Two day Workshop On State of Research on Forced Migration in the East and Northeast Jointly organized by Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla, Panos South Asia and Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (CRG) || Date: 12-13 February, 2010 || Venue: Hotel Pragoti Manor, Guwahati

The two day research workshop  on  “State of Research on Forced Migration in the East and Northeast jointly organized by Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla, Panos South Asia and Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (CRG) in Hotel Pragoti Manor, Guwahati from 12-13 February 2010 explored the possibilities for newer research agendas through a stock taking exercise of ongoing and previous research on resource politics, conflict, militarization and disasters that led to forced migration and displacement in India’s east and north east. The workshop was attended by scholars from various academic institutions in east and north east India; activists; and media persons.

In the inaugural remarks Peter de Souza commented that the new ideology of liberalization has been partly responsible for land acquisition, destruction of forests and conflicts relating to water. It is significant to note that post 1991, the policy transition to transform Indian economy has been responsible for contraction of public space. It is in this context that the discourse on forced migration considers this crisis as a sort of collateral cost that one must pay. Pradip Kumar Bose provided a review of the research done on forced migration. The pattern of migration in South Asia reveals that push pull factors are not the main explanations that inform peoples’ movements within and across borders in the subcontinent. Legality and illegality are concepts that underline forced migration of people in the region. Hence we need to understand the agency of the victims, role of memory, borders and paradox between care and power to understand forced migration in India’s east and north east. There is no shared paradigm of forced migration research and the lines between migration, displacement and forced migration are very thin. The lines become important much more for those who perpetuate the system. There are as many competing theoretical viewpoints for such studies as there are regions, theories and cultures. Ranabir Samaddar in his comments on current research on forced migration, emphasized that there is an urgent need to study the production of the alien in the process of forced migration in east and north east of India. There is a disconnection between the historical dimension of migration and the current studies which often leads to an imbalance in perceptions. Migration, among other things, has given rise to a lot of social marginalization and the history of racism stands witness to it. Charles Tilly points out, in this regard, how trust as a social resource is created in the process of migration. Creation and survival of networks underline this and in due time, there happens a transplanting of these networks. A study of laws is also necessary for adding further dimensions and to know how different kinds of laws, including customary laws have regulated migration over the years. Moreover, is it possible to create a regime of rights by the government perched on the regime of security? He also proposed a historical atlas of migration in the north east and east to map peoples’ movements in this part of the world. Two pertinent issues were raised in the discussion: a) methodologically pliable morphology of migration; b) though categorization is the underlying logic of government, in studying categorization, we cannot forget the categories.

In Session II on land use pattern, conflict and migration Subir Bhaumik explored the belongingness to land as a key factor behind conflicts pertaining to land. Apart from being an economic entity, land is viewed as something that invigorates huge amount of passion. In this regard, land is linked to the historical imagination of communities; but at the same time, the ways land is seen by the local communities and the nation state, are at loggerheads with each other. Therefore, conflicts occur with regard to land acquisition and utilization. Walter Fernandes, besides stressing the claim of land to be one of belongingness, said that it is also the legal status of land in the north east that pulled people from outside into the region to come and settle here. Landless agricultural laboureres migrated into the north east in thousands and most of them belonged to the muslim community. But the issue became communal only when the dimension of land conflicts was attributed to it. Particularly in Assam, laws were enacted and rules were changed to take away land from the traditional indigenous owners in order to make it available to the Bengalis who moved in from outside. Community land was converted into private properties and the power of women eroded in the process. The discussion highlighted the three principal points of: a) the past with its different readings of notions about land; migration patterns resulting in and out of conflicts and their timelines; and the varying degrees of truth in reconstructing and representing the past; b) the policies formulated and followed, with special reference to their trends in the wake of the development projects; c) the passion associated with land and manifest in most extreme forms.

The third session was on Homeland, Displacement, Violence and Memory. In this session, Dolly Kikon in her presentation Memory and Landscape raised certain crucial questions relating citizenship rights, autonomy movements and Armed Forces Special Powers Act. With regard to AFSPA she highlighted not only the region in official discourse is “disturbed” but also people are “constant suspects” – at the end of the day it is a vicious cycle. Ishita Dey in her discussion on transit refugee camp Cooper’s Camp and a permanent liability home- Ranaghat Women’s Home highlighted three issues: firstly the transmission of collective memory within families and across generation and through state policies of refugee care. Secondly, how the partition narrative is vivid with the experiences of the last journey from the homeland to a new home and thirdly constant configuration of us/ them through official discourse and among the refugees with the redrawing of boundaries and creation of us/ them across two timescales. Monirul Hussain in the initial comments said that the term ‘disturbed area’ generates a disturbed feeling and autonomy creates some kind of partition. His comment on Ishita’s paper was that even Assam has a permanent liability camp where Bengalis have become Assamese. The Government policy of Rehabilitation needs to be revisited.

The first day of the workshop concluded with a roundtable discussion with the participants of the workshop and media representatives from Assam at the Press Club, Guwahati. Three issues were raised in the session; firstly, the control of media by state and non state actors plays a key role in the media reporting on issues of conflict, displacement and forced migration.  Secondly, the media persons pointed out the unavailability of data on forced migration to follow up on a reported story and thirdly limited journalists in media houses. Despite all these limitations the group agreed that the media in north east India has been pro- active on reporting issues related to displacement evident in the monthly compilation – “News on North East” by ICSSR, North Eastern Regional Centre.  Media persons requested Panos and CRG to hold two to three day workshop on forced migration and displacement issues where new technologies that could be used to cover news and issues related to forced migration could be explored. Media persons said that there needs to be an exchange of ideas where the journalists and the researchers working on displacement issues. The roundtable discussion ended with a vote of thanks from Sanjoy Barbora.

