More than 1 million Rohingya have fled Myanmar to live in Bangladesh, mostly in Cox's Bazar distr... more More than 1 million Rohingya have fled Myanmar to live in Bangladesh, mostly in Cox's Bazar district. The government of Bangladesh has been praised worldwide for sheltering them, but this enormous influx has strained its limited resources. As the host communities struggle with the Rohingya for control over, and access to, the scarce natural resources on which they depend for their livelihood-land, water, agriculture and forests-tension and conflict arises. The host community members perceive that the government and aid agencies prioritise the Rohingya over them in allocating resources, exacerbating their resentment. Both the locals and the Rohingya are marginalised, and therefore there is a need to focus on refugee-host community resource-based conflicts and related issues before designing any policy catering to the refugees.
The Nautanki Theatre Company (Nautanki) has been actively performing drama in Sydney since 2012, ... more The Nautanki Theatre Company (Nautanki) has been actively performing drama in Sydney since 2012, and it has been organising the South Asian Theatre Festival since 2016. We study their discourses, cultural politics, and practices; conduct an ethnographic observation of performances; and interview performers, organisers, and survey audiences of the 2019 theatre festival in-depth. We contend that by hosting performances and events, Nautanki creates a space for amicable, intercultural dwellings in which collective identity is forged through crosscultural dialogue, deliberation, embodied aesthetics, and bottomup intercultural ethics that shift state-promoted top-down multicultural ideas and policies. Nautanki also instils a sense of longing for cultural novelty, authenticity, and participation, and creates a hybrid cultural 'South Asian' community identity, in Sydney.
This study compares adivasi movements against two mining projects commissioned in India by Vedant... more This study compares adivasi movements against two mining projects commissioned in India by Vedanta Resources, a London-based Indian mining corporation. One is the resistance of the Dongria Kondh to the bauxite mining and aluminium processing projects at Niyamgiri. The movement succeeded when the Supreme Court of India scrapped the project in 2013. The other is the movement of the Binjhal against a gold mining project at Sonakhan. The project was to be started in 2015, but intense opposition led the chief minister promise to stop it. We argue that both the movements, which had only ‘cultural resources’ available, established solidarity by mobilizing history, memory and folk imaginaries. The participation of external civil society organizations led to a resounding success across scales in the case of Niyamgiri. But the local contextualization of culture, and limited networks, constrained the success of the Sonakhan movement to the local scale. The ultimate successful outcome for both however depended on the available ‘political opportunities’ across times and scales.
The British enacted the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871 to control Indian society after the rebellion... more The British enacted the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871 to control Indian society after the rebellion against colonial rule in 1857. By means of the Act, the British depicted entire communities and groups as hereditary criminalswithout any substantive legal or incriminating evidenceusing the concept of race, used in anthropology and anthropometry, and of caste. They termed the groups 'tribes' instead of 'castes' to evoke qualities of wildness and savagery in a way that the term 'caste' could not. The British also used the Act to term the tribes 'criminal'. In ascribing criminality, they misinterpreted texts, folklore and proverbs, and they relied on the biased advice of upper caste elite native informants. This systematic sociopolitical and legal subjugation stigmatized, ostracized and impoverished many so-called lowercaste and tribal communities. Even 75 years after Independence and denotification of the 'criminal' status, these communities remain outcastes. This paper traces the making of the category of 'criminal tribe' in colonial timesby charting the discourses, practices, processes and legal landmarks that led to the enactment, subsequent amendments and, finally, repeal of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871and its afterlife in postcolonial India. The paper argues that although the category of 'criminal caste' did exist before colonial times, the British colonialists applied the category of 'tribe' to the criminal castes for rhetorical and administrative purposes, and that the socio-legal construction of criminal tribes happened through a concatenation of contradictory notions that made the label of 'criminal tribe' a patchwork of mutually untenable discourses.
More than 1 million Rohingya have fled Myanmar to live in Bangladesh, mostly in Cox's Bazar distr... more More than 1 million Rohingya have fled Myanmar to live in Bangladesh, mostly in Cox's Bazar district. The government of Bangladesh has been praised worldwide for sheltering them, but this enormous influx has strained its limited resources. As the host communities struggle with the Rohingya for control over, and access to, the scarce natural resources on which they depend for their livelihood-land, water, agriculture and forests-tension and conflict arises. The host community members perceive that the government and aid agencies prioritise the Rohingya over them in allocating resources, exacerbating their resentment. Both the locals and the Rohingya are marginalised, and therefore there is a need to focus on refugee-host community resource-based conflicts and related issues before designing any policy catering to the refugees.
The value of many natural resources is not fixed; it depends on factors both intrinsic and extern... more The value of many natural resources is not fixed; it depends on factors both intrinsic and external to the commodity; such is the case of precious stones. These commodities are termed “speculative commodities.” Here, I take the example of gemstones and conceptually trace and analyse the process of their commodification, with the help of Marxist theory and its various derivatives. The process of commodification and value addition that these resources go through are unique: partly, value is added and created through labour and their specialised artisanal crafts, but the major part of the profit is generated through discursive mechanisms of stories and narratives, the manipulation of supplies, and the manufacturing of demands through advertisements around each stone to make it valuable and pricey. The diamond and gemstone industry reaps extravagant profits from the otherwise useless pieces of stones – barring some industrial uses and the aesthetic value that they have. But their aesthetic dimension hides the greed, lust, violence, and aggression inherent in their commodification – many of these stones emerge from conflicts in the Global South – and that this source and history only add to their allure.
Thailand is a worldwide hub for the value addition of gemstones. Women in Thailand enjoy a high l... more Thailand is a worldwide hub for the value addition of gemstones. Women in Thailand enjoy a high level of education, their employment level is on par with other member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and they play a significant role in the gem and jewellery industry. Thai institutions support the industry, but their gender-neutral stance does not celebrate, or capitalise on, the contribution of female actors. Patriarchy and 'invisible masculinity' underlie entrepreneurship across the country. A few privileged women have experienced a degree of empowerment and fair conditions at work. But some parts of the industry, for example, home-based work, are informal and women in the home-based gemstone-cutting industry in the border regions, hit particularly hard by COVID-19, have experienced little progress. The literature has not paid much attention to the Thai gem resource sector or to the contribution of women. This paper considers the gem and jewellery industry's contribution to the lives of women in Thailand referencing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-gender equality and empowerment (SDG 5), decent work and economic work (SDG 8), and reduced inequalities (SDG 10). The paper is based on seven years of research into the opportunities and challenges for women in the gemstone value chain spanning Madagascar and Thailand. The paper questions the extent to which the industry has enabled and empowered women in Thailand, and whether it perpetuates some of the patterns of economic inequality reflected in, and caused by, the urban-rural divide.
