This book examines forced migration of two refugees groups in South Asia. The author discusses the claims of “belonging” of refugees, and asserts that in practice “belonging” can extend beyond the state-centric understanding of membership in South Asian states. She addresses two sets of interrelated questions: what factors determine whether refugees are relocated to their home countries in South Asia, and why do some repatriated groups re-integrate more successfully than others in “post-peace” South Asian states? This book answers these questions through a study of refugees from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who sought asylum in India and were later relocated to their countries of origin. Since postcolonial societies have a typical kind of state-formation, in South Asia’s case this has profoundly shaped questions of belonging and membership. The debate tends to focus on citizenship, making it a benchmark to demarcate inclusion and exclusion in South Asian states. In addition to qualitative analysis, this book includes narratives of Sri Lankan and Chakma refugees in post-conflict and post-peace Sri Lanka and Bangladesh respectively, and critiques the impact of macro policies from the bottom up.

This book provides an in-depth investigation of citizenship and nationalism in connection with the Rohingya community. It analyses the processes of production of statelessness in South Asia in general, and with regard to the Rohingyas in particular. Following the persecution of the Rohingya community in Myanmar (Burma) by the military and the Buddhist militia, a host of texts, mostly descriptive, have examined the historical, political and cultural roots of the genocidal massacre and the flight of its victims to South Asia and South-East Asian countries. The UNHCR reports describe the plight of Rohingyas during and after their journey, while other works focus on the political-economic roots of this ethnic conflict and its consequences for the Rohingyas. To date, very few theoretical insights have been provided on the Rohingya issue. This book seeks to fill that gap, and explores a dialogue between the state and its citizens and non-citizens that results in the production of statelessness. In theoretical terms, the book addresses the construction of citizens and non-citizens on the part of the state, and the process of symbolic othering, achieved through various state practices couched in terms of nationalism. Extensive case studies from India, Myanmar and Bangladesh provide the foundation for a robust theoretical argument. Given its scope, the book will be of interest to students, academics and researchers with a focus on political economy in South Asia in general and/or refugee studies in particular.

This volume is about migration across South Asia and the complex negotiation of borders by people and the states in the process. A border is understood as a form of demarcation, but it also opens up the flow of people, goods, and ideas of legality and illegality. Borders are dynamic and dyadic in the interface of state and non-state actors involved in border operations. Consequently, transborder movement becomes a complex web involving concerns of security, trade, militancy, and questions of citizenship, along with discourses of ghettoisation, belonging and otherness. Since the mid-20th century, the South Asian region has witnessed growing social and political instability and breakdown of regional cooperation. In this context, the volume casts a wide, interdisciplinary lens across South Asia and discusses economic migration as well as forced migration due to persecution and natural disasters. It looks at how understandings of ‘territoriality’ and ‘border’ become blurred due to increasing transborder migration in the region: how states in South Asia address transborder movements at both policy level and on the ground; and how borderlands become spaces for illegal trade and informal economy in South Asia and for negotiations between states and refugees on identity and citizenship. This highly topical volume is for a wide group of scholars and students interested in South Asia, ranging from sociology, anthropology, political science, history, to interdisciplinary fields like migration studies, peace and conflict studies, and development studies.

The crisis in East Pakistan in 1971, which preceded the birth of Bangladesh, led to ten million refugees crossing the border into India. This book argues that this massive influx of refugees within a few short months changed ideas about citizenship and belonging in South Asia. The book looks at how the Indian state, while generously keeping its borders open to the refugees, made it clear that these refugees were different from those generated by Partition, and would not be allowed to settle permanently. It discusses how the state was breaking its ‘effective’ link between refugees and citizenship, and how at the same time a second ‘affective’ border was developing between those living in the border areas, especially in Assam and West Bengal. Moving beyond the refugee narratives created by Partition, this book argues that these ‘effective’ and ‘affective’ borders generated by the refugee crisis in 1971 form part of the longer historical trajectory of the current political debate regarding ‘illegal infiltration’ from Bangladesh . It goes on to analyse the aftermath of the 1971 war and the massive repatriation project undertaken by the governments of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to examine ways in which questions about minorities and belonging remained unresolved post-1971. The book is an interesting contribution to the history of refugees, border-making and 1971 in South Asia, as well as to studies in politics and international relations.

