Refugees Migration And Conflicts In South Asia

This book makes an interdisciplinary in-depth study of refugees, migration, conflicts, and development in the South Asian region. By depicting the socio-economic and security aspects of migration along with human security, this book has projected the vulnerability of this region.

Delving into the past and present of various secessionist movements in Northeast India, political conflict in Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, a political movement for autonomy in Darjeeling hills in Eastern India, and the Rohingya migration crisis affecting India and Bangladesh, this book examines the volatile co-existence of competing population groups in Eastern South Asia. Through the conceptual lens of the ‘home’ and feeling of ‘homeland’ in Eastern South Asia, the authors seek answers to three complex but interrelated questions: why is Eastern South Asia facing so many political movements and conflicts? How have the political movements affected the region and people? Why is the number of migrants in this region so high? Answers to these questions are vital to those studying South Asia and interested in understanding this region.

In the South Asian Region including Afghanistan and Myanmar internal displacement and cross-border migration have become everyday realities. Not only do they involve human rights abuses, maltreatment and denial of livelihood for those displaced, but demand accommodation with state sovereignty and raise questions of identity, power and gender-related concerns.Forced Migration in the South Asian Region: Displacement, Human Rights and Conflict Resolution is a collection of essays that explores the nature, extent and ramifications of forced migration and displacement. This volume is the outcome of an international conference organized by the Centre for Refugee Studies, Jadavpur University, Calcutta in collaboration with the Refugee Studies Center, University of Oxford; the Law Research Institute, Calcutta; the International Law Association, Calcutta Chapter; and the Brookings Institution-Johns Hopkins SAIS Project on Internal Displacement.

This book examines forced migration of two refugees groups in South Asia. The author discusses the claims of “belonging” of refugees, and asserts that in practice “belonging” can extend beyond the state-centric understanding of membership in South Asian states. She addresses two sets of interrelated questions: what factors determine whether refugees are relocated to their home countries in South Asia, and why do some repatriated groups re-integrate more successfully than others in “post-peace” South Asian states? This book answers these questions through a study of refugees from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who sought asylum in India and were later relocated to their countries of origin. Since postcolonial societies have a typical kind of state-formation, in South Asia’s case this has profoundly shaped questions of belonging and membership. The debate tends to focus on citizenship, making it a benchmark to demarcate inclusion and exclusion in South Asian states. In addition to qualitative analysis, this book includes narratives of Sri Lankan and Chakma refugees in post-conflict and post-peace Sri Lanka and Bangladesh respectively, and critiques the impact of macro policies from the bottom up.

Contains papers presented at a seminar.

Partition and post-colonial migrations – sometimes voluntary, often forced – have created borders in South Asia that serve to oppress rather than protect. Migrants and refugees feel their real home lies beyond the border, and liberation struggles continue the quest for freedoms that have proven to be elusive for many. States scapegoat refugees as "outsiders" for their own ends, justifying the denial of their rights, while academic discourse on refugees represents them either as victims or as terrorists. Taking a stance against such projections, this book examines refugees’ struggles for better living conditions and against marginalization. By analyzing protest and militarization among refugees, the book argues that they are neither victims without agency nor war entrepreneurs. Through interviews, surveys, and statistical analyses, it shows how states have manipulated refugee identity and resistance to promote the ideal of the nation-state, thereby creating protracted refugee crises. This is evident even in the most humanitarian state intervention in modern South Asia – India’s military intervention in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971. The findings put forward provide the basis to understand the conditions under which violence can break out, and thereby have implications for host countries, donor countries, and aid organizations in the formulation of refugee‐policy. The book is of interest to scholars in the fields of South Asian studies, comparative politics, international relations, refugee studies, development studies, security studies and peace studies.

Partition and post-colonial migrations – sometimes voluntary, often forced – have created borders in South Asia that serve to oppress rather than protect. Migrants and refugees feel their real home lies beyond the border, and liberation struggles continue the quest for freedoms that have proven to be elusive for many. States scapegoat refugees as "outsiders" for their own ends, justifying the denial of their rights, while academic discourse on refugees represents them either as victims or as terrorists. Taking a stance against such projections, this book examines refugees’ struggles for better living conditions and against marginalization. By analyzing protest and militarization among refugees, the book argues that they are neither victims without agency nor war entrepreneurs. Through interviews, surveys, and statistical analyses, it shows how states have manipulated refugee identity and resistance to promote the ideal of the nation-state, thereby creating protracted refugee crises. This is evident even in the most humanitarian state intervention in modern South Asia – India’s military intervention in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971. The findings put forward provide the basis to understand the conditions under which violence can break out, and thereby have implications for host countries, donor countries, and aid organizations in the formulation of refugee‐policy. The book is of interest to scholars in the fields of South Asian studies, comparative politics, international relations, refugee studies, development studies, security studies and peace studies.

This volume explores ideas of home, belonging and memory in migration through the social realities of leaving and living. It discusses themes and issues such as locating migrant subjectivities and belonging; sociability and wellbeing; the making of a village; bondage and seasonality; dislocation and domestic labour; women and work; gender and religion; Bhojpuri folksongs; folk music; experience; and the city to analyse the social and cultural dynamics of internal migration in India in historical perspectives. Departing from the dominant understanding of migration as an aberration impelled by economic factors, the book focuses on the centrality of migration in the making of society. Based on case studies from an array of geo-cultural regions from across India, the volume views migrants as active agents with their own determinations of selfhood and location. Part of the series Migrations in South Asia, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of migration studies, refugee studies, gender studies, development studies, social work, political economy, social history, political studies, social and cultural anthropology, exclusion studies, sociology, and South Asian Studies.