DOCSLIB.ORG

Between Fear and Hope at the Bangladesh-Assam Border

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Between Fear and Hope at the Bangladesh-Assam Border Asian Journal of Social Science 45 (2017) 749–778 brill.com/ajss Between Fear and Hope at the Bangladesh-Assam Border Éva Rozália Hölzle Bielefeld University Abstract This paper is about the inhabitants of a small village in Bangladesh, which lies on the border with the Indian state of Assam. Due to an Indo-Bangladesh agreement, inhab- itants are confronted with losing their agricultural lands. In addition, since 2010, the Border Security Force of India (bsf) impedes residents in approaching their gardens, an action that has led to repeated confrontations between the bsf and the villagers. Both threats instigate high levels of fear among the residents. However, their hopes are also high. How can we explain equally high levels of fear and hope among the residents? I suggest that the simultaneous surfacing of fear and hope sheds light on “bipolar” state practices on the ground (i.e., at the same time targeting and protecting lives), as well as the entanglement of the existential and the political (i.e., vulnerability and a demand for recognition) in the everyday lives of the residents. Keywords fear – hope – violence – democracy – borderland – Bangladesh – Assam Introduction The village, Nolikhai, is located in the Greater Sylhet of Bangladesh on the border with Assam (see Figure 1). The majority of the residents are Pnar and War Khasis. They earn a subsistence income from betel leaf (pan) production. While their houses are in Bangladesh, their agricultural lands lie on a 300-acre- stretch of territory in no man’s land, that is, between Bangladesh and India. The villagers have not had official land titles over their area of residence or the farmlands since the colonial period. They have been leasing the land from a © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/15685314-04506007Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:40:22PM via free access 750 hölzle privately-owned tea estate since the 1920s. Because of the border, their lives have always been volatile. However, their problems related to tenancy have become more acute in the last five years. In 2011, Bangladesh and India inked a land boundary agreement (lba) to solve territorial conflicts along the border. According to the lba, the official border will be realigned in the direction of the Nolikhai residential area, that is, a few meters “inside” Bangladesh, in the near future. This means that while the villagers’ residential area will remain in Bangladesh, their agricultural lands will become part of Assam territory. The execution of the lba, therefore, threatens the residents with the loss of their farmlands and their livelihoods.This is, however, just one part of their problem. Since the erection of a barbwire fence in 2010, the Border Security Force of India (bsf) has restricted the villagers from entering their gardens. Therefore, it has become increasingly difficult for residents to cultivate pan without risking verbal or physical confrontations with the bsf.1 Both of these threats, the loss of farmlands and the confrontations with border guards on a daily basis, has instigated high levels of fear among the villagers. Yet, the outcome of the lba is uncertain. Moreover, the Bangladeshi state not only allows voices that question the legitimacy of the lba, but also occasionally provides protection for the inhabitants from the bsf, through the Border Guards Bangladesh (bgb). Consequently, the villagers’ daily lives are affected by high levels of fear and hope. The latter materialises through a particular language of dissidence, as well as demands directed towards the Bangladeshi state. How can we make sense of the equally high levels of fear and hope among the residents of Nolikhai? In answering this question, I will do so with two argumentative steps. First, I suggest that the simultaneous appearance of fear and hope shed light on “bipolar” (Singh, 2015:44) state practices on the ground. By “bipolar”, I mean that the state as a guardian, permitting dissident voices to arise, as well as a source of arbitrary power, targeting and denying the same lives that it intends to protect, coexist in contemporary democracies. As Butler argues, being targeted and protected are not two separate alternatives that can be mutually excluded, even if they are actually antithetical: “targeting and protecting are practices