Centre for the Study of Social Systems
School of Social Sciences
CSSS Colloquium
Tanweer Fazal
(Associate Professor, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, JNU)
Will be presenting a paper on
‘Bangladeshi’ as the Metaphor: Hegemonic Intellectuals and the Crisis of Citizenship in Assam
Date & Time: October 31, 2019 (Thursday), 11.00 am
Venue: CSSS Committee Room (Room No: 13), SSS-II
Abstract: At its birth, one of the most onerous challenges that independent India was faced with was the question of citizenship. The problem unfolded in variegated forms and was riddled with complexities. The foremost one was the relationship between nationality and citizenship. Would nationality or cultural markers have a bearing on citizenship? Attentive to the multiplicity of cultures and persuasions, jus soli (right of the soil) found favour over triumphalist calls to make jus sanguine (right of blood)—the basis of citizenship. Yet, in every claim of citizenship is inscribed the idea of the other. The outsider, serves as a constant corroborator of the citizen’s authenticity, without itself becoming one. What ideas of otherness do laws and practice of citizenship in India radiate? More explicitly, who in India embody the citizenship’s other? The paper foregrounds the case of the so-called ‘Bangladeshi’. As a metaphor, the reference, Bangladeshi, carries connotations far beyond what it immediately suggests. The immediate provocation for writing this paper is the publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exclusively for Assam. The final register left out some 1.9 million – nearly one tenth of the population of the state – putting their citizenship status under a cloud of doubt. The paper examines the mechanisms of the state—its various arms including the civil bureaucracy and legal apparatus—implicated in the process of updating the list and marking out the ‘foreigners’ or the Bangladeshis in the state. The process of producing immigrants and foreigners out of citizens has involved partial reading of the history of migration, fabricating categories and ignoring statistics, suppression of truth and silences around targeted violence. The paper, therefore, also aims to interrogate the intellectual exercise that went into generating a hegemonic narrative of the ‘Bangladeshi influx’ into Assam.
Bio: Tanweer Fazal teaches Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. As a political sociologist, Fazal specializes in sociology of nationalism(s), community formation and identifications with specific focus on their implications on rights and entitlements. He is also interested in studying the production of collective violence and sources of impunity in Indian society. He is the author of ‘Nation-state and Minority Rights in India: Comparative Perspectives on Muslim and Sikh Identities (Routledge: 2015) and ‘Minority Nationalisms in South Asia’ (ed.) Routledge, 2012), besides several contributions to journals and anthologies. His forthcoming edited book is titled, The Minority Conundrum: Living in Majoritarian Times (Penguin, 2020).