The second day of the workshop began with the session on Gendered Nature of Forced Migration. Gita Bharali in her presentation highlighted the absence of gender in studies on development induced displacement in the country. She reflected on the study done by NESRC and emphasized that 50-60 million people have been displaced in India mainly due to conflict over Common Property Resources. In Assam, out of 14 lakhs acres acquired for development projects 10 lakhs acres are CPRs.  The impact on women begins with alienating the woman from the very source of her partial economic autonomy. The acquisition of land for development projects makes a transition from community ownership to individual ownership. Women have more power with regard to landholding system in case of CPRs. The Village council decides the allotment of land to families. Women can make the decision about what to cultivate and where to cultivate. In the individual based land holding system women lack control over CPRs. Women are also deprived in the rehabilitation process. Basic to the deterioration of women’s status is the absence of alternatives to the livelihood lost. The woman needs such an alternative because despite loss of livelihood she is expected to continue to play her role of provider of the family. A salaried job can be one such alternative. However, most skilled or semi-skilled jobs are given to men from the dominant castes. Those given to the subalterns, particularly women, are unskilled, often on daily wages. For example, in West Bengal of the 125 permanent jobs given, only 8 went to women. Of the 45 semi-skilled jobs, none went to tribals or Dalits and 2 to women. 6 more men and 5 women got temporary jobs. 90% of the jobs got by tribals in AP were unskilled, often temporary. The study we did in Assam shows that 14 out of 372 respondents got jobs in the projects, none of them is woman. Vijaylaksmi Brara  argued that women do not have choice vis a vis forced migration. In conflict related displacement, women continue to bear the baggage of cultural norms and expectations. It was pointed out that women are not part of conflict resolution committees.  There are higher cases of drop out of girl children in situations of conflict induced displacement. There is a need to recognize single women headed household in rehabilitation policies. She also argued that customs should not be seen as detrimental to women’s role in peacemaking processes and women should form the decision making bodies. Rakhee Kalita in her initial comments pointed out the neutralizing force of the village council where male members make the decisions. The discussion revolved around two issues : 1) Question of donor agencies: World Bank being gender blind. Government agencies have incorporated gender 2) Women’s involvement in peace and conflict resolution.

In the following session on Violence, Militarisation and Displacement in North East, Sujata Dutta Hazarika highlighted the lacunas in the governance structure through local self governance structures in Assam which she argues could possibly be an effective  means of implementing development projects to arrive at peace making. Governance is one of the ways of arriving at peace resolution and PRIs (panchyati raj institutions) could be an effective way for peace building. Pradip Phanjoubam in his presentation on conflict induced displacement in North East says that the historical background of mapping of political lines is crucial to understanding conflict. North East was created by certain political developments and cartographic exercise where the north east was not involved.  The conflicts are embedded in the history of the arbitrariness of the political lines. Bodhisattva Kar said the two presentations addressed two issues: the relationship between peace and violence, violence and law.

Amites Mukhopadhyay’s presentation focused on the politics of relief and aid in post aila Subdarbans. The relief and aid was influenced was by the changing political power in Gosaba block. The Marginality emerges from the official discourse of Sunderbans being portrayed as the wonderland and in this context the conservation policies have produced a dichotomoy between human livelihood and conservation of nature. Embankment erosion is common in Sunderbans and their marginality is heightened when in the name of protection they build ring embankments. In 1980 when storms like Aila struck Sunderban very little discussion took place at the governance level. Vulnerability of population of Sunderbans continues to be abetted. Monirul Hussain in the context of Assam highlighted the case of disaster in Bolbola (a village 80 kms away from Guwahati) where people migrated from Northern bank of Brahmaputra to the southern side and a village was created. There was a flash flood in 2004, and large number of people died. Media reported that a dam burst in Meghalaya caused the disaster. But the reality was different. A new railway line was created and the entire residential area went under the vacated tract of a reservoir. Almost 150 people died in the disaster and there was no place to bury the bodies. Uphill, a rava village was approached for land to dispose the bodies.

The last session of the workshop was a roundtable on conflicts and displacement in eastern and central India where Subash Mohapatra, JP Rao, Satyabhama Awasthi and Amrita Patel shared their experiences in Chattishgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa. Three issues emerged in the course of the roundtable, firstly, whether conservation of forests means displacement and loss of livelihood tribals as in the case of Achanakmarg Tiger Reserve in Chattisgarh, secondly the constant denial of the state to acknowledge conflict induced displacement Chattishgarh. The denial of state to acknowledge displacement accompanied by state regulation in terms of militaristion of the area with the aid of Salwa Judum and confinement of people in camps and tight control over the border districts like Bijapur have forced people to stay in these inhumane situations and denied them the right to move.

Annexure 1 – Programme Schedule

Annexure 2- List of Participants

Annexure 3 – Reading List
 

Dialogue on Protection Strategies for People in Situations of Forced Migration in Collaboration with UNHCR Kolkata, 14-15 December 2008

The history of forced migration has presently been recognized as a history of mixed and massive flows of people, which have rendered, to a considerable extent, the older forms of protection inadequate. These early signs of new kinds of flows on the map of forced migration have led governments and humanitarian agencies to adopt newer strategies to cope with massive displacements and unrest. In this context - of massive and mixed flows of forced migration and the need for newer strategies to handle such migrations - Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (CRG) proposed to UNHCR to hold a dialogue that would focus on the relevant experiences of South Asia. The UNHCR graciously accepted this proposal in the spirit of collegiality and the idea emerged that the Sixth Annual Winter Course on Forced Migration could have a special segment on protection strategies in the wake of the emerging situation of forced migration in form of mixed and massive flows, where experts from all over South Asia along with key UNHCR personnel, engaged with the South Asian situation, could participate and deliberate on possibilities of new protection strategies.

