes. 103 The NRC in Assam was effectively a test case. Although 1.9 million people were left out of the final list, the government assured them that they would have ample time to appeal. But the problem was ultimately one of class. Journalist Ravish Kumar has estimated that it would cost somewhere between Rs. 20,000 to several lakhs (US$1equals Rs. 75 approximately) in fees to appeal, given the legal support that is required, not counting bribes. Detention camps were set up all across Assam and elsewhere (like in Bangalore) with the expectation that many “illegals” would be caught, ironically often using the very people these jails would be used to detain because they are among the poorest people in need of jobs. 104 The first NRC was conducted in 1951, and it was a list of people who lived in India as of January 26, 1950; were born in India; had parents who were born in India; or had been living in India for at least five years before the January 26, 1950, cutoff. Since then, no NRCs have been conducted, although the Assam Accord of 1985 indicated one should be implemented to ensure Bangladeshis were not living in Assam illegally. In 2003, the Citizenship Act said an NRC would be conducted for the entire country. 105 Angshuman Sarma and Bonojit Hussain, “Updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and What It Means,” NewsClick, June 30, 2018, www.newsclick.in/updating-national-register-citizens-nrc-assam-and-whatit-means. 106 “Political Consensus Can Only Guarantee Peace and Normalcy in Assam, Says Hiren Gohain,” The Indian Express (blog), August 30, 2018, https:// indianexpress.com/article/north-east-india/assam/assam-nrc-hiren-gohain5333286/. 107 Sarma and Hussain, “Updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and What It Means.” 108 Baruah, In the Name of the Nation. 109 Shoaib Daniyal, “‘I Am Miya’: Why Poetry by Bengal-Origin Muslims in Their Mother Tongue Is Shaking up Assam,” Scroll.in, July 14, 2019, https://scroll.in/article/930416/i-am-miya-why-poetry-by-bengal-originmuslims-in-their-mother-tongue-is-shaking-up-assam. 110 “Aadhaar, Voter ID Card, Passport Not Proof of Citizenship: Government Officials,” New Indian Express, December 22, 2019, www.newindianex press.com/nation/2019/dec/21/aadhaar-voter-id-card-passport-not-proofof-citizenship-government-officials-2079070.html. 111 Liz Mathew, “Reality Check: Before PM Modi’s Distancing from Pan-India NRC, There Was Amit Shah’s Underlining,” Indian Express, December 23, 2019, https://indianexpress.com/article/india/pm-narendra-modi-amit-shahpan-india-nrc-6180219. 112 “Will Remove Every Single Infiltrator, except Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs: Amit Shah,” Indian Express, April 11, 2019, https://indianexpress.com/elec tions/will-remove-every-single-infiltrator-except-buddhists-hindus-and-sikhsamit-shah/.

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113 Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, “Who Is Linking Citizenship Act to NRC? Here Are Five Times Amit Shah Did So,” Scroll.in, December 20, 2019, https://scroll.in/article/947436/who-is-linking-citizenship-act-to-nrc-here-arefive-times-amit-shah-did-so. 114 Ibid. 115 Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, “Modi Claims His Government Never Brought up NRC – After a Year of Amit Shah Promising One,” Scroll.in, December 22, 2019, https://scroll.in/article/947605/modi-contradicts-amit-shah-after-a-yearof-promising-nrc-prime-minister-claims-it-wasnt-discussed. 116 “Govt Announces NPR, Census, Allots Rs 13,000 Crore, Says No Papers Needed for NPR,” India News, December 24, 2019, www.indiatoday.in/ india/story/prakash-javadekar-govt-announces-npr-census-2021-16311742019-12-24. 117 Rahul Tripathi, “CAA Bill | Citizenship Amendment Act Decoded: What It Holds for India,” Economic Times, December 23, 2019, https:// economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/72466056.cms. 118 Home Minister Amit Shah said in Parliament the bill would bring “a new dawn to lakhs and crores of people,” which hinted at the possibility that this bill was more political than humanitarian (Rahul Tripathi, “CAA Bill | Citizenship Amendment Act Decoded”). If protecting the persecuted was a real interest, then Rohingyas from Myanmar and Tamils from Sri Lanka would have been included. Instead, Amit Shah said the Rohingyas “infiltrate” through Bangladesh, as if that meant they need no protection, and there were alternate, ad hoc ways others such as Tamils could be given refuge. Given the right-wing shift of the government, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s repeated insistence that no Hindu can be a “foreigner” in India is worth bearing in mind. Critics argued the religious criteria used here made the bill unconstitutional: Article 14 of the Indian Constitution prohibits the state from denying “to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.” Note that the word is “any” and not “Indian citizens.” Thus, using religion as a criterion for accepting refugees violates that provision. 119 Elizabeth Puranam, “Arundhati Roy: Protests over India’s Citizenship Law Give Me Hope,” Al Jazeera, December 25, 2019, www.aljazeera.com/news/ 2019/12/25/arundhati-roy-protests-over-indias-citizenship-law-give-me-hope. 120 Bikash Singh, “No New People Going to Come from Bangladesh: Sarbananda Sonowal,” The Economic Times, December 21, 2019, https://economictimes. indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/no-new-people-going-to-comefrom-bangladesh-sarbananda-sonowal/articleshow/72911440.cms?from= mdr. Accessed January 6, 2022. 121 See Appendix 5 for a detailed explanation by Assam Study Circle, a student group at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. 122 Arunabh Saikia, “Why Guwahati Exploded in Protests – and What Explains Assam’s Resistance to India’s Citizenship Bill,” DAWN.COM, December 12, 2019, www.dawn.com/news/1521877. Accessed December 24, 2021.

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123 “Untouched by Protests, Assam’s Barak Valley Celebrates Passage of Citizenship Bill in Parliament,” The Indian Express (blog), December 12, 2019, https://indianexpress.com/article/north-east-india/assam/citizenship-billassam-barak-valley-bengali-hindu-6162370/. Accessed December 24, 2021. 124 Tanweer Fazal, Minority Nationalisms in South Asia, 2013, www .taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315868363. 125 Sanjib Baruah, In the Name of the Nation. 126 Navine Murshid, The Politics of Refugees in South Asia: Identity, Resistance, Manipulation, Routledge Advances in South Asian Studies 24 (New York: Routledge, 2013), 114. 127 It is difficult to adjudicate this claim that the Hindu-Muslim proportions remained fairly constant. One could say that the migration of Bengali Hindus was offset by high birth rates among Bengali Muslims, but that, too, would be speculative. 128 José G. Montalvo and Marta Reynal-Querol, “Ethnic Polarization, Potential Conflict, and Civil Wars,” American Economic Review 95, no. 3 (May 1, 2005): 796–816, https://doi.org/10.1257/0002828054201468. 129 “Hindus Anywhere in World Have Every Right to Come to India When Faced with Problems: Assam CM,” The Economic Times, November 10, 2021, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/ hindus-anywhere-in-world-have-every-right-to-come-to-india-when-facedwith-problems-assam-cm/articleshow/87632022.cms. Accessed January 6, 2022. 130 Sanjib Baruah, “The Politics of Non-Citizenship in Assam,” Seminar: The Monthly Symposium Post Box, January 2022. 131 “‘Assam No Dumping Ground’: AASU Chief Adviser on Why NRC Must Detect, Delete & Deport,” News18, July 24, 2019, www.news18.com/news/ india/assam-no-dumping-ground-for-illegal-bangladeshis-aasu-chief-advisoron-why-nrc-must-detect-delete-deport-2243269.html. Accessed December 24, 2021. 132 Varshney, Ashutosh, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).

