Borders, Commodities and Citizens across Mud and River: Assam, 1947–50s

Abstract

Assam had long been crucially dependent on the geography of East Bengal to sustain its trade and commerce. Partition destabilized this dependency. The Partition suddenly redefined the multifaceted economic, cultural and ecological commonalities, which both Bengal and Assam had shared over the centuries. Despite recent renewal of interest in the post-Partition political economy of India’s western border and Bengal, the experience of Assam, except the question of Sylhet referendum, has received very little attention in historical research. This article offers a fresh explanation of how the new Indian border redefined the agrarian and plantation economy of Assam, how the question of refugee settlement turned out to be a highly contested political subject, and how a newly instituted legal framework complicated the lives of the people living across this politically divided national space.