Recommendations

1.       Stressing the importance of sustained dialogue on emerging trends in the realm of prevention, protection and reintegration of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the need for identifying sustainable solutions, the group of South Asian experts gathered in the Conference titled “Protection Strategies for People in Situations of Forced Migration” (thereafter the Conference) proposes to transform itself into a Working Group on Challenges of Displacement in South Asia (thereafter the Working Group). The Working Group, with the assistance of a Secretariat to be established at the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, will (a) serve as an open forum for discussion and debate across countries and regions, (b) convene in regular intervals and (c) help translate research findings of displacement in South Asia into region-specific laws and policies. Such an initiative would aim at establishing a broad-based dialogue on the existing and emerging protection needs of people affected by displacement, including as a result of conflict, development and environmental degradation, with a view to informing policy-making.

2.       Being aware of the historical and geographical limitations of the term ‘refugee’ as framed in the Refugee Convention (1951) and stressing the need of capturing new social phenomena in the realm of protecting vulnerable populations, in particular with respect to climate change, the Conference invites a dialogue, inspired by South Asian experiences, among State governments, international organisations and civil society that looks beyond the refugee definition contained in the Refugee Convention. 

3.       Recognising that non-refoulement is one of the principal pillars of any comprehensive protection strategy, the Conference encourages the States in the South Asian sub-continent to consider signing and ratifying the Refugee Convention as well as the Optional Protocol (1967) and to put in place national legislation to enforce the principles enshrined in these two instruments, inspired by the model law on refugees (2007) initiated by the Eminent Persons Group. The Conference further invites the governments of the States of South Asia to work towards a regional framework for protection under the auspices of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). 

4.       Emphasising the importance of durable solutions in the face of new displacement paradigms and upholding the fundamental right to freedom of movement, the Conference calls on the States in the South Asian sub-continent to ensure that conditions are established for refugees and IDPs to make informed choices from a range of options, including voluntary return in safety and dignity, local integration and relocation to a third place.

5.       In light of a significant increase of IDPs in the world and South Asia, the Conference invites a dialogue, in close coordination with people affected by displacement and with the active involvement of the epistemic community, among stakeholders in South Asia on the effective implementation of the “UN Guiding Principles on Displacement” (1998) by way of adopting national legislation, or addressing the protection needs of IDPs by other comprehensive measures ensuring clear benchmarks and minimum standards. 

6.       Mindful of the need to sensitise all segments of society on protection needs of displaced populations as well as the linkages of marginalisation and forced migration, the Conference calls on the electronic and print media to assume its responsibility for (a) clarifying in the discourse the definition of refugees, IDPs as well as migrants, (b) providing independently researched, comprehensive and balanced information on displacement situations, and (c) refraining from all reporting potentially jeopardising displaced persons, their families or the population hosting them.

7.       In this context, the Conference (a) emphasises the potentially beneficial role of local language media to advocate protection strategies, (b) encourages reporting from a distinctively South Asian perspective, tapping into existing regional media outlets and possibly creating new media structures for that purpose, and (c) notes the increasing influence of the new media in shaping public opinion.

8.       Taking note of the UNHCR Ten Point Plan of Action titled “Refugee Protection and Mixed Migration” (2007), the Conference proposes to identify suitable topics for consideration in upcoming meetings and conferences of the Working Group-to-be. One set of issues that emerged from discussion as a pertinent theme for further deliberation would be the fencing of borders, its impact on displacement and possible solutions. Other themes include the prospects and limitations of State institutions, including Human Rights Commissions, and the involvement of civil society in devising new policies and strategies.

9.       In recognition of the fact that the majority of refugees, IDPs and trafficked persons are women and children, the Conference highlighted the need for gender and age sensitive assistance, protection and capacity-building policies and programmes and will feed its findings into the activities of the Working Group.

In light of the findings of the Fourth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and their likely implications for migration and internal displacement, the Conference underlined the need for a South Asian dialogue and a regional Action Plan on Climate Change based on the principles of human security as well as justice and equity on issues of environmental concern. The Conference also stressed the importance of devising a framework for redressing issues pertaining to the impact of growth-oriented development on sections of society vulnerable to displacement.

Annexure 1 – Programme Schedule

Annexure 2- Report on the Dialogue

Two-Day Consultative Meeting on Development, Democracy, and Governance: Broad Lessons from Post-Colonial Experiences of India Bhubaneswar, 24-26 May 2008

