London School of Economics and Political Science HISTORIES OF DISPLACEMENT AND THE CREATION OF POLITICAL SPACE: ‘STATELESSNESS’ AND CITIZENSHIP IN BANGLADESH Victoria Redclift Submitted to the Department of Sociology, LSE, for the degree of PhD, London, July 2011. Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 For Pappu 2 Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 Declaration I confirm that the following thesis, presented for examination for the degree of PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science, is entirely my own work, other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of the author. I warrant that this authorization does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. ____________________ ____________________ Victoria Redclift Date 3 Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 Abstract In May 2008, at the High Court of Bangladesh, a ‘community’ that has been ‘stateless’ for over thirty five years were finally granted citizenship. Empirical research with this ‘community’ as it negotiates the lines drawn between legal status and statelessness captures an important historical moment. It represents a critical evaluation of the way ‘political space’ is contested at the local level and what this reveals about the nature and boundaries of citizenship. The thesis argues that in certain transition states the construction and contestation of citizenship is more complicated than often discussed. The ‘crafting’ of citizenship since the colonial period has left an indelible mark, and in the specificity of Bangladesh’s historical imagination, access to, and understandings of, citizenship are socially and spatially produced. While much has changed since Partition, particular discursive registers have lost little of their value. Today, religious discourses of ‘pollution’ and ‘purity’ fold into colonial and post-colonial narratives of ‘primitivity’ and ‘progress’ and the camp draws a line in contemporary nationalist space. Unpicking Agamben’s (1998; 2005) binary between ‘political beings’ and ‘bare life’, the thesis considers ‘the camp’ as a social form. The camps of Bangladesh do not function as bounded physical or conceptual spaces in which denationalized groups are altogether divorced from ‘the polity’. Instead ‘acts of citizenship’ (Isin and Nielsen, 2008) occur at the level of everyday life, as the moments in which formal status is transgressed. Until now the space of citizenship has failed to recognise the ‘non-citizens’ who can, through complicated accommodations and creative alliances, occupy or negotiate that space. Using these insights, the thesis develops the concept of ‘political space’, an analysis of the way in which history has shaped spatial arrangements and political subjectivity. In doing so, it provides an analytic approach of relevance to wider problems of displacement, citizenship and ethnic relations. 4 Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 Acknowledgements There are many different people who have contributed intellectual, practical or emotional support in the writing of this thesis. However, my first debt is to Noor Islam. Without his help and guidance the research would simply not have been carried out, and without his humour and generosity it would certainly not have been as productive and enjoyable as it was. Pappu, I am grateful to know you. In a similar vein I would like to thank Al Falah Bangladesh, the Shamshul Huque Foundation Saidpur and of course the participants of this research. It goes without saying that the ‘Urdu-speakers’ of Bangladesh, who welcomed me so generously into their world, are the very heart of this thesis. I thank them for sharing their stories and their lives so openly with me. My supervisors have been an absolutely unbeatable team. Dr Claire Alexander, who has been there since the start, has provided deliberate, detailed, thought-provoking feedback, at every stage of the process. Without her support and encouragement I would probably have given up a long time ago and, as a model of intellectual and pedagogic integrity, she has given me something to aspire to. The opportunity to bring in Dr Manali Desai half- way through the process was an enormous stroke of good fortune. Her challenging, critical and comprehensive insight has given my work the grounding it needs and repeatedly kept me from veering off track. Thank you both. I realise that I have been tremendously lucky. Throughout the research process I have also received the help of Dr Joya Chatterjee, Professor Chowdhury Abrar, Dr Tasneem Siddiqui, Professor Katy Gardner, Dr Ilina Singh, Dr Suki Ali, Dr Robin Archer, Dr Margot Saloman and of course my fellow Sociology research students at the LSE. I have also to thank my extended informal supervisory team, Professors Michael and Nanneke Redclift, who must by now know every page of this thesis word for word. I will be thanking them for the rest of my life no doubt as they continue to provide help, support, encouragement and love. They are, in fact, the intellectual, practical and emotional support rolled into one, and few are as fortunate. Enormous thanks go also to Joe Treasure for the patience and generosity to proof-read the entire thing, and lastly, to Jesse Potter, for being my companion on this journey, and for reminding me that there is more to life. 5 Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 My PhD was funded by the Bonnart-Braunthal scholarship and I could not write these acknowledgements without thanking Freddy Bonnart himself. I would not have been able to undertake a PhD at all without his help. I would also like to thank the Population Investigation Committee and the Richard Stapley Educational Trust for funding my MSc, without which my life for the past six years would have been very different. 