Working through partition: Making a living in the Bengal borderlands

International Review of Social History

Volumn 46, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 393-421

  Van Schendel, Willem ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0035642104     PISSN: 00208590     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0020859001000256     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. Gyanendra Pandey, "The Prose of Otherness", in David Arnold and David Hardiman (eds), Subaltern Studies VIII: Essays in Honour of Ranajit Guha (Delhi [etc.], 1994), p. 194.
2. In the years following Partition, a few attempts were made to quantify the economic impact at aggregate levels (e.g. Vakil) and some studies have compared trends in East and West Bengal without focusing specifically on Partition (Boyce, Bose, Rogaly et al.). Studies such as Dasgupta's, comparing the long-term economic impact of Partition on a divided region, are very rare. C.N. Vakil, Economic Consequences of Divided India: A Study of the Economy of India and Pakistan (Bombay, 1950); James K. Boyce, Agrarian Impasse in Bengal: Institutional Constraints to Technological Change (Oxford [etc.], 1987); Sugata Bose, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal Since 1770, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 3:2 (Delhi, 1993); Ben Rogaly, Barbara Harriss-White and Sugata Bose (eds), Sonar Bangla? Agricultural Growth and Agrarian Change in West Bengal and Bangladesh (Dhaka, 1999); Abhijit Dasgupta, Growth with Equity: The New Technology and Agrarian Change in Bengal (Delhi, 1998).
3. In the years following Partition, a few attempts were made to quantify the economic impact at aggregate levels (e.g. Vakil) and some studies have compared trends in East and West Bengal without focusing specifically on Partition (Boyce, Bose, Rogaly et al.). Studies such as Dasgupta's, comparing the long-term economic impact of Partition on a divided region, are very rare. C.N. Vakil, Economic Consequences of Divided India: A Study of the Economy of India and Pakistan (Bombay, 1950); James K. Boyce, Agrarian Impasse in Bengal: Institutional Constraints to Technological Change (Oxford [etc.], 1987); Sugata Bose, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal Since 1770, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 3:2 (Delhi, 1993); Ben Rogaly, Barbara Harriss-White and Sugata Bose (eds), Sonar Bangla? Agricultural Growth and Agrarian Change in West Bengal and Bangladesh (Dhaka, 1999); Abhijit Dasgupta, Growth with Equity: The New Technology and Agrarian Change in Bengal (Delhi, 1998).
4. In the years following Partition, a few attempts were made to quantify the economic impact at aggregate levels (e.g. Vakil) and some studies have compared trends in East and West Bengal without focusing specifically on Partition (Boyce, Bose, Rogaly et al.). Studies such as Dasgupta's, comparing the long-term economic impact of Partition on a divided region, are very rare. C.N. Vakil, Economic Consequences of Divided India: A Study of the Economy of India and Pakistan (Bombay, 1950); James K. Boyce, Agrarian Impasse in Bengal: Institutional Constraints to Technological Change (Oxford [etc.], 1987); Sugata Bose, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal Since 1770, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 3:2 (Delhi, 1993); Ben Rogaly, Barbara Harriss-White and Sugata Bose (eds), Sonar Bangla? Agricultural Growth and Agrarian Change in West Bengal and Bangladesh (Dhaka, 1999); Abhijit Dasgupta, Growth with Equity: The New Technology and Agrarian Change in Bengal (Delhi, 1998).
5. In the years following Partition, a few attempts were made to quantify the economic impact at aggregate levels (e.g. Vakil) and some studies have compared trends in East and West Bengal without focusing specifically on Partition (Boyce, Bose, Rogaly et al.). Studies such as Dasgupta's, comparing the long-term economic impact of Partition on a divided region, are very rare. C.N. Vakil, Economic Consequences of Divided India: A Study of the Economy of India and Pakistan (Bombay, 1950); James K. Boyce, Agrarian Impasse in Bengal: Institutional Constraints to Technological Change (Oxford [etc.], 1987); Sugata Bose, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal Since 1770, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 3:2 (Delhi, 1993); Ben Rogaly, Barbara Harriss-White and Sugata Bose (eds), Sonar Bangla? Agricultural Growth and Agrarian Change in West Bengal and Bangladesh (Dhaka, 1999); Abhijit Dasgupta, Growth with Equity: The New Technology and Agrarian Change in Bengal (Delhi, 1998).