A. Perspective  1. In 2003 the Calcutta Research Group (CRG) with assistance of the Ford Foundation embarked on a research programme on some of the critical questions facing post-colonial democracies, such as India. Since then CRG has conducted collective research into issues of autonomy and social justice. The research and the dialogues on the theme of autonomy, and the significant case studies it undertook led to further work – this time on the theme of justice, in particular on social justice. Researchers and members who participated in the numerous dialogues on autonomy repeatedly came up with the issue of governmentalised forms of autonomy as against the demands and ideas of autonomies that sought to address the incipient demands for justice. The constitutional, legal, financial, resource-centred, administrative, gender-just – various forms of autonomies were investigated and discussed, in as much were discussed the philosophical-political-historical issues related to the issue of autonomy. There were public lectures on “autonomous voices”. Several research reports were published, and three volumes came out of the programme, namely, The Politics of Autonomy, Indian Autonomy – Keywords and Key Texts, and Autonomy – Beyond Kant and Hermeneutics. The CRG website and its small archive contain resources on this theme and related issues for the benefit of further research in this area.   2. The fundamental point that emerged out of this research and related dialogues was that while democracies treat autonomy as an exceptional principle (mostly for ethnic minorities), which otherwise should not be at conflict with the supreme principle of republican people-hood, autonomy has to be seen as an essential democratic principle. It implies thus not one overarching model of autonomy, or autonomy of one people constituting the nation, but re-imagining the democratic space as the intersecting field of autonomies (hence, dialogic relation between autonomies), as a fundamental conflict resolution mechanism of the political society, as the field of accommodation.   3. The method of combining collective research and dialogues continued with the following research programme on the theme of social justice. While we have already noted that the second programme followed from the preceding one, this programme was designed in a specific way. It was not meant as a philosophical inquiry or pure political research, the emphasis was to combine critical legal inquiries with detailed ethnographic studies intended to find out popular notions of justice and their interface with the dominant legal forms. Of course appropriate theoretical conclusions have been drawn in due course, and these conclusions reflect on relevant philosophical issues as well. Once again the emphasis in both research and dialogues has been on investigating the critical role that notions of justice play in post-colonial democracies such as India. In these ethnographic and critical legal studies the historical orientation has been pronounced.   4. In this second research programme various forms and notions of justice came up for study, such as revenge, instant, restorative, gender justice, legal, moral, transitional, minimal, allocative, justice as constitutive of rights, justice in form of the right to claim making, justice as response to marginal situations, and finally justice as the supplement of rights. Research papers as case studies or short status reports are being brought out, and the programme soon to end will hopefully culminate in a four volume series on social justice in India. The proposed four volumes are: (a) Enlightenment and Social Justice – What is happening in West Bengal Today? (b) Law and Justice: Limits to the Deliverables of Law, (c) Marginalities and Justice, and (d) Key Texts on Social Justice – A Compendium. In this research and dialogue programme nearly one hundred and fifty people participated, and shared their views and knowledge with the researchers. They also took part in framing the research questions and discussing the conclusions. The reports carry the details of the way research was conducted. On the CRG website there are online versions of the reports, and soon there will be an online compendium of Keywords on Social Justice.  5. Both studies gained from the deliberations of the two conferences that were by design and declaration critically oriented. We can here refer to the second deliberation wherefrom several points seemed to emerge: (a) what constitutes the social of social justice; (b) what constitutes the relation between marginalities and social justice; (c) what determines the field of the interaction of command, order, law, and determination of the just; (d) and the five dominant forms – justice as the supplement of law, justice as the protection offered by the mighty, justice as order, justice as the end of exploitation; and justice as that which begins as response to injustice.    B. Current Research Concerns Flowing from CRG’s Past Work  1. Now the question in terms of CRG’s research agenda is, if we have argued through our last five years’ work that autonomy and justice form two of the critical questions facing post-colonial democracy such as India (and perhaps all modern democracies), where do we proceed from this formulation? In view of the fact that both autonomy and social justice can be practised and are realised mainly in governmental ways and forms (indeed this is happening in a situation where democracy is governmentalised), is it not necessary to bring this research programme to some sort of over all argumentation by focusing this time on the relations between democracy, development, and governance in post-colonial democracy, once again Indian being a typical instance of these three factors and their interrelations? In the last two researches we focused on two ways in which popular aspirations have formed significant aspects of democracy. However, in the wake of globalisation and globalisation-induced development we cannot forget that the relations between governance and democracy have become critical more than ever.   2. What sort of study of democratic governance are we proposing? This proposal aims to conduct a three year long study of India caught in the whirlpool of globalisation, and globalisation-induced development, trying to reorient her democracy to suit the world of globalisation, and refashion her politics to promote development. In this sense we are proposing a study of governing a transitional phase – governance of transition. The country has changed from a poor, semi-colonial economy to a developed market economy with stable and largely secular politics, and a developed constitutional culture. The Indian constitution is remarkable for its merits and limits. Similarly there is an ongoing shift from the dynamics of a welfare state to those of a market state. Above all, the country is big in size, rich in resources, remarkable for her internal variety, and can claim natural leadership of the developing countries in the global world of politics, economics, reconstruction, and development. Indeed it is said that India is an instance of successful developmental democracy. We can ask then:  (a)    If governance is to help this transition, what sort of governing practices do we have? (b)    How does it look at the question of developmental democracy? (c)    How have people responded to this situation? (d)    Or, how has the process of governing treated the people in this developmental conundrum? (e)    In other words, if development has required an appropriate administration, has it in the same measure responded to the requirements of democracy?   