The city of Chanthaburi in the Thai-Cambodia borderlands is small, but has played a signicant rol... more The city of Chanthaburi in the Thai-Cambodia borderlands is small, but has played a signicant role in the history of Thailand and in the history of gem trade throughout the world. Located 250 kilometers to the east of Bangkok, the Thai-Cambodia borderlands have traditionally produced world-class and yellow sapphires (GIA 2015)
Societies and Political Orders in Transition, 2019
In April 2011, in India, mass protests began against kleptocracy, electoral fraud, black money, a... more In April 2011, in India, mass protests began against kleptocracy, electoral fraud, black money, and various other aspects of corruption. Protesters demanded the enactment and enforcement of strong legislation against perceived political corruption. Eventually, in 2013, the Anti-corruption Citizen’s Ombudsman Act (or the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act) was passed.
From 2015, huge numbers of Rohingyas started arriving on the Bangladesh border fleeing persecutio... more From 2015, huge numbers of Rohingyas started arriving on the Bangladesh border fleeing persecution from the Myanmar military. Arnab Roy Chowdhury (Moscow, Russia) and Ahmed Abid (Sydney, Australia) explain how by stepping in to support Bangladesh to cope with the refugee crisis, intergovernmental organisations and NGOs have shaped new processes, norms, and institutions of policy advice and refugee management on behalf of the government.
This research project focuses on the resurgence of Kuki-Chin ethnic nationalism in the Indo-Myanm... more This research project focuses on the resurgence of Kuki-Chin ethnic nationalism in the Indo-Myanmar borderlands. The tribe known as Kuki in Manipur is known as Chin in Myanmar—they live on both sides of the Indo-Myanmar border. Their land was annexed by the British in the 19th century and, during decolonization, divided between the new countries of India and Myanmar. The Kukis have a history of anticolonial resistance, and they have launched postcolonial ethnic nationalist movements to claim an autonomous state. In 2009, the Indian and Myanmar governments started investing in a hydropower project named Tamanthi in the borderland districts of Myanmar. There were protests against that project, because construction would have not only caused large-scale displacement but also led to the erasure of the sacred geography of the Kuki-Chin, and these protests led to the cancelation of the project. The specific research case of the movement against Tamanthi in Myanmar discussed here demonstrates a context in which the Kuki-Chin identity was politicized and forged, which not only stalled the project but led to the resurgence of ethno-nationalist demands on both sides of the border. Through this case study, we analyze the dilemmas, ambivalence, and processes of doing research in borderland communities, and demonstrate that these communities cannot be studied through the standard methodologically nationalist and realist paradigm, that is, a cross-country comparison of cases. To appreciate how and why ethno-nationalism and secessionism emerges whenever there is a state intervention for “development,” we need an “ethno-historical,” constructivist, and “emic” understanding of the making of these borderland communities and the liminal spaces they inhabit.
ABSTRACT
In Myanmar, the state and the Buddhist-majority civil society have long been hostile to ... more ABSTRACT In Myanmar, the state and the Buddhist-majority civil society have long been hostile to the people known as the Rohingya. The Muslim Rohingya have lived in Rakhine state for centuries, but the Myanmar government, labelling them “illegal Bengali migrants,” has rendered them stateless under the 1982 Citizenship Law. The recent “democratisation” of Myanmar facilitated neoliberal expansion in the resource-rich Rakhine and intensified discrimination and violence, and the Rohingyas have been forced to flee in large numbers. They leave Myanmar on fishing boats and trawlers and attempt to enter countries like Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia, “illegally” aided by smugglers. The boat people travel from marginality to ever-prevailing precarity and liminality; en route through the seas and lands of their host countries, they experience further monstrosities perpetrated by state and non-state actors. The judiciary, state, and capital together produce categories of “legality and illegality” that constitute the “amphibian life” of the “boat people” and create for them an ambivalent identity of “refugee-hood” and/or “statelessness.” Here we present our ethnographic study of this violence-laced field of forced migration, situated at the cusp of South Asia and Southeast Asia. We critically extend Agamben’s theory of “state of exception” and “bare life” to elaborate upon the “spaces of exception” experienced by the “boat people” and conceptualise the notion of “amphibian life” by analysing their agentic capability, after and beyond “bare life.”
In Myanmar, the Citizenship Law of 1982 made the Rohingya “stateless.” The Rohingya consider Bang... more In Myanmar, the Citizenship Law of 1982 made the Rohingya “stateless.” The Rohingya consider Bangladesh a haven and take to the sea on rickety boats to cross borders. If they do, however, they become “illegal migrants.” Considering such laws unjust, local and international NGOs have been leading struggles to uphold the Rohingyas’ rights in Bangladesh. This article registers the struggles of these organizations against the production of illegality and statelessness. It discusses how they contest and negotiate the thick mix of politics, the local labor control regime, laws, and national regulations, and how in turn the refugees assert their agency through resilience and resistance, individually and collectively.
Rio Tinto had been developing a diamond mining project in Madhya
Pradesh for a decade when in 201... more Rio Tinto had been developing a diamond mining project in Madhya Pradesh for a decade when in 2017 it hastily abandoned the project. We analyse this counterintuitive exit through an ethnographic approach nested within a qualitative case study framework. We argue that the exit was caused by multi-scalar politics. Local protests over livelihood and labour issues –pre-emptively rearticulated by regional civil society groups through an ecological ‘framing’ – led to litigation. The national forest bureaucracy posed regulatory hurdles, and a change in the national political regime in 2014 brought to power a party that leveraged national capital of a certain variety, which weakened Rio Tinto’s political position. Lastly, a slump in the global diamond market created economic uncertainties, finally leading to its exit. It has not, however, deterred the government from facilitating investment by Indian mega-corporate houses in mining diamonds, once again ignoring local dissent. Under the current regime in India, the space for activism is increasingly restricted, and that restriction, we contend, can lead to the disarray in strategising alliances and goals between ecological and social justice concerns.
