India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act B The Eastern Frontier: Of ‘Half-Open’ Borders and Continuous Migration If citizenship laws both reflected and simultaneously created realities on the western border, they proved completely unable to reflect the situation on the eastern frontier. Here, though, another logic of Partition came into play — how to protect large minority populations from physical, economic and bureaucratic violence (as in Bengal), while simultaneously balancing local nationalisms (as in Assam). In doing so, we see another method by which Muslim migration was marked out. Spared the cataclysmic violence that had plagued the Punjab in 1947, both Bengals retained a large proportion of their minority population in the years after Independence. Nevertheless, minorities on both sides of the border were subject to low-grade, chronic violence both by the state and vigilante groups. 78 Along with this, their identification with the state was imperfect. In the case of East Bengali non-Muslims, despite protestations of loyalty by minority legislators in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan and Legislative Assemblies of East Bengal, 79 their position in a ‘Muslim homeland’ was ambiguous, as discussions around the Resolution show. 80 Upper-caste Hindus in East Bengal, though a numerical minority, had seen themselves as the bhodrolok elite; the Partition immediately reduced them to a shrinking minority away from ‘their’ people. Similarly, West Bengal’s Muslims were repeatedly told to ‘assimilate [or] leave’. 81 In February 1950, Modassir Hossain, a Muslim League Member of Legislative Assembly, argued that Partition had left West Bengal’s Muslims ‘mere pawns … whose suggestions were habitually dismissed’. 82 Cries of ‘Go to Pakistan’ greeted his speech. 83 Nevertheless, both the Governments of India and Pakistan were clear about avoiding an exchange of populations like in the Punjab, and eager to work jointly if they could do so. Taking a leaf out of interwar ‘minority rights’ regimes in Europe, international law and agreements provided a useful blueprint to do so. 84 Inter-dominion minority rights agreements became a useful tool to ensure minorities were seen as ‘joint’ responsibilities. 85 Here, too, some of the motivation was economic — Eastern Pakistan depended on India for almost all its coal and oil, and East Pakistani jute was essential for Calcutta’s industries. Both governments also feared the recrudescence of violence, along with the concomitant issues of refugee resettlement in two overcrowded provinces. Therefore, allaying minority fears and ensuring that they did not see post-Partition migration as permanent was of the essence on the eastern frontier. As Pallavi 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 See Haimanti Roy, ‘Citizenship and National Identity in Post-Partition Bengal: 1947–65’ (PhD Thesis, University of Cinicinnati, 2006) 169. See, eg, East Bengal, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 23 March 1948, 17 (Gobindalal Bannerji): As minority citizens, we are proud to be the white stripe in Pakistan’s national flag. Nilanjana Chatterjee, Midnight’s Unwanted Children: East Bengali Refugees and the Politics of Rehabilitation (Brown University 1994). Chatterji (2007) (n 28). West Bengal, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 6 February 1950, 31–32. ibid 33. Thomas Musgrave, Self-Determination and National Minorities (Oxford University Press 2000). 27–31. See, eg, Pallavi Raghavan ‘The Finality Of Partition: Bilateral Relations Between India And Pakistan, 1947–57’ (DPhil Thesis, Cambridge University, 2013) 66–67. 221