3. Let us look little more clearly at this situation, which is marked by fragility in face of globalisation, the particularly structured developmental processes, and the new claim makings provoked by these processes. Looking at India, we can say that a distinct regime type is emerging. It can be named as the regime of “developmental democracy”. Its features prima facie seem to be: (a) new emphasis on development in place of welfare and citizens’ participation as the “theology of politics”, (b) the capacity of the states in these polities are diminishing in terms of assuring basic economic, social, and civil rights; (c) because of the developmental contradictions, issues of politics are increasingly becoming the ones with stakes in life, and thus politics is increasingly becoming bio-political; (d) globalisation is increasing conflicts within these societies and polities, and disparities between sections of population are increasing; (e) the legislation and deliberation process is shrinking in developmental democracies, while the executive is on the ascendancy; (f) the principle of autonomy in this background has appeared as the route for the people to claim agency for political participation; (g) and finally the landscape of social justice is marked by a varying combination of legalities and illegalities and fresh debates about the role of law in redistributing and reconfiguring power and to guarantee delivery mechanisms of justice.   4. In another age of such epoch-making changes, the years after the First World War, in The Concept of the Political Carl Schmitt raised the point, “The acute question to pose is upon whom will fall the frightening power implied in a world-embracing economic and technical organisation. This question can by no means be dismissed in the belief that everything would then function automatically, that things would administer themselves, and that a government by people over people would be superfluous because human beings would then be absolutely free. For what would they be free? This can be answered by optimistic or pessimistic conjectures, all of which finally lead to an anthropological profession of faith.” However as we know Schmitt did not stop at that. At that hour of crisis – of the state system, nation system, constitutionalism, liberty, of the earlier designated systems of friendship and enmities, and several other politico-social sub-systems – Schmitt not only brought down the question of the crisis to the issue of an anthropological resolution, that is to say, how we look at man and how we should look at man, and on that would depend how we want to resolve the matter of unprecedented power organised at an international level, but he also indicated that this anthropological resolution involved the entire concept of the political, and how we intended to save and revive the concept of the political, by which Schmitt meant primarily the issue of state, legality, and sovereignty, also the capacity to make friend/enemy distinction that would enable politics to serve the interests of the state which was public politics at its purest, that is the nation.   5. Schmitt as we know chose the fascist option. And he is rightly condemned for that. But the fact that we may be at times in an era of hard choices is not wrong, and we are now in a similar way in such a time. Globalisation has made the emergence of new global constellations of territory and authority possible, implying obligatory searches by these solidarities for new friends and new enemies. Constitution, legality, juridical principles and arguments over the threshold of tolerance of illegalities and semi-legalities – all are under review in this situation. All states look like the Weimar State; therefore the phenomenon of every political party, every social group, or solidarity vying for governmental power or at least a share therein, is viewed with alertness by all sections of society. With the expansion of the area of claim making, the regime of developmental democracy considers that conceding the claims for justice is a sign of the weakness of the State. Naturally, representation and governmental power – these two have become the hottest property towards the resolution of claims. This fact more than any other has reshaped the relation between government and the people, to the extent that more than ever in the eyes of the government people have turned into population groups to be ‘developed” with bureaucratic-rational means. The question is: what is the impact of this phenomenon on democracy?  C. Framing a Research Agenda and the Possible Research Questions  1. From this discussion we can visualise a research agenda and the possible research questions. The agenda will revolve around the central question of the relation between government and the people in a regime of developmental democracy. As soon as we turn our attention to this question, several features immediately come to our attention. They require investigation as to their origin and their current state. We cannot of course take up all here; but we can refer to some.  2. The first question that comes to mind is the massive “securitisation” of governance in the wake of developmental tasks. From taking over land to building oil and gas pipelines, constructing airports to guarding railway tracks, cleaning cities of lumpen elements, professional rioters, vagrants, suspected terrorists, militants, and urban refugees – the developmental discourse is now mixed with the security discourse. The aim of security administration is to provide cover for the developmental activities (Gandhamardan, Singur, pipelines, etc.), but more important, the developmental agenda has to be governed in a military model – regimented, disciplined, command structured, hierarchised, carefully budgeted in terms of provisions – both hardware and software, and finally recreating the difference between the military and the civilian now in form of developed areas (IT cities for instance) and the back of beyond…Guarding, maintaining, and protecting the circulation of life in form of commodities, finance, information, and skill is the most significant task of governance. Was it always so? Did the origin of modern governance in colonial India similarly lie in the model of a militarised administration? This requires inquiry. But were it to be so, it is a strange paradox we are facing: Modern governance has the aim of stabilising peace in society, so that development can ensue, whereas it is modelled along military lines, with the effect that it can speak only in the voice of a war command, and therefore can only bring back war in society. It should reflect the discourse and the institutions of order, but it produces conflict and anarchy. Anyway, we need research on the Indian origins of this trait that is marked by emphasis on logistics, discipline, and control in terms of developing the society. Governance is producing illiberalism, what should be the democratic response?     3. Governing in democracy, or governing a democracy - here we are speaking of the regime of developmental democracy - has a fundamental tendency of dividing up, rearranging, and reconfiguring the social and geographical space it is governing. This has profound impact on the liberal traditions of freedom – freedom to reside, move, visit, work in a particular area, etc. Developmental agenda on one hand increases the governmental power to reconfigure the space continually, and on the other hand it decreases the liberal space of freedom. Again we need to know how this began in independent India, its specific impact on the pattern of conflicts in society, and how it impacts on the relation between those who govern and those who are governed. The more we study conflicts around the issue of displacement of massive groups of population in the wake of riots, development, construction, militarisation etc., and consequent loss of substantive citizenship, the more important it becomes to study the relation between governance and space. One interesting aspect to investigate would be the way administrative services and institutions are spatially organised, and the Indian way in which federalism has been practised with all its implications for the relations between the government and the people. The challenge in terms of inquiry would be: Can the two principles of autonomy and justice help democracy escape the imperium of governed spaces?  