Back from Golden Land: exploring migration patterns, resettlement and political mobilization of Burmese Indian repatriates in Eastern India since the 1960s

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Indian communities that migrated from British India into Burma during the colonial era and early postcolonial years, but were from the early 1960s forced to repatriate back to India. Drawing on recent fieldwork conducted among communities of Burmese Indian returnees in Eastern India, this paper explores their repatriation trajectories to places they were not familiar with, as well as their experiences of resettlement in their new 'Indian' environment. It also attempts to trace the diasporic linkages they have maintained (or not, and why) with Burma today, years, if not decades, after their return migration. In doing so, it seeks to evaluate their contemporary influence on both their former host land and homeland. It will lastly examine their strategies of political mobilization at both the local (India) and transnational (Burma) levels. The research proposes to focus on two specific case studies in India and comparatively analyze them: the cities of Calcutta (Kolkata) in West Bengal and Madras (Chennai) in Tamil Nadu. Both sites indeed witnessed a significant number of Burmese Indian repatriates building up various community-based urban settlements and socio-economic or political networks from the late 1960s: the Bengalis in various 'Burma Colonies' around Calcutta, and the Tamils in the renowned 'Burma Bazaar' of Madras.