that belong to the same rationale of power” (2015:144). Such contradictory state practices represent not the exception, but rather the norm under democratic 1 The violent activities of the bsf are well documented by Bangladeshi media and human rights organisations (see Human Rights Watch, 2010). One of the most publicised cases was the 2011 killing of Felani Khatun, a 15-year-old girl, who was shot dead by the bsf when crossing the Bangladesh-India border, and whose body was left hanging on the barbed wire fence (see also Cons, 2016:14–15). Asian Journal of SocialDownloaded Science from 45 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 749–778 05:40:22PM via free access between fear and hope at the bangladesh-assam border 751 rule. Moreover, the introduction of democracy does not necessarily mean an interruption to former political practices that came to the fore during colonial- ism. The land politics of the contemporary Bangladeshi state, along its national margins, are continuations of older colonial practices of state formation, based for instance on demands for legal land papers. Yet, land title is just one possible “inscription device”. As Li (2014) writes, the axe, the spade, the plough and—I would add—the historical continuation of occupation represent other ways of carving entitlements into land. Such alternatives claims were rejected during British colonial rule and continue to be disregarded by the Bangladeshi state, thereby enabling legal (i.e., denying land rights) and physical abuses (i.e., allow- ing intimidation by bsf). Second, fear is revealed in Nolikhai through a heightened sense of vulnera- bility, materialised through physical exposure, and through the potential col- lapse of material and social conditions that sustain life. The inhabitants’ hope, in contrast, stands for searching for viable possibilities, but also a move away from an increasingly marginalised position and towards a demand for recogni- tion. The concomitant surfacing of fear and hope discloses that existential and political matters represent not separate, but two entangled realms of the social world. That such emotional intensities and contradictions emerge exactly at nation-state margins is not accidental. As Cons (2016:7) recently argued, bor- derlands are best understood as “sensitive spaces”. Such spaces are charac- terised by ambiguities, exhibiting insecurities over “fragility and instability […] of national territory”, while investing effort to rule out such exposures by “asserting jurisdiction over and control of space”. Borderlands as sensitive spaces accumulate intense uncertainties, from both the state, as well as its inhabitants. This paper contributes empirically to the expanding literature that refuses to see democracy and violence as antithetical (see Basu and Roy, 2007; Das, 2008; Bauman, 1995; Das and Poole, 2004; Spencer, 2007). Rather than viewing them as contradictory, I build upon the theoretical consideration that democracy widens the space for the proliferation of violence in different geographical and social contexts (see Pfaff-Czarnecka and Gerharz in this volume, Singh 2015, Butler 2015). Simultaneously, my understanding of democracy is informed by recent anthropological conceptualisations (Michelutti, 2008; Spencer, 2007; Pfaff-Czarnecka, 2008; Paley, 2008) that depart from normative and macro- oriented theories.The anthropology of democracy pays attention to the actions and ideas of local stakeholders instead of focusing on formal institutions, and views democracy as an unfinished, nonlinear political practice that has contradictory and unanticipated outcomes in the local context. Asian Journal of Social Science 45 (2017) 749–778 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:40:22PM via free access 752 hölzle figure 1 Map of Bangladesh and north-east India source: http://mdoner.gov.in/sites/default/files/silo4_content/ ne/ne_region.jpg Additionally, this paper builds on borderland literature in which the ambi- guities and ambivalences of political life on the ground have come to play a central role. This has resulted in a detailed body of knowledge about bor- derlands as contested spaces with their own dynamics (see van Schendel, 2005; Banerjee, 2010) and contributed to understanding the “state” not as a “fixed object” (Asad, 2004:279), but as a series of procedures that “oscillate between the rational mode and the magical mode of being”: Between legi- bility and illegibility (Das, 2004:225). It has also explored