4. The reaction or the response to these two trends in the process of governing is to be found in what one philosopher has termed the “revolt of the conduct”, which increasingly marks democracies, and certainly Indian democracy. It too became evident in the colonial age, when in response to British administrative measures for public health, social reforms, westernised education, railway construction, setting up of plantation industry, and to establish in general what can be termed as the rule of law, revolts of conduct occurred on a wide scale. Those who have studied the early phase of establishment of rule of law in India (establishment of modern penal and jail system, the Law Commissions, and the promulgation of three important measures – The Evidence Act, the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Criminal Procedure Code, and the Police Act – of course followed by other developments in administration, would vouchsafe for the fact that these legal-administrative developments were marked by protests and revolts which we can term as revolts of the conduct. This conflict between governance and the revolts of the conduct has only exacerbated in the post-colonial time with development now catching the imagination of the nation. This sort of nationalist imagination appearing in suitable governing mode is seen as a threat and is countered by asceticism, denial of the world of law, intoxication, and equally emphatic street politics. The second way in which the revolt of the conduct becomes evident is by being footloose, defying spatial regulations. Finally, since these revolts occur “on the margin of the political”, they take the governmental posture of war making seriously. In other words, these revolts start at the level of conduct, but soon become belligerent in response to government’s own bellicosity. Dissidence spreads in society, from which governance cannot free itself. Because these insurrections are not strictly political, the usual bureaucratic-legal medicines fail. Government can only look at this development as anarchy. For democracy, again the issue will be: are there ways in which development can be freed at least substantially from the discourse of order, which is bound to set off the revolts of conduct? These are all possible research questions making an intense research agenda.  5. Yet in discussing these, we cannot forget also that the legitimacy of the government, more specifically government of people’s conduct and lives, stems also from the fact that this government claims that it is the prime agency of people’s lives. The institutionalisation of a strong patriarchal benevolent image is from the colonial time, which one feminist historian has termed as not only the huzur sarkar, but also mai bap raj; this image is now stronger with the assumption of the “historically given task” of national development and of catching up with other countries and time. Therefore one imaginative research would be to look into the series of the Administrative Commission Reports to find out the image/s in which the institution of government has sought to see itself. We have to find out how the dualities of service/servitude, development/control, order/democracy, and regulation/freedom have played themselves out; also how governments have projected (themselves as) a continuous order (and here we have to take into account the necessity of legal continuity), which cannot allow any discontinuity and break. Thus ministers can come and go, but government remains…   6. All these investigations into characteristics of government, that is to say, the institutions of governing in India, we must remember while summing up, have a strong political side, which must be taken into account in the same measure, if we are to have even a minimum sense of the relation between governance and the people in a regime of developmental democracy.   Development has made the questions more urgent: How should we be ruled? How should we be governed? Will development increase our freedom? Or, will development turn out to be freedom, as the ethical economist of our time claims? Who should control our conduct? How should we conduct ourselves in our public life (which constitutes the core ethical issue in a democracy)? These questions mean that governments may want the people to be transformed into governable population groups, but population groups have their subjectivity; and these questions only point if only the faintest way the turmoil, incessant disputes, and the vitality of popular life, and in short to those two principles of popular life, namely autonomy and social justice.   7. We can now summarise. In the light of the features of the present condition of governing in a regime of developmental democracy the following ten questions can be taken into account:  ·          The impact of the shift from the dynamics of a welfare state to that of a market state on the ways of governing; ·          The new ways in which the political, social, and resource space of the country are being reorganised, and are making values of governance hierarchical; ·          The impact of the special policies of the government for acceleration of development (such as Special Economic Zones) on the concept of democratic equality, and citizenship; ·          The securitisation of conditions of governing, resulting in making logistical considerations as the dominant priority for the government, with several other social considerations now turning into minor matters, and related population groups as minor peoples; ·          The policy explosion as a feature of modern governance; ·          The ways in which different popular organisations are emerging today to negotiate the changing relation between the government and the people; ·          The ways in which these organisations are breaking the old distinction between the civil and the political; ·          The ways in which these organisations are claiming autonomy by breaking the old distinction between movement and structure, and by taking the place of the political parties in terms of their classic function of representing the people as these parties become more and more governmentalised (indeed their essential difference with interest groups is long over); ·          The ways in which these organisations create new trust networks and revive collective politics; ·          And finally, the ways in which popular politics creates social majorities, which are distinct from representational majorities, with massive and deep implications for a theory and practice of democracy; indeed how these social majorities rekindle political will said to be in decline in modern representative democracy, such as India, where development seems to exhaust all avenues of disputation.  D. Organisation of the Agenda  1. Some of the questions will demand historical-genealogical inquiry; some will be analytical of the present; and some will have to be ethnographic in order to study the actual relations and processes we have referred to.  2. The programme will have a large share of attention on study of institutions. But these institutions will have to be carefully chosen so that they can point to larger truths.  3. The dialogues will have to be similarly focused, so that they can be focused group meetings on select themes of social relations throwing light on the process of governing.  4. Research meetings will be rigorous and will involve members of peer community (CRG organised its researches on autonomy and justice in this way). These research and dialogue-based findings will have to be conveyed to the larger “epistemic communities” through an appropriate orientation programme (or three orientation courses/workshops in three parts of the country) towards the end of the programme.  5. A series of publications in various journals, apart from book publications, will also help disseminate the significance of the research work.  6. This will be a three-year programme. Like the above-mentioned two programmes of CRG, the time schedule of this proposed programme also should be carefully worked out and followed.   7. Finally there will be an international research advisory group, based on CRG’s past work and associations, which helped CRG’s work immensely in the past, to enrich the proposed research work. CRG’s Peace Studies Series was also helped in similar manner.