Sudipta Kaviraj’s work spans South Asian politics to intellectual history
in India and is tangent... more Sudipta Kaviraj’s work spans South Asian politics to intellectual history in India and is tangentially connected to the project of postcolonial and subaltern studies. Though his body of work is not enormous, the quality of his scholarship has been path-breaking. It has had a profound effect on, in general, South Asian studies and, in particular, in the analysis of the politics of the postcolonial Indian state and the creation of a post-nationalist intellectual-historical project that deconstructs the travesty of the so-called ‘Nationalist’ political history writing enterprise. This paper discusses the major contributions and ideas of Kaviraj around the emergence of nationalist thought in India. It traces the nature of colonial modernity; works of anti-colonial writers; postcolonial state making and the project of national reconstruction in India; and the slow transformations of the political-economic sphere of the independent Indian state in relation to the civil society.
This research project focuses on the resurgence of Kuki-Chin ethnic nationalism in the Indo-Myanm... more This research project focuses on the resurgence of Kuki-Chin ethnic nationalism in the Indo-Myanmar borderlands. The tribe known as Kuki in Manipur is known as Chin in Myanmar—they live on both sides of the Indo-Myanmar border. Their land was annexed by the British in the 19th century and, during decolonization, divided between the new countries of India and Myanmar. The Kukis have a history of anticolonial resistance, and they have launched postcolonial ethnic nationalist movements to claim an autonomous state. In 2009, the Indian and Myanmar governments started investing in a hydropower project named Tamanthi in the borderland districts of Myanmar. There were protests against that project, because construction would have not only caused large-scale displacement but also led to the erasure of the sacred geography of the Kuki-Chin, and these protests led to the cancelation of the project. The specific research case of the movement against Tamanthi in Myanmar discussed here demonstrates a context in which the Kuki-Chin identity was politicized and forged, which not only stalled the project but led to the resurgence of ethno-nationalist demands on both sides of the border. Through this case study, we analyze the dilemmas, ambivalence, and processes of doing research in borderland communities, and demonstrate that these communities cannot be studied through the standard methodologically nationalist and realist paradigm, that is, a cross-country comparison of cases. To appreciate how and why ethno-nationalism and secessionism emerges whenever there is a state intervention for “development,” we need an “ethno-historical,” constructivist, and “emic” understanding of the making of these borderland communities and the liminal spaces they inhabit.
The Rohingya are one of the most persecuted religious ethnic
minorities of the contemporary world... more The Rohingya are one of the most persecuted religious ethnic minorities of the contemporary world. They have been persecuted in Myanmar since the post-coup military regime came to power in 1962. What explains this brutal pursuit of violence against a minority? In answering this question, I trace the genealogy and the ethnogenesis of the Rohingya in Myanmar in a longue durée through an analysis of extant data, both historical and contemporary, and I supplement it with an ethnographic study I conducted in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. I argue that the emergence of the Rohingya identity is constitutively related with the stateformation, war conquest, and power shifts in Myanmar during precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial times. I demonstrate how the post-coup state of Myanmar – in association with the religious civil society, led by a section of the majoritarian Theravada Buddhist Bamars – provoked religious and exclusivist nationalism and constructed the ‘Rohingya Muslims’ as the enemy ‘Other’. I demonstrate also how the democratization of Myanmar ironically exacerbated the problem. The Rohingya themselves – once alienated and un-imagined from the national space – embraced this identity of victimhood to design their resilient and oppositional disposition against an exclusivist state, which further politicized and reified the identity.
Hirashasan is the term used for governance of diamond mining and trade-with a small bureaucracy a... more Hirashasan is the term used for governance of diamond mining and trade-with a small bureaucracy and an exclusive set of rules and regulations-by the district administration of Panna in the state of Madhya Pradesh in India. Diamond mining in Panna encompasses diverse extractive practices that range from fully mechanised large-scale mining operations owned by the state, to small-scale and semi-mechanised mining carried out by farmers and landowners in groups, to individuals carrying out seasonal and part-time mining of diamonds in an artisanal manner. Based on an ethnographic study was undertaken from September 2016 to April 2017, we argue that Hirashasan has created an "extractive assemblage" that comprises four genres of mining and production systems: large-scale, small-scale, licensed artisanal and unlicensed artisanal. This assemblage is a product of historical, cultural and geographical contingencies as much as place-specificities, and does not lend itself to a single mode of governance. Mineral resource governance in a particular place, therefore, necessitates understanding and internalising the variegated and pluri-form extractive assemblages, such as that of the diamond economy in Panna.
More than 1 million Rohingya have fled Myanmar to live in Bangladesh, mostly in Cox's Bazar distr... more More than 1 million Rohingya have fled Myanmar to live in Bangladesh, mostly in Cox's Bazar district. The government of Bangladesh has been praised worldwide for sheltering them, but this enormous influx has strained its limited resources. As the host communities struggle with the Rohingya for control over, and access to, the scarce natural resources on which they depend for their livelihood-land, water, agriculture and forests-tension and conflict arises. The host community members perceive that the government and aid agencies prioritise the Rohingya over them in allocating resources, exacerbating their resentment. Both the locals and the Rohingya are marginalised, and therefore there is a need to focus on refugee-host community resource-based conflicts and related issues before designing any policy catering to the refugees.
The Nautanki Theatre Company (Nautanki) has been actively performing drama in Sydney since 2012, ... more The Nautanki Theatre Company (Nautanki) has been actively performing drama in Sydney since 2012, and it has been organising the South Asian Theatre Festival since 2016. We study their discourses, cultural politics, and practices; conduct an ethnographic observation of performances; and interview performers, organisers, and survey audiences of the 2019 theatre festival in-depth. We contend that by hosting performances and events, Nautanki creates a space for amicable, intercultural dwellings in which collective identity is forged through crosscultural dialogue, deliberation, embodied aesthetics, and bottomup intercultural ethics that shift state-promoted top-down multicultural ideas and policies. Nautanki also instils a sense of longing for cultural novelty, authenticity, and participation, and creates a hybrid cultural 'South Asian' community identity, in Sydney.