the ways in which spatial and social marginality intersect with each other along the peripheries (Cons, 2012; Middleton, 2013). As I hope to show, Nolikhai, too, is located at the margin of the nation-state in a tension-filled zone, emerging from oscillations between risk and adventure, danger and safety, control and defiance, fear and hope. Asian Journal of SocialDownloaded Science from 45 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 749–778 05:40:22PM via free access between fear and hope at the bangladesh-assam border 753 The arguments in this paper are built upon a corpus of data gathered between 2010 and 2016. This data was used in a study that analyses struggles over land, in the context of land dispossession in north-eastern Bangladesh, from the perspective of small-scale indigenous farmers, who had already lost or are threatened with losing their lands in the future. In the analysis below, I will use individual and group discussions conducted with the affected farm- ers from Nolikhai, as well as my own observations collected during six different stays in the village. The analysis is structured into four sections. Given that the notion of the border and its transformation occupy a significant role in the local history of Nolikhai, Section 2 reflects briefly on the historical formation of the Sylhet- Meghalaya-Assam border.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Insecure World of the Nation
    The Insecure World of the Nation Ranabir Samaddar In T​he Marginal Nation,​ which dealt with trans­border migration from Bangladesh to West Bengal, two moods, two mentalities, and two worlds were in description – that of cartographic anxiety and an ironic un­concern. In that description of marginality, where nations, borders, boundaries, communities, and the political societies were enmeshed in making a non­nationalised world, and the citizen­migrant (two animals yet at the same time one) formed the political subject of this universe of transcendence, interconnections and linkages were the priority theme. Clearly, though conflict was an underlying strain throughout the book, the emphasis was on the human condition of the subject ­ the migrant’s capacity to transgress the various boundaries set in place by nation­formation in South Asia. Therefore, responding to the debate on the numbers of illegal migrants I termed it as a “numbers game”. My argument was that in this world of edges, the problem was not what was truth (a​bout nationality, identity, and numbers), but truth (o​f n​ationality, identity, and numbers) itself was the problem.1 Yet, this was an excessively humanised description, that today on hindsight after the passing of some years since its publication, seems to have downplayed the overwhelming factor of conflict and wars that take place because “communities must be defended” – one can say the “permanent condition” in which communities find themselves. On this re­reading of the problematic the questions, which crop up are:
    [Show full text]
  • ADMINISTRATION and POLITICS in TRIPURA Directorate of Distance Education TRIPURA UNIVERSITY
    ADMINISTRATION AND POLITICS IN TRIPURA MA [Political Science] Third Semester POLS 905 E EDCN 803C [ENGLISH EDITION] Directorate of Distance Education TRIPURA UNIVERSITY Reviewer Dr Biswaranjan Mohanty Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi Authors: Neeru Sood, Units (1.4.3, 1.5, 1.10, 2.3-2.5, 2.9, 3.3-3.5, 3.9, 4.2, 4.4-4.5, 4.9) © Reserved, 2017 Pradeep Kumar Deepak, Units (1.2-1.4.2, 4.3) © Pradeep Kumar Deepak, 2017 Ruma Bhattacharya, Units (1.6, 2.2, 3.2) © Ruma Bhattacharya, 2017 Vikas Publishing House, Units (1.0-1.1, 1.7-1.9, 1.11, 2.0-2.1, 2.6-2.8, 2.10, 3.0-3.1, 3.6-3.8, 3.10, 4.0-4.1, 4.6-4.8, 4.10) © Reserved, 2017 Books are developed, printed and published on behalf of Directorate of Distance Education, Tripura University by Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication which is material, protected by this copyright notice may not be reproduced or transmitted or utilized or stored in any form of by any means now known or hereinafter invented, electronic, digital or mechanical, including photocopying, scanning, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the DDE, Tripura University & Publisher. Information contained in this book has been published by VIKAS® Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. and has been obtained by its Authors from sources believed to be reliable and are correct to the best of their knowledge.