Chapter 4 1 Joya Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Shamshad, Bangladeshi Migrants in India. 2 In all these comments is a denial that Bengali Muslims are in fact marginalized. They are unable to grasp that the middle-class romanticization of Bangladesh ends the moment working-class Bangladeshis seek work in India. They are oblivious to the fact that in a state that is 28 percent Muslim, the only Bengali Muslims who are cast in Bengali films, for example, are actually from Bangladesh (such as Joya Ahsan, Ferdous, etc.), and to the fact that Bengali Muslims are de facto invisible.

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3 Chatterji, Bengal Divided; Md. Mahbubar Rahman and Willem Van Schendel, “‘I Am Not a Refugee’: Rethinking Partition Migration,” Modern Asian Studies 37, no. 3 (July 2003): 551–84, https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0026749X03003020; P. Bose, “Dilemmas of Diaspora: Partition, Refugees, and the Politics of ‘Home,’” Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 23, no. 1 (2006):58–68; Anindita Dasgupta, “Remembering Sylhet: A Forgotten Story of India’s 1947 Partition,” Economic and Political Weekly 43, no. 31 (2008): 18–22, https://doi.org/10.2307/40277795. 4 Gary J. Bass, Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013). 5 Ali Riaz, “State, Class and Military Rule in Bangladesh: 1972–1982” (PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1993). 6 Partha Chatterjee, “Agrarian Relations and Communalism in Bengal, 1926–1935,” in Subaltern Studies No. 1: Writings on South Asian History and Society, ed. Ranajjit Guha (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 231. 7 Iftekhar Iqbal, The Bengal Delta: Ecology, State and Social Change, 1840–1943 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), http://site.ebrary.com/id/ 10445708; Partha Chatterjee, The Present History of West Bengal: Essays in Political Criticism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997). 8 Iqbal, The Bengal Delta, 89. 9 The Bengali Muslim intelligentsia was not homogeneous, as many still think, in terms of either intellectual orientation or membership of cultural/ideological groups. As Iqbal writes, “a soft hierarchy had long existed within the agrarian Muslim community, as reflected in the co-existence of poorer and wealthier peasants, such as talukdar or hawaldar. In most cases these relatively superior peasants did not operate as ‘external’ actors in agrarian communities. They offered leadership and protection to the raiyat in the fluid char landscape or the wilderness of the Sundarbans. They worked in the fields along with the ordinary raiyats and thus remained an integral part of mainstream peasant society” (The Bengal Delta, 88). This was in contrast to Hindu landlords, who were often absentee. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, however, Muslim landlords began to convert their occupancy rights into tenure holdings where they would not work themselves, thus transcending their peasantness. In turn, it brought their status closer to the emerging Muslim bhadralok in the cities. 10 Tazeen M. Murshid, The Sacred and the Secular: Bengal Muslim Discourses, 1871-1977 (Calcutta; Oxford: Oxford University Press), 27. 11 Ibid., 45. 12 Ibid. 13 Chatterjee, “Agrarian Relations and Communalism in Bengal, 1926–1935,” 231. 14 Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (Totowa, NJ: Zed Books for the United Nations University, 1986). 15 B. R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste: An Undelivered Speech (New Delhi: Arnold Publishers, 1990 [1936]). 16 Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition, 221. 17 Shamshad, Bangladeshi Migrants in India.

258 18 19 20 21 22

23 24

25 26 27

28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35

Notes to pages 149–157

Ibid., 131. Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition, 138. Shamshad, Bangladeshi Migrants in India, 130. Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition, 151. At different points during this research, managers reached out to me to say how it is taboo to talk about preferences for different ethnic groups in the labor market, that beyond discussing how they have made space for protected minority groups, they did not feel comfortable sharing their opinion on how workers from different ethnic groups were valued. My sense is that this is the reason why the response rate is very low. Chatterjee, The Present History of West Bengal. Bidyut Chakrabarty, “The Left Front’s 2009 Lok Sabha Poll Debacle in West Bengal, India,” Asian Survey 51, no. 2 (2011): 290–310, https://doi.org/10 .1525/AS.2011.51.2.290; Anirban Dasgupta, “Land Reform in Kerala and West Bengal,” in The Land Question in India: State, Dispossession, and Capitalist Transition, ed. Anthony P. D’Costa and Achin Chakraborty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/ 9780198792444.003.0011. Dasgupta, “Land Reform in Kerala and West Bengal,” 253. Iqbal, The Bengal Delta; Pablo S. Bose, Urban Development in India: Global Indians in the Remaking of Kolkata (New York: Routledge, 2015). Sugata Bose, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal since 1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), https://doi.org/10.1017/ CHOL9780521266949; Shinkichi Taniguchi, “Rethinking the Bengal Peasantry,” in Agrarian and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri, ed. B. B. Chaudhuri, Shubhra Chakrabarti, and Utsa Patnaik (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2017), 41–64; Dietmar Rothermund, “Emergence of the Peasant Landlord in India,” in Chaudhuri, Chakrabarti, and Patnaik, Agrarian and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri, 41–64. Chatterjee, “Agrarian Relations and Communalism in Bengal, 1926–1935.” Personal communication, May 28, 2018, in Kolkata, West Bengal. “West Bengal: Poverty, Growth, & Inequality” World Bank Publications (2012), http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/315791504252302097/ pdf/119344-BRI-P157572-West-Bengal-Poverty.pdf. “Minority Concentration District Project, Bardhaman, West Bengal,” Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India, produced by the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, India (www.icssr.org/sites/default/ files/districts/Bardhaman_MCD_Report_Final.pdf). Quoted in Samiran Chattopadhyay, “Land Reform Not an End in Itself: Interview with Nirupam Sen,” Frontline 23, no. 25 (2006): 16–29. Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay, “A Project and Some Protests,” Frontline, November 18, 2005, https://frontline.thehindu.com/other/article30207194 .ece. Chattopadhyay, “A Project and Some Protests.” “Mamata Ends 25-Day Hunger Strike,” Hindustan Times, December 29, 2006, www.hindustantimes.com/india/mamata-ends-25-day-hunger-strike/ story-s7gIzBR4FvivAKFuYozrLM.html.

Notes to pages 157–174

259

36 Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Alf Gunvald Nilsen, “Law Struggles, Lawmaking, and the Politics of Hegemony in Neoliberal India,” in D’Costa and Chakraborty, The Land Question in India, https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/ 9780198792444.003.0006. 37 Quoted in Nielsen and Nilsen, “Law Struggles, Lawmaking, and the Politics of Hegemony in Neoliberal India.” 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 143. 42 Anthony P. D’Costa and Achin Chakraborty, eds., The Land Question in India: State, Dispossession, and Capitalist Transition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 43 Bose, Urban Development in India. 44 Rajesh Bhattacharya and Kalyan K. Sanyal, “Bypassing the Squalor: New Towns, Immaterial Labor and Exclusion in Post-Colonial Urbanization,” Economic and Political Weekly 46, no. 31 (2011): 41–48. 45 Bose, Urban Development in India. 46 Jenia Mukherjee, Blue Infrastructures: Natural History, Political Ecology and Urban Development in Kolkata (Singapore: Springer, 2020). 47 West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation, www.wbidc.com. Accessed February 5, 2021. 48 It is worth pointing out that the Indian diaspora is wealthy, while the Bangladeshi diaspora is predominantly working-class. 49 Ahmed Sofa, “Bangali Musolmaner Mon (Mind of the Bengali Muslim).” Monthly Shomokal, 1976. 50 Faruk Wasif, “Bangali Musolman Dondo Shomasher Itihash (History of the Bengali Muslim Compound Conflict),” Sree: Amader Nondon Online Magazine, www.sreebd.com/%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6% 99%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%AE%E0%A7% 81%E0%A6%B8%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%AE%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6% A8%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7% 8D%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AC/. Accessed May 15, 2022. 51 Both pani and jol are Bangla for water, but Bangladeshis generally use pani while those in West Bengal use jol, thereby serving as an identity marker. 52 Arunima Kar, “They Reduce Me to a ‘Meritless’ Adivasi: Maroona Murmu, Jadavpur Associate Professor,” The Caravan, https://caravanmagazine.in/ interview/maroona-murmu-adivasi-associate-professor-on-facing-discrimin ation. Accessed February 2, 2021. 53 Chandrima S. Bhattacharya, “Bengalis Have No Understanding of Caste,” Telegraph India, September 22, 2018 (www.telegraphindia.com/india/ben galis-have-no-understanding-of-caste/cid/1669849). 54 Ishita Dey, Ranabira Samaddara, and Suhit K Sen, Beyond Kolkata: Rajarhat and the Dystopia of Urban Imagination, 2016. 55 Chatterjee, “Agrarian Relations and Communalism in Bengal, 1926–1935.” 56 Everyone had a copy of the article, but it had no references. 57 “Amit Shah Says Hindi Should Be Made National Language, Draws Oppn Ire,” The Times of India, September 14, 2019, https://timesofindia.indiatimes