This study compares adivasi movements against two mining projects commissioned in India by Vedant... more This study compares adivasi movements against two mining projects commissioned in India by Vedanta Resources, a London-based Indian mining corporation. One is the resistance of the Dongria Kondh to the bauxite mining and aluminium processing projects at Niyamgiri. The movement succeeded when the Supreme Court of India scrapped the project in 2013. The other is the movement of the Binjhal against a gold mining project at Sonakhan. The project was to be started in 2015, but intense opposition led the chief minister promise to stop it. We argue that both the movements, which had only ‘cultural resources’ available, established solidarity by mobilizing history, memory and folk imaginaries. The participation of external civil society organizations led to a resounding success across scales in the case of Niyamgiri. But the local contextualization of culture, and limited networks, constrained the success of the Sonakhan movement to the local scale. The ultimate successful outcome for both however depended on the available ‘political opportunities’ across times and scales.
The British enacted the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871 to control Indian society after the rebellion... more The British enacted the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871 to control Indian society after the rebellion against colonial rule in 1857. By means of the Act, the British depicted entire communities and groups as hereditary criminalswithout any substantive legal or incriminating evidenceusing the concept of race, used in anthropology and anthropometry, and of caste. They termed the groups 'tribes' instead of 'castes' to evoke qualities of wildness and savagery in a way that the term 'caste' could not. The British also used the Act to term the tribes 'criminal'. In ascribing criminality, they misinterpreted texts, folklore and proverbs, and they relied on the biased advice of upper caste elite native informants. This systematic sociopolitical and legal subjugation stigmatized, ostracized and impoverished many so-called lowercaste and tribal communities. Even 75 years after Independence and denotification of the 'criminal' status, these communities remain outcastes. This paper traces the making of the category of 'criminal tribe' in colonial timesby charting the discourses, practices, processes and legal landmarks that led to the enactment, subsequent amendments and, finally, repeal of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871and its afterlife in postcolonial India. The paper argues that although the category of 'criminal caste' did exist before colonial times, the British colonialists applied the category of 'tribe' to the criminal castes for rhetorical and administrative purposes, and that the socio-legal construction of criminal tribes happened through a concatenation of contradictory notions that made the label of 'criminal tribe' a patchwork of mutually untenable discourses.
More than 1 million Rohingya have fled Myanmar to live in Bangladesh, mostly in Cox's Bazar distr... more More than 1 million Rohingya have fled Myanmar to live in Bangladesh, mostly in Cox's Bazar district. The government of Bangladesh has been praised worldwide for sheltering them, but this enormous influx has strained its limited resources. As the host communities struggle with the Rohingya for control over, and access to, the scarce natural resources on which they depend for their livelihood-land, water, agriculture and forests-tension and conflict arises. The host community members perceive that the government and aid agencies prioritise the Rohingya over them in allocating resources, exacerbating their resentment. Both the locals and the Rohingya are marginalised, and therefore there is a need to focus on refugee-host community resource-based conflicts and related issues before designing any policy catering to the refugees.
The value of many natural resources is not fixed; it depends on factors both intrinsic and extern... more The value of many natural resources is not fixed; it depends on factors both intrinsic and external to the commodity; such is the case of precious stones. These commodities are termed “speculative commodities.” Here, I take the example of gemstones and conceptually trace and analyse the process of their commodification, with the help of Marxist theory and its various derivatives. The process of commodification and value addition that these resources go through are unique: partly, value is added and created through labour and their specialised artisanal crafts, but the major part of the profit is generated through discursive mechanisms of stories and narratives, the manipulation of supplies, and the manufacturing of demands through advertisements around each stone to make it valuable and pricey. The diamond and gemstone industry reaps extravagant profits from the otherwise useless pieces of stones – barring some industrial uses and the aesthetic value that they have. But their aesthetic dimension hides the greed, lust, violence, and aggression inherent in their commodification – many of these stones emerge from conflicts in the Global South – and that this source and history only add to their allure.
Thailand is a worldwide hub for the value addition of gemstones. Women in Thailand enjoy a high l... more Thailand is a worldwide hub for the value addition of gemstones. Women in Thailand enjoy a high level of education, their employment level is on par with other member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and they play a significant role in the gem and jewellery industry. Thai institutions support the industry, but their gender-neutral stance does not celebrate, or capitalise on, the contribution of female actors. Patriarchy and 'invisible masculinity' underlie entrepreneurship across the country. A few privileged women have experienced a degree of empowerment and fair conditions at work. But some parts of the industry, for example, home-based work, are informal and women in the home-based gemstone-cutting industry in the border regions, hit particularly hard by COVID-19, have experienced little progress. The literature has not paid much attention to the Thai gem resource sector or to the contribution of women. This paper considers the gem and jewellery industry's contribution to the lives of women in Thailand referencing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-gender equality and empowerment (SDG 5), decent work and economic work (SDG 8), and reduced inequalities (SDG 10). The paper is based on seven years of research into the opportunities and challenges for women in the gemstone value chain spanning Madagascar and Thailand. The paper questions the extent to which the industry has enabled and empowered women in Thailand, and whether it perpetuates some of the patterns of economic inequality reflected in, and caused by, the urban-rural divide.
The city of Chanthaburi in the Thai-Cambodia borderlands is small, but has played a signicant rol... more The city of Chanthaburi in the Thai-Cambodia borderlands is small, but has played a signicant role in the history of Thailand and in the history of gem trade throughout the world. Located 250 kilometers to the east of Bangkok, the Thai-Cambodia borderlands have traditionally produced world-class and yellow sapphires (GIA 2015)
Societies and Political Orders in Transition, 2019
In April 2011, in India, mass protests began against kleptocracy, electoral fraud, black money, a... more In April 2011, in India, mass protests began against kleptocracy, electoral fraud, black money, and various other aspects of corruption. Protesters demanded the enactment and enforcement of strong legislation against perceived political corruption. Eventually, in 2013, the Anti-corruption Citizen’s Ombudsman Act (or the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act) was passed.
From 2015, huge numbers of Rohingyas started arriving on the Bangladesh border fleeing persecutio... more From 2015, huge numbers of Rohingyas started arriving on the Bangladesh border fleeing persecution from the Myanmar military. Arnab Roy Chowdhury (Moscow, Russia) and Ahmed Abid (Sydney, Australia) explain how by stepping in to support Bangladesh to cope with the refugee crisis, intergovernmental organisations and NGOs have shaped new processes, norms, and institutions of policy advice and refugee management on behalf of the government.