    [Show full text]
  • Mobilizing Global Knowledge Refugee Research in an Age of Displacement
    MOBILIZING GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE: REFUGEE RESEARCH IN AN AGE OF DISPLACEMENT Edited by Susan McGrath and Julie E. E. Young ISBN 978-1-77385-086-3 THIS BOOK IS AN OPEN ACCESS E-BOOK. It is an electronic version of a book that can be purchased in physical form through any bookseller or on-line retailer, or from our distributors. Please support this open access publication by requesting that your university purchase a print copy of this book, or by purchasing a copy yourself. If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected] Cover Art: The artwork on the cover of this book is not open access and falls under traditional copyright provisions; it cannot be reproduced in any way without written permission of the artists and their agents. The cover can be displayed as a complete cover image for the purposes of publicizing this work, but the artwork cannot be extracted from the context of the cover of this specific work without breaching the artist’s copyright. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: This open-access work is published under a Creative Commons licence. This means that you are free to copy, distribute, display or perform the work as long as you clearly attribute the work to its authors and publisher, that you do not use this work for any commercial gain in any form, and that you in no way alter, transform, or build on the work outside of its use in normal academic scholarship without our express permission. If you want to reuse or distribute the work, you must inform its new audience of the licence terms of this work.
    [Show full text]
  • Annexure- a PAPER-V Course Code: HISHC105 Course Code: HISTORY of INDIA III (C. 750 -1206) I. Studying Early Medieval India
    Annexure- A PAPER-V Course Code: HISHC105 Course Code: HISTORY OF INDIA III (c. 750 -1206) I. Studying Early Medieval India: (a) Historical Geography (b) Sources: Texts, Epigraphic and Numismatic (c) Rise of the Rajputs and the nature of the State (d) Rashtrakutas, Palas, Pratiharas II. Political Structures: (a) Evolution of political structures; Cholas: state and administration (b) Legitimization of kingship; Brahmanas and Temples; Royal Genealogies and Rituals (c) Arab conquest of Sindh: nature and impact of the new set-up; Ismaili dawah (d) Causes and consequences of early Turkish invasions: Mahmud of Ghazna; Shahab-ud-Din of Ghaur III. Agrarian Structure and Social Change: (a) Agricultural expansion, crops (b) Landlords, Peasants and tribes (c) Proliferation of Castes; status of Untouchables (d) Debates on Indian feudalism IV. Trade and Commerce: (a) Inter-regional Trade (b) Maritime Trade (c) Forms of Exchange (d) Process of Urbanization (e) Merchant guilds of South India V. Religious and Cultural Developments: (a) Tantrism, Puranic traditions; Buddhism and Jainism (b) Islamic intellectual traditions: Al-Biruni; Al-Hujwiri (c) Regional Languages and Literature (d) Art and Architecture: Evolution of Regional Styles ESSENTIAL READINGS R.S. Sharma, Indian Feudalism (circa 300 - 1200). B.D. Chattopadhyaya, The Making of Early Medieval India. R.S. Sharma and K.M. Shrimali, eds, Comprehensive History of India, Vol. IV (A & B). Mohammad Habib and K.A. Nizami, eds, Comprehensive History of India, Vol. V, The Delhi Sultanate Hermann Kulke, ed., The State in India (AD 1000 - AD 1700). N. Karashima, South Indian History and Society (Studies from Inscriptions, AD 850 -1800 Derryl N.
    [Show full text]
  • Le Donne E Il Lavoro Sognato
    UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA FACOLTA’ DI PSICOLOGIA Ordinamento Quadriennale TITOLO TESI UNA COMUNITA’ BANGLADESE TRA INTEGRAZIONE E CHIUSURA : LE DONNE E IL LAVORO SOGNATO. Traduzione in Inglese A Bangladeshi Community Between Integration and Closure : Women and the Dreamed Work. RELATORE LAUREANDO Prof. Giovanni Battista Mariano Mutton Novello Paglianti MATRICOLA 105112 ANNO ACCADEMICO 2007/2008 1 2 INDICE. 1 Introduzione 8 2 Informazioni generali sul Bangladesh 9 3 Caratteristiche dell’immigrazione bangladese In Italia 13 3.1 Storia dell’immigrazione bangladese in Italia 13 3.2 L’immigrazione bangladese nel Veneto 13 3.2.1 Suddivisione di genere 16 3.3 L’immigrazione bangladese nella provincia di Treviso 17 3.3.1 Presenza degli immigrati bangladesi in provincia di Treviso (dati relativi all’anno 2003) 17 3.3.2 Presenza degli immigrati bangladesi in provincia di Treviso (dati relativi all’anno 2007) 22 3.4 Caratteristiche socio-economiche della zona del Quartier del Piave 31 3.4.1 Caratteristiche geografico-ambientali e socio- economiche 33 4 L’inserimento lavorativo delle donne bangladesi : cronistoria di un tentativo non riuscito 39 4.1 Il lavoro preliminare 39 4.2 Il primo incontro con Hossain Mokarrom 40 4.2.1 Considerazioni 42 4.3 L’associazione BASCO 43 4.4 Primo incontro con l’Associazione BASCO 46 4.5 Secondo incontro con l’Associazione BASCO 48 4.5.1 Considerazioni 50 4.6 Incontro con il Consorzio Intesa (CCA) 51 4.6.1 Considerazioni 53 4.7 Epilogo del Progetto di Cooperativa 54 5 Ritorno a casa : la condizione femminile
    [Show full text]
  • Ancient Polities, Modern States
    Ancient Polities, Modern States The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Foa, Roberto. 2016. Ancient Polities, Modern States. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:26718768 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Ancient Polities, Modern States A dissertation presented by Roberto Stefan Foa to The Committee on Degrees in Government in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Government Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts January 2016 c 2016 – Roberto Stefan Foa All rights reserved. Thesis advisor Author James A. Robinson Roberto Stefan Foa Ancient Polities, Modern States Abstract Political science is concerned with the study of polities. However, remarkably few scholars are familiar with the polities of the premodern era, such as Vijayanagara, Siam, Abyssinia, the Kingdoms of Kongo or Mutapa, or the Mysore or Maratha empires. This dissertation examines the legacies of precolonial polities in India, during the period from 1707 to 1857. I argue that, contrary to the widespread perception that the Indian subcon- tinent was a pre-state society, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were a time of rapid defensive modernization across the subcontinent, driven by the requirements of gunpowder weaponry and interstate warfare among South Asian regimes and against European colonial powers.
    [Show full text]
  • History [2017]
    SYLLABUS DIBRUGARH UNIVERSITY THREE YEAR DEGREE PROGRAMME (Under CBCS) HISTORY [2017] 1 Details of Courses Under Undergraduate Programme (B.A) History Course *Credits ========================================================= Course Credit Tutorial I. Core Course 14X4= 56 14X1=14 (56+14=70 Credits (14 Papers) II. Elective Course (8 Papers) Discipline Specific Elective 4x4=16 4X1=4 (16+4=20 Credits) (Any Four) Generic Elective 4X4=16 4X1=4 (16+4=20 Credits) (Interdisciplinary) (Any Four) III. Ability Enhancement Courses 1. Ability Enhancement Compulsory Courses (AECC) 2 X 2=4 2 X 2=4 (4+4=8 Credits) (2 Papers of 2 credits each) Environmental Science English Communication/MIL 2. Ability Enhancement Courses 2 X 2=4 2 X 2=4 (4+4=8 Credits) (Skill based) (4 Papers of 2 credits each) _________________ Total credit= 128 2 Structure of B.A. CBCS (Hons) History Course of Dibrugarh University, 2017 Core Course (14) Paper I: History of India-I Paper-II: Social Formations and Cultural Patterns of the Ancient World Paper III: History of India-II Paper IV: Social Formations and Cultural Patterns of the Medieval World Paper V: History of India-III (c. 750-1206) Paper VI: Rise of the Modern West-I Paper VII: History of India IV (c.1206-1550) Paper VIII: Rise of the Modern West -11 Paper IX: History of India-V (c. 1550-1605) Paper X: History of India-VI (c. 1605-1750) Paper XI: History of Modern Europe- I (c. 1780-1939) Paper XII: History of India-VII (c. 1750-1857) Paper XIII: History of India-VIII (c. 1857-1950) Paper XIV: History of Modern Europe- II
