Article
Border Economy and the Production
of Collective Subjects in India’s East
and the North East
India Quarterly
70(4) 299–311
© 2014 Indian Council
of World Affairs (ICWA)
SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore,
Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/0974928414545929
http://iqq.sagepub.com
Samir Kumar Das
[email protected]; [email protected]
Abstract
While globalisation unleashes forces that the Indian State1 finds increasingly difficult to stop and contain,
a variety of intermediate institutions has emerged in recent years ranging between a fully securitised
State and a State integrated fully into the world economy. These obviously call new configurations
of border and border economy into existence as much as contribute to the production of new and
hitherto unknown political subjects. Border economy produces the community and not the other way
round. Border trade is one of the many instrumentalities through which the flow of persons, goods and
services is sought to be contained in order to help making the nation in the border. Ethnicity and ethnic
identification serve as a technology for governing the unofficial trade and contributes to the production
of ethnic subject. Besides, it is important to understand how a number of people eke out a living by
taking advantage of differential pricing across the border. Thus, the labouring life of the subaltern has
become an agent, and a moral community thus gets produced, bringing about, in the process, mutation
in the dominant discourses of national security and functional integration.
Keywords
Border, border economy, border trade, ethnicity, eastern India, globalisation, Partition (1947), North
East India, political subject, subaltern
I begin by referring to three streams of stories on border economy published very recently (between
September and November 2013) in some of the leading newspapers of eastern India. On 3 September
2013, The Times of India carried a report that the Border Security Force (BSF) had seized ` 10 lakh2 fake
Indian currency notes (FICN) at India–Bangladesh border in West Bengal. Diptiman Tiwary, the reporter,
did not forget to mention that it was not a simple crime, but posed a grave threat to country’s security:
Pakistan is known to sue pushing of fake currency into India as a proxy war to weaken Indian economy. Every
year crores of rupees are apprehended across the country by security agencies, still several crores3 sneak into
circulation. Agencies such as NIA have found that fake currency is also being used to fund terror activities by
outfits such as LeT. (Tiwary 2013, 5)
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About the same time, it was also reported that the demand for hilsa4 from Bangladesh has shot up during
the Bengali festive season in West Bengal and the members of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), in
a recent drive, seized 4,250 kg of hilsa from different parts of the bordering districts.5 About 1,600 kg of
hilsa was intercepted on the Indian side of the border when it was sought to be taken by a truck for supply
to Kolkata and adjoining markets. Bottles of psychotropic cough syrup, cattle, drug and narcotics, small
arms, onions, animal hides, gold and other precious metals, etc., travel across the borders posing a threat
to India’s security.
Sources from Home Ministry reportedly point out that recently, the Government of West Bengal
has expressed its willingness to set up four border haats6 along the Indo-Bangla border and expects
that this would go a long way in discouraging—if not completely stopping—illicit trade of this nature and
in improving the Indo-Bangla relations, especially after the fiasco of Tista waters and exchange of
chitmahals (enclaves) (Ahmed 2013, 5). Mostly agricultural products are to be sold in these markets.
Unlike the movement of contraband items, border trade is governed by strict modalities and protocols that
are worked out in advance. Steps are taken to keep the foreigners involved in trading from our citizens,
and vice versa, as much as the volume of trade is not allowed to exceed a given limit beyond which it
might pose a threat to national security. The haat, in this case, is to be held in a rectangular-shaped place
along the zero point of the border with points of entry and exit from both sides and one will have to successfully prove one’s nationality if one were to enter it. It will be kept open for a few hours during
daytime and for a few designated days of a week. The same report also tells us why it is essential for the
State to legalise the haats when such illicit and illegal trading is going on without the State sanctioning it.
Let me reproduce verbatim yet another recently published report—the third stream in the series—
from a national daily:
The ancient barter system still works in two villages on the India–Bangladesh border.
In Daribas and Jharidharla, the Indian villages on the border that is not marked off by a fence because of three
rivers passing through this stretch, the barter system holds sway.
The villages depend in a major way on Bangladesh for the supply of almost all types of goods and pay for
them in kind, not cash. Although the villages are not part of ‘chhitmahal’,7 they are practically separated from
the Indian territory by the three rivers.
