To be a Hindu Citizen: Politics of dalit migrants in contemporary West Bengal

Abstract

This paper looks at the relationship between caste, citizenship and nation through a study of Dalit refugee politics in the Indian border state of West Bengal. With the legal–official definition of the ‘Indian’ citizen being increasingly crafted along Hindu majoritarian lines, the marginalised sections of migrant communities live under perpetual threat of disenfranchisement. Drawing on fieldwork done in Namasudra-dominated villages in West Bengal, this paper shows how Dalit migrants could never fully integrate into the nation and had to repeatedly prove themselves as legitimate members of Indian society during processes of periodic scrutiny of national identity.