Unfinished Partitions in South Asia and the Making of Miyahs, Biharis, and Christians into Noncitizens (1947 - the Present)

FAIN: RZ-271307-20

Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ 85281-3670)
Yasmin Saikia (Project Director: December 2019 to present)
Charles Haines (Co Project Director: January 2020 to present)

Preparation of a co-authored volume providing a comparative study of three groups in South Asia marginalized because of their religion and cultural backgrounds. (36 months)

With a publication grant from the NEH’s Collaborative Research Program we will complete research for writing a book on the Miyahs in India, the Biharis in Bangladesh, and the Dalit Christians in Pakistan. Each of these communities are deemed non- or sub-citizens and the target of harsh state and majoritarian discrimination and violence. In our research we ask: What is it like to live as precarious non-citizens in one’s own country and how do these communities create and maintain a sense of belonging? Each of these communities were left behind as borders shifted in South Asia following Partition in 1947 and the creation of Bangladesh from East Pakistan in 1971. As such, their lives are interconnected, providing a unique South Asian history of precarity, belonging, and enduring humanity, contributing to larger academic discussions on what it means to be human in our divided world today.