6 Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 Table of contents: Names and Acronyms 10 1. Introduction 11 Outline of the thesis 16 2. Methodology 20 1. Field sites, population and sampling 21 2. Interviews and Participant Observation 26 3. Working with local contacts 33 4. Ethical Issues 39 5. Specific research questions 46 6. Analysis 46 3. Foregrounding the background: ‘Urdu-speakers in East Bengal 49 1. The British Period 50 2. Partition and the creation of Pakistan 51 3. Language struggles: 1947-1971 60 4. The Liberation of Bangladesh 66 5. The formation of the camps and ‘repatriation’ 78 6. The legal status of ‘Urdu-speakers’ 1972-today 82 4. Categories and claims: Literature and conceptual framework 85 1. The state, the nation and its citizens 85 2. Nationalism, citizenship and the postcolonial nation-state 97 3. Ethnicity, identity and ‘community’ 109 4. Diaspora and displacement 115 5. Natural, social and ‘political space’ 126 5. Boundaries, intersections and the ‘socio-spatial’ contours of ‘community’ 132 7 Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 1. The boundaries of ‘community’ 135 2. The intersections of identity 157 3. The ‘socio-spatial’ structure 169 4. Conclusion 175 6. ‘Acts of citizenship’: Authority, ambiguity and the politics of space 178 1. The constitution and constructions of citizenship 179 2. Agency, choice and blame 192 3. Space, settlement and substantive access 201 4. Claiming political subjectivity 212 5. Conclusion 217 7. The ‘social field of citizenship’: Identities, understandings and the language of rights 221 1. ‘Identities of citizenship’ 224 2. Property and citizenship in Bangladesh: past and present 229 3. Gains and losses 237 4. A look to the future 249 5. Conclusion 250 8. Discourses of ‘integration’: Capital, movement and ‘modernity’ 253 1. Economic capital 256 2. Cultural capital – language 265 3. Cultural capital – foods, festivals, religion 274 4. Social capital 289 5. ‘Passing as Bengali’ 296 6. Conclusion 303 Conclusion 306 1. Nationalist discourse and the ‘crafting’ of citizenship 307 2. The creation of ‘political space’ 309 8 Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 3. Agents or abjects? ‘The camp’ as a social form 312 4. Emergent spaces and globalizing forces 314 References 317 Appendices 340 Tables: 1. East Pakistan Mohajir population by area and division, 1951 340 2. East Pakistan Mohajir population by district, 1951 340 3. Mohajir settlement and origin in East Pakistan, 1951 340 4. Self-supporting Biharis main economic divisions, East Pakistan, 1951 341 5. Allotment for the Mohajirs in Different Areas 1951-52 342 6. Allotment of Advanced Loan 1951-52 342 7. Urdu-speaker Settlements (and Population) in Bangladesh, 2006 343 Maps: 1. Geographical distribution of camps areas in Bangladesh 353 2. Location of field sites in Dhaka (Mohammadpur and Mirpur) 354 3. Geographical distribution of camps in Mirpur 355 4. Geographical distribution of camps in Mohammadpur 356 9 Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 NAMES AND ACRONYMS: AL – Awami League (ruling party) Al Falah – Al Falah Bangladesh (Urdu-speaking NGO) BNP – Bangladesh Nationalist Party (opposition party) ICRC – International Committee for the Red Cross Jamaat – Bangladesh Jamaat-i-Islami1 (far right Islamic political party) RMMRU – Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit SPGRC – Stranded Pakistani General Repatriation Committee UNHCR – United Nations High Commission for Refugees USYRM - The Urdu-speaking Youth Rehabilitation Movement2 1 Formerly Jamaat-i-Islami Bangladesh, renamed in 2008 2 Formerly the Stranded Pakistani Youth Repatriation Movement’ (SPYRM), renamed in 2008 10 Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION The years that followed the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent in 1947 generated what is now regarded as one of the largest involuntary migrations in modern history (Daiya, 2008). Altogether around eighteen million people left their homes in the first two decades after the creation of Pakistan (Partha Ghosh, 20043), approximately seven hundred thousand of whom were Urdu-speaking Muslims who migrated to the region of East Bengal (Tan and Kudaisya, 2000; Samaddar, 1999).4 Following the Liberation of the country in 1971 many of these ‘Urdu-speakers’, known locally as ‘Biharis’5, were displaced for the second time.