The Hindu as Other: State, Law, and Land Relations in Contemporary Bangladesh

Abstract

Constructing religious difference as a national security threat, the Vested Property Act, whose legacy dates from the period of East Pakistan, marks Bangladeshi Hindus as citizens whose allegiance to the country is always suspect. This paper explores the social production of Hindu difference through legal claims to the right to private property. I draw on shifting policy reforms to show how land rights and the control of private property, embedded in historical, social, political, and cultural relations, shape the security of people and their subjectivity. I argue that constructions of Hindu identity are marked by particular relations of social inclusion that are consequential for enacting rights claims in the interests of private accumulation.