India's Bangladesh Problem
The Marginalization of Bengali Muslims in Neoliberal Times

An innovative analysis of the experience of Bengali Muslims on the Indian side of the India-Bangladesh border.

Navine Murshid (Author)

9781009259422, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 April 2023

300 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.55 kg

'Murshid lays bare the marginalization of Bengali Muslims, Indian and Bangladeshi, in contemporary India-and different forms of resistance to this abjection. Based on deep research of national, state-level, and local interactions, this book compels us to rethink our understanding of neoliberalism, borders, identity, and citizenship in and beyond South Asia.' Elora Shehabuddin, University of California, Berkeley

In recent years, Bengali Muslims in India have faced harassment and scapegoating as the trope of the illegal Bangladeshi has gained political currency. India's Bangladesh Problem explores the experience of Bengali Muslims on the Indian side of the India–Bangladesh border in the context of neoliberal policies, unequal bilateral relations, labor migration, contested citizenship, and increasingly xenophobic government rhetoric. Drawing on extensive research in the borderlands and hinterlands of both countries, Navine Murshid argues that ever-deepening neoliberal policies across the border have shaped how certain ethnic groups are valued and have reconfigured social hierarchies. She provides new insights into the strategic inclusion, exclusion, and invisibility that characterizes Bengali Muslims' lives, rendering them a group susceptible to manipulation by virtue of their ethnic kinship to the majority of Bangladeshis. In turn, Bengali Muslims simultaneously resist and utilize received neoliberal ideas to sustain their lives and livelihoods at a time when neoliberal development has largely bypassed them.

Dedication
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgment
Introduction
1. Neoliberalism and Identity-Based Hierarchy
2. Borders as Sites of Strength and Vulnerability
3. Assam and the Illegal Other
4. Whatever Happened to Bengali Nationalism? The 'Appeased' Muslims of West Bengal
Conclusion
Select Bibliography
Appendices.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Political science & theory [JPA], Asian history [HBJF], General & world history [HBG]