This research project focuses on the resurgence of Kuki-Chin ethnic nationalism in the Indo-Myanm... more This research project focuses on the resurgence of Kuki-Chin ethnic nationalism in the Indo-Myanmar borderlands. The tribe known as Kuki in Manipur is known as Chin in Myanmar—they live on both sides of the Indo-Myanmar border. Their land was annexed by the British in the 19th century and, during decolonization, divided between the new countries of India and Myanmar. The Kukis have a history of anticolonial resistance, and they have launched postcolonial ethnic nationalist movements to claim an autonomous state. In 2009, the Indian and Myanmar governments started investing in a hydropower project named Tamanthi in the borderland districts of Myanmar. There were protests against that project, because construction would have not only caused large-scale displacement but also led to the erasure of the sacred geography of the Kuki-Chin, and these protests led to the cancelation of the project. The specific research case of the movement against Tamanthi in Myanmar discussed here demonstrates a context in which the Kuki-Chin identity was politicized and forged, which not only stalled the project but led to the resurgence of ethno-nationalist demands on both sides of the border. Through this case study, we analyze the dilemmas, ambivalence, and processes of doing research in borderland communities, and demonstrate that these communities cannot be studied through the standard methodologically nationalist and realist paradigm, that is, a cross-country comparison of cases. To appreciate how and why ethno-nationalism and secessionism emerges whenever there is a state intervention for “development,” we need an “ethno-historical,” constructivist, and “emic” understanding of the making of these borderland communities and the liminal spaces they inhabit.
ABSTRACT
In Myanmar, the state and the Buddhist-majority civil society have long been hostile to ... more ABSTRACT In Myanmar, the state and the Buddhist-majority civil society have long been hostile to the people known as the Rohingya. The Muslim Rohingya have lived in Rakhine state for centuries, but the Myanmar government, labelling them “illegal Bengali migrants,” has rendered them stateless under the 1982 Citizenship Law. The recent “democratisation” of Myanmar facilitated neoliberal expansion in the resource-rich Rakhine and intensified discrimination and violence, and the Rohingyas have been forced to flee in large numbers. They leave Myanmar on fishing boats and trawlers and attempt to enter countries like Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia, “illegally” aided by smugglers. The boat people travel from marginality to ever-prevailing precarity and liminality; en route through the seas and lands of their host countries, they experience further monstrosities perpetrated by state and non-state actors. The judiciary, state, and capital together produce categories of “legality and illegality” that constitute the “amphibian life” of the “boat people” and create for them an ambivalent identity of “refugee-hood” and/or “statelessness.” Here we present our ethnographic study of this violence-laced field of forced migration, situated at the cusp of South Asia and Southeast Asia. We critically extend Agamben’s theory of “state of exception” and “bare life” to elaborate upon the “spaces of exception” experienced by the “boat people” and conceptualise the notion of “amphibian life” by analysing their agentic capability, after and beyond “bare life.”
In Myanmar, the Citizenship Law of 1982 made the Rohingya “stateless.” The Rohingya consider Bang... more In Myanmar, the Citizenship Law of 1982 made the Rohingya “stateless.” The Rohingya consider Bangladesh a haven and take to the sea on rickety boats to cross borders. If they do, however, they become “illegal migrants.” Considering such laws unjust, local and international NGOs have been leading struggles to uphold the Rohingyas’ rights in Bangladesh. This article registers the struggles of these organizations against the production of illegality and statelessness. It discusses how they contest and negotiate the thick mix of politics, the local labor control regime, laws, and national regulations, and how in turn the refugees assert their agency through resilience and resistance, individually and collectively.
Rio Tinto had been developing a diamond mining project in Madhya
Pradesh for a decade when in 201... more Rio Tinto had been developing a diamond mining project in Madhya Pradesh for a decade when in 2017 it hastily abandoned the project. We analyse this counterintuitive exit through an ethnographic approach nested within a qualitative case study framework. We argue that the exit was caused by multi-scalar politics. Local protests over livelihood and labour issues –pre-emptively rearticulated by regional civil society groups through an ecological ‘framing’ – led to litigation. The national forest bureaucracy posed regulatory hurdles, and a change in the national political regime in 2014 brought to power a party that leveraged national capital of a certain variety, which weakened Rio Tinto’s political position. Lastly, a slump in the global diamond market created economic uncertainties, finally leading to its exit. It has not, however, deterred the government from facilitating investment by Indian mega-corporate houses in mining diamonds, once again ignoring local dissent. Under the current regime in India, the space for activism is increasingly restricted, and that restriction, we contend, can lead to the disarray in strategising alliances and goals between ecological and social justice concerns.
Sudipta Kaviraj’s work spans South Asian politics to intellectual history
in India and is tangent... more Sudipta Kaviraj’s work spans South Asian politics to intellectual history in India and is tangentially connected to the project of postcolonial and subaltern studies. Though his body of work is not enormous, the quality of his scholarship has been path-breaking. It has had a profound effect on, in general, South Asian studies and, in particular, in the analysis of the politics of the postcolonial Indian state and the creation of a post-nationalist intellectual-historical project that deconstructs the travesty of the so-called ‘Nationalist’ political history writing enterprise. This paper discusses the major contributions and ideas of Kaviraj around the emergence of nationalist thought in India. It traces the nature of colonial modernity; works of anti-colonial writers; postcolonial state making and the project of national reconstruction in India; and the slow transformations of the political-economic sphere of the independent Indian state in relation to the civil society.
This research project focuses on the resurgence of Kuki-Chin ethnic nationalism in the Indo-Myanm... more This research project focuses on the resurgence of Kuki-Chin ethnic nationalism in the Indo-Myanmar borderlands. The tribe known as Kuki in Manipur is known as Chin in Myanmar—they live on both sides of the Indo-Myanmar border. Their land was annexed by the British in the 19th century and, during decolonization, divided between the new countries of India and Myanmar. The Kukis have a history of anticolonial resistance, and they have launched postcolonial ethnic nationalist movements to claim an autonomous state. In 2009, the Indian and Myanmar governments started investing in a hydropower project named Tamanthi in the borderland districts of Myanmar. There were protests against that project, because construction would have not only caused large-scale displacement but also led to the erasure of the sacred geography of the Kuki-Chin, and these protests led to the cancelation of the project. The specific research case of the movement against Tamanthi in Myanmar discussed here demonstrates a context in which the Kuki-Chin identity was politicized and forged, which not only stalled the project but led to the resurgence of ethno-nationalist demands on both sides of the border. Through this case study, we analyze the dilemmas, ambivalence, and processes of doing research in borderland communities, and demonstrate that these communities cannot be studied through the standard methodologically nationalist and realist paradigm, that is, a cross-country comparison of cases. To appreciate how and why ethno-nationalism and secessionism emerges whenever there is a state intervention for “development,” we need an “ethno-historical,” constructivist, and “emic” understanding of the making of these borderland communities and the liminal spaces they inhabit.