260

58 59 60 61

Notes to pages 175–215

.com/india/amit-shah-says-hindi-should-be-made-national-language-drawsoppn-ire/articleshow/71129172.cms. See, for example, Bratya Raisu’s short story, “Shuno mor premero kahini (Listen to my love story)” in little magazine Shongbed’s 1994 volume, where he uses khaisi-porsi Bangla in dialogues. As shown earlier in the chapter, Nandigram and Singur show how the left gave in to capitalist incursion, making their class politics suspect as well. Soumya Bhowmick, “Bengal Elections 2021: A Factsheet,” ORF, www.orfonline .org/expert-speak/bengal-elections-2021-a-factsheet/. Accessed January 10, 2022. For an analysis of the BJP’s influence in West Bengal, see Nath, Suman. 2020. People-Party-Policy Interplay in India: Micro-dynamics of Everyday Politics in Contemporary West Bengal, c. 2008–2016. 1. South Asia edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2020).

Conclusion 1 Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences. 2 “FM: Bangladesh Tied to India by Blood, to China by Economy | Dhaka Tribune,” www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2020/08/08/foreign-ministerdhaka-s-relations-with-delhi-beijing-must-not-be-compared. Accessed April 11, 2021. 3 Edward Anderson and Arkotong Longkumer, “‘Neo-Hindutva’: Evolving Forms, Spaces, and Expressions of Hindu Nationalism,” Contemporary South Asia 26, no. 4 (October 2, 2018): 371–77, https://doi.org/10.1080/ 09584935.2018.1548576. 4 The desire to locate their identity within Assamese nationalism may well be conservative but is important for them to establish a sense of belonging, without which they are easily “othered” as Bangladeshi. 5 Grace Kyungwon Hong, Death beyond Disavowal: The Impossible Politics of Difference (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), www.jstor .org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt1729vsr; Andy Clarno, Neoliberal Apartheid: Palestine/Israel and South Africa after 1994 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017); Anthony P. D’Costa and Achin Chakraborty, The Land Question in India: State, Dispossession, and Capitalist Transition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Appendices 1 Teresa Rehman, “Nellie Revisited: The Horror’s Nagging Shadow,” Telhaka, September 30, 2006, http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main19.asp?filename= Ne093006the_horrors.asp. Accessed June 18, 2014. 2 Rehman, “Nellie Revisited.” 3 Harsh Mander, “Nellie: India’s Forgotten Massacre,” The Hindu, December 14, 2008, www.hindu.com/mag/2008/12/14/stories/2008121450100300.htm. Accessed June 18, 2014. 4 “83 Polls Were A Mistake,” Assam Tribune, February 19, 2008, https://bit.ly/ 3UClfbf. Accessed June 18, 2014.

Notes to pages 216–220 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26

261

Rehman, “Nellie Revisited.” Ibid. Ibid. For a comprehensive analysis of the Nellie Massacre, see Makiko Kimura, The Nellie Massacre of 1983: Agency of Rioters (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2013). “Timeline of Bodo-Muslim Violence in Assam,” Firstpost, www.firstpost.com/ india/a-timeline-of-bodo-muslim-violence-in-assam-391475.html. Accessed June 21, 2014. Betwa Sharma, “In Assam: Two Decades of Displacement,” The Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2012, http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/08/21/inassam-two-decades-of-displacement/. Accessed June 21, 2014. See “Kokrajhar, 1993.” http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/08/21/inassam-two-decades-of-displacement/. Bonojit Hussain, “The bodoland (Assam) Violence and the Politics of Explanation,” Kafila, December 8, 2012, https://kafila.online/2012/12/08/ the-bodoland-assam-violence-and-the-politics-of-explanation-by-bonojit-hus sain/. Accessed June 23, 2014. Monirul Hussain, “Ethnicity, Communalism and State: Barpeta Massacre,” Economic and Political Weekly 30 (1995): 1154. Ruben Banerjee, “Stoking Ethnic Terror,” India Today, August 31, 1994, http:// indiatoday.intoday.in/story/assam-bodo-militants-campaign-against-muslim-set tlers-creates-50000-refugees/1/293961.html. Accessed June 23, 2014. Banerjee, “Stoking Ethnic Terror.” Hussain, “Ethnicity, Communalism and State,” 1154–55. Uddhab Barman, “Behind the Recent Communal Violence in Assam,” People’s Democracy, October 19, 2008, http://archives.peoplesdemocracy.in/ 2008/1019_pd/10192008_18.htm. Accessed June 27, 2014. “Communal Inferno,” Frontline 25, October 25–November 7, 2008, www .hindu.com/fline/fl2522/stories/20081107252202800.htm. Accessed June 27, 2014. Samudra Gupta Kashyap, “State of Distrust,” Indian Express, October 12, 2008, http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/state-of-distrust/372139/. Accessed June 27, 2014. Barman, “Behind the Recent Communal Violence in Assam.” “Communal Inferno,” Frontline. Ibid. Ibid. Gardiner Harris, “As Tensions in India Turn Deadly, Some Say Officials Ignored Warning Signs,” New York Times, July 28, 2012, www.nytimes.com/ 2012/07/29/world/asia/after-tensions-in-indias-east-turn-deadly-claims-officialsturned-a-blind-eye.html?_r=0. Accessed July 2, 2014. “Violence in Asom and Nationwide Challenge of Bangladeshi Infiltrators,” RSS, www.rss.org/Encyc/2012/11/3/Violence-in-Asom-and-Nationwide-Challengeof-Bangladeshi-Infiltrators.aspx. Accessed July 2, 2014. “9 Killed, Curfew Clamped in Kokrajhar,” Assam Tribune, July 21, 2012, www.assamtribune.com/scripts/detailsnew.asp?id=jul2212/at05. Accessed July 2, 2014.

