Dwelling in Loss Environment, Displacement and Memory in the Indian Ganges Delta Arne Harms Dwelling in Loss: Environment, Displacement and Memory in the Indian Ganges Delta Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Dr. phil. Vorgelegt am Fachbereich Politik- und Sozialwissenschaften der Freien Universität Berlin von Arne Harms, M.A. Berlin, Dezember 2013 Erstgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Ute Luig Zweitgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Shalini Randeria Tag der Disputation: 10. Juli 2014 Memories are crafted by oblivion as the outlines of the shore are created by the sea. Marc Augé, Oblivion Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... iv Table of Figures ........................................................................................................................ vi A Note on Transliteration ......................................................................................................... vii Glossary ................................................................................................................................... viii 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 7 1.2. Structure of the Thesis ........................................................................................................... 10 2. Theoretical Approaches .................................................................................................... 12 2.1. (De)naturalizing the World: Theoretical Approaches ........................................................... 12 2.1.1. Disentangling disasters ...................................................................................................... 15 2.1.2. Suffering Disastrous Environments ................................................................................... 19 2.1.3. On Resilience .................................................................................................................... 23 2.2. Figurations of Social Memory ............................................................................................... 26 2.2.1. Becoming Narrative........................................................................................................... 28 2.2.2. The Materiality of Remembering ...................................................................................... 33 2.3. Of Fences and Lost Valleys: Genealogical Notes on ‘Forced Migration’ ............................. 36 2.3.1. Environment and Displacement ........................................................................................ 39 2.3.2. Emplacing Lives ................................................................................................................ 43 3. On the Topography of the Ganges Delta .......................................................................... 46 4. Palimpsest, Materialities: Hybrid Histories ...................................................................... 55 4.1. Kings and Pirates ................................................................................................................... 56 4.2. Ritual Dimensions ................................................................................................................. 59 4.3. Colonial: In the Mouth of Darkness ...................................................................................... 67 4.4. Into Aladdin’s Cave: Settlement Operations ......................................................................... 71 4.5. A Floating Laboratory ........................................................................................................... 77 4.6. Sāgar within and beyond the Postcolonial Sundarbans ......................................................... 85 4.7. Summary: Struggling with Clay ............................................................................................ 92 5. Entering the Colony .......................................................................................................... 93 5.1. At the Margins of a Sacral Centre ......................................................................................... 97 5.2. Spatial Practices .................................................................................................................... 98 5.3. On the Politics of Embankments ......................................................................................... 108 6. Fields, Boats and Pathways: Relations of Work ............................................................. 116 i 6.1. Agriculture........................................................................................................................... 116 6.2. Pilgrimage traffic ................................................................................................................. 119 6.3. Fish Work ............................................................................................................................ 121 6.4. Labour Migrations ............................................................................................................... 127 6.5. Summary: Volatile Resilience ............................................................................................. 130 7. What is the Disaster? And when? ................................................................................... 132 7.1. Storms, large and small ....................................................................................................... 132 7.2. Floods, large and small ........................................................................................................ 136 7.3. Boundless Disasters: On the Workings of Erosions ............................................................ 138 7.3.1. Chronicity ........................................................................................................................ 138 7.3.2. Prognoses and Consequences .......................................................................................... 147 7.3.3. Interlude: Chars and Peasants .......................................................................................... 150 7.4. Utopian, dystopian disasters ................................................................................................ 156 8. On Circuits of Displacement and Emplacement ............................................................. 162 8.1. The Enigma of Departure: On Circuits and Flows .............................................................. 163 8.1.1. Density, Poverty and Conflicts ........................................................................................ 165 8.1.2. Social Disasters ............................................................................................................... 169 8.1.3. Islands of Love ................................................................................................................ 179 8.2. Of Horses, Men and Tigers: On the Meaning of Space at the Fringes ................................ 181 8.2.1. Struggles of Emplacement ............................................................................................... 188 8.2.2. Rural Riches .................................................................................................................... 194 8.3. Remembering Loss .............................................................................................................. 198 8.3.1. Vanishing Shores: Silencing the Prehistory .................................................................... 199 8.3.2. Particular nights ............................................................................................................... 203 8.3.3. Silence (II): Pasts as Squatters ........................................................................................ 206 8.3.4. Climaxes and Incidents: The Story of the Children and the Tree .................................... 209 8.3.5. On Communities and Collectivities ................................................................................. 215 8.4. Remembering Resettlement................................................................................................. 225 8.4.1. Land and the Perils of Rehabilitation: Politics, Poetics ................................................... 226 8.4.2. Which State: Between Parti and Central Government .................................................... 232 8.4.3. Facilitations of Resettlement ........................................................................................... 234 8.4.4. On the Cultivation of Belonging: Emplacements ............................................................ 240 8.4.4.1. A Death Foretold ......................................................................................................... 241 8.4.4.2. Sharing the New .......................................................................................................... 246 8.4.5. Neither Deep nor Shallow ............................................................................................... 250 8.5. Media and the Arrival of Public Memory ........................................................................... 253 ii 8.6. Summary: Resilience in Shallow Places ............................................................................