CRG-RWO discussion on Assam NRC

On 30th July 2018, the government of Assam , a state in the Indian North-Est, published a National Register of Citizens. Of its residents, 4,000,000 people and counting did not find their names on the Register.

Amid fears about the fate of these people, the real and increasing concern around statelessness, the modalities of having separate citizenship registers within a federal structure, and the history of the Assam Accord: CRG sought to lay bare the issues at stake in a roundtable discussion.

Prof. Ranabir Samaddar, Distinguished Chair, Migration and Forced Migration Studies, was joined in a roundtable discussion by eminent journalist Mr. Subir Bhaumik, and Prof. Samir Das, Professor of Political Science at the University of Calcutta. Mr. Rajat Ray, senior journalist, moderated the discussion.

Find the video here.

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Bhalobashar Shohor: a filmic paean to modern everyday heroes

Indranil Roychowdhury’s  31 minutes long film City of Love was released for international audiences on youtube last year, tracking the journey of a young woman and her family between Kolkata (India) and Homs (Syria). Asmita Das reviews. 

Understanding migrant resource flows and its relation to ‘development’ of migrant sending regions: Evidence from South India

In this piece, Sanam Roohi critically explores the notion and praxis/implications of migrant led development in the country of origin, in this context India. Going beyond the dominant discourse of studying this process through remittances, she argues there is need to delve deep into the multifarious ways a migrant is associated to the place of origin. A transnational perspective thus entails a grasp on the complexities of migrant resource flows and exchanges.

‘As Mizo as I could be’: Territorial gatekeepers and the social suffering of Chins in Aizawl.

Lallian Thangsing complicates the idea of being a Mizo (a native of the Indian state of Mizoram) with the aid of the displaced people, the Chins.

Research and Orientation Workshop in Migration and Forced Migration Studies

Applications are invited for a Research and Orientation Workshop to be held in Kolkata from 25 November to 30 November 2018. The workshop will be held by Calcutta Research Group (CRG) in collaboration with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. It will address the following themes:(a) Global compact on migration and refugees; promises and paradoxes;(b) Racialisation of migration: race, religion, gender, and other fault lines in the global protection system, (c) Power and responsibility in the protection system ( global, regional, and national) in the context of mixed and massive population flows; the need to redefine the “responsibility to protect”;  (d) Migrant and refugee labour and immigrant economies, camps, and urban refugees; privatisation of care and protection(e) Statelessness, international conventions, and the need for new initiatives; (f) Refugee crisis in Asia, in particular South Asia: common features with the European scenario; and (g) Perspectives on the need for New Global, Regional, and National Responses (with special reference to Asia).

Images from a Rohingya Camp: Camp Ohn Taw Chay, Sittwe, Myanmar

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Marko Szilveszter Macskovich, Researcher on Forced Migration and Identity Management

Photographs taken on December 20, 2017

 

“Urban refugees in Delhi” A report.

“Urban refugees in Delhi: Identity, entitlements and well-being” is a detailed report on the study of two connected, contemporaneous realities in India – urban refugees in India (in this case, specifically, refugees in India’s capital city of Delhi), and India’s lack of a legal framework, domestic or international, that guarantee their protection. Seeking to understand the aspirations and desires of Sikh and Christian Afghan refugees and Rohingya refugees leading incredibly precarious lives in Delhi, the study engages in an exploration of the various factors that contributed to their state of insecurity, and proposes its own take on Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach to formulate long-term, sustainable development and security goals for urban refugees based on the notion of ‘self-reliance’. The report can be accessed here.

The Speaking Mirror of Bharati Das

The second phase of refugee influx into West Bengal, especially by the once powerful caste group, namashudras, continues to be ill documented in social science literature of the day. Through the narrative of a young caregiver, Bharati Das, Parimal Bhattacharya makes an important intervention in documenting these lives, as well as, through the trope of a video recording, makes marginalised voices heard.  

Uemon and Hariprabha Takeda: Travelling into Lives (Part – II)

Hariprabha visited Japan thrice in her lifetime. Uemon accompanied her each time. Their third visit together had coincided with the Second World War and Hariprabha jotted down her experiences of a war-torn Japan in the form of diary entries. Madhurima Mukhopadhyay, in the second part of her essay, focuses on Hariprabha’s war memories. The first part can be read here.