Ainal Miyan, 24, a resident of Karnapur in Bangladesh’s Lalmonirhat district, comes calling on Daribas, a
15-minute walk from his home. Ainal has been doing this for five years.
He sells samosas [an Indian snack], savouries, chocolates, boiled sweet potato, rice, wheat, corn, poultry and
vegetables from his cart. The supplies go up during the monsoon when rivers swell.
A child approaches Ainal for two samosas and gives him 250 gm [grams] of rice in exchange. It works out—at
Rs. 30 a kilogram (Indian price), 250 grams of rice costs Rs. 7.50. But during the monsoon when supplies are
most difficult to obtain from India, Ainal and other vendors bring in the rice, wheat, vegetables and meat.
This has been the practice since India’s Independence, although many of the villagers now pay in cash. But
currency of choice is the Bangladeshi taka, and the rupee is hardly in sight.
It is not surprising.
‘The villagers here are dependent solely on farming. Traders from Bangladesh used to come here since
Independence and in exchange for the produce, they would give salt, oil or soap,’ says Mohammed Abdul Qasim
of Jharidharla.
But slowly the dependence of the Indian villages on Bangladesh increased. ‘There used to be a rail bridge
that connected us with Gitaldaha market. But that was 25 years ago. The bridge is now in a decrepit condition,
covering only the middle of the bed of the river Dharla, whose two banks have receded,’ he says.
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Border Economy and the Production of Collective Subjects in India’s East and the North East301
The villages are cut off from India. ‘We are forced to depend on Bangladesh. Many of our relatives also stay
across the border. We are surviving because of the tolerance shown by the Bangladeshis,’ he adds.
Adds Abdul Majid Miyan, a member of the Gitaldaha gram panchayat, where these two villages are located:
‘There are about 7,000 people in Daribas and Jharidharla. The Gitaldaha is 5 km from the two villages as the
crow flies. However it takes nearly four hours to reach Gitaldaha as the Dharla river and its tributary keep them
cut off. In fact, women in labour even go to the health centre at Lalmonirhat in Bangladesh to give birth. All these
have led to the dependence on the Bangladeshi currency.’
Kulsum bibi, a resident of Daribas, said the menfolk brought home the Bangladeshi currency during their trips
to the markets across the border. ‘We women and children do not venture out to the markets located across the
border,’ she says.
…
The Cooch Bihar district administration doesn’t seem to be bothered about the plight of the villagers.
Located barely 45 km from Cooch Bihar town, Daribas and Jharidharla have not attracted attention from the
district administration for the use of Bangladeshi currency.
‘I have not seen presence of any high-level politician or district officials here during the visits,’ Ainal says…
(Chisti 2013, 8)
While the first two streams reflect the discourse of macro-security informed by a concern for keeping
the entire ‘nation’ safe from outside threats of illegal migrants and illicit flow of goods and services
through stringent border patrolling and surveillance, the third stream features micro-insecurities that these
preparations for macro-security entail and the apparent ease and alacrity with which the border control
regime is transgressed and flouted almost on an everyday basis. The three stories published, ironically at
about the same time, do not come at all as a surprise to a daily reader for they reflect the classic dilemma
that the nation-states have been facing now in the wake of globalisation: on the one hand, globalisation,
particularly since the early 1990s, seems to have unleashed forces that they find increasingly difficult to
stop and contain. On the other hand, the States around the world are also driven by an unprecedented
concern for their security. As a corollary to it, they seem also to realise that the forces and processes of
globalisation, unless kept under check, might eventually pose a threat to their security.
Breaking Away from the Debate
The scholarly debate on border economy in general, and border trade in particular, is clearly stuck up in
either of the two poles with hardly anything common between them. On the one hand, there is the
security argument. Reece Jones, in one of her recent papers on the present state of Indo-Bangladesh
relations, sums up the official line in the following words:
In line with…modernism philosophy [of the nation-state with clearly marked out territorial spaces], the anomie
outside India’s borders must be prevented from entering and that which is present in India must be eliminated
and replaced with a righteous, orderly and compliant population. (Jones 2009, 302)
On the other hand, there is what in international relations theory is called the functionalist argument
that views border trade ‘as a necessity’ (Hussain 2000, 141), both for those who live in remote areas for
whom trading with immediate neighbours across the border makes better economic sense than with the
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distant towns and cities on their side, and for those who are alarmed at the growing rate of unofficial
trade across these borders. While one must realise that unofficial trade is inevitable given the porous
nature of our borders with the neighbouring countries, the best solution to the problem, they argue, is to
legalise it. A report prepared by De (2011, 77–81ff.) from the Research and Information System for
Developing Countries (RIS), for example, points out: ‘…the efforts must be made to ensure that not only
is this trade recognised, so as to get it included in the formal statistics but [to work] for closer economic
integration that India is seeking with its immediate neighbourhood, the ASEAN region’. All bottlenecks
in this regard need to be sorted out.