262

Notes to pages 220–223

27 “Assam Violence: Four More Bodies Found, Toll Rises to 77,” IBN, August 8, 2012, http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/assam-violence-fourmore-bodies-found-toll-rises-to-77/1038364.html. Accessed July 2, 2014. 28 “Assam: 5 Killed in Fresh Violence Toll Rises to 61,” Zee News, August 6, 2012, http://zeenews.india.com/news/assam/assam-5-killed-in-fresh-violencetoll-rises-to-61_791887.html. Accessed July 2, 2014. 29 Barun Das Gupta, “Media Fueling the Myth of Muslim Infiltrators,” The Shillong Times, August 13, 2012, www.theshillongtimes.com/2012/08/13/ media-fueling-the-myth-of-muslim-infiltrators/. Accessed July 2, 2014. 30 Digambar Patowary, “PM’s Healing Touch for Assam: Rs. 300-crore relief,” Hindustan Times, July 28, 2012, www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pm-shealing-touch-for-assam-rs-300-crore-relief/article1-903037.aspx?hts0021. Accessed July 2, 2014. 31 “Assam Violence: Home Minister P. Chidambaram Begins Two-Day Visit of the State,” NDTV, July 30, 2012, www.ndtv.com/article/cheat-sheet/assamviolence-home-minister-p-chidambaram-begins-two-day-visit-of-the-statetop-10-developments-248827?curl=1404301778. Accessed July 2, 2014. 32 Harris, “As Tensions in India.” 33 “Assam Violence,” NDTV. 34 Venky Vembu, “Assam riots: Fruits of Living in Denial over Bangladesh Influx,” Firstpost, July 25, 2012, www.firstpost.com/india/assam-riots-fruitsof-living-in-denial-over-bangladesh-influx-390536.html. Accessed July 2, 2014. 35 “Assam Riots: Preventable but Not Prevented,” Asian Centre for Human Rights, September 2012, www.achrweb.org/reports/india/AssamRiots2012 .pdf. Accessed July 2, 2014. 36 “Assam Violence due to Bodo-Muslim Feud: Minorities Body,” Indian Express, August 17, 2012, http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/assam-vio lence-due-to-bodomuslim-feud-minorities-body/989579/0. Accessed July 2, 2014. 37 Gupta, “Media Fueling the Myth of Muslim Infiltration.” 38 Prabin Kalita, “Rebels Kill 30 in Assam for Not Voting For Bodo,” Times of India, May 3, 2014, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/Rebels-kill-30in-Assam-for-not-voting-for-Bodos/articleshow/34550292.cms. Accessed July 3, 2014. 39 “India Elections: Death Toll Hits 43 After Attacks on Muslims in Assam,” The Guardian, May 7, 2014, www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/ india-elections-death-toll-43-attacks-muslims-assam. Accessed July 3, 2014. 40 Kalita, “Rebels Kill 30.” 41 “NDFB Denies Involvement in Violence,” Business Standard, May 3, 2014, www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/ndfb-denies-involvement-in-vio lence- 114050300774_1.html. Accessed July 3, 2014.

Index

AASU (All Assam Student Union), 116–17, 119, 215 ABSU (All Bodo Students’ Union), 129 Acemoglu, Darren, 121 Acharya, Amitav, 13 Adnan, Swapan, 45 Afghanistan, 30, 137–38 AGP (Asom Gana Parishad), 119, 128, 216, 253 Ahmed, Rafiuddin, 2 Akhaura Land Port, 208 Akhter, Taslima, 41 Alamgir, Jalal, 44 Ali, Mohammad Akbar, 216 All Assam Gana Shangram Parishad (AAGSP), 116 All Assam Student Union (AASU), 116–17, 119, 215 All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU), 129 Ambedkar, B. R. Annihilation of Caste, 149 Anandamath (Bankim Chandra), 8 Anderson, Edward, 184 Anjaneyulu, P. S. R., 73–76, 212–13 Annihilation of Caste (Ambedkar), 149 anticolonial movement, 110 Anzaldúa, Gloria, 78, 98 Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 112 Arunachal Pradesh, India, 107, 250 Asansol, India, 144, 156, 161 ashraf Muslims and rural Muslims, 147, 149 Urdu as language of, 9, 65, 144, 152 versus ajlaf Muslims, 3 Asian Centre for Human Rights, 111, 221 Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), 119, 128, 216, 253 Assam. See also Partition (1947) Assam, India about, 107–8, 120, 233 alienation from mainland India, 106, 110, 116, 128, 249, 252

Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), 119, 128, 216, 253 Assam Accord (1985), 104, 118–19, 139, 183, 254 Assam Land and Revenue Regulation (1886), 110 Assam Movement, 112, 116–19, 127, 141, 215 Assam Study Circle, 226–31 Assam Tenancy Act (1935), 117 and Bangladesh, 68, 103, 106, 135 Bangladeshi migrants, 30, 65, 104, 118, 143 and CAA, 139 food crisis (1960s), 114 GDP of, 63, 122 hill people, 107–11 independence movement, 111–13, 128 and India, 112–16, 136 khilonjia, or indigenous interests, 104, 107, 128, 131, 136, 139, 143 land reforms, 117 language tensions, 61 Lower Assam, 123 migration rules, 117–19, 251 National Register of Citizens (NRC), 2, 136 plains people, 107–8, 110–11, 129 Plains Tribal Council of Assam (PTCA), 117 resource economy, 122 underdevelopment in, 121–24 Upper Assam, 123 autonomous district councils, 110, 130, 217 Awami League (AL), Bangladesh, 26, 31 Axomiya language about, 107, 119, 232 and Bangla, 61, 109, 185 language movement, 114 Na-Axomiya (new Assamese), 136, 142

263

264

Index

Babri Mosque (1992), 106 Bahnbari (Bansari) relief camp, 218 Balla Land Port, 211 Bangal/Bangals (Bengali Hindus from East Bengal), 149–50, 168–69, 176 “Bangalee’r Hindi Chorcha” / The Practice of Hindi among Bengalis, 174 “Bangali Musolmaner Mon” / “Mind of the Bengali Muslim” (Sofa), 165 Bangla language about, 61, 163, 173–74, 232 as anticolonial expression, 60 and Axomiya, 61, 185 as identity marker, 96, 259 Kolkata as cultural capital of, 165, 173 language-based hierarchy, 133, 160, 172 Musalmani Bangla, 9–10 percentage of population speaking, 105 shuddho or shadhu, 176 shuddho or shadhu as most proper of accents, 168 as a United Nations language, 164, 169 variations of, 9, 175 Bangladesh. See also War of Independence/ Liberation War (1971) about, 1, 64, 162 Bangla as national language, 173 Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), 26 Bengal Province, 8, 108, 145–50 bhai-bhai (brotherly) relationship with West Bengal, 1 diaspora as working class, 47, 259 as “East Bengal”, 164 as East Pakistan (before 1971), 25–28, 33, 63, 114, 141, 173 export of labor, 42, 163, 246 market reforms, 37 nation-based hierarchy, 164–66 and neoliberalism, 163 neoliberalism in, 40–43 as part of BCIM, 134 people as termites, 4–5 silence on the migrant issue, 34 as source of revenue to India, 30 Bangladesh and India bilateral relations with India, 29–31 borders, 4, 12, 68–69, 98, 240 and CAA, 137 Joint-Indo-Bangladesh Guidelines (1975), 69 Land Boundary Agreement, 32–33, 78, 88, 91 trade through land ports, 71 treaties and agreements, 32

