Friendly Nations and Open Borders: Gender, Caste and Sacredness at the India-Nepal Border

Abstract

The postcolonial legacy of India’s borderlands is a legacy of othering, particularly of the religious other (meaning, other than Hindu). The ‘friendly’ India-Nepal border, however, negotiates the sameness of religion by managing the refractions of caste and gender. The shared sacredness of the landscape reproduced in the circulation of icons, myths and pilgrims also reaffirms the shared religious identity of those crossing it. This paper argues that the sameness that constitutes friendliness at this border rests on evaluating the gendered and caste righteousness of those crossing it. It is rendered most visible in alleged instances of elopement, marital infidelity and trafficking that come into public view at the open and friendly border. The paper describes how sameness is both refracted and managed through the observation of the daily mobilities and spatiality at the India-Nepal border at two check-points in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.