Annexure 1 – Brief Summary
 

Two-Day National Conference on the Resettlement & Rehabilitation of the Displaced Persons organized by the National Human Rights Commission in Delhi on 24 and 25 March 2008 
 

Prof. Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chowdhury participated in the Two-Day National Conference on the Resettlement And Rehabilitation of the Displaced Persons organised by the National Human Rights Commission in Delhi on 24 and 25 March 2008 on behalf of Calcutta Research Group. CRG’s participation has been quite useful in the proceedings of the conference. It is to CRG’s credit that few of its recommendations have been duly incorporated in the draft recommendations meant for the Parliamentary Standing Committee dealing with the Land Acquisition Bill 2007, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill 2007 and Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy 2007. The role of CRG in this field has also been appreciated by the Chairman and other representatives of NHRC during formal and informal discussions. On belaf of CRG, Prof. Basu Ray Chowdhury extended an invitation to Justice S. Rajendra Babu, Chairman, NHRC for his presence in the forthcoming Sixth Winter Course on Forced Migration.

Two-Day Indo-French Seminar on ‘State Formation, Citizenship and Gender’ Organized by Calcutta Research Group in collaboration with Indian Council of Social Science Research (Eastern Regional Centre) and University of Calcutta, 13-14 March 2008

The end of the cold war as we all know is marked by a plethora of new identity conflicts. The collapse of the old frameworks has necessitated the reconfiguration, reassertion and redefinition of meanings of nation-state on multiple levels. The idea of the nation-state is supported by the principle of sovereignty, people’s sovereignty first, then nation’s. Many critics, such as Hannah Arendt and others have pointed to the contradictions between sovereignty and individual freedom. Gender lies at the center of these contradictions.  The connections between reassertions of the principle of sovereignty by the nation-state dyad and the increase in the level of violence against marginal groups, among whom we find many women, are startling. From East Africa to South Asia the centrality of gender in reassertions of national identity and conflicts over such reassertions is overwhelming.  These events have prompted extensive conversations among scholars on the reinterpretation of questions of state formation, citizenship and agency in the context of gender.    Within the rubric of post-colonialism women’s citizenship is often a contentious issue.  Women are both citizens and the other of the state.  In the process of democratic state formation in the West women were for a long time kept out of the body politic. The British Nationality and the Status of Aliens Act of 1914, one of the first of its kind, portrayed that rights of nationality could be transferred only through the male line.  Women were considered as subjects or aliens primarily through their association with men.  Thus the cases of Fasbender vs. Attorney-General in 1922 showed that a female British subject could contract a marriage in good faith during war and lose her British nationality.  Thus women were neither full subjects nor foreigners.  Even when they were subjects they could lose their nationality through marriage to an alien. Such attitudes would be inherited by the postcolonial state among other things.  However, the cases of India and Algeria portray notwithstanding post-colonial impulse the project for national independence gave women certain political space.  The question of ‘Justice’ has been a nebulous construct in terms of democracy and popular politics, in a post-colonial world, its exact meaning – tenuous; one of the reasons being the fact that justice in reality is a meeting ground of many ideas, situations, concepts, expectations, mechanisms, and practices. Positions of marginality are important locations and grounds to understand how marginalities produce ideas of denial of justice. These marginal situations have one thing in common – they speak of power matrix. Lack of access to means of representation/resources/ survival means such as education, health, etc. creates such marginalities and gender is one such important location of means of denial. State formation, in India as elsewhere rabidly ignored the voices of the marginal showing how a democratic set up empowering the national collective also produces deficits and marginality for those who refuse to belong to it or are left out of it. It was a playground of the dominant – certainly male, definitely majoritarian. The thing to note here is that while constitution has provisions of justice in its various articles and clauses, unlike in the case of rights, justice does not have a compact formulation, even though the Preamble and earlier the Objectives Resolutions of the Constituent Assembly had justice as one of the founding provisions. The constitution, therefore, needs a responsive and sensitive revision of the concepts of citizenship that is inclusive of all these marginal categories, including gender.  According to feminist writers such as Kumari Jayawardena in the post-colonial developing world for a time feminism and nationalism were compatible and allied and shared similar objectives.  During the period of decolonisation, political rights including the right to vote were given to men and women alike.  Yet during the process of state formation male-female differences were reinforced.  The new states formulated rights and obligations in ways that strengthened the masculinity of the public sphere and the femininity of the private sphere.  The male centrism of the Indian state was revealed over the question of abducted women. The partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 witnessed probably the largest refugee movement in modern history.  About 8 million Hindus and Sikhs left Pakistan to resettle in India while about 6-7 million Muslims went to Pakistan.  Such transfer of population was accompanied by horrific violence.  Some 50,000 Muslim women in India and 33,000 non-Muslim women in Pakistan were abducted abandoned or separated from their families.[1] Women’s experiences of migration, abduction and destitution during partition and State’s responses to it is a pointer to the relationship between women’s position as marginal participants in state politics and gender subordination as perpetrated by the State.  In this context the experiences of abducted women and their often-forcible repatriation by the State assumes enormous importance today. The two states of India and Pakistan embarked on a massive Central Recovery Project during which some 30,000 women were recovered by their respective states.  Some incidents relating to these abducted women exemplify the politics of gender during partition. The Abducted Person’s Bill that legalised the forcible repatriation of women entailed that these women themselves lost agency over their own person.  Their voices were often not heard and when heard then not taken into cognisance.  This is typical of state attitude to women. This was further reflected in the Indian Citizenship Act of 1955 where registration was largely transferred through the male line.   The male centrism of Indian project of state formation was dramatically reiterated by the Citizenship Act of 1955.  As its title suggests the Act dealt with modes of acquiring, renunciation, termination and deprivation of citizenship.  Although the Act was meant to give rise to the category of universal citizen in actuality it did not.  It continued the gender dichotomy evolved by the colonial state.  The section on citizenship by registration stated that “women who are, or have been, married to citizens of India;” were to given citizenship if they applied for it.  No such stipulations were made for men marrying women who were Indian citizens. Thus citizenship by registration was largely transferred through the male line.  In the section on the termination of citizenship it was stated that where a male person “ceases to be a citizen of India under sub-section (1), every minor child of that person shall thereupon cease to be a citizen of India.”[2]  This portrayed once again that citizenship was transferable largely through the male line giving women a second class citizenship.  Although in later Acts women could transfer citizenship rights to their spouses and to their children it did not alter the maleness of Indian State as conceived in the formative years. This Act too entrenched women’s location within essentially patriarchal sites such as the family or the community. The one thing that the state consistently refused to consider was a Uniform Civil Code that could have challenged women’s location within a kin and a community.  Women’s demands for citizenship and other rights and autonomies have taken different forms from the colonial period onwards. It had different focal points at different times. At times it centred on questions of education and at other times on legislative reforms.  With every achievement it was revealed that something yet was left to be done. The Indo-French-Algerian discourse on state-formation, gender and citizenship will not stop with the narration of this past history.  It will analyse how women negotiated with such apporias and closures that were there in this history and how they created their spaces of empowerment.  Women from the three countries will deliberate women’s relationship to questions of citizenship, autonomy and justice.  This will be the second phase of a dialogue that began in Algeria in 2008.  It is hoped that this dialogue will continue for years to come. [1] For a scholarly account of gender in the politics of partition refer to Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition (Delhi: 1998) and Urvashi Bhutalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (Delhi: 1998). [2] S.C. Consul, Citizenship Act, 1955, The Law of Foreigners, Citizenship and Passport (Allahabad: 1962) pp. 179-185.