Bangladeshi Migrants in India (Shamshad), 15 Bankim Chandra, 58, 234 Bankura District, West Bengal, India, 155 Bannerjee, Mamata, 33, 65, 157, 165, 178, 183 Barak Valley, Assam, India, 105, 120, 140–41 Barbora, Sanjay, 131, 133 Bardhaman District, West Bengal, India, 155–56 Bardhan, Pranab, 49 Barpeta District, Assam, India, 105–6, 217–18 Baruah, Sanjib, 107, 118, 120, 128, 141 Basirhat District, West Bengal, India, 144 Bass, Gary, 28 Basu, Jyoti, 149 Battle of Polashi (1757), 54, 62 BCIM (Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar), 134 Belonia Land Port, 209 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), 134 Benapole Land Port, 208 Bengal Province, 8, 108, 145–50 Bengali Hindus Bangal/Bangals (Bengali Hindus from East Bengal), 149–50, 168–69, 176 dominant class because of culture, 142, 146, 171–72 dominant class during British Rule, 9–11, 55, 109, 146–50 migration into Assam, 139–41, 256 West Bengal as perceived homeland, 164 zamindars/West Bengal Hindu landowners, 9, 54, 146, 148, 152–53 Bengali Muslims about, 2–3, 25, 124, 150–56 “Bangali Musolmaner Mon” / “Mind of the Bengali Muslim” (Sofa), 165 Bodo-Muslim violence, 106, 216–22 and clause in Bodo Accord, 105 East Bengali Muslims, 117, 124, 136 emergence of middle-class intelligentsia, 147–48 examples of working class, 5 exclusion of, 136, 152 in colonial India, 7–11 invisibility of marginalization, 6, 65, 144–45 Kokrajhar election violence, 223 languages spoken, 148, 248 literature about, 8–11 move to Pakistan after Partition, 149, 152, 180

Index Nellie Massacre (1983), 105–6, 119, 215–16 perceived as Bangladeshis, 118, 126, 142–44, 164, 217 under British Rule, 55 violent manifestations of marginalization, 105–7 water cut off, 171 work participation rates, 153 Bengali Renaissance, 60 Bezbaruah, M. P., 122 BGB (Border Guards Bangladesh), 74, 92, 95, 97, 213 bhadralok about, 7, 160, 163, 171 after Partition, 61 before 1947, 149 Bengali Hindus as, 148 Hossain writings about, 10 literature of, 165 prejudices of, 165 West Bengali versus East Bengali, 150 Bhagwati, Jagdish, 44 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) anti-Bangladeshi stance of, 69 Assamese support of NRC, 104 elections (2016), 126 implementation of NCR and CAA, 104 Bhattacharya, Budhhadeb, 157 Bhattacharya, Rajesh, 159 Bhomra Land Port, 208 Bhutan, 33 Bidrohi / Rebel (Nazrul), 11 Bihar State, eastern India / Bihari People, 27, 126, 133, 160–61 Birbhum District, West Bengal, India, 152, 155 Birla family, 171 Birth of Biopolitics (Foucault), 51 Bishad Shindhu / Ocean of Sorrow (Musharraf Hossain), 10 Bodo People about, 129–31, 249 All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU), 129 Bodo Accord, 129, 218 Bodo Autonomous Council (BAC), 130, 217 Bodo Congress Party (BCP), 220 Bodo Liberation Tigers, 130, 221 Bodo Territorial Council, 220, 253 Bodoland as plains territory, 110 Bodoland People’s Front, 222 Bodoland Territorial Region Accord (BTR), 130

265 Bodo-Muslim violence (Kokrajha, 1993), 106, 216–17 Bodo-Muslim violence (Udalguri, 2008), 106, 218–20 National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), 130, 220, 222–23 supported elections with Bengali People, 117 United Bodo People’s Organization (UBPO), 130 Bollywood, 16, 29, 112, 124–25 Bongaigaon District, Assam, India, 139, 216–17 Borbora, Abhinav P., 107, 119 Border Electronically Dominated QRT Interception Technique, 78 Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB), 74, 92, 95, 97, 213 Border Security Force (BSF). See also Anjaneyulu, P. S. R., See also Kathat, Ajmal Singh, See also Mahali, K. C. about, 68, 92, 98 and cattle smuggling, 76 as common enemy of co-mingling villagers, 86, 97, 101 completion of fence, 69 and distinction between traders and migrants, 83, 85 and electronic sensors, 78 everyday violence of, 80, 96 as face of the state, 68, 94 Hinduism normalized at camps, 71 and informal trade, 82 in Malda, 75 public statements of, 72–74 role of, 72 shoot-to-kill policy, 84, 98 and shoppers, 93 surveillance of the river border, 78 Bose, Neilesh, 9 Bose, Pablo, 159 Bose, Sugata, 153 Brahmaputra River/Valley, Assam, India, 78, 108–9, 136, 140–41, 253 British East India Company, 8, 55, 62, 109 Bureau of Manpower, Employment, and Training (BMET), Bangladesh, 38, 47 Burimari Land Port, 208 Cachar District, Assam, India, 73, 105, 140, 214 Cahill, Damien, 39 Carré, Françoise, 50 cattle smuggling, 49, 75–77, 82, 213

266

Index

census census (1871), 56–57 conflated with the NCR, 138 data used in Murshid research, 18 in 2001, 105, 153 in 2011, 152, 154, 248 Chacón, Justin Akers, 72, 77, 100 Chandra, Bankim, 8 Charmaz, Kathy, 20 Chatterjee, Partha, 8, 148–49, 152–53, 234 check posts, 92–95, 100 Chen, Martha, 50 chhits, 71, 86–91 Chidambaram, Palaniappan, 30 Chilahati Land Port, 210 Chile, 38 China, 2, 29, 128, 134 Choudry, A. A., 99 Chowdhury, Mahbubul Alam, 173 CIBMS (Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System), 68, 78 Citizenship (Amendment) Act (2019, CAA) about, 137–41 barred Muslims from acquiring Indian citizenship, 139 and election in West Bengal, 178 implementation of, 104 mobilization against, 138, 185 and NRC, 66, 254 to solve “migrant” issue, 2, 30, 63 Clarno, Andy, 185 coal ecological destruction, 29 extractive or resources in Assam, 121–23, 132, 134 legal acquisition of land for mines, 158 mines in West Bengal, 156 and NGOs, 35 Cohn, Bernard, 56 Communist Party of India Marxists (CPI (M)), 149, 152, 156, 178 Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS), 68, 78 Cons, Jason, 7 Cooch Behar District, West Bengal, India, 155 Coordinated Border Management Plan (CBMP), 74, 213 corruption, 38, 41, 72, 123, 131, 135, 254 Covid-19, 30, 141 CPI(M) (Communist Party of India Marxists), 149, 152, 156, 178 Crouch, Colin, 39

D’Costa, Bina, 6, 14, 22 Daewoo (Korean company), 37 Dahagram, Bangladesh (enclave), 7 Dakshin Dinajpur District, West Bengal, India, 155 Dalits, 56, 76, 79, 149 Darjeeling District, West Bengal, India, 155 Darrang District, Assam, India, 218 Darshana Land Port, 209 Daulatganj Land Port, 210 Davidson, Neil, 39 Davis, Mike, 72, 77, 100 De, Amit, 144 death squads, 131 denationalization, 39, 45, 47 deregulation, 34, 36, 126 Dhanua Kamalpur Land Port, 211 Dhemaji District, Assam, India, 105 Dhubri District, Assam, India, 105, 111 Dhumketu / Comet (Nazrul), 11 differential neoliberalism, as term, 4, 47–50 Director General Level Talks (DGLT), 213 displacement of people, 71, 106–7, 126, 216–20, 249 documentation, 50, 254 Drèze, Jean, 42 Durga Puja festival, 163 East Bengali Muslims, 117, 124, 136 East India Company, 8, 53–55, 62, 109 East Pakistan, 25–28, 33, 63, 114, 141, 173 Eaton, Richard, 2, 233 education in the enclaves, 87 in English, 125, 177 Madrasas, 55, 147, 154 “Minute on Indian Education” (Macaulay), 58, 67 and Muslims, 6, 16, 59, 147, 154 and Partition refugees, 149 reduction or lack of government support, 39, 112 and status, 147, 171, 174 support from Asian community, 134 support from NGOs, 42 under British rule, 55, 109, 146 Ekushey protests, 173 elections and the Assam movement, 116–19, 215–16 Assembly (2021), 141, 178 BJP wins, 104–5, 126 business contributions to, 45 empty promises of, 80 Modi campaigns, 1–2, 30, 46

