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Anthropology and sociology
07 February 2017

New citizenship of the former enclave dwellers

On 7 May 2015, the Parliament of India in a historic move ratified the Land Boundary Agreement (popularly referred to as the 1974 LBA) with the Government of Bangladesh, an agreement that was pending ratification for forty-one long years. This amendment allowed for the exchange of 111 Indian enclaves and 51 Bangladeshi enclaves scattered along the border between the two states and made the world's largest enclave complex history. It triggered this ethnographic study on the new developments in the lives of the erstwhile defacto stateless residents of the former Bangladeshi border enclaves in the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, India, who opted to become Indian citizens.

This study for more than eight months was made possible by the 2015-2016 Flash Research Project Funding instrument administered by the Cooperation and Development Center (CO DEV), EPFL, Lausanne, under the supervision of Professor Shalini Randeria and Professor Alessandro Monsutti and managed by the Global Migration Centre, IHEID. This study on the new citizenship of the former enclave dwellers historically and ethnographically explores the micro struggles and evolution of citizenship in this particular borderscape. It studies the political activism of the new citizens, the shifts in their identity and their material experiences with the 'idea of India'.



The funding concluded with the presentation of research at the international conference titled 'Borders, Violence and Challenges to Identities', organised by the Indian project partner, Calcutta Research Group, in Kolkata, India, between 20-23 December, 2016, in collaboration with Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. 

Anuradha Sen Mookerjee, PhD Candidate

Research Assistant, Global Migration Centre