Annexure 1 – Report and Schedule

Responsibility to Protect'(R2P)  Conference at Bangkok, 20-21 February 2008
 

Subir Bhaumik, member of CRG, attended the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) Conference at Bangkok, 20-21 February 2008. Subir Bhaumik presented his views on behalf of CRG, the details of which are given below: 

“ My organization, the Calcutta Research Group, is aware of the R2P resolution adopted at the 2005 World Summit and values its worth as a human security instrument for prevention and tackling situation of genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity. But it is the considered opinion of the CRG that the R2P regime should be extended to address issues of mass displacement created by both ethnic and class conflict and by the forces of economic liberalization and globalization. Large scale displacement, as evidenced from our studies in various parts of South Asia, creates situations of immense conflict that could lead to bloodshed. Since this conference has discussed in some detail the need for "early warning systems" about possible genocides and crimes against humanity, the CRG feels that the R2P regime will be effective only if it is redesigned to address issues of mass displacement caused both by conflict or by economic forces.
            I also asked the funding organizations like Austcare and R2P Secretariat for Asia (newly formed during the Conference) to consider studies on ethnic conflicts creating situations of ethnic cleansing (which is in the core agenda of the R2P) in northeastern India, Kashmir and elsewhere in the sub-continent noting that CRG has already carried out studies in these areas. “

Societies, States, “Terror” and “Terrorism” - A Historical and Philosophical Perspective

Thu 2 nov (9AM-6PM) Room 214 (2nd floor left), Maison des Sciences de l'Homme , 54 bd Raspail, 75006 Paris Fri 3 nov (9AM-7PM) Maison de l'Europe, 35 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, 75004 Paris. Sat 4 nov (9:30AM-4PM) Room ground floor, Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (A.U.F.), 4 place de la Sorbonne, 75005 Paris Coordinated by Rada IVEKOVIć and Ranabir SAMADDAR.  Conference co-organized with the Calcutta Research Group (MCRG) and with the support of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris), of the Maison de l’Europe de Paris, of the French Ministère de l’Éducation nationale, of the Services de Coopération et d'Action Culturelle of the French Embassies in India and in Tunisia, of the Centre Culturel Français d'Alger, of the Columbia University in Paris, Reid Hall, of the Global Fund for Women, and of the Universidade de São Paulo.  The end of the Cold War has brought wars on a big scale back. While there is no balance of power and no possible consensus between opposite political options in international relations, the mainstream discourse on Human Rights, Democracy, Security, Globalisation and “War on terror” takes part in a general desemantisation and depoliticisation. Most (all?) histories have had their ages of terror, whether nominally described or not; yet it is an important question as to why, when, and which times are subsequently called the times of terror. We cannot ignore either the singularity of these times, or their generalities. The “universal” description of some “terrorism” supposed to be essential or exemplary, supposed to be a case study of terrorism, is used in order to erase some terrors, while generalising others. It is in the name of effacing terrorism for good that the worst terror is being practiced. Under theses conditions, both “terror” and “terrorism” (can) become normative concepts. Are philosophy and social sciences capable of making sense of the claims about what are termed unique events of terror? Beyond the historic condition, it would mean grasping the political (le politique; not la politique) at its root. The conference will be the occasion to address these problems through different approaches: philosophy, history, law, sociology, the study of gender or feminist studies, political sciences, literature as well as field work. A general discourse on terrorism raises the following questions: terror as historic event; terror as political discourse or generalised ideology; terror, war on terror and the need for legitimating; historic and discursive relations between democracy and terror; terror as an extension of violence, as “extreme violence”; race, difference and instruments of colonial and postcolonial terror; post-communism, societies and terror; the cold war and the “war on terror”.

Annexure 1 – Programme Schedule

Annexure 2- Report on the Conference

Jointly organised by Maison Des Sciences De L 'Homme & CRG, Paris (16-18 February, 2005)
 
Programme Inde et Asie du Sud / South Asia Programme
Séminaire international du 16 au 18 février 2005
Salle 214, Maison des Sciences de L’homme
54 Boulevard Raspail, Paris 6^e (métro Sèvres-Babylone)

Annexure 1 – Programme Schedule

1. Till date three (3) dialogues have been held on specific issues of peace and human rights in the east and the Northeast. These have drawn on the themes of culture of peace, reconciliation, justice, and democracy: These dialogues have produced a functioning network of cooperation on various peace activities. Northeast is the theatre of the longest state versus community conflict in South Asia and as such occupies a singular position in Indian politics. Different ethnic groups living in this region have been for years pressing either for independence, or separate statehood on the basis of political and linguistic-cultural identities or for special constitutional safeguards of their respective existences.  But what is forgotten often is that while these conflicts have created frontiers and boundaries dividing and re-dividing territory, peoples, and communities, they are not the only feature of the situation. Surviving connections, relations, friendships, and continuing dialogues on the basis of fairness, accommodation, and mutual recognition of claims also mark such a situation. It seems that dialogues and efforts at accommodations and understandings have complimented war, conflicts, and threatened peace. It is with that realization that the dialogue programme was planned. It aims to institute conversations of peace and human rights activists, gender sensitive artists, novelists, painters, litterateurs, students, and youth from the region of Northeast and East.

2. The first dialogue (2001) held in Calcutta engaged with the inquiry: how are we to connect the issue of democracy with peace in a conflict-ridden region and a war-ravaged situation? While it is important to link human rights and peace, in what way can this link be deepened and made specific with ideas of justice, in particular gender justice, cultural democracy, decentralization, and a dialogic culture? It is from such an inquiry and the related realisation, that the first civil society dialogue on human rights and peace in the east and northeast was held. The participants were human rights and peace activists from diverse parts of the east and the Northeast. Its report has been published.

3. The second dialogue (2002) held in Shantiniketan carried forward the inquiry by bringing in notions of cultural democracy and justice, in particular gender justice. The dialogue probed the assertions of identity, abuse of human rights, and increasing violence against women in the entire region. From rape as a symbol of conquered terrain to identifying women as reproducers of identities, gender appears to be a key dimension in many of these conflicts and it is clear that belligerents including the state take gender seriously.  Yet, as the dialogue found, male-centric analysis of identity conflict still tries to disregard the category of gender. These events prompted extensive conversations among human rights activists, grassroots women activists for democracy, and scholars on relevant issues. The report is available.

4. The third dialogue (2003) held in Shillong took up the issue of autonomy, and deliberated on the question of whether autonomy in the northeast and in the Darjeeling area of West Bengal has advanced democracy or has been mainly tool of governing. It also discussed the issue of autonomy within – that is, how much women or minorities within an autonomous area enjoy autonomy and enjoy the fruits of self-government? Various cases were discussed; the international law on minorities and on autonomy was discussed; international experiences were deliberated upon. The report will come out soon.