This article seeks to break away from the debate oscillating, so far, between these two extremities and
argues that the tug and pull between these two extreme forces calls many new and hitherto unknown
configurations of border and border economy into existence as much as it contributes to the production of
a number of new and hitherto unknown political subjects. While the role of the discursive practices and
processes in the production of collective subjects is increasingly being realised in theoretical circles,
much of what is written on the theme of border economy in India either turns a blind eye to these theoretical developments or simply does not have the cognitive tools to squarely address them. The article proposes to reflect on the implications that the otherwise unstoppable flow of human beings, goods and
services has for the border. In the first part, I will examine how the State seeks to respond to it by way of
disciplining the flow and keeping it under control through many such instrumentalities as border fencing,
highly stringent border patrolling and most importantly, through border trade, etc. As the second stream
of stories shows, border haat or trade is considered as an instrumentality through which these forces and
processes are sought to be subjected to some form of an agreement between the nation-states, while at the
same time making room for their people, goods and services to travel across borders on a regular basis
without harming each other’s interests and security concerns. These interests and concerns that the States
consider as dear to them contribute, in their turn, to the making of the nation as a collective subject.
Border trade, as already mentioned, is only one of the many instrumentalities through which people,
goods and services travel across neighbouring nations with their apparently enclosed territories and
therefore, cannot be understood without a reference to the broader dynamics of border economy per se.
For instance, border trade is to be distinguished from cross-border trade or for that matter, international
trade. As the Ministry of Development of North East Region (MDONER), Government of India, clarifies:
Border trade is different from trade through air, land or sea ports as trade through ports involves clearance
through customs and has large volume. Border trade in contrast is ‘over-land trade’ by way of ‘exchange of
commodities’ from a bi-laterally agreed list by people living along both sides of the international border.8
The distinction between them hardly escapes our notice. One, it is necessary to differentiate trade
across ‘international border points’ from other ‘local border points’, where only the residents in
immediately neighbouring provinces/states can cross borders and trade freely. The volume of trade over
international border crossings is always recorded and contributes to the total volume of intra-regional
trade. On the contrary, though the local border points might carry noticeable trade volumes as well, they
are unrecorded and their traffic is mainly limited to those immediate bordering districts and constituent
states, and thus is of limited economic impact on the subregion as a whole.
Two, border trade is based—not so much on profit—but on the principle of subsistence. More often
than not, direct exchange of goods through barter—as underlined in the third stream of stories—used to
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Border Economy and the Production of Collective Subjects in India’s East and the North East303
be encouraged so that no surplus could be accumulated in the process. As we have already noted, it
continues uninterrupted—if not reinforced—as a matter of necessity. Trading with the nearest neighbour
right across the border is meant for catering to the immediate needs of the bordering people on both sides
and makes better economic sense than trading with the far-off towns and cities on the same side. Border
trade is a means of emancipating the border areas from their geographical seclusion and remoteness.
This article proposes to understand border trade by situating it within the larger framework of border
economy and by viewing it as only one of its inseparable parts. An understanding of the broader dynamics
of border economy helps us appreciate an entire range of institutions that exist between the two extremes
of a fully securitised State and a fully integrated national economy (into world economy). The second
part of this article seeks to concentrate on the complex functioning of these intermediate institutions.
Border economy, by all accounts, functions in a way that not only obliterates the commonplace distinction
between the official and the unofficial trade, but reinforces politics of ethnic identity by way of deploying
it as a technology of governing the unofficial trade. Thus, there are considerable overlaps between border
and cross-border trade on one hand, and unofficial border trade on the other—both being integral to
border economy per se. Ethnic identification, as a technology of governing the domain of unofficial
trade, contributes to the production of an ethnic subject. The second part of my article seeks to reflect on
the connection between unofficial border trade and ethnicity.
