1st Edition
Citizenship in Contemporary Times The Indian Context
This book engages with evolving definitions of borders and citizenship in the public discourse in the South Asia region.
The traditional understanding of citizenship and belonging in the Indian context has been fraying in recent decades. The book offers an analysis of discussions on India’s contested zones, the anxieties around identity and the implications of and reactions to the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in different regions in the country. It interrogates the concepts of belonging, ownership and dissent through an analysis of the anti-CAA protests, the Namasudra movements, the life of Tibetan refugees in India and the precarious lives of many communities in India who are identified as stateless, refugees, migrants or outsiders.
Interdisciplinary and topical, this book will be of interest to students and researchers of sociology, political science, law, refugee studies, borderland studies, migration studies, public policy, social policy and development studies.
List of Contributors. Preface. Acknowledgements. I. Introduction 1: The ‘Outsider’ Within: Emerging Politics of Citizenship in India II. Statelessness: Emotions and Anxieties 2: Citizenship Question in Transnational Context: Literary Perspectives 3: Cities of Refuge, Republics of Char: Stateless in South Asia 4: Miya Poetry: Poetics, Politics and Polemics III. Persistent Fault Lines: The Unique Case of Assam 5: Post-Colonial Modes of Nation Making: The Politics of Disowning Citizens 6: Legislating Anxiety: The History of Citizenship Conundrum in Post-colonial Assam 7: Citizenship in the Fabric of Hindu Nationalism in Assam 8: From ‘Filthy Migrants’ to Khilonjiya Musalmaan: The Saga of Citizenship Question in Assam IV. Tracing Lived Experiences: The Curious Case of West Bengal 9: Disaggregating the "Anti-Immigrant Consensus": Party–Community Relations and the Politics of Citizenship in Contemporary West Bengal 10: Muslims Between Citizenship and Media Bias: Insights From Anti-CAA Protest Sites 11:‘Rights’, ‘Lived Worlds’ and Citizenship: The Case of Kolkata’s Muslims V. The Citizenship Question: Borders and Border-Crossings 12: 'To Be or Not to Be': Tibetans and the Question of Citizenship 13: Citizenship Dilemmas of the Nepalis(ese) of Darjeeling Hills and Beyond 14: Border and Belonging: Historicizing the Question of Indigeneity and Citizenship in Manipur 15: Between Legality and Illegality: Citizenship and the Chakmas in North-East India. Index.
Biography
Gorky Chakraborty is Associate Professor at the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK), India. His research is primarily focused on development-related issues in North-East India.
