Between citizenships: questions of home among the Burmese Indian repatriates

Abstract

ABSTRACT The 300,000-strong community of Indian repatriates from Burma remain torn between a place they call home and the unresolved questions of citizenship. The Indian community in Burma, whom I term the Burmese Indians, was repatriated to India following the military coup and nationalisation in 1962 and endured a considerable loss of livelihood, home, and friends. Their recreated living spaces in the Indian cities of Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Delhi, and Calcutta are by default and design prefaced with Burma; hence, ‘Burma Bazaar,’ ‘Burma Colonies,’ ‘Burma Markets,’ and ‘Burma Camps.’ This essay explores their citizenship forms, paying particular attention to civic and political citizenship, memory citizenship, and forms of belonging based on interviews with the repatriates.