Index TMC win (2011), 158 Vajpayee campaign (2004), 69 violence at, 107, 223 Emergency Rule in India (1975), 28, 239 Empire of the Senses (Rotter), 52 “Employee Characteristics of Firms in West Bengal” (Murshid), 150 enclaves. See also chhits about, 7, 71, 86–91 swapping of, 78, 87, 240 English language, 164, 168, 173, 176 ethnic stereotypes about, 35 from Bollywood, 112 and the British, 35, 52–54, 59, 61, 66 and capitalism, 51 challenges to, 63, 160, 164, 184 consequences of, 5, 142, 172 internalization of, 64 on Park Street, 167–68 from spoken language, 61, 150 export-processing zones (EPZ), 41 extractive colonization, 112, 120–22, 134 feminism, 13, 16–17 FIC (fake Indian currency), 75, 213 Fields, Barbara Jean, 51 Fields, Karen E., 51 Figueira, Dorothy, 57 fiscal austerity, 34, 36–38, 86 flexible citizenship, 4–5, 35, 184 flexible labor, 39, 50 Foreigners Act (1946), 115, 117 Foucault, Michel, 51 free trade and militerization, 4, 72 and neoliberalism, 13, 34, 69, 181 in practice in the villages, 83, 85–86, 98, 181 Frontier Tract Regulation Act (1880), 108 Gandhi, Indira, 25, 78, 119, 145 Gandhi, Mohandas, 58, 148 Gandhi, Rajiv, 68 Gangchil-Gorur Hat land port, 92 Gangopadhyay, Sunil, 61 Gayer, Laurent, 5 gentrification, 159 Ghosh, Sahana, 7 Ghotis, 149, 165 Glaser, Barney G., 22 globalization, 34, 63, 77, 119–20, 134 Gobrakura-Karaitali Land Port, 209 Gogoi, Suraj, 107, 119 Gogoi, Tarun, 219, 223

267 Gohain, Hiren, 136–37 Green Revolution in the 1960s, 156 Grieco, Joseph, 13 Gujarat, India about, 64, 79, 106, 123 Model of Development, 44, 46, 48, 133, 183 Gupta, Akhil, 39 Guwahati, Assam, India, 64, 124, 126–27, 132, 143 Hailakandi District, Assam, India, 105, 140 Harris-White, Barbara, 49 Harvey, David, 34, 36, 38–39 Haryana, India, 123 Hasina, Sheikh, 78, 185 Hazarika, Sanjoy, 119, 125, 127 hill people, 107–11 Himanta Biswa Sarma, 183 Hindus/Hinduism. See also Partition (1947) about, 2 and Aryan theories, 57 and caste, 53, 58, 149, 169 culture of, 8–11, 124, 128, 164 Hindu Rashtra (Hindu state)/Hindi Rashtra, 104, 137 Hindutva culture/politics, 46–47, 72, 178, 183–84, 249 idea of India as homeland for Hindus, 46, 59, 140 and language, 59–62, 65, 107, 151, 160, 164, 172–77 nationalism, 46, 58, 79, 184, 249 normalized in camps, 71 priviliged over Muslims, 7–11, 50 and social status, 59 as threat in Assam, 133 working with Muslims against BSF, 86 zamindars/West Bengal Hindu landowners, 9, 54, 146, 148, 152–53 Hindutva culture/politics, 46–47, 72, 178, 183–84, 249 Hlatshwayo, Mondli, 99 Hong, Grace, 185 Hoogli District, West Bengal, India, 151, 155–56 Hossain, Mir Musharraf, 9 Hossain, Naomi, 40 The House with a Thousand Stories (Kashyap), 132 Howrah District, West Bengal, India, 5, 151, 155 Hussain, Delwar, 7, 35, 218

268

Index

illegal immigrants and elections, 116, 215 and fencing of borders, 163 India’s shoot-to-kill policy, 12 as mobilization concept, 121 and the NRC, 107, 119 people entering India (after 1971), 103, 117, 251 rumours about, 2 IMF (International Monetary Fund), 37–38, 43 India. See also individual states, districts, and cities. See also land ownership, See also privatization access to Bangladesh waterways, 182 with Assam on exclusion of Bengali Muslims, 136 Bangladeshi Migrants in India (Shamshad), 15 British East India Company, 8, 55, 62, 109 and China, 2, 29, 128 Communist Party of India Marxists (CPI (M)), 149, 152, 156, 178 control of water, 29, 32–33, 254 convergence of state and business interests, 44–45 denationalization, 45, 47 diaspora as wealthy, conservative, 47, 259 GDP of, 63 and Hindus/Hinduism, 8, 58, 141, 255 Indian National Congress (INC), 220 loans from IMF, 38, 43 Look East Policy, 134, 254 “Minute on Indian India” (Macaulay), 58, 67 and Myanmar, 73 neoliberalism in, 43–46 Non-resident Indian (NRIs), 120 official language of, 59 as part of BCIM, 134 Poverty Amid Plenty in the New India, 44 Quit India Movement, 112 Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, 110 suppression of nationalist struggles, 27–29 trade as percentage of GDP, 37 under British rule, 52–58 war with Pakistan (1965), 116 indigenous interests (khilonjia), 104–5, 107, 128, 131, 136, 139, 143 Indira-Mujib Pact, 116 infiltration, term usage, 232

informal economy/trade/networks, 49–50, 70, 80, 84, 94, 98–99 Inner Line, 108–10, 124 insurgencies, 28, 73, 127, 214, 249. See also SULFA (surrendered ULFA) International Monetary Fund (IMF), 37–38, 43 Iqbal, Iftekhar, 147, 257 Islam about, 2–3, 233 Islamization of Bangladesh, 26 Islamophobia, 7, 47, 106, 145, 219 Islam, Kazi Nazrul, 10–11 Islam, Maidul, 153 Jaffrelot, Christophe, 5 Jalais, Annu, 7 Jalpaiguri District, West Bengal, India, 151, 155 Jasimuddin, 11 Jawaharlal Nehru, 111 Joint-Indo-Bangladesh Guidelines (1975), 69 July Massacre in Kokrajhar (2012), 220–22 “Kabuliwallah” Tagore, 9, 235 “Kandte ashini, phanshir dabi niye eshechi” (Chodhury), 173 Kar, Bodhisattva, 109 Karbi Anglong District, Assam, India, 105 Karim, Abdul, 11, 43 Karimganj District, Assam, India, 105, 111, 140 Kashmir, 27–28, 239 Kashyap, Aruni, 132 Kathat, Ajmal Singh, 73, 213 Keohane, Robert, 13, 236 Kerala, India, 138 Khan, Liaquat Ali, 113 Khan, Salimullah, 10 khilonjia, 104–5, 107, 128, 131, 136, 139, 143 Kibria, Nazli, 64 Kikon, Dolly, 123 kinship between Benagli Muslims and Bangladeshis, 6, 64, 144, 146, 164, 178 formed through marriages, 83, 96 networks and trade, 70, 83, 184 Kissinger, Henry, 38 Kohli, Atul, 44–46 Kokrajhar, Assam, India about, 111