Third, unofficial border trade is not to be considered as an indivisible whole. While it has perhaps
integral connections with the official trade, we have to keep in mind that one who runs a syndicate of
‘smugglers’ and maintains an empire in Moreh (in Manipur) will have to be distinguished from one who
barely maintains a family of six members by crossing the border on daily basis at the risk of being
detected and killed at any moment, sells poultry in the nearby haat in the district of Rajshahi in Bangladesh
or repairs umbrella on the streets of Kolkata. The third part of this article proposes to concentrate on the
salience that labouring life, or the subaltern, has acquired in recent years as the unofficial trading actor
to border economy. We are interested in understanding the emergence of the labouring life as an agent,
the alliances and solidarities she builds around her and the moral community that gets produced and
reproduced in the process. Unlike what the commentators would have us believe, border economy produces the community and it is not the community that produces border economy, thereby framing its
terms. Such a community is perched precariously on what Deleuze and Guattari (2010, 45) would call
‘the de-territorialized space’ spanning between the official and the unofficial, between the licit and the
illicit, between the bordered and the borderless, and constantly making room for crossings of interlopers,
goods and services, of course at grave risk to their life and livelihood. The production of such moral
community brings about what Balibar (2004, 22), albeit in the different context of Europe, calls ‘dialectical transformations’ in both the dominant discourses of national security and functional integration
of our economy with the world economy in general, and ‘powerhouse’ economies of Southeast Asia
in particular.
Border Trade and the Making of the Nation
The first Indo-Bangladesh trade agreement, namely, ‘Trade Agreement between the Government of India
and the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh’, signed on 28 March 1972, provided for
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border trade amongst the people within the 16 km belt of the border between the Indian states of West
Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, on one hand, and Bangladesh, on the other. While
border trade till 1980 was supposed to be conducted between States, the 1980 agreement removed the
clause—‘on a state-to-state basis’—for trade between the two countries. It was, for the first time, that the
provisions of the agreement were kept open for all the stakeholders, including private parties.
A survey on unofficial trade between north-eastern region and Bangladesh by the National Council
of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), conducted in 1995, estimated the volume at ` 1,165 crores
annually—of which West Bengal accounted for as much as 96 per cent (` 1,121 crores), Assam 3 per cent
(35.5 crores) and Tripura 1 per cent (8.1 crores). Unofficial trade, however, was believed to be 50 times
higher than the official one in Tripura, and for Assam, it was double the volume of official exports
(Chaudhari 1995). Similarly, a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) estimated
that unofficial trade between Tripura and Bangladesh, with which the state has a border of about 839 km,
exceeds ` 100 crores (IIFT 1995, 28).
The Indo-Myanmar Border Trade Agreement of 1994 may be regarded as yet another milestone in
the history of border trade in the North East. The Agreement aimed at breaking the region free from
geographical isolation imposed on it by the Partition of 1947 and consequent reorganisation of international border. While border trade between India and Myanmar (formerly Burma) was operationalised
on 12 April 1996, through the Moreh border (Manipur), the second designated border trade point at
Champhai (Mizoram) is yet to be operationalised. The Agreement envisages that the border trade will
take place through customs posts at Moreh in Manipur and Zowkhathar in Mizoram, corresponding to
Tamu and Rhi in Myanmar. As many as 40 items are permitted for the border trade between India and
Myanmar now, with 5 per cent duty. India’s exports to Myanmar include primarily the finished products
like machinery and instruments, along with drugs, pharmaceuticals and agriculture-based products. On
the other hand, Myanmar exports wood products, pulses, fruits, nuts and spices. Provisions have been
made for the buyers (of both India and Myanmar) to take delivery of the marketed goods in freely convertible currencies. To facilitate limited movement of hill tribes residing along the Indo-Myanmar border,
the Governments of India and Myanmar have permitted entry of such persons residing within 16 km
of the international border with only permits, but without visa, with certain terms and conditions. Local
nationals on both sides can stay in the other country for three days within 16 km on either side.