    [Show full text]
  • TRANSNATIONAL TRENDS: Middle Eastern and Asian Views
    LIF001_Frontmatter 6/26/08 1:26 PM Page i TRANSNATIONAL TRENDS: Middle Eastern and Asian Views Amit Pandya Ellen Laipson Editors July 2008 LIF001_Frontmatter 6/26/08 1:26 PM Page ii Copyright © 2008 The Henry L. Stimson Center ISBN: 0-9770023-4-9 Cover photos: Women of the Islamic Universities, Gaza, © Rula Halawan/ Sygma/Corbis; Philippine farmer at dried water pond, ROMEO GACAD/AFP/Getty Images; Man at Vishwa Hindu Parishad rally, New Delhi, India, PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images Cover design by Rock Creek Creative All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent from The Henry L. Stimson Center. The Henry L. Stimson Center 1111 19th Street, NW, 12th Floor Washington, DC 20036 Telephone: 202-223-5956 Fax: 202-238-9604 www.stimson.org LIF001_Frontmatter 6/26/08 1:26 PM Page iii CONTENTS Preface: Ellen Laipson . .vii Acknowledgments . .ix Chapter 1 Perspectives from the Regions Amit A. Pandya . .1 Middle East Chapter 2 Science, Technology, and Transnational Security in the Middle East Hayfaa Almudhaf . .23 Chapter 3 Apples and Oranges: Identity, Ideology, and State in the Arab World Rami G. Khouri . .41 Chapter 4 Demography in the Middle East: Implications and Risks Paul D. Dyer . .62 South Asia Chapter 5 Indian Muslims: Political Leadership and Ideology Irfan Engineer . .93 Chapter 6 Insurgency, Terrorism, and Transnational Crime in South Asia V. Balachandran . .114 Southeast Asia Chapter 7 Nontraditional Security, Regionalism, and the State in Southeast Asia Mely Caballero-Anthony . .139 Chapter 8 Transboundary Environmental Governance in Southeast Asia Antonio P.
    [Show full text]
  • Remembering Sylhet: a Forgotten Story of India's 1947 Partition
    COMMENTARY anarchist movements and anti-globalisation culture and has existed before in history, all forms of terrorism must be appreci- movements are also now added to the list particularly in the Indian context. For ated. At the same time, one must make a of terrorisms. One agency in the US even example, the Muslim sea traders were sup- contrast between terrorism and the jehad once included India’s security agency, ported in their efforts to oppose Portuguese against western hegemony (which is a the RAW in the list. Every year the list is hegemony through a jehad by the Zamorins constructive one). This jehad should expanding. At present, officially designated of Calicut. Kunhalis belonging to coastal o rient itself to recognise and protect the terrorist groups might be around 800 at Kerala including Calicut, Malabar and rights of women, dalit Muslims and the the global level; however, if we add non- Kochi had also opposed Portuguese hege- poor, through the process of opposing designated groups, the numbers might mony [Makdum 2008]. Another example western hegemony which has manifested cross 1,000. is that of the 1857 revolt (as revealed by through the processes of globalisation Jehad has been linked to terrorism in William Darlymple’s latest book on The and capitalism. another context: that of globalisation. The Last Moghul). Even colonialists of today jehad against western symbolism, regard the struggle against western hegem- References hegemony in culture, power and against ony a form of jehad (“Clash of civilisations” Darul Uloom, Deoband (2008): ‘Declaration: All India western lifestyle has been conflated with according to Samuel P Huntington).