Index Bodo-Muslim violence (1993–1994), 216–17 July Massacre (2012), 107, 220–22 Kolkata, West Bengal, India about, 145, 151 as aspiring neoliberal city, 64, 159–62 Bangla language, 165, 173 as Bangla’s cultural capital, 165, 173, 178 Bangladeshi shopping in, 76, 164, 166–69 “Bengal means Business,” 158 and Bengali middle class, 152, 175 Ekushey protests, 173 integration of Partition refugees, 149 and the Kunming Initiative, 134 languages spoken, 175–76 middle-class youth, 172 and Muslims below poverty line, 155 New Market, 166 New Town, 159, 161, 177 Oberoi Grand Hotel, 166 Park Street, 166–69 Urdu culture in, 65, 144, 152 Kotwal, Ashok, 38 Kunming Initiative, 134 land ownership Land Acquisition Act (1894), India, 45, 157 Land Acquisition (Mines) Act, 158 Land Boundary Agreement (2015), 32–33, 78, 88, 91 land grabs, 45, 48, 111, 156 land reforms, 152 land ports, 71, 92 language/languages Assamese, 62, 107, 232 and culture, 59–62 English language, 164, 168, 173, 176 ethnic stereotypes, 61, 150 Hindus/Hinduism, 59–62, 65, 107, 151, 160, 164, 172–77 India, 59 national language of Bangladesh, 173 Official Language Act of 1960, 107, 119 Pakistan, 11 West Bengal, 152, 173, 175–76 Line Men, 81 Linlithgow, Lord, 112 literature, 60–61, 137, 144, 165 Living Realities of Muslims in West Bengal (Pratichi Institute), 153–54 Longkumer, Arkotong, 184 Look East Policy, India, 134, 254 Lower Assam, 123

269 ma, mati, o manush – mother, motherland, people, 158 Macaulay, Thomas, 58, 67 Madrasas (education), 55, 147, 154 Mahali, K. C., 73, 214 Mahmud, Wahiduddin, 40 Malda District, West Bengal, India, 5, 75, 79, 152, 154–55 mangrove forest, 29 Manipur, 214, 250 Maoists, 28–29, 239 market liberalization and borders, 75, 86, 162, 181 and economic migration, 42 facilitation of, 13 global norm, 34 implementation of, 34, 36 international integration, 14 marriages for cross-border networks, 83, 90, 96 Marwaris antagonism with West Bengalis, 168 Hindi spoken by, 173 owners of shops in New Market, 168 preferential hiring of, 160 stereotypes, 35 traditional business class, 123, 131, 133, 142, 171 viewed as crass, 160 McCafferty, Patricia, 39 medical tourism, 31, 76, 79 Medinipur District, West Bengal, India, 155, 157 Meghalaya, India, 26–27, 68, 107, 126, 250 Mexico, 77 Miah, Karim, 87 migrant workers in Assam, 142 and Bangladesh GDP, 40, 42 in contrast to wealthy shoppers, 164, 178 exploitation of, 47 in informal economy, 49, 77 mostly men, 40, 47 migration rules in Assam, 117–19, 251 Miller, David, 39 minimalist lifestyle, 172 Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MDONER), 121 Minority United Students Association, 218 “Minute on Indian Education” (Macaulay), 67 Miya population, 136, 142, 185 Mizoram, India, 68, 73, 107, 214, 250

270

Index

Modi, Narendra advertising economic growth in Assam, 126 and the CAA, 137–38, 185 on Bangladesh, 1–2, 30, 32–33, 233 enclave swapping, 78 and Indian diaspora, 47 and neoliberalism, 30 sabka saath, sabka vikas, 29, 44 Momen, Abul, 182, 186 Montalvo, José, 141 mostanocracy, 80 Muhammad, Anu, 42–43 Murmu, Maroona, 170 Murshid, Navine about, 15–17 at check post, 92–95 discussions with people in Assam, 120–21 discussions with villagers by the river, 95–98 discussions with villagers in Paodinga, 80–85 ethics of research project, 19–22 interviews at Park Street, 166–69 interviews on Ekushey, 173 methodology of research project, 17–19, 238, 248 survey of firms in West Bengal, 150–52 Murshid, Tazeen, 2, 147, 232 Murshidabad District, West Bengal, India, 5, 62, 152, 154–55 Musalmani Bangla, 9–10 music Assamese, 125, 137, 185 Bangladeshi, 164, 169, 177 as Hindi cultural symbol, 124 Sangeet Chinta (Tagore), 11 Muslimuddin, Mohammad, 215 Myanmar, 73, 134 Na-Axomiya (new Assamese), 136, 142 Nadia District, West Bengal, India, 155 Naga independence/Nagaland, 27, 107, 112, 250 Nakugaon Land Port, 209 Nandigram, India, 156–58, 260 National Commission on Minorities, 222 National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), 130, 220, 222–23 National Register of Citizens (NRC) about, 136–37 and CAA, 63, 104, 136–37 exclusions from, 107, 137, 166 implementation of, 2, 30

mobilization against, 185 permissible documents for, 224 NDFB (National Democratic Front of Bodoland), 130, 222–23 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 112–13 Nellie Massacre (1983), 105–6, 119, 215–16 neoliberalism. See also privatization; market liberalization about, 12–13, 34–35 aspirations toward, 133–35 fiscal austerity, 34, 36–38, 86 and free trade and nationalism, 69, 99 and gender issues, 40–41 in the Global South, 14 malls as evidence of, 125 neoliberal cities, 124–27, 159–62 neoliberal neglect, 103 rural-urban reforms, 48 and television programs, 36 in the United States, 39 visible aspects of, 158 Nepal, 33 New Market, Kolkata, 166 New Town, Kolkata, 159, 161, 177 Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, 157–58 Nilsen, Alf Gunvald, 157–58 Non-resident Indian (NRIs), 120 North 24 Parganas, 151, 153, 155, 165 North Bengal Frontier, 73, 213 Nye, Joseph, 13 Oberoi Grand Hotel, Kolkata, 166 odor/smell, 52, 80, 170, 245 Official Language Act of 1960, 107, 119 Ong, Aihwa, 4, 35 Operation Bajrang, 129 Operation Barga, 153 Operation Rhino, 129 Operation Sunshine, 159 opium, 53, 75 Oye, Kenneth, 13 Pakistan Agreement between India and Pakistan on Minorities (1950), 113 BNP as pro-Pakistan, 26 citizens allowed entry to India via CAA, 137–38 East Pakistan, 25–28, 33, 63, 114, 141, 173 enhanced military, 29 genocide in, 25–26, 33 imposition of Urdu, 173 India-Pakistan war (1965), 116

Index languages of, 11 move of Bengali Muslims after Partition, 149, 152, 180 as threat to India, 2, 30, 63, 71 Panagariya, Arvind, 44 Panjabis, 160 Paodinga, West Bengal, 80–84 Papon, 125 Park Street, Kolkata, India, 166–69 partition (1905), 8–9, 110, 147 Partition (1947) about, 3, 176 effects on West Bengal, 145 migration, 103, 113, 116, 149 and religion, 58–60 separation of landholdings from land owners, 152 and War of Independence, 140 Patwari, Hiralal, 215 Permanent Settlement (1793), 54 Persaud, Randolph, 13 Phukan, Ankur Tamuli, 139 plains people, 107–8, 110–11, 129 Plains Tribal Council of Assam (PTCA), 117 Plassey, Battle of, 54, 62 poppy cultivation, 75 Post, Charles, 51 Poverty Amid Plenty in the New India (Kohli), 44 Pratichi Institute, 153–54 President’s Rule, 129 private-public partnerships, 161 privatization and borders, 86 comparison between India and Bangladesh, 37, 45, 47, 163 consequences of, 126 and Gujarat Model of Development, 44 IMF requirements, 37 implementation of, 34, 36, 44 as priority, 46 as a solution, 36 and trade relationship to government, 41 and wealth distribution from the poor, 36 PTCA (Plains Tribal Council of Assam), 117 Punjab/Punjabis, 35, 54, 60, 113, 138, 173 Purulia District, West Bengal, India, 154 Putnam, Robert, 12 Quit India Movement, 112 racial capitalism/racism, 14, 36, 51 Rafiq, Mohammad, 48