Border trade between India and Myanmar has not progressed further since the opening of the Moreh
Land Customs Station (LCS). India and Myanmar agreed to allow border trade in 22 commodities as per
the 1994 Agreement, which was expanded to 40 items in 2008, but this seems to have lost its relevance,
particularly since the unofficial trade has proliferated (RIS 2011, 63). In 1995, IIFT estimated the annual
volume of unofficial trade that takes place at Moreh at around ` 2,200 crores, followed by Champhai
(` 500 crores), and Lungwa contributes around ` 100 crores. If this figure is to be believed, then the
extent of unofficial trade stands more than 44 times compared to official trade (IIFT 1995, 36).
A greater part of the trade, therefore, is unregulated and unofficial, but it serves as an important source
of livelihood for the people living along the borders. The traders often use small amounts of capital and
deal in low volumes, and usually low-value products, for sale in the local market within the border zone.
In all the border zones, the number of such small/petty traders is large, although the total volume of
goods and services that they account for is relatively a small fraction of total trade (20–30 per cent). Very
few formal mechanisms or rules affect this flow, which is either approved by law or tolerated de facto.
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Border Economy and the Production of Collective Subjects in India’s East and the North East305
Most of the customs officials reportedly turn a blind eye to these transactions. Usually, small payments
have reportedly to be made at the border as bribery to officials. Besides, third-country goods are the
predominant form of informal trade from Myanmar to India (Singh n.d., 15).
Following the visit of China’s Premier, Li Peng, in December 1991, border trade with Tibet in China
has been conducted through Lipulekh Pass in Uttarakhand (formerly Uttaranchal) and Shipkila Pass in
Himachal Pradesh. The prime minister of India and the premier of the State Council of China, at their
summit meeting in June 2003, decided to reopen border trade through Nathu La in Sikkim. The Nathu
La Pass is located 54 km from Gangtok, Sikkim’s capital. This is considered to be the shortest trade route
to Lhasa (in Tibet), which is 525 km from the Nathu La Pass. The Tibetan town of Yatung is 52 km from
Nathu La. The route connects Phari, Guru, Gyantse, Karos, Chusiu and Lhasa on the Chinese side of the
trading points. As a result of the meeting, border trade between India and China linking north-eastern
India and south-western China and vice versa, through Nathu La Pass in Sikkim, commenced from
6 July 2006. Import and export of locally produced commodities by people living along both sides of
Sino-Indian border, as per prevailing customary practices, is allowed. As per the agreement, the two sides
have designated Tsomgo (Changgu) in Sikkim and Renqinggang in Tibet as the venue for the border trade
market (haat). The two sides agree to use Nathu La Pass as the transit point for persons, transport vehicles
and commodities engaged in border trade. Each side is entitled to establish check points at appropriate
locations to monitor and manage their movement through the Nathu La Pass. Compared to other border
trade agreements signed by the Government of India with its neighbouring countries, this agreement is
potentially of much larger scope in terms of the coverage of regions and goods and services because of
the greater accessibility to and more developed physical and institutional infrastructure in and around the
trading points, particularly on the Chinese side. Further, this trade route was a very active means of economic exchange before it was closed in the mid-1960s (Singh 2010, 312). De and Bhattacharyay, however,
are not very optimistic about the trade potential of Nathu La. As they argue:
The Nathu La border crossing is unlikely ever to constitute a major trade route between China and India. The
distances to other countries are too great, and the regular winter closures and frequent temporary closure at other
times rule out the Nathu La border as a major cross-border trade route between China and India. This border
crossing would be very suitable for local trade and tourism. The big opportunities for the Northeast India also
lie in developing trade routes from Arunachal Pradesh/Assam/Manipur to Myanmar and Yunnan Province in
China. (De and Bhattacharyay 2005, 27)
Besides facilitating flow of goods and services, the whole idea of formalising border trade is to introduce
some sense of discipline and order to trade and commerce that have historically been taking place in
the region so that the transactions across the border do not pose any threat to our nation and a sense of
national identity slowly develops in these far-off areas.