6. In the years following Partition, a few attempts were made to quantify the economic impact at aggregate levels (e.g. Vakil) and some studies have compared trends in East and West Bengal without focusing specifically on Partition (Boyce, Bose, Rogaly et al.). Studies such as Dasgupta's, comparing the long-term economic impact of Partition on a divided region, are very rare. C.N. Vakil, Economic Consequences of Divided India: A Study of the Economy of India and Pakistan (Bombay, 1950); James K. Boyce, Agrarian Impasse in Bengal: Institutional Constraints to Technological Change (Oxford [etc.], 1987); Sugata Bose, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal Since 1770, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 3:2 (Delhi, 1993); Ben Rogaly, Barbara Harriss-White and Sugata Bose (eds), Sonar Bangla? Agricultural Growth and Agrarian Change in West Bengal and Bangladesh (Dhaka, 1999); Abhijit Dasgupta, Growth with Equity: The New Technology and Agrarian Change in Bengal (Delhi, 1998).
7. Published in twelve volumes by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, between 1970 and 1983, and edited by Nicholas Mansergh, E.W.R. Lumby and others.
8. Interesting recent examples of analyses on the basis of such material are Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders & Boundaries: Women in India's Partition (Delhi, 1998); Joya Chatterji, "The Fashioning of a Frontier: The Radcliffe Line and Bengal's Border Landscape, 1947-52", Modern Asian Studies, 33 (1999), pp. 185-242; Dipesh Chakrabarty, "Remembered Villages: Representation of Hindu-Bengali Memories in the Aftermath of the Partition", Economic and Political Weekly (10 August 1996), pp. 2143-2151; Gautam Ghosh, "'God is a Refugee': Nationalism, Morality and History in the 1947 Partition of India", Social Analysis, 42 (1998), pp. 33-62; and Prafulla K. Chakrabarti, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, 2nd edn (Calcutta, 1999).
9. Interesting recent examples of analyses on the basis of such material are Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders & Boundaries: Women in India's Partition (Delhi, 1998); Joya Chatterji, "The Fashioning of a Frontier: The Radcliffe Line and Bengal's Border Landscape, 1947-52", Modern Asian Studies, 33 (1999), pp. 185-242; Dipesh Chakrabarty, "Remembered Villages: Representation of Hindu-Bengali Memories in the Aftermath of the Partition", Economic and Political Weekly (10 August 1996), pp. 2143-2151; Gautam Ghosh, "'God is a Refugee': Nationalism, Morality and History in the 1947 Partition of India", Social Analysis, 42 (1998), pp. 33-62; and Prafulla K. Chakrabarti, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, 2nd edn (Calcutta, 1999).
10. Interesting recent examples of analyses on the basis of such material are Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders & Boundaries: Women in India's Partition (Delhi, 1998); Joya Chatterji, "The Fashioning of a Frontier: The Radcliffe Line and Bengal's Border Landscape, 1947-52", Modern Asian Studies, 33 (1999), pp. 185-242; Dipesh Chakrabarty, "Remembered Villages: Representation of Hindu-Bengali Memories in the Aftermath of the Partition", Economic and Political Weekly (10 August 1996), pp. 2143-2151; Gautam Ghosh, "'God is a Refugee': Nationalism, Morality and History in the 1947 Partition of India", Social Analysis, 42 (1998), pp. 33-62; and Prafulla K. Chakrabarti, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, 2nd edn (Calcutta, 1999).
11. Interesting recent examples of analyses on the basis of such material are Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders & Boundaries: Women in India's Partition (Delhi, 1998); Joya Chatterji, "The Fashioning of a Frontier: The Radcliffe Line and Bengal's Border Landscape, 1947-52", Modern Asian Studies, 33 (1999), pp. 185-242; Dipesh Chakrabarty, "Remembered Villages: Representation of Hindu-Bengali Memories in the Aftermath of the Partition", Economic and Political Weekly (10 August 1996), pp. 2143-2151; Gautam Ghosh, "'God is a Refugee': Nationalism, Morality and History in the 1947 Partition of India", Social Analysis, 42 (1998), pp. 33-62; and Prafulla K. Chakrabarti, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, 2nd edn (Calcutta, 1999).