271 Raghunathpur, India, 161 Rahman, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur, 165 Rahman, Sheikh Mujibur, 29, 78 Rahman, Ziaur, 26 raksha bandhan, 8, 234 Ramaswami, Bharat, 38 Ramgarh Land Port, 210 Rampal coal plant, 29 Rao, Nagesh, 44 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 46, 220–21, 255 ready-made garments (RMG), 37, 40–41, 50, 64 Reagan, Ronald, 38 religion and social hierarchies, 58–59 Reynal-Querol, Marta, 141 Riaz, Ali, 29 Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act, 157 rivers, fencing of, 78–79 RMG (ready-made garments), 37, 40–41, 50, 64 Robinson, James A., 121 Rokeya, Begum, 10 Rotter, Andrew, 52 Roy, Arundhati, 139 rural-urban differences, 48, 155 Saikia, Arupjyoti, 108, 117, 124 Saikia, Yasmin, 110, 252 Sangeet Chinta / Thoughts on Music (Tagore), 11 Sanyal, Kalyan K., 126, 159 Saraswati, Dayananda, 57 Sarkar, Sanjay Gopal, 169 Sarkar, Swagato, 82 Sarma, Himanta Biswa, 126, 141, 219 Sassen, Saskia, 63 Scheduled Districts Act (1874), 108 Sen, Amartya, 42, 150 Sen, Keshab Chunder, 58 Sen, Nirupam, 156 Sen, Sushmita, 150 Sepoy Mutiny (1857), 55 sex trafficking, 7 sexism, 22 shadhu bhasha or shuddho, 9–10, 168, 176 Shah, Amit, 137–38, 174, 233, 255 Shah, Fakir Lalon, 9, 11 Shahidullah, Muhammad, 10–11 Shamshad, Rizwana, 15 Sharma, Jayeeta, 123, 248

272

Index

Sharma, K. K., 78 Sheola Land Port, 211 Shepherd, Kancha Ilaiah, 170 shuddho or shadhu, 9–10, 168, 176 Siddiqi, Dina, 41 Silchar, Assam, India, 111, 134–35, 214 Singh, Manmohan, 57, 220, 222 Singur, West Bengal, India, 156–58, 260 Sirajudoula, Nawab, 54, 62 Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, 110 smell/odor, 52, 80, 170, 245 smuggling of cattle, 49, 75–77, 82, 213 syndicates for, 82 versus trade, 75–77 social media, 137 Sofa, Ahmed, 165 Sonahat Land Port, 210 Songbijit, I. K., 223 Sonowal, C. M., 139 Sonowal, Sarbananda, 104, 126, 141, 183 South 24 Parganas, 152, 155, 165 South Bengal Frontier, 73 special economic zones (SEZ), 45, 123, 157 stereotypes. See ethnic stereotypes “The Story of a Mussalmani” Tagore, 9 Strauss, Anselm L., 22 SULFA (surrendered ULFA), 131–33 Suman, Kabir, 171 Sur, Malini, 7, 49, 77, 93 Sylhet, Assam, India, 107, 140 Tagore, Rabindranath, 8–9, 11, 60, 235 Tamabil Land Port, 209 Tata Motors, 156 tea, 53, 103, 108–9, 112, 120–23 Tegamukh Land Port, 210 termites, Bangladeshis as, 4–5 Thapar, Romila, 7, 57 Thatcher, Margaret, 38 Thornberg, Robert, 20 timber extraction, 121, 134 TMC (Trinamool Congress), 65, 152, 157, 162, 165 trade. See also free trade; smuggling and BSF, 82–83, 85 creation of land ports, 71 importance of women, 84 informal economy/trade/networks, 49–50, 70, 80, 84, 94, 98–99 and kinship, 70, 83, 184 neoliberalism, 69, 99

as percentage of GDP (India/ Bangladesh), 37 Trinamool Congress (TMC), 65, 152, 157, 162, 165 Tripura, India, 26, 61, 68, 112–13 Udalguri District, Assam, India, 106, 218–20 ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam), 112, 127, 130, 132, 142, 252. See also SULFA (surrendered ULFA) United Bodo People’s Organization (UBPO), 130 United Kingdom Bengali Hindus under British Rule, 9–11, 55, 109, 146–50 Bengali Muslims under British Rule, 55 British East India Company, 8, 55, 62, 109 census (1871), 56–57 colonial rule of Assam, 107–9, 112 colonial rule of Bengal, 146–50 colonization of India, 52–58 transformation of social status, 147 use of ethnic stereotypes, 35, 52–54, 59, 61, 66, 163 United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), 112, 127–29, 131–32, 142, 252. See also SULFA (surrendered ULFA) United Muslim National Army, 222 United Nations General Assembly, 12 United States, 28, 36, 39, 77 Upper Assam, 123 urban-rural differences, 48, 155 Urdu language in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, 65, 144, 152 as language of ashraf Muslims, 9, 65, 144, 152, 233 as national language of Pakistan, 11, 173 spoken by Bengali Muslims, 148, 248 Uttar Dinajpur District, West Bengal, India, 152, 154 Uttar Pradesh, India, 161 Vajpayee, Atal Bihari, 69 Van Schendel, Willem, 80 Vanaik, Achin, 33 “Vande Mataram” / Mother, I Praise Thee (Bankim Chandra), 8 Vembu, Venky, 221 violence, 7, 105–7, 249 Wadhwa, Wilima, 38 Walker, R. B. J., 13

Index Waltz, Kenneth Neal, 13, 241 War of Independence/Liberation War (1971) Assam, 26, 63, 140 Bangladesh, 4, 25–29, 63 migration of Bangladeshi into Assam, 103 West Bengal, 26 Washington Consensus, 34, 44 Wasif, Faruk, 165 water Bengali Muslim areas cut off, 171 India access to Bangladesh waterways, 32, 182 India’s control over, 29, 33, 254 in monsoon season, 91 TMC objection to sharing, 65, 166 Weber, Max, 180 West Bengal, India. See also individual districts. See also War of Independence/ Liberation War (1971), See also Partition (1947), See also Kolkata, West Bengal, India agricultural growth in, 153 Bengal Province, 8, 108, 145–50 Bengali Muslims, 150–56 Bengali Muslims below the poverty line, 155 bhadralok, 150 bhai-bhai (brotherly) relationship with Bangladesh, 1 and CAA, 138, 178 coal, 156 demographics (1975), 149 effects of Partition on, 145 “Employee Characteristics of Firms in West Bengal” (Murshid), 150

273 identity-based hierarchy, 162–64 industrialization of, 157 languages spoken, 152, 173 length of border, 68 Living Realities of Muslims in West Bengal (Pratichi Institute), 153–54 and Marawis, 168 Murshid on, 150–52, 258 Muslims as “low caste”, 169–71 nationalist struggles, 27 neoliberalism in, 156–62 as perceived home of Bengali Hindus, 164 West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation, 151, 161 “Who Are the Bengali Muslims? Conversion and Islamization in Bengal” (Eaton), 3 women importance in trade, 84 as labor export, 13, 40, 42, 101 marriages for cross-border networks, 83, 90, 96 and microcredit loans, 43, 181 and patriarchy, 20, 22 and smuggling, 7, 93 work-participation rate, 153 work participation rate, 153–54 World Bank, 37, 122, 154 Xi Jinping, 134 Yunus, Muhammad, 43 Zafar, Mir, 54, 62 zamindars/West Bengal Hindu landowners, 9, 54, 146, 148, 152–53