Citizen Refugee

Uditi Sen's academic study examines how the newly independent Indian state built its nation while resettling Hindu refugees who fled eastern Pakistan after Partition. Drawing on government archives and interviews with people who lived through resettlement, the author traces the official approach to rehabilitation that took shape across the country.

The book shows how this approach was first put into practice in the Andaman Islands, where Bengali refugees were presented by authorities as pioneers who would open up and farm new land. Sen argues that policymakers saw rehabilitation as a route to a productive, disciplined form of citizenship.

The refugees themselves did not all accept this model, and many could not meet its expectations. Their memories show a range of ways they bargained with, resisted and reshaped the resettlement process from the bottom up.