The Rohingya are one of the most persecuted religious ethnic
minorities of the contemporary world... more The Rohingya are one of the most persecuted religious ethnic minorities of the contemporary world. They have been persecuted in Myanmar since the post-coup military regime came to power in 1962. What explains this brutal pursuit of violence against a minority? In answering this question, I trace the genealogy and the ethnogenesis of the Rohingya in Myanmar in a longue durée through an analysis of extant data, both historical and contemporary, and I supplement it with an ethnographic study I conducted in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. I argue that the emergence of the Rohingya identity is constitutively related with the stateformation, war conquest, and power shifts in Myanmar during precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial times. I demonstrate how the post-coup state of Myanmar – in association with the religious civil society, led by a section of the majoritarian Theravada Buddhist Bamars – provoked religious and exclusivist nationalism and constructed the ‘Rohingya Muslims’ as the enemy ‘Other’. I demonstrate also how the democratization of Myanmar ironically exacerbated the problem. The Rohingya themselves – once alienated and un-imagined from the national space – embraced this identity of victimhood to design their resilient and oppositional disposition against an exclusivist state, which further politicized and reified the identity.
Hirashasan is the term used for governance of diamond mining and trade-with a small bureaucracy a... more Hirashasan is the term used for governance of diamond mining and trade-with a small bureaucracy and an exclusive set of rules and regulations-by the district administration of Panna in the state of Madhya Pradesh in India. Diamond mining in Panna encompasses diverse extractive practices that range from fully mechanised large-scale mining operations owned by the state, to small-scale and semi-mechanised mining carried out by farmers and landowners in groups, to individuals carrying out seasonal and part-time mining of diamonds in an artisanal manner. Based on an ethnographic study was undertaken from September 2016 to April 2017, we argue that Hirashasan has created an "extractive assemblage" that comprises four genres of mining and production systems: large-scale, small-scale, licensed artisanal and unlicensed artisanal. This assemblage is a product of historical, cultural and geographical contingencies as much as place-specificities, and does not lend itself to a single mode of governance. Mineral resource governance in a particular place, therefore, necessitates understanding and internalising the variegated and pluri-form extractive assemblages, such as that of the diamond economy in Panna.
This research project focuses on the resurgence of Kuki-Chin ethnic nationalism in the Indo-Myanm... more This research project focuses on the resurgence of Kuki-Chin ethnic nationalism in the Indo-Myanmar borderlands. The tribe known as Kuki in Manipur is known as Chin in Myanmar—they live on both sides of the Indo-Myanmar border. Their land was annexed by the British in the 19th century and, during decolonization, divided between the new countries of India and Myanmar. The Kukis have a history of anticolonial resistance, and they have launched postcolonial ethnic nationalist movements to claim an autonomous state. In 2009, the Indian and Myanmar governments started investing in a hydropower project named Tamanthi in the borderland districts of Myanmar. There were protests against that project, because construction would have not only caused large-scale displacement but also led to the erasure of the sacred geography of the Kuki-Chin, and these protests led to the cancelation of the project. The specific research case of the movement against Tamanthi in Myanmar discussed here demonstrates a context in which the Kuki-Chin identity was politicized and forged, which not only stalled the project but led to the resurgence of ethno-nationalist demands on both sides of the border. Through this case study, we analyze the dilemmas, ambivalence, and processes of doing research in borderland communities, and demonstrate that these communities cannot be studied through the standard methodologically nationalist and realist paradigm, that is, a cross-country comparison of cases. To appreciate how and why ethno-nationalism and secessionism emerges whenever there is a state intervention for “development,” we need an “ethno-historical,” constructivist, and “emic” understanding of the making of these borderland communities and the liminal spaces they inhabit.
PhD Thesis (2013) Copyright National University of Singapore, Aug 7, 2013
In this thesis I compare the social history of movements against hydropower projects in two state... more In this thesis I compare the social history of movements against hydropower projects in two states of India, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, from 1921 to 2004 in three phases. The specific aim of this project is to demonstrate the shifting notion of subaltern political subjectivity and `state-formation' in postcolonial India. Here I argue that the subalterns played significant causal and constitutive roles in transforming the structure of postcolonial Indian state in a more democratic direction and in that process considerably changed their political discourses, practices and strategies. The two extended historical cases of movement against large dams illustrated in this thesis mark the different types of subaltern politics that emerged in postcolonial India.
The essay visually explores some of the crucial aspects of semi-mechanized mining in the border a... more The essay visually explores some of the crucial aspects of semi-mechanized mining in the border area and its consequences on environment, village economy and labour relations. The photo-essay is titled 'Hill of Gems, Gems of Labour - Mining in the Borderlands'
The photo-essay documents the functioning of a refugee clinic in an area, where health is synonym... more The photo-essay documents the functioning of a refugee clinic in an area, where health is synonymous with the right to a democratic, humane life free from terror and violence.
From 2015, huge numbers of Rohingyas started arriving on the Bangladesh border fleeing persecutio... more From 2015, huge numbers of Rohingyas started arriving on the Bangladesh border fleeing persecution from the Myanmar military. Arnab Roy Chowdhury (Moscow, Russia) and Ahmed Abid (Sydney, Australia) explain how by stepping in to support Bangladesh to cope with the refugee crisis, intergovernmental organisations and NGOs have shaped new processes, norms, and institutions of policy advice and refugee management on behalf of the government.
N. Belyaeva et al. (eds.), Protest Publics, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, 2019
In April 2011, in India, mass protests began against kleptocracy, electoral fraud, black money, a... more In April 2011, in India, mass protests began against kleptocracy, electoral fraud, black money, and various other aspects of corruption. Protesters demanded the enactment and enforcement of strong legislation against perceived political corruption. Eventually, in 2013, the Anti-corruption Citizen’s Ombudsman Act (or the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act) was passed.