Un/official Trade and the Production of Ethnic Subject
The value of unofficial border trade transacted through Moreh—a town standing at the border of India
and Myanmar and forming the key artery of the proposed Trans-Asian Super Highway—is estimated at
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about ` 2,000 crores a year (Shukla 1997, 83–84), although according to another estimate cited earlier,
it stands at ` 2,200 crores per annum. Four major ethnic groups, namely, Kukis, Nagas, Meiteis and
Tamils control unofficial border trade at Moreh. A large number of Muslims are also engaged in this
trade. There is growing competition amongst these communities for acquiring control over this booming
unofficial border trade. This has led to a series of violent and internecine conflicts between the Nagas and
the Kukis in 1993; between the Tamils and the Kukis in 1995; and between the Hmars and the Meiteis in
Moreh at different points of time in the recent past.
As the communities and their militias fight for exercising control over the unofficial yet booming
border trade, border economy imposes on each actor the obligation of playing the ethnic card vis-à-vis
others. One’s ethnic identity becomes important in gaining or retaining control or even for protecting one
from others. The template of border economy—particularly the unofficial border trade—is thus marked
by identity politics of the most violent form. Here, I will cite an instance. Noor-Jehan, Secretary and
Mehr-an of the Minority Women’s Development Society in Moreh, tells Chitra Ahanthem how she feels
the necessity of identifying with her community as a means of self-protection:
Our organization was established in the year 2004 for we felt that as a minority group/community in this place,
our issues were getting lost. Also, the sense of ownership is never there unless you have your own group. So we
got together. Having your own group means that there is a rallying point for responding to the issues that we face.
Belonging to a small minority group is not easy: we end up as the last persons to be taken into account. We felt
that coming together as a group would be the only way to stand up for ourselves. Now, anytime there is a social
issue or a matter of unrest, we are called upon to take part in deliberations and give our viewpoint. Earlier, we
were never represented. (quoted in Ahanthem 2010, 24)
Identity and identification may acquire a ‘use value’ and become a technology of governance. Thus,
to cite an example from an altogether different context, Debosmita Sanyal and Shaukat Iqbal named their
only daughter ‘Ananyacheta’ (literally a woman who has a mind unique to her own), significantly without
a surname. Theirs was an intercommunity marriage and they deliberately decided that the name of their
daughter should not carry any ‘religious association’: ‘Surnames carry religious association. So we
preferred not to append a surname to her name.’ As the child grew up and reached the school-going age,
they found it difficult to get her admitted into any school because she does not have a surname. Even
authorities of a school asked them how her body would be disposed off after her death (Sanyal and Iqbal
2013, 14). In other words, this example shows tellingly that one has to have a ‘religious association’ in
order to obtain admission into a school, much in the same way as the Unique Identification Number—
again a mark of identification—is a must for having access to subsidised cooking gas cylinders and other
welfare benefits.
Insofar as fear of violence stands behind every unofficially organised act of trade and it erupts in its
real form whenever the terms and conditions of any community are violated, as they have been with
alarming regularity since the early 1990s, Moreh—as Nag (2010, 8) points out—is marked by ‘the
virtual absence, in terms of action, of the institutions of law and order’. State loses its monopoly and is
seen as only one of the many actors with competing claims over the instruments of violence. Ethnic
identity with control over the instruments of violence determines one’s access to the otherwise lucrative
unofficial trade.
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Border Economy and the Production of Collective Subjects in India’s East and the North East307
The Moral Community of Labouring Life
That the economic gains of border trade are only limited is now being increasingly realised by almost
everyone working on the subject. According to an estimate, barring India’s trade with Bangladesh,
Bhutan and Nepal, and to a lesser extent that between China and Myanmar, around 85 per cent of the
merchandise trade of this region does not fall under the category of border trade or cross-border trade,
but passes through sea. In fact, trade by itself may reduce Manipur (or Moreh) to a transit point between
Asia and the rest of India, without catalysing agricultural and industrial growth. As Das and Thomas
(2005, 31) observe: ‘Although the instrumental value of NER–Myanmar trade in terms of generation of
economic growth is negligible at present, the intrinsic value of cross-border trade is, no doubt, immense
as it eases out life of the people living in the border areas’.
This often leads one to plead for reviving the old, pre-Partition kinship and social ties that were torn
asunder—thanks to the Partition (1947) and consequent reorganisation of international borders. In a
paper based on dense ethnographic documentation, Sanjeeb Kakoty (2008) points to the ethnic ties and
cultural continuities that seem to have survived the demarcation of India–Bangladesh border in East
Khasi Hills in the wake of the Partition. He also records, in detail, continuing social and economic practices that appear to militate against the nationalist project of bringing the territory under State control and
nationalisation of space. While social ties and practices of this nature do not show signs of disappearance, at least in the short run, the argument that we need to revive them on the ground that they predate
the Partition often sounds impractical and ahistorical. The reality of the post-Partition State cannot easily
be wished away.
