Sur, Malini. 2021. Jungle Passports: Fences, Mobility, and Citizenship at the Northeast India‐Bangladesh Border. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia. pp. 248.
| Published date | 01 April 2022 |
| Author | Pyone Myat Thu |
| Date | 01 April 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12973 |
266
|
International Migration. 2022;60:266–269.
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig
Received: 5 Janu ary 2022
|
Accepted: 7 Januar y 2022
DOI: 10.1111/imig.12973
BOOK REVIEW
Sur, Malini. 2021. Jungle Passports: Fences,
Mobility, and Citizenship at the Northeast India-
Bangladesh Border. University of Pennsylvania
Press: Philadelphia. pp. 248.
The border that divides is the border that connects . In Malini Sur's account of the North- eastern India– Bangladesh
corridor, long- standing cross- border mobility, social and cultural interconnectedness, human and non- human rela-
tions and re source trade dynam ics are transform ing in the shadows of increased Indian st ate security infr astruc-
tures and suveillance. Sur ties her empirical cases with wide- ranging theoretical insights in relation to the changing
constellation of g lobal economics, nati onal and subnational poli tics and ecologies.
As an ethnographic tex t, Jungle Passports excels. Sur transports reade rs to different settings and periods alo ng
and acros s the India– Bangladesh border and vividly captures the ‘power geometri es’ (Massey, 1993) that shape
the every day lives of her informants. At times, it is overwhelming to keep up with the politics a nd historical de-
tails. Yet, th is is precisely t he plurality an d ‘messiness’ chara cterizing many bor derlands in Asia (e.g. Scott, 20 09;
Turner et al., 2015). In particular, the intersec ting lives of inhabitants in this frontier regio n have been subjected to
colonial and post- colonial terr itorial making and re- making project s ‘whose boundary lines they came to be place d
within’ (p.13) and that which sought to demarcate, simplify and disrupt these complicated identities, interdepen-
dencies and live lihoods to produce loyal cit izen subjects (Chapter 1).
In addition to the political forces, this borderland must co ntend wit h ecologic al shift s. River s perio dically
change course s, silting to create chars— river islands, which can disappear upon flooding, unsettling agrarian live-
lihoods and impeding the making of neat national boundary lines. Chapter 2 traces how wet rice cultivation un-
derpins border liveliho ods and ide ntities but has been p oliticized to exclude partic ular ethnicitie s, religions and
classes in the mak ing of modern India. Sur reco unts how Assam has been a site of mu ltiple waves of resettlem ent
by A ssamese peasants and Musl im peasant s from the neighbouring Bengal province both in search of st able
and ar able land when th e chars unpredic tably displaced and dispossessed cultivators. With the partitioning of
the In dian subcontin ent in 1947, Muslim peasants who have long cultiv ated and harvested rice in A ssam's ter-
ritory were suspec ted of inco rporating A ssam into what would become indep endent Pakis tan (and after 1971,
Bangladesh). At thi s juncture, the indigenous G aros and Hajongs formed allia nces with border authorit ies or were
otherwise viewed as unruly, disloyal or ‘armed t ribals’ (p.56), a familiar colonial gaze casted on indigenous peo-
ples elsewhere in the pursuit for territo rial control . Religious and ethnic per secutions wo rked in tandem with
land evictions and dep ortations. Drawing on Malkk i (1992), Su r demonst rates how modern nation- states rely
on conceiving space as bounded , discontinuous an d divisive, which af fixes identity (citizenship) to place (n ation).
Transborder m obility, local s ensibilities, fl uid identities and multiple affinities are therefore se en by the s tate as
deviant; di scrimination, excl usion and displa cement thus fol low for populati ons who do no t adhere to d ominant
religious, eth nic and racial norms.
Like rice, cattle smuggling connects and provides economic security among traders, intermediaries and state
agents o n both sides of the India– Bangla desh border. C hapter 3 foll ows the intr icate network s and routes that
© 2022 The Auth ors. Internation al Migration © 2022 IO M
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