Statelessness is incessantly produced in seas, cities, and law. Building around the postcolonial experiences of statelessness Sites of Statelessness examines the entanglements of citizenship policies and practices with the spread of statelessness in contemporary times, something that defies any kind of a citizen/stateless binary. These policies are significant, the background of a shift in emphasis from jus soli to jus sanguinis, the proliferation of borderland populations and nowhere people, population flows across (post)colonial border formations and boundary delimitations, and the growth of regional, formal, and informal labor markets characterized by immigrant labor economies. In this context, contributors address the distinctive dynamics of the different sites in the production of statelessness and considers the impact of these sites as critical and does not merely treat them as a backdrop. They argue that these different sites evoke different histories and repertoires and also bring different possibilities of alignment with emerging problematics.

Successive amendments in the citizenship law in India have spawned distinct regimes of citizenship. The idea of citizenship regimes is crucial for making the argument that law must be seen not simply as bare provisions but also examined for the ideological practices that validate it and lay claims to its enforceability. While citizenship regime in India can be distinguished from one another on the basis on their distinct political and legal rationalities, cumulatively they present a movement from jus soli to jus sanguinis. The movement towards jus sanguinis has been a complex process of entrenchment of exclusionary nationhood under the veneer of liberal citizenship. This work argues that the contemporary landscape of citizenship in India is dominated by the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The CAA 2019 and the NRC emerged as distinct tendencies from the amendment in the citizenship law in 2003. These tendencies subsequently become conjoined in an ideological alignment to make citizenship dependent on lineage, spelling out ideas of belonging which are tied to descent and blood ties. The NRC has invoked the spectre of 'crisis' in citizenship generated by indiscriminate immigration and the risks presented by 'illegal migrants', to justify an extraordinary regime of citizenship. The CAA provides for the exemption of some migrants from this regime by making religion the criterion of distinguishability. The CAA 2019 and NRC have generated a regime of 'bounded citizenship' based on the assumption that citizenship can be passed on as a legacy of ancestry making it a natural and constitutive identity. The politics of Hindutva serves as an ideological apparatus buttressing the regime and propelling the movement away from the foundational principles of secular-constitutionalism that characterised Indian citizenship in 1949.

This book critically discusses the multi-dimensional contemporary issues within the ambit of the driving forces, mechanisms, vulnerability, and opportunities of the intra-region human movement in South Asia. It covers different dimensions of cross-border migration within South Asia as well as internal migration particularly in India, reflecting upon both voluntary and forced movements. It traces the trajectory and past trends in migration in the South Asian countries. It evaluates the vulnerability of refugees and stateless vis-à-vis state policies. Issues regarding Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to Bangladesh, Nepalese immigration to India, the crisis around Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, Afghan returnee refugees from Pakistan and Iran, resettlement of Bhutanese refugees are explored in the chapters. It also analyzes the impact on wage inequality due to emigration, the crucial role of social capital in migration decisions, and socio-economic vulnerabilities of women migrants in India. This book provides a clear understanding of international and internal migration in South Asia for students and academics, and a valuable resource for policy-makers and planners in development studies, regional development, and South Asian studies.

This book centres the voices and agency of migrants by refocusing attention on the diversity and complexity of human mobility when seen from the perspective of people on the move; in doing so, the volume disrupts the binary logics of migrant/refugee, push/pull, and places of origin/destination that have informed the bulk of migration research. Drawn from a range of disciplines and methodologies, this anthology links disparate theories, approaches, and geographical foci to better understand the spectrum of the migratory experience from the viewpoint of migrants themselves. The book explores the causes and consequences of human displacement at different scales (both individual and community-level) and across different time points (from antiquity to the present) and geographies (not just the Global North but also the Global South). Transnational scholars across a range of knowledge cultures advance a broader global discourse on mobility and migration that centres on the direct experiences and narratives of migrants themselves. Both interdisciplinary and accessible, this book will be useful for scholars and students in Migration Studies, Global Studies, Sociology, Geography, and Anthropology.

Establishes links between lack of societal peace, structural causes of human suffering, recurrent patterns of political violence and forced migration in the Global South.

This handbook marks a key intervention in refugee studies in India—home to diverse groups of refugees, including an entire government in exile. It unravels the various socio-economic, political, and cultural dimensions of refugee issues in India. The volume examines the various legal, political, and policy frameworks for accommodating refugees or asylum seekers in India, including the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Registry of Citizens. It evaluates the lack of uniformity in the Indian legal and political framework to deal with its refugee population and analyzes the grounds of inclusion or exclusion for different groups. Drawing from the experiences of Jewish, Tibetan, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Afghan, and Rohingya refugees in India, it analyzes debates around marginalization, citizenship, and refugee rights. It also explores the spatial and gendered dimensions of forced migration and the cultural and social lives of displaced communities, including their quest for decent work, education, and health. The volume will be an indispensable reference for scholars, lawyers, researchers, and students of refugee studies, migration and diaspora studies, public policy, social policy and development studies.