I would rather argue that new configurations of community have been taking place centring on these
labouring lives. The community does not negotiate with the borders, but the very practice of negotiating
with the borders contributes to the construction of the community—moral community, if one could designate it in such a way. Today, moral economy of border trade does not revolve around old community
ties, but around ‘labouring life’—a life that, to say the least, has only a complex relation to border and
border trade, a relation that is too complex to be comprehended by either of the two dominant discourses
of national security and functional integration. Let me cite an example from my own ethnographic work.9
It was an exceptionally humid and sultry afternoon of May as we hit the tip of Akheriganj on the
Indian side of the banks of the Padma separating her from Bangladesh. We saw a barge slowly floating
towards us and a middle-aged man with his bicycle stationed on the platform was the first to get down
from it as the barge approached the ghat. I came to know subsequently that he was Sohrab Ali, and
I eventually struck a conversation with him as the crowd on the barge got down without making any
noise and thinned out quietly and the lone BSF patrol faded away. The entire area looked deserted
and Ali confided that he was returning from the nearby bazaar across the border where he sells egg and
earns his livelihood. He was the only earner in a family of six members and price of egg varied on both
sides of the border and Ali eked out a living by taking advantage of differential pricing—thanks to the
border that separates the two nation-states. How would Ali live, I wonder, if there was no border? For,
border gives him the comparative price advantage and offers livelihood opportunities to him and his
family of six souls. On the other hand, how else would he live, if he did not violate the border on an
everyday basis? He can avail himself of the comparative advantage only when he crosses the border as
he does it daily and of course, at grave risk to his life.
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I remember Sohrab Ali telling me that people like him who live on the border are like husk isolated
from the paddy. Like husk, they are of no use to the nation. The paddy have for long deserted the husk in
their journey for greener pasture—to Nashipur, Bhagabangola, Lalgola, Kolkata and even Mumbai,
Ahmedabad, Pune, the new face of globalised India—where they work as zari workers, goldsmiths,
construction labourers, etc. Those who are left here do not have even the means of migrating to these
areas. We spoke for far too long and I became thirsty. He said that he could offer me water of the Padma
that he and his family were forced to drink as the entire groundwater in the area was contaminated
by arsenic—caused perhaps by the overuse of fertilisers and pesticides—thanks to the Green Revolution
in West Bengal initiated in a large way by the former Left Front government. Sohrab had no hesitation
in admitting that people like him prefer to go to the government hospital in Rajshahi than to the one in
Murshidabad when they feel that they are in need of medical attention. The hospital in Bangladesh
offered better medical facilities at a cheaper price. Earlier, he used to own land large enough to feed his
family. But as the river swings and shifts down its course, his land, by then, had become a part of the
Bangladeshi territory. Even then, he continued to cultivate the land, but could not reap the harvest as, one
day, he discovered that ‘the goons of Bangladesh’ had looted his harvest at night.
Shakila—who earned her living by serving as a porter of contraband goods in Moreh—lost her
husband twice: first, when her husband was taken into custody by the Myanmarese officials for carrying
contraband items as a porter to their territory and was imprisoned for 16 years; and second, when he
came back and died an untimely death after nine months of his release, perhaps due to torture during his
long incarceration. Asked what the border means to her, Shakila told Chitra Ahanthem:
It (the gate) has come to mean many different things: my source of livelihood, a force that took away my husband
and a barrier that comes in the way of a better life. You know, I have a childhood friend who moved away from
Moreh to Churachandpur district after her marriage. She does not have to worry about where her next meal is
coming from: when we do meet about once a year on her trips to her family here, I see the difference between
us in the way we dress, in the way we look and the way we cope with life. Compared to her, I am like a small
bird that flutters half-heartedly in the vast sky looking for crumbs on the ground, unsure whether I can get that
crumb. (Ahanthem 2010, 28)
The relation of border to the borderless world is, to say the least, complex. Empirical studies conducted by us from time to time, albeit on a much smaller scale, tend to suggest that the border control
regime also puts in place a border violation regime, and I emphasise on the systematic and regime character of border violations, and there is reason to believe that the two are complementary to each other.
