List of material for the participants Hard Copies
1. Policies and Practices 36
Bengal-Bangladesh Border and Women
This number of the Policies and Practices series contains three research papers, entitled ‘Bengal- Bangladesh Borderland: Chronicles from Nadia, Murshidabad and Malda’ by Paula Banerjee;
‘Narrated Time and Constructed Space - Remembering the Communal Violence of 1950 in Hooghly’ by Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury and ‘Voices of Women in Borderlands’ by Aditi Bhaduri.
These studies are based on the CRG-ICSSR research programme on Women and Borders in South Asia. These articles intend to study the border both as a metaphor and in reality and these studies aim to take a hard look at the interface of gender and democracy.
Essays by Paula Banerjee, Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury and Aditi Bhaduri 2. Policies and Practices 33
Endangered Lives on The Border: Women in the Northeast
This volume contains three research papers, entitled “Heat of the Barbed Wire: Engendered lives along the borderlands of West Garo Hills” by Anjuman ara Begum; “Sanitized Societies and Dangerous Interlopers: Women of a border town: Moreh” by Chitra Ahanthem and “Sanitized Society and dangerous interlopers: A case of borders making ‘brothers’ illegal? The Chin population in Mizoram” by Sahana Basavapatna. This volume is an offshoot of the CRG-ICSSR research programme on Women and Borders in South Asia. These articles intend to study the border both as a metaphor and in reality and these studies aim to take a hard look at the interface of gender and democracy. These three studies tell us the tales of marginalization of women along the borders in India’s Northeast.
Essays by Anjuman Ara Begum, Chitra Ahanthem and Sahana Basavapatna
3. B.S.Chimni, “Status of Refugees in India: Strategic Ambiguity” in Ranabir Samaddar (ed.), Refugees and the State: Practices of Asylum and care in India, 1947-2000, Sage, 2003, pp.443-471.
4. “What the courts say”: A Short write up on the Courts’ decisions related to refugees in India, Source: Ranabir Samaddar, ‘Foreword’, in Ranabir Samaddar (ed.), Refugees and the State: Practices of asylum and care in India 1947-2000, New Delhi, Sage Publications, 2003.
5. Text of 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees.
6. Text of 1967 Protocol relating to the status of refugees.
** You are requested to contact Professor Sanjukta Bhattacharya, Jadavpur University (for JU students) and Dr. Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury, MCRG (for CU students) for the hard copies.
Soft Copies
1. Policies and Practices 21
Citizens, Non-Citizens and the Stories of Camps
The two research papers included here discuss the lives, experiences, memories, processes and practices of refugees located in various camps including one of the largest transit camps in West- Bengal, known as Cooper’s Camp. The papers examine, in different ways, the practices of the state and analyse the production of identities and subjectivities of the refugees and the ways they are institutionalized and differentiated from other subjects. As one paper mentions, the category of refugee emerges as the battlefield where specific identities and subjectivities are contested and forged in effective skirmishes of everyday life. The two studies on Cooper’s Camp can be labeled as micro- histories, but the strategy of recovering refugee experience in this fashion has been deliberately employed, not simply to restore subjectivity but also to recapture the agency of the refugee constructed through memory and other forms of self-representation. Refugee camps in India have always been the sites of contestation in the creation of the state and both the studies illustrate this in various ways. The two studies show quite effectively how the state produces its subjects, and more importantly, how the state creates the figure of ‘citizen’ and the ‘non-citizen’.
Essays by Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury and Ishita Dey http://www.mcrg.ac.in/pp21.pdf 2. Policies and Practices 12
A Status Report on Displacement in Assam & Manipur
While inter-ethnic conflicts have by no means been rare in India’s Northeast, population displacement induced by such conflicts is sharply on the rise particularly since the 1980s. Conflicts and violence confined in the past mainly to the armed groups and the security forces of the state seldom triggered off population displacement of such scale and magnitude as one notices now. It is important that we take note of the changing dynamics of conflicts and violence in the region.
Conflicts today have acquired a truly mass character in the sense that they show an alarming propensity of engulfing an ever-greater number of people involved in them. In this situation, it is ironic that the two rights of home and homeland run at cross-purposes. This has its implications for the politics, ecology and topography of the region. Mixed areas with historically practised exchanges and transactions between communities are at peril. And, thus for instance, never before in its history has Manipur been so much divided as it is now. Internal displacements sparked off by conflicts are a product of many a hidden partition in the society seldom officially acknowledged. This study on fifty years of population displacement in Manipur tells us the story of a society that has hit almost a blind alley with little clue as to how to cross the divides and negotiate its rapidly changing ethnic landscape.
We need to complement it with many other stories. As various stories marked by these divides unfold, they reveal a surprisingly similar structure – a structure that constantly reminds us of how violence once initiated eventually gathers its own momentum and takes its toll on each one of us – big or small, powerful or powerless. The essay on Assam prods us to think in terms of formulating an agenda that takes us beyond the given fault lines. It underlines the need for dialogues as a means of addressing the issues of rights and justice. We cannot ignore the fact that the development- induced displacement against this backdrop of ethnic tensions has complicated the problem related to rights and justice in India’s Northeast even more.
Essays by Monirul Hussain and Pradip Phanjoubam http://www.mcrg.ac.in/pp12.pdf
3. Policies and Practices 1
People On The Move - How Governments Manage Moving Populations
This publication is a part of the discussion programme on the IDPs in Delhi, held in New Delhi between the Calcutta Research Group and visiting Asia Pacific Forum delegation in October 2004.
Essays in the volume present a brief over view of internal displacement in India and deals with their causes. One of the essays in particular shows the gendered nature of displacement. One of the essays present a critic of the National Policy for Resettlement and Rehabilitation and shows how it is geared towards meeting the requirements of economic reforms.
Essays by Samir Kumar Das, Paula Banerjee and Madhuresh Kumar http://www.mcrg.ac.in/pp1.pdf
4. Geetisha Dasgupta and Ishita Dey, State of Research on Forced Migration in the East and North-East, Economic and Politiocal Weekly, May 22, 2010, pp. 37-42/
5. Sanjoy Chaturvedi and Sanjoy Barbora, Autonomies in the North and the North East: More Freedom or the Politics of Frontier Managament?, CRG, 2005
6. Cathrine Brun, Research guide on internal displacement, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
7. Relief to Rehabilitation: Towards Policy on Development Planning, Displacement and Rehabilitation by Madhuresh Kumar, Refugee watch, Issue 31, June 2008.
http://www.mcrg.ac.in/rw%20files/RW31.htm#R3
8. Refugees and Humanitarianism by Itty Abraham, Refugee watch, Issue 24, 2005.
9. Refugee Watch Online
Refugee Watch online is a co-publication of Refugee Watch on the flow of refugees, other victims of forced migration, and the internally displaced persons in South Asia. It presents news and views, critiques and analyses of policies of the States and international humanitarian institutions with regard to forced migration and forced population flows across the borders in this region. It stresses the need for a broad legal framework for this region with regard to refugee protection and protection of other victims of forced displacement. It tries to inform and build a network of intellectuals (such as teachers, journalists, lawyers, jurists, and human rights thinkers), academic institutes, and various public interest groups in order to address the task of drawing political and social attention to the cause of the human rights of the victims of forced migration. One of the essential features of the publication is its constant attention to the requirements of gender justice with regard to the victims of forced displacement.
Please. visit http://refugeewatchonline.blogspot.com/ for further details.