12. Interesting recent examples of analyses on the basis of such material are Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders & Boundaries: Women in India's Partition (Delhi, 1998); Joya Chatterji, "The Fashioning of a Frontier: The Radcliffe Line and Bengal's Border Landscape, 1947-52", Modern Asian Studies, 33 (1999), pp. 185-242; Dipesh Chakrabarty, "Remembered Villages: Representation of Hindu-Bengali Memories in the Aftermath of the Partition", Economic and Political Weekly (10 August 1996), pp. 2143-2151; Gautam Ghosh, "'God is a Refugee': Nationalism, Morality and History in the 1947 Partition of India", Social Analysis, 42 (1998), pp. 33-62; and Prafulla K. Chakrabarti, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, 2nd edn (Calcutta, 1999).
13. For a recent overview, see Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, "South Asian Labour History: Historiography - And Where Do We Go From Here?", paper presented at the conference on Global Labour History in the Twenty-first Century, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, November 2000.
14. Jan Breman, Meester en Knecht: Een onderzoek naar de veranderingen in de betrekkingen tussen landheren en landarbeiders in Zuid-Gujarat, India (Amsterdam, 1970), p. 2.
15. Jan Breman, A Study of Industrial Labour in Post-Colonial India, Working Papers on Asian Labour, No. 3 (Amsterdam, 1998). See also Jan Breman, Footloose Labour: Working in India's Informal Economy (Cambridge [etc.], 1996).
16. Jan Breman, A Study of Industrial Labour in Post-Colonial India, Working Papers on Asian Labour, No. 3 (Amsterdam, 1998). See also Jan Breman, Footloose Labour: Working in India's Informal Economy (Cambridge [etc.], 1996).
17. See list of references in Bhattacharya, "South Asian Labour History".
18. On the multiplicity of sources of income in rural Bengal, see Willem van Schendel, Peasant Mobility: The Odds of Life in Rural Bangladesh (Assen, 1981), pp. 302-303, 313-315, 320-322.
19. CR 1B2-11/51 (3-53). The Kushtia-Nadia border was a hot spot for crossborder land conflicts at the time. For Pakistanis reaping crops on the Indian side, see e.g. CR 1B2-22/50 (5-52), CR(2) 1B2-22/50 (5-52). Sometimes such conflicts were reported in newspapers. See Hindusthan Standard, 11 January 1949 (cf. Government of East Bengal, Home Department, Police Branch, P10C-28/49 (B. Proceedings, June 1949); hereafter: Police P10C-28/49 (6-49)).
20. The Maharaja of Cooch Behar was also zamindar of the Chaklajat Estates in the districts of Rangpur and Dinajpur. The Maharaja of Tripura was zamindar of the huge Chakla Roshnabad Estate in the districts of Tippera (Comilla) and Noakhali.
21. J.G. Cumming, Survey and Settlement of the Chakla Roshnabad Estate in the districts of Tippera and Noakhali, 1892-99 (Calcutta, 1899), p. xvi. According to the Purbo Shimanto Pakistani Proja Union (Union of Tenants of the Eastern Pakistan Border), it yielded more than two million rupees annually; (Government of East Bengal, Home (Political) Department, Political Branch, CR1B-5 (B. Proceedings, December 1949); hereafter Plt. CR1B-5 (12-49)).
22. Notably the Purba Simanta Pakistani Praja Union (Union of Tenants of the Eastern Borderland of Pakistan) and the Roshnabad Praja Samiti (Tenants Organization of the Roshnabad Estate) and its Committee of Action.
23. E.g. Roshnabad Zomidarir Shimantobashir O Tripura Rajyer Projagono Pokkhe Shrishrimoti Mohamanya Matamoharani Shomipe Binite O Shokorun Prarthona [A humble and woeful petition to Her Exalted Majesty the Queen Mother on behalf of the border people of the Roshnabad Estate and the subjects/tenants of Tripura State] 1949; Representation by Moulvi Sk. Wahidullah Chowdhary B.A., Secretary, Committee of Action, Roshnabad Proja Samiti, Feni (Plt. CR1B-5 (12-49), Plt-11-77/48 (9-48)).