In February 2013, in Bangladesh, mass protests started in the public square at Shahbag, Dhaka. Protesters demanded a ban against Jamaat-e-Islami, the radical Islamist group, and capital punishment for war criminals. They were convicted of committing crimes during the bloody 1971 war that won Bangladesh independence from Pakistan. During the war, the Pakistan army violated human rights and conducted genocide on a large scale. The protesters’ demands were partially successful.
In both cases, a “protest public” emerged. Though not organized through any civil society organization or social movement, they successfully brought about sociopolitical transformations.
In this paper we trace the emergence of “protest publics” in these two South Asian countries and analyze their emergence, demands, and characteristics.
Postcolonial South Asia has seen massive forced displacement due to development and infrastructur... more Postcolonial South Asia has seen massive forced displacement due to development and infrastructure projects, urbanization and biodiversity conservation, driven by state and private entities. In India alone, displacement figures are pegged at over 70 million people, mostly rural, and resettlement outcomes have been mostly reported as negative. Literature on forced displacement broadly falls into techno-managerial or movementist approaches. A growing body of work is now looking at drivers, policies, processes and differential outcomes of ‘new land wars’ under neoliberalism, while older forms of state-led displacement also continue. While the predominant focus of literature is on the state-society interface at the ‘moment of displacement’, very few long-term studies are available about the existences of displaced and resettled people. There is indeed a conspicuous gap in studying displacement and resettlement as an extended and complex process, with a focus on the affected people as active social agents (re-)shaping their lives in diverse ways within broad structural constraints. We contend that the majority of the displaced continue to reside in the vicinity of the very projects that evicted them, in ‘new villages’, ‘resettlement colonies’, ‘transit camps’ or small rectilinear looking towns, often half-deserted. This panel analyzes these spaces from the moment of dislocation to the resettlement at the new location, and the entire gamut of after-displacement experiences, marked by diversified outcomes, including their liminal existence, resilience, conflicts, negotiations and efforts for reconstructing their lives in a new setting.
The conference aims to study the interconnections between space, the environment and identity in ... more The conference aims to study the interconnections between space, the environment and identity in the Eurasian region from different perspectives: extractive practices, religion and the sacred, and local citizenship movements. The Eurasian space, which the conference aims to explore, comprises Russia and India and the countries and regions between these two major powers (Central Asia, Mongolia and the Indian subcontinent). By focusing on this region, we aim to go beyond studies that examine environmental debates in Western liberal states and economies to analyse how non-Western civilizational and state models influence the way in which the environment is approached.
This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, ... more This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the data included in this work and does not assume responsibility for any errors, omissions, or discrepancies in the information, or liability with respect to the use of or failure to use the information, methods, processes, or conclusions set forth. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries.
Uploads
These commodities are termed “speculative commodities.” Here, I take the example of gemstones and conceptually trace and analyse the process of their commodification, with the help of Marxist theory and its various derivatives.
The process of commodification and value addition that these
resources go through are unique: partly, value is added and created through labour and their specialised artisanal crafts, but the major part of the profit is generated through discursive mechanisms of stories and narratives, the manipulation of supplies, and the manufacturing of demands through advertisements around each stone to make it valuable and pricey. The diamond and gemstone industry reaps extravagant profits from the otherwise useless pieces of stones – barring some industrial uses and the aesthetic value that they have. But their aesthetic dimension hides the greed, lust, violence, and aggression inherent in their commodification – many of these stones emerge from conflicts in the Global South – and that this source and history only add to their allure.
In Myanmar, the state and the Buddhist-majority civil society have long been hostile to the people known as the Rohingya. The Muslim Rohingya have lived in Rakhine state for centuries, but the Myanmar government, labelling them “illegal Bengali migrants,” has rendered them stateless under the 1982 Citizenship Law. The recent “democratisation” of Myanmar facilitated neoliberal expansion in the resource-rich Rakhine and intensified discrimination and violence, and the Rohingyas have been forced to flee in large numbers. They leave Myanmar on fishing boats and trawlers and attempt to enter countries like Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia, “illegally” aided by smugglers. The boat people travel from marginality to ever-prevailing precarity and liminality; en route through the seas and lands of their host countries, they experience further monstrosities perpetrated by state and non-state actors. The judiciary, state, and capital together produce categories of “legality and illegality” that constitute the “amphibian life” of the “boat people” and create for them an ambivalent identity of “refugee-hood” and/or “statelessness.” Here we present our ethnographic study of this violence-laced field of forced migration, situated at the cusp of South Asia and Southeast Asia. We critically extend Agamben’s theory of “state of exception” and “bare life” to elaborate upon the “spaces of exception” experienced by the “boat people” and conceptualise the notion of “amphibian life” by analysing their agentic capability, after and beyond “bare life.”
Pradesh for a decade when in 2017 it hastily abandoned the project.
We analyse this counterintuitive exit through an ethnographic approach
nested within a qualitative case study framework. We argue that the
exit was caused by multi-scalar politics. Local protests over livelihood
and labour issues –pre-emptively rearticulated by regional civil society
groups through an ecological ‘framing’ – led to litigation. The national
forest bureaucracy posed regulatory hurdles, and a change in the
national political regime in 2014 brought to power a party that leveraged national capital of a certain variety, which weakened Rio Tinto’s
political position. Lastly, a slump in the global diamond market created
economic uncertainties, finally leading to its exit. It has not, however,
deterred the government from facilitating investment by Indian
mega-corporate houses in mining diamonds, once again ignoring local
dissent. Under the current regime in India, the space for activism is
increasingly restricted, and that restriction, we contend, can lead to the
disarray in strategising alliances and goals between ecological and
social justice concerns.
in India and is tangentially connected to the project of postcolonial and
subaltern studies. Though his body of work is not enormous, the quality
of his scholarship has been path-breaking. It has had a profound effect
on, in general, South Asian studies and, in particular, in the analysis of
the politics of the postcolonial Indian state and the creation of a post-nationalist intellectual-historical project that deconstructs the travesty of
the so-called ‘Nationalist’ political history writing enterprise. This paper
discusses the major contributions and ideas of Kaviraj around the
emergence of nationalist thought in India. It traces the nature of colonial
modernity; works of anti-colonial writers; postcolonial state making and
the project of national reconstruction in India; and the slow
transformations of the political-economic sphere of the independent
Indian state in relation to the civil society.
