Asian Journal of Multidimensional Research (AJMR)
Year : 2019, Volume : 8, Issue : 9
First page : ( 103) Last page : ( 111)
Online ISSN : 2278-4853.
Article DOI : 10.5958/2278-4853.2019.00280.5

Border creation, state building and population movement: A process of homogenizing the minorities in South Asia

Boro Konkumoni

PhD Research Fellow, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India, mail id: konkub123@gmail.com

Online published on 16 October, 2019.

Abstract

The main overarching theme of the paper is to understand the processes of the state building and consequent border creation process in South Asia and its impact on borderland communities. Sudden imposition of borders on an uninformed population resulted in massive population transfers across the borders that later struggled to settle in a new piece of land. The paper sheds light on the homogenizing tendencies of the states that resulted in enormous atrocities on the minorities. In this study, I refer to the border that separates India and East Pakistan (from 1971, it became Bangladesh) and Burma. The Bengal borderland has not received much attention among scholars and has remained largely an unexplored area. The study adopted a qualitative method of data collection and analysis. The paper argues that the homogenization process on the basis of religion, language and culture is one of the major causes of massive population transfers after decolonization across the borders of South Asia.

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Keywords

Borders, Homogenize, Minorities, South Asia, State Building.

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