24. CR 1B-3/48 (9-49).
25. In a letter to the Secretary, Home (Inter-Dominion) Department (Tripura, India) of 30 November 1949, the District Magistrate at Comilla (Pakistan) wrote: "The Ziratia tenants are seeing me daily in large numbers, complaining of the troubles given to them by petty officials and other unfriendly elements. When they set foot in Tripura territory, they are chased out or threatened, intimidated and belaboured." In another letter to the Chief Commissioner, Tripura, the District Magistrate wrote that day: "The Ziratias are tenants of Tripura and their welfare and happiness is as much the concern of Tripura as ours, nay, even more"; (Pit. CR1B-5 (12-49)).
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Published in the Tripura Gazette in the period March-June 1951. See also "Tripura State", in Morning News (Dhaka), 23 April 1951; letter to the editor, Pakistan Observer, 12 June 1951 (CR 3T4-1/51 (3-54)).
29. Published in the Tripura Gazette in the period March-June 1951. See also "Tripura State", in Morning News (Dhaka), 23 April 1951; letter to the editor, Pakistan Observer, 12 June 1951 (CR 3T4-1/51 (3-54)).
30. In 1957, ziratia rights were linked to railway transit facilities for Indian grain through East Pakistan to Tripura. In exchange for these facilities, ziratias were allowed to take up to 40 maunds (1,440 kg) of paddy per family from Tripura to East Pakistan. When this transit trade was blocked, however, these last remaining ziratia rights lapsed. See Shreedhar and John Kaniyalil, Indo-Pak Relations: A Documentary Study (New Delhi, 1993), pp. 137-140. See also "Kumillay Purbo Pakistan o Tripura Rajjo shommelon: Shimanter golojog o bibhinno shomosshar mimangsha prochesta", Azad, 13 October 1949.
31. In 1957, ziratia rights were linked to railway transit facilities for Indian grain through East Pakistan to Tripura. In exchange for these facilities, ziratias were allowed to take up to 40 maunds (1,440 kg) of paddy per family from Tripura to East Pakistan. When this transit trade was blocked, however, these last remaining ziratia rights lapsed. See Shreedhar and John Kaniyalil, Indo-Pak Relations: A Documentary Study (New Delhi, 1993), pp. 137-140. See also "Kumillay Purbo Pakistan o Tripura Rajjo shommelon: Shimanter golojog o bibhinno shomosshar mimangsha prochesta", Azad, 13 October 1949.
32. See Andrew Walker, "Borders, Frontier Communities and the State: Cross-River Boat Operators in Chiang Khong, Northern Thailand", Canberra Anthropology, 19:2 (1996), pp. 1-28.
33. If border ferries were allowed to continue, they were also taxed, sometimes by both states. It took until 1952 before such double taxation was removed in the case of the ferry between Balla (Sylhet) and Khowai (Tripura). This agreement was extended to all sixteen "inter-dominion ferries" in 1955 (CR 31-104/52 (7-54); CR 3C1-2/55 (11-55)).
34. On the death of the steamer service on the Ganges, see Willem van Schendel, "Easy Come, Easy Go: Smugglers on the Ganges", Journal of Contemporary Asia, 23 (1993), pp. 189-213. On the refusal to allow a steamer station at the border town of Zakiganj in Sylhet in 1951, see Plt. 32C-1/51(3-53).
35. On boatmen being arrested, shot at, or killed by border guards, see e.g. Police EBP10C-23 (9-48); CR 1B2-11/50 (3-51); Police P10C-12/49 (10-49); CR 1B2-1/51 (2-54); CR 1B1-4/53 (6-54); CR 1B2-46/51 (7-54); CR 1B5-1/52 (8-54); CR 1B2-9/54 (2-55); CR 1B2-40/53 (12-55); on fishermen: CR 1B2-6/49 (7-52), and CR 31-20/53 (11-54); on char inhabitants: CR 1W1-1/51 (5-53), CR 1B1-4/53 (6-54). Others whose work took them to the border rivers were also at risk, e.g. collectors of stones in the Pyain river on the Assam/Sylhet border (see CR 1A1-6/51 (3-53)).
36. CR r1-16/48 (Part) (11-50), CR 11-120/48 (1-51). "Mine explosions along Myanmar border: 57 Bangladeshi woodcutters killed in 18 months", The Daily Star, 4 June 1998.