minorities of the contemporary world. They have been persecuted
in Myanmar since the post-coup military regime came to power in
1962. What explains this brutal pursuit of violence against a
minority? In answering this question, I trace the genealogy and
the ethnogenesis of the Rohingya in Myanmar in a longue durée
through an analysis of extant data, both historical and
contemporary, and I supplement it with an ethnographic study I
conducted in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. I argue that the emergence
of the Rohingya identity is constitutively related with the stateformation,
war conquest, and power shifts in Myanmar during
precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial times. I demonstrate how
the post-coup state of Myanmar – in association with the religious
civil society, led by a section of the majoritarian Theravada
Buddhist Bamars – provoked religious and exclusivist nationalism
and constructed the ‘Rohingya Muslims’ as the enemy ‘Other’. I
demonstrate also how the democratization of Myanmar ironically
exacerbated the problem. The Rohingya themselves – once
alienated and un-imagined from the national space – embraced
this identity of victimhood to design their resilient and
oppositional disposition against an exclusivist state, which further
politicized and reified the identity.
These commodities are termed “speculative commodities.” Here, I take the example of gemstones and conceptually trace and analyse the process of their commodification, with the help of Marxist theory and its various derivatives.
The process of commodification and value addition that these
resources go through are unique: partly, value is added and created through labour and their specialised artisanal crafts, but the major part of the profit is generated through discursive mechanisms of stories and narratives, the manipulation of supplies, and the manufacturing of demands through advertisements around each stone to make it valuable and pricey. The diamond and gemstone industry reaps extravagant profits from the otherwise useless pieces of stones – barring some industrial uses and the aesthetic value that they have. But their aesthetic dimension hides the greed, lust, violence, and aggression inherent in their commodification – many of these stones emerge from conflicts in the Global South – and that this source and history only add to their allure.
In Myanmar, the state and the Buddhist-majority civil society have long been hostile to the people known as the Rohingya. The Muslim Rohingya have lived in Rakhine state for centuries, but the Myanmar government, labelling them “illegal Bengali migrants,” has rendered them stateless under the 1982 Citizenship Law. The recent “democratisation” of Myanmar facilitated neoliberal expansion in the resource-rich Rakhine and intensified discrimination and violence, and the Rohingyas have been forced to flee in large numbers. They leave Myanmar on fishing boats and trawlers and attempt to enter countries like Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia, “illegally” aided by smugglers. The boat people travel from marginality to ever-prevailing precarity and liminality; en route through the seas and lands of their host countries, they experience further monstrosities perpetrated by state and non-state actors. The judiciary, state, and capital together produce categories of “legality and illegality” that constitute the “amphibian life” of the “boat people” and create for them an ambivalent identity of “refugee-hood” and/or “statelessness.” Here we present our ethnographic study of this violence-laced field of forced migration, situated at the cusp of South Asia and Southeast Asia. We critically extend Agamben’s theory of “state of exception” and “bare life” to elaborate upon the “spaces of exception” experienced by the “boat people” and conceptualise the notion of “amphibian life” by analysing their agentic capability, after and beyond “bare life.”
Pradesh for a decade when in 2017 it hastily abandoned the project.
We analyse this counterintuitive exit through an ethnographic approach
nested within a qualitative case study framework. We argue that the
exit was caused by multi-scalar politics. Local protests over livelihood
and labour issues –pre-emptively rearticulated by regional civil society
groups through an ecological ‘framing’ – led to litigation. The national
forest bureaucracy posed regulatory hurdles, and a change in the
national political regime in 2014 brought to power a party that leveraged national capital of a certain variety, which weakened Rio Tinto’s
political position. Lastly, a slump in the global diamond market created
economic uncertainties, finally leading to its exit. It has not, however,
deterred the government from facilitating investment by Indian
mega-corporate houses in mining diamonds, once again ignoring local
dissent. Under the current regime in India, the space for activism is
increasingly restricted, and that restriction, we contend, can lead to the
disarray in strategising alliances and goals between ecological and
social justice concerns.
in India and is tangentially connected to the project of postcolonial and
subaltern studies. Though his body of work is not enormous, the quality
of his scholarship has been path-breaking. It has had a profound effect
on, in general, South Asian studies and, in particular, in the analysis of
the politics of the postcolonial Indian state and the creation of a post-nationalist intellectual-historical project that deconstructs the travesty of
the so-called ‘Nationalist’ political history writing enterprise. This paper
discusses the major contributions and ideas of Kaviraj around the
emergence of nationalist thought in India. It traces the nature of colonial
modernity; works of anti-colonial writers; postcolonial state making and
the project of national reconstruction in India; and the slow
transformations of the political-economic sphere of the independent
Indian state in relation to the civil society.
minorities of the contemporary world. They have been persecuted
in Myanmar since the post-coup military regime came to power in
1962. What explains this brutal pursuit of violence against a
minority? In answering this question, I trace the genealogy and
the ethnogenesis of the Rohingya in Myanmar in a longue durée
through an analysis of extant data, both historical and
contemporary, and I supplement it with an ethnographic study I
conducted in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. I argue that the emergence
of the Rohingya identity is constitutively related with the stateformation,
war conquest, and power shifts in Myanmar during
precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial times. I demonstrate how
the post-coup state of Myanmar – in association with the religious
civil society, led by a section of the majoritarian Theravada
Buddhist Bamars – provoked religious and exclusivist nationalism
and constructed the ‘Rohingya Muslims’ as the enemy ‘Other’. I
demonstrate also how the democratization of Myanmar ironically
exacerbated the problem. The Rohingya themselves – once
alienated and un-imagined from the national space – embraced
this identity of victimhood to design their resilient and
oppositional disposition against an exclusivist state, which further
politicized and reified the identity.
In February 2013, in Bangladesh, mass protests started in the public square at Shahbag, Dhaka. Protesters demanded a ban against Jamaat-e-Islami, the radical Islamist group, and capital punishment for war criminals. They were convicted of committing crimes during the bloody 1971 war that won Bangladesh independence from Pakistan. During the war, the Pakistan army violated human rights and conducted genocide on a large scale. The protesters’ demands were partially successful.
In both cases, a “protest public” emerged. Though not organized through any civil society organization or social movement, they successfully brought about sociopolitical transformations.
In this paper we trace the emergence of “protest publics” in these two South Asian countries and analyze their emergence, demands, and characteristics.