Book Review: Paula Banerjee, Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury and Atig Ghosh (eds), The State of Being Stateless: An Account of South Asia
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Author | Ravi Sriramachandran |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2321023017698275 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
102 Book Reviews
most of the South Asian countries, the state’s pervasiveness in society cannot be ignored. Does the poli-
tics of South Asian states offer us the opportunity to redefine the concept of constitutionalism? This can
be a significant line of inquiry for any further research on South Asian constitutionalism. This can be
possible only when the research on South Asian constitutionalism enters into conversation with the exist-
ing literature in other regions of the world, including the West, not only because that literature has some-
thing to offer to the study of South Asian constitutionalism but also because analysis of South Asian
constitutionalism has a lot to offer to the study of constitutionalism elsewhere.
Alisha Dhingra
Senior Research Fellow
Department of Political Science University of Delhi, India
E-mail: dhingra001@gmail.com
Paula Banerjee, Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury and Atig Ghosh (eds), The State of Being Stateless: An
Account of South Asia. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. 2016. 300 pages. ` 675.
DOI: 10.1177/2321023017698275
The Calcutta Research Group, to which the authors of this volume belong, is a true ‘rainbow coalition’
of academics, lawyers, activists, trade unionists, journalists and women’s rights thinkers, and one of the
few independent forums in India that has carved out a niche for itself in the scholar-activist world for its
policy studies on autonomy, human rights, women’s dignity, issues of forced displacement and migra-
tion, peace and conflict resolution, citizenship, borders and border conflicts and other themes relevant to
democracy. In keeping with the stated objective of the group’s emphasis on the East and the Northeast in
its research and dialogues, the book under review looks primarily at issues of statelessness in East and
Northeast India with two of the seven case studies examining other stateless communities. One analyzes
the Sri Lankan repatriate situation in Tamil Nadu in South India and the other looks at the situation of the
Hindu population who migrated after the Partition (1947) and Indo-Pak wars (1965 and 1971) in India
in Jammu and Kashmir. What is distinctive about this volume is the focus on a unique South Asian phe-
nomenon of near statelessness or what the editors so accurately describe as ‘in-between people’ and
more importantly it attempts to ‘understand that citizenship and stateless are part of the same grid’ (p. 2).
This is an important dimension of statelessness, as the question of rights is inextricably bound to ques-
tions of citizenship. In other words, the authors of these essays see the phenomenon as not merely legal
and a mere acknowledgement by the state hardly means anything on the ground. This is ably demon-
strated by looking at distinct communities, such as the issue of Gorkhas in North East India; the Chinese
of Calcutta; Chakma refugees in Arunachal Pradesh; the problem of Lhotsampas (an ethnic Nepali
community living in Bhutan); and the stateless people in Indo-Bangladesh enclaves.
Three sets of questions are raised by the contributors (a heterogeneous crew of social scientists,
human rights activists, lawyers and journalists). (i) How are certain groups and communities rendered
stateless or ‘near stateless’? Why are minorities more vulnerable to statelessness than others in ethnically
diverse states of South Asia? Is the distinction between refugeehood and statelessness wearing thin?
(ii) Are the existing legal regimes in South Asia adequate to deal with the problem of statelessness or
‘near statelessness’? (iii) Do policymakers need to think beyond legal frameworks? Does the answer lie
in activating and strengthening civil society institutions and initiatives? (pp. 11–12).
In a memorable phrase, Hannah Arendt said citizenship is about having ‘the right to have rights’—and
not any particular civil, social or legal right, but every right of recognition, inclusion and membership in
both political and civil society. This has to be read as rights functioning in two distinct registers—the first
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