“Why Can't You Say You Are from Bangladesh?”: Demographic Anxiety and Hindu Nationalist Common Sense in the Aftermath of the 2008 Jaipur Bombings

Abstract

This article examines the feedback loop between governmental technologies of enumeration and surveillance and Hindu nationalist common sense that creates and sustains what I call “demographic anxiety” about Bangladeshi immigrants and Indian Muslims in the north Indian city of Jaipur. A series of bombings in 2008, rapidly and erroneously attributed to Bangladeshi infiltrators, brought to light the role of these forms of knowledge in struggles over city space and possible urban futures in Jaipur, as well as an incoherent but widespread construction of the demographically aggressive Muslim. I argue that “Bangladeshi” has thus become a mobile signifier that catches up disparate ways of “knowing” local populations. Drawing on personal and research experiences in Jaipur City and newspaper and other media accounts of the bombings, I track the mobilization of this signifier and its material consequences, particularly as they pertain to the fate of Jaipur's “Bangladeshi Basti,” which became the site of intense police scrutiny in the aftermath of the bombings. I pay special attention to the ways in which the limits of governmental practices of legibility, such as identity documentation, produce both the will to statistical knowledge and a widespread reliance on common sense that reinforce one another.

Keywords:

• Bangladeshi immigration
• urban India
• demography
• documentation
• surveillance
• common sense

The dissertation research period referenced in this article was made possible by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (2001–2004). Special thanks to the Jaipur office of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for permitting me to observe their work with the displaced residents of Gopalbari Basti; the research assistance of Shally Vaish was invaluable during my initial interviews on changes in the city with the Dhanka. Mark Anderson, Neda Atanasoski, Caetlin Benson-Allot, Heath Cabot, Sudeshna Chatterjee, Mayanthi Fernando, Anna Higgins, and Anne-Maria Makhulu all offered extremely helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks to Ralph Litzinger, Dominic Sachsenmaier, and other participants in the Duke University Mellon-Sawyer Seminar, “Portents and Dilemmas: Global Health and Environmental Politics in India and China” (2007–2008), where this work was originally presented. I also greatly appreciated the comments and questions offered by Thomas Wilson, editor at Identities, and those of the two anonymous reviewers, which I believe improved the article immensely. All of its shortcomings are, of course, my own.

Notes

1. Title of article from Hindustan Times, 14 May 2008.

2. The widely held view that Rajasthan is one of the best places to experience “authentic” Indian culture derives, at least in part, from the historical fact that the region was not under direct British control; it has been seized upon by local businesses and city officials as an important aspect of marketing the state. The notion that Jaipur is the real India is one of the reasons for the city's popularity as a tourist destination for both Indian and non-Indian travelers (others are discussed below).

3. See Mayaram 1993 and Social Policy Research Institute, Jaipur 1991.

4. It is interesting to note that very similar claims were made when communal violence erupted in the city in the early 1990s. A 1991 report by the Social Policy Research Institute on communal riots in Jaipur, for instance, noted that “[t]he reputation of Jaipur, a city known as the paradigm of communal harmony (sic) is lost and sullied” (i).

5. See “Cops turn eye on Jaipur's Bangladeshi enclave,” http://www.rediff.com, 16 May 2008; “The Politics of Terror,” Tehelka, 12 October 2008. Another key piece of evidence, according to an anonymous police source, was that the suspects bought the bicycles without bargaining. See “Jaipur blasts suspects spoke Bengali bought cycles without bargaining,” http://sify.com, 16 May 2008.

6. It is important to note that the BJP's opposition at the Centre, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), campaigned heavily on its intention to repeal POTA. See V. Venkatesan, “POTA in disguise,” 2008, Frontline, 25(17).

7. “Rajasthan begins crackdown on Bangladeshis staying illegally,” The Hindu, 17 May 2008.

8. IBNLive, “Raje talks tough, says revive POTA,” 15 May 2008.

9. “Bring back POTA, says Advani,” The Hindu, 15 May 2008.

10. See “The Jaipur Terror Scapegoat: The Poor Bengali Muslim Migrant,” People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Rajasthan Report.

11. “Basti” is usually translated into English as “slum,” though there is a wide range in the kinds of neighborhoods and camps to which this can refer, from stick and tarp squatter settlements to more established areas with cement houses and electricity.

