Concerning massive cross-border migration across the globe, the notions of belonging and citizenship assume significant domains for discussion. It is here that the revolving aspects of contingency and heterogeneity of identities are posed with a crucial question in relation to the newly arrived populace who strive to accommodate themselves simultaneously being posed with threats of the surveillance state. In the South Asian context, it is necessary to contextualize migration within the historical trajectory of the partition of India. The workshop would provide scope for understanding the experience of the evolution of nation-state and the formation of national identity in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh that was accompanied by the mass movement and population displacement. First, the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and subsequently bifurcation of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 has witnessed people' movement in vast number. We shall examine how migration and displacement played a crucial role in shaping the idea of the nation-state in these countries? Particularly, the migrant identity as a politico-religious category that is shaped by historical impulses over the decades would be discussed. Ideological differences over the identity of the post-partition Indian state and subjective constructions of citizenship in everyday life will be examined in the workshop. This eventually poses questions around the construction of a migrant identity as a ‘citizen-outsider’, and portrayal of a migrant in mainstream discourse. Bangladesh has a common boundary with India on three sides, sharing around 2,500 miles of border with the Indian states. Since 1947, successive waves of people facing hostile conditions, persecution, intolerance, and adverse economic situations in what constitutes present-day Bangladesh have found refuge in India. The workshop will look into contemporary Bangladeshi migration in the wider context of globalization and the emergence of footloose capital and labour across national boundaries. Besides, the domestic politics and political strategies of political parties have its ramifications of the identity, security and survival of the migrants in a regime where refugee/migration policy is non-existent. The question of ‘illegality’, ‘undocumentedness’, ‘electoral implication’, and ‘religious tension’ will be unpacked.
Pedagogy: case studies/ narratives of lived experience, lecture, Documentary.

Reading
• Murayama, Mayumi. “Borders, Migration and Sub-Regional Cooperation in Eastern South Asia.” Economic and Political Weekly April 8, 2006. 1351-1359.
• Datta, Antara. “Pakistan–Bangladesh Partition 1971 and forced migration.” The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. Ed. Immanuel Ness. Blackwell Publishing, 2013. 2-5.
• Bharadwaj, Prashant, Asim Khwaja and Atif Mian. “The Big March: Migratory Flows after the Partition of India.” Economic and Political Weekly August 30, 2008. 39-49.
• Raychaudhury, Anasua Basu. “Nostalgia of ‘Desh’, Memories of Partition.” Economic and Political Weekly December 25, 2004. 5653-5660.
• Ramachandran, Sujata. “Of boundaries and border crossings.” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 1.2 (1999): 235-253.
• Gillan, Michael. “Refugees or infiltrators? The Bharatiya Janata Party and ‘illegal’ migration from Bangladesh.” Asian Studies Review 26.1 (2002): 73-95.
• Baruah, Sanjib. “The Partition's long shadow: the ambiguities of citizenship in Assam, India.” Citizenship Studies 13.6 (2009): 593-606.

Bio-Note
Prof. Manish K. Jha has B.A in Politics from Hindu College, University of Delhi and M.A. in Social Work from University of Delhi. He has done Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) in Human Right and Social work from University of Delhi. His research interest includes poverty and social justice, migration; and middle classes in Indian cities. He has been a visiting fellow at Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London (2009); School of Social Justice, University College Dublin, Ireland (2011); School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University, UK (2013). Prof. Jha has been a visiting faculty at Gothenburg University, Sweden (2013) and Oldenburg University, Germany (2015). He is presently the Vice-President of the Governing Board of Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (http://www.mcrg.ac.in/bm.asp).