37. E.g. CR 1B2-33/52 (3-54).
38. CR 11-120/48 (1-51); cf. CR 1B3-1/49 (3-51).
39. E.g. the Assam Home Guards, the Bihar Home Guards, Tripura Rakshmi Bahini (Tripura Protection Corps), Jatiya Rakshmi Bahini (National Protection Corps), Banga Rakshmi Bahini (Bengal Protection Corps), West Bengal National Volunteer Force. The last three may be alternate names for the Bangiya Jatiya Rakshi Dal (Bengal National Protection Brigade), formed in March 1948; Chatterji, "The Fashioning of a Frontier", pp. 237-239.
40. Police 13C-1 (10-48).
41. James Buchanan, "First Annual Report on the Ansars" (1948); in Police P10A-76/49 (11-49).
42. The number of border outposts grew rapidly. For example, in 1949, Pakistan increased the number of border outposts on the North Bengal border from 85 to 162. The outpost had been manned by a border militia which was then withdrawn as it was deemed unreliable (i.e. involved in smuggling). In their place came Ansars who had been absorbed into the Border Police (CR 1C-2/50 (11-50)). See Chatterji, "The Fashioning of a Frontier", pp. 236-237.
43. Police P10A-76/9 (11-49), Appendix C.
44. Although it is not clear from the evidence at hand whether this included paying a wage. In the early 19505, according to the Provincial Commandant of the West Bengal National Volunteer Force (WBNVF), "a good number of volunteers" joined the Indian border outposts. On 19 December 1953, five of them were arrested by Pakistani border police in Khulna district for crossing the border without any papers. During their "usual night patrol" in the Basirhat area (in India) the unarmed volunteers had encountered smugglers who had put up a fight and forced them to flee to the Pakistan side (CR 1A2-2/53 (10-54)).
45. There was continual pressure from local authorities to increase the number of "land customs stations" in order to legalize crossborder trade, which was going on anyway, and to allow the state to tax it. But since the establishment of such official customs stations required that both India and Pakistan agree, the opening up of a local customs station could easily become a pawn in complex diplomatic games between the two governments. (Plt. 32C-1/51(3-53)); CR 3C2-5/50 (3-53); CR 11C1-9/52 (1-54); and CR 31-239/51 (8-54)). At times, positions in the customs department were created in an attempt to block crossborder trade, as when East Bengal tried to stop jute smuggling to West Bengal in 1949(CR 1C-2/50(11-50).By 1954, there were less than three dozen check posts on "a border of 1700 miles" (CR 8M-1/54 (1-55)).
46. See letters of victims of highhandedness: e.g. CR 2R3-9/50 (3-53); CR 10C-9/50 (5-53); and CR 1W1-1/51 (5-53).The topic also came up regularly in high-level meetings between the governments of East Bengal and West Bengal (e.g. CR 3C2-5/50 (3-53)).
47. The Delhi Pact of 1950 stated: "There shall be no harassment by the Customs authorities. At each Customs post agreed upon by the Governments concerned, liaison officers shall be posted to ensure this in practice." (CR 1C-1/50 (11-50)). For examples of complaints against harassment, see CR 1B3-2/50 (7-52); CR 26A-1/50 (12-52); CR 31-68/52 (1-54); and CR 11C1-4/53 (2-54). On liaisons officers, see also CR 1A7-1/52 (4-53).
48. CR 11C1-9/52 (1-54). See also East Pakistan District Gazetteers: Sylhet (Dacca, 1970), pp. 15-17, 190, 193-194, 370.
49. Little is known about Burma's trade policy vis-à-vis East Bengal. In the early years after independence, the government in Rangoon had little say over the regions bordering on East Bengal and only gradually established control. Initially, there were problems as the currencies of Burma and Pakistan were not convertible (see "Rangoon o Pak-Borma shimante mudrar jor chorakarbar ...", Azad, 29 May 1949). Trade relations were much less restricted by political considerations in this section of the borderland.
50. The confrontation ended in arrest, and confiscation (and subsequent auctioning) of cows. A petition, accusing the police of demanding a huge bribe, was later filed by Rupkanta Barman and five others from a village in PS Dimla (Pakistan), suggesting that these were local Rajbongshi cattle traders rather than emigrants (CR 1A3-5/50 (3-54).