12. Scheduled Tribes are those tribal groups listed by the Indian Constitution as deserving of special measures for their collective uplift. Considered outside the caste system, and therefore of low status, tribal groups in India have historically suffered from high rates of poverty, low literacy, shorter life expectancy, etc. Originally defined in part by their non-Hindu, non-Muslim religious beliefs, many have converted to Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and other syncretic movements in the twentieth century. The Dhanka, who consider themselves Hindu, are unusual in that about half of their population in Rajasthan reside in urban areas.

13. While Datta's analysis is exhaustive and nuanced, it leaves open the question of whether there is something about issues of demographic behavior—in his case, as reflected in interpretations of census data—that make it especially available as a form of common sense. It seems to me that this may be the case and that the topic is especially ripe for feminist analysis, as part of a larger project on reproduction in the consolidation of discourses and technologies of population. However, the issue is beyond my scope here.

14. See C. Rammanohar Reddy, “Religion and fertility behavior: canards and facts,” The Hindu, 10 November 2002.

15. In 2003, a train compartment carrying Hindu nationalist activists was set on fire in Godhra, Gujarat, killing many who were trapped inside. The incident was seen as an act of communal aggression by Gujarati Muslims, and violence, in which many more Muslims than Hindus were killed, ensued across the state. Indeed, many reports concluded that killings had the tacit support of police and officials. See Human Rights Watch Report, April 2002, “We have no orders to save you: state participation and complicity in communal violence in Gujarat.”

16. Charu Gupta and Mukul Sharma note this slogan in a VHP pamphlet, Chetavani – 2: Desh Khatare Mein (1996: 6). As far as I know, the link between Modi's speech and this earlier text was not mentioned at the time.

17. Opinion piece by Bibhuti Bhusan Nandy, “Space Invaders,” The Hindustan Times, 14 February 2003.

18. T. V. Rajeswar, “Problem of Bangladeshi migrants: Politico-economic study in historical context,” The Tribune, Chandigarh, 17 February 2003.

19. “India plans migrant crackdown,” 8 January 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2638297.stm

20. “Bangladesh accepts 213 illegal immigrants,” The Times of India, 6 February 2003.

21. I have not heard of any cases of this quid pro quo, documented by Lin and Paul in Delhi, having occurred in Jaipur, but it seems probable that such cases exist. The settling of Gopalbari Basti in the 1970s, and oral histories of how its residents fared during the emergency, are important topics for further study.

22. See “Interview with Maharani Gayatri Devi,” http://quillem.com/interview-maharani-devi-0.

23. It has been reported that many of the Hindu migrants arriving in India are fleeing communal violence against them in Bangladesh (see Lin and Paul 1995: 7).

24. The bigha is a locally established unit of land measure; in Rajasthan, it is equal to about 2/5 of an acre.

25. Bangladeshi migrants in Indian cities often take up such work because it is increasingly seen as below the dignity of local laborers (Lin and Paul 1995: 12).

26. Outlook, 27 August 2001.

27. The PUCL also speculates that this move was a response to the post-Godhra violence in Gujarat, though I have not seen this position elaborated elsewhere, nor did I hear this argument at the time of the slum's destruction.

28. The state of Rajasthan ranks 5^th among all Indian states in both foreign and domestic tourism, according to the Ministry of Tourism's India Tourism Statistics, 2007. Because Jaipur has the best infrastructure connections, tens of thousands of visitors pass through the city each year.

29. Hindustan Times, 3 April 2003.

30. Hindustan Times, 4 April 2003.

31. “Bangladeshis,” The Press Trust of India, 3 April 2003.

32. At the time of writing, nothing has actually been built on the site.

33. A pseudonym.

34. www.rediff.com, 16 May 2008.

35. There was one woman among those arrested, which bears noting because the community saw her arrest as an act of vindictiveness on the part of the police, who were punishing the woman for wedding a Hindu who converted to Islam for the marriage (PUCL 2008: 9).

36. “India: BJP seizes on Jaipur bombing to promote communalism and social reaction,” www.wsws.org, 20 May 2008

37. “Pukka houses come up at transit camp,” Times of India, 19 May 2008.

38. Transcript available at www.ndtv.com, Thursday 15 May 2008.

39. “Rajasthan Govt. hopeful of cracking Jaipur blasts case,” The Hindu, 23 September 2008.

40. “ABVP launches tirade against Bangladeshis,” The Times of India, 16 October 2008.