Negotiating Borders and Borderlands: The Indian Experience

Borders have always been seen as physical lines of separation, which mark the ‘other’ and group geographical spaces into territories and nation-States. However, can borders and borderlands also simultaneously exist as gateways for trade and commerce while being rigid institutions that disallow the movement of people from one part to another? Are some borders seen while others are only felt? Negotiating Borders and Borderlands shows how these ‘in-between’ spaces of borders have their own stories to tell. The chapters move beyond the Statist view of borders and provide a picture of borderlands from the perspective of those who inhabit such spaces. The authors show how the impact of Partition still echoes in the borderlands of postcolonial India, located along the land boundaries of Bangladesh, China, Myanmar, and Pakistan. They discuss • issues of displacement, citizenship, territoriality, and identity that followed the often arbitrary boundary demarcations during the colonial period; • how disputed political borders and cross-border military action affect the everyday lives of people; • the sociocultural practices of minority communities in neighbouring countries; and • the crucial role played by symbolic, invisible borders that present through the creation of the ‘self’ versus the ‘other’.
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