51. See van Schendel, "Easy Come, Easy Go".
52. For example, in March 1949, an anti-Muslim riot occurred in Kankinara, a mill town near Calcutta where, according to Dr B.C. Roy, the Premier of West Bengal, in his statement in the West Bengal Assembly, "the majority of the residents are Muslims and up-country Hindus working in the mills. Periodically they fall out and disturbances ensue". During the Holi festival, a Hindu sprinkled coloured water "on a Muslim belonging to the Kankinara Jute Mills and residing in the coolie lines of those mills". This set off a riot resulting in several casualties and the temporary closure of the mills (CR 5R-2/49 (3-50)).
53. Mehbub, interviewed by Md Mahbubar Rahman, Rajshahi (Bangladesh), February 1999. For more on migrants and refugees in the borderland in the 1940S and 1950S, see Rahman and Van Schendel, "'I Am Not A Refugee'".
54. Almost 3,300 East Bengali Muslims were reported to work in 10 large steel and other factories in Jamshedpur and Asansol (Bihar, India) in March 1949, remitting more than Rs 400,000 to their families back home each month (CR 1"O"-3/49 (3-54)).
55. Developments in industrial employment in East Bengal mirrored those in West Bengal. In June 1953, the East Pakistan Labour Journal published a speech by the Labour Minister in which he stated that, in industrial concerns, only Pakistan nationals should be employed and that the tea industry (where non-Muslim labourers from India had long been employed) must appoint a certain percentage of Pakistani Muslims (CR 3C1-3/54 (9-54)).
56. Shadhinota (Bengali daily, Calcutta), 12 August 1951 (cf. CR 1A1-8/52 (7-54)). These labourers, who were not from East Bengal but from Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province, apparently had had their arrival accompanied by music as well. See Arjan de Haan, Unsettled Settlers: Migrant Workers and Industrial Capitalism in Calcutta (Hilversum, 1994), p. 174, n. 23.
57. Shadhinota (Bengali daily, Calcutta), 12 August 1951 (cf. CR 1A1-8/52 (7-54)). These labourers, who were not from East Bengal but from Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province, apparently had had their arrival accompanied by music as well. See Arjan de Haan, Unsettled Settlers: Migrant Workers and Industrial Capitalism in Calcutta (Hilversum, 1994), p. 174, n. 23.
58. Although Pakistani/Bangladeshi labourers disappeared from the payrolls of the Calcutta jute industry, Muslims did not. In 1950, the number of Muslims in Victoria Mill decreased from over 1,700 to less than 800, and "for years after that, no Muslims lived in the lines owned by the mill"; De Haan, Unsettled Settlers, p. 174, n. 23. In one jute mill studied by Fernandes in the early 1990S, 20 per cent of the labourers were Muslims. The labour force was overwhelmingly non-Bengali: 66 per cent from Bihar, 15 per cent from Uttar Pradesh and only 7 per cent from West Bengal; Leela Fernandes, Producing Workers: The Politics of Gender, Class, and Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills (Philadelphia, PA, 1997), p. 64.
59. Although Pakistani/Bangladeshi labourers disappeared from the payrolls of the Calcutta jute industry, Muslims did not. In 1950, the number of Muslims in Victoria Mill decreased from over 1,700 to less than 800, and "for years after that, no Muslims lived in the lines owned by the mill"; De Haan, Unsettled Settlers, p. 174, n. 23. In one jute mill studied by Fernandes in the early 1990S, 20 per cent of the labourers were Muslims. The labour force was overwhelmingly non-Bengali: 66 per cent from Bihar, 15 per cent from Uttar Pradesh and only 7 per cent from West Bengal; Leela Fernandes, Producing Workers: The Politics of Gender, Class, and Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills (Philadelphia, PA, 1997), p. 64.
60. Hastings Donnan and Thomas M. Wilson, Borders: Frontiers of Identity, Nation and State (Oxford [etc.], 1999), chapter 5.
61. The best researched, and most high-tech, case is the US-Mexican border. See Donnan and Wilson, Borders, pp. 96-100, and many contributions to the Journal of Borderlands Studies.