For, a border violation regime cannot exist without a border control regime already in place and perhaps
vice versa. Once the borders get drawn and the migration of ‘unwanted’ cheap and unskilled labour
(like the rickshaw and handcart pullers, construction workers, domestic help and umbrella repairers)
grows apace in response to the rising demand for it in India, the immigrants—‘rejected’ in their own
countries—are in a desperate need for crossing the borders and a good deal of migration assumes a
network character. The immigrants get in touch with the middlemen (popularly known as dalals) who
have a network with the border guards and make them cross the borders. Once they cross the border, they
go into hiding for a few weeks in the bordering villages where they stay against payment of rent, and then
melt into the crowd at an opportune moment and settle in those areas where the neighbours from their
own villages already live in numbers. There are middlemen and party bosses for helping them obtain
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ration cards and requisite official papers by way of bribing the corrupt officials and thereby become citizens and voters. Everyone benefits from migration: the migrants who have to cross the borders to earn
their livelihood; their employers who employ them at comparatively lower wages than what they have to
pay to the natives and the locals; the politicians who thrive on the immigrant vote banks; the villagers of
the neighbouring villages who serve as middlemen and rent their houses and thereby make money from
them; and the security forces who open the ‘line’ against easy money for the free passage of people and
goods. Quite ironically, borders serve as the means of earning livelihood and everyone has a stake in
having the borders drawn. The presence of a border control regime is necessary in order that immigration
comes as a means of livelihood and easy money to everyone involved in the process. Border violation
regime requires a border control regime for its operation; border’s paralegal career makes its legality a
fiction but only a necessary fiction.
Concluding Observations
People like Sohrab Ali and Shakila live life dangerously by constantly negotiating with borders—now
here, then there—and inhabit what Deleuze and Guattari (2010, 45) would call ‘a de-territorialized
space’. In a world otherwise cut into surgically precise nation-states with hardly any space left for the
nomads like Sohrab and Shakila, who have no anchorage in any nation, ‘it is the earth that de-territorializes
itself, in a way that provides them with a territory’ (Deleuze and Guattari 2010, 45) to move about, to
sustain themselves and their labouring bodies and to live life, albeit dangerously.
While border economy includes all of them—border, cross-border, international and unofficial trade
or many more—rampant ‘smuggling’ and threat to national security cannot be an argument for excluding
Sohrabs and Shakilas from its ambit and letting them starve. As Balibar (2004, 22) reminds us:
History can be used either to ‘essentialize’ the conflicting narratives, enclosing them within ‘cultural borderlines’, or to subject ‘subaltern’ narratives to the ‘dominant’ ones (and simply to silence them), or it can be used
to set up a dialectical transformation of the regime of discourses.
Border trade perhaps is the answer—only if we realise that there is a larger moral economy of border
trade, the gains of which far outweigh its meagre economic returns. Does not the moral economy of
border trade force us to revisit both the dominant discourses of national security and functional integration and see how they mutate and ‘dialectically transform’ under present conditions?
Acknowledgement
I would like to mention that unless otherwise indicated, all translations from original non-English sources are mine.
Notes
1. I use ‘state’ with ‘s’ in small while referring to any of the constituent states (like Meghalaya or Mizoram etc.)
within a ‘State’ with ‘S’ in capital (like India).
2. One lakh is equal to 100,000.
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3. One crore is equal to 10,000,000.
4. Hilsa is the favourite fish of the Bengalis, mostly available during the end of monsoon when it comes to
sweet-water rivers in shoals for breeding and procreation.
5. Retrieved 13 October 2013, from http://unbconnect.com/hilsha-smuggling/#&panel1-4
6. The Bengali word haat means a weekly or bi-weekly or even tri-weekly market.
7. Chhitmahals (or chitmahals) are Indian enclaves located within Bangladeshi territory. Similarly, there are
Bangladeshi enclaves located within Indian territory.
8. Retrieved 1 January 2014, from http://mdoner.gov.in/content/border-trade
9. The work was conducted on 29 May in 2009 in the district of Murshidabad, West Bengal.
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