    [Show full text]
  • CHAPTER-1 INTRODUCTION A) Geographical Extent of Barak Valley
    CHAPTER-1 INTRODUCTION a) Geographical Extent of Barak Valley: The present Barak Valley of the state of Assam is a region created by natural boundaries and apportionment caused by the Redcliffe Award that divided the District of Sylhet of Surma Valley of the British period in 1947 following a referendum in Sylhet along with the partition of India. As a matter of fact, modem Barak Valley comprising Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi districts, bounded by the lofty mountains of North Cachar Hill District on the north, the Angami Naga Hills and Mam'pur state on the east and the hills of Mizoram and Tripura on the south, is a truncated portion of Surma valley, an administrative unit consisting of the districts of Sylhet and Cachar of the British province of Assam organised in 1874 and as such it is bordered on the west by the greater portion of Surma Valley now forming the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh. It may not be out of place to mention here that the present day Barak Valley, although a truncated portion of Surma Valley of the pre-partition days, is neither a political nor an administrative unit. It is rather a geographical entity containing linguistic and cultural attributes distinctly different from that of Brahmaputra Valley, the other plain of the state of Assam. During the British period, the region had no separate entity as it formed a part Surma Valley comprising two districts of Sylhet and Cachar of the British province of Assam. The geographical extent of Barak valley comprising three administra­ tive districts of Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj does not coincide with the social boundary of the region which is wider even than that of the Surma Valley of which the modem Barak Valley would form a part.
    [Show full text]
  • The Politics of Language Contact in the Himalayaoffers Nuanced Insights Into Language and Its Rela�On to Power in This Geopoli�Cally Complex Region
    The Politics of Language S Contact in the Himalaya ONNTAG AND EDITED BY SELMA K. SONNTAG AND MARK TURIN This book brings together linguistic theory and empirical studies addressing human rights, multilingual education, language ecology and endangered languages. It is essential reading T URIN The Politics of for students, practitioners, language activists and scholars working on language planning, multilingual education, endangered languages and language politics. This is indeed an interdisciplinary book that is testimony to why lesser-known languages matter in the Himalaya ( Language Contact and beyond. EDS —Prof. Nirmal Man Tuladhar, Chair, Social Science Baha .) Although this book was written for a specialist audience of advanced scholars and doctoral in the Himalaya students, the authors successfully link these specific cases to broader issues in sociolinguistics, language policy and planning, and political science. Hence this book will be of interest to scholars working on other contexts besides the Himalayan region; I am very pleased to see such a complex and interesting analysis of the politics of language contact. —Prof. James Tollefson, University of Washington The Politics The Contact in the Hima of Language This highly original and �mely collec�on brings together case studies from salient areas of the Himalayan region to explore the poli�cs of language contact. Promo�ng a linguis�cally and historically grounded perspec�ve, The Politics of Language Contact in the Himalayaoffers nuanced insights into language and its rela�on to power in this geopoli�cally complex region. Edited by respected scholars in the field, the collec�on comprises five new research contribu�ons by established and early-career researchers who have been significantly engaged in the Himalayan region.
    [Show full text]
  • Where Is Assam? Using Geographical History to Locate Current Social Realities
    Where is Assam? Using Geographical History to Locate Current Social Realities. David Ludden February 22, 2007 Assam sits in a continent defined by national states, and … In a sub-continent, defined by national territories ... In India, a national state, centred on New Delhi … InIn aa northeasternnortheastern region,region, defineddefined byby IndianIndian statesstates.. Thus, Assam exists inside the gridlines of national geography … … where Assam is a solid piece of Indian national territory, fixed inside a world of national states. In this national view of social reality, all things acquire their definitive location, identity, and meaning as national entities. But other spatial perspectives exist Despite the universal authority of national geography, the spatial location of social reality is never singular, immutable, or stationary. The fact that Assam is part of India is of course indisputable, but this fact coexists with others that locate Assam and all its constituent elements, including its boundaries, differently. The goal of this paper is to explore Assam’s geographical location, its composition in its wider world, and by doing so, to suggest how we might locate social realities in multiple, changing, and mobile spaces, in which, regions like Assam acquire a kaleidoscopic appearance, open to many interpretations and analytical approaches, in the fullness of time. My reasons for undertaking this exercise today are that I want to 1) indicate the limitations of thinking about geography in the rigidly territorial terms that constitute national systems of spatial order, and 2) illuminate alternative frames of spatial reference for conceptualizing geography in scholarship, activism, and policy-making. Step One: to appreciate the cultural politics of map knowledge All representations of territory are political projects, not merely empirical facts.
    [Show full text]