Papers in Play: SIR and the Dalit Refugees of Bengal Borderland

Since November 2025 the ECI had begun the process of revising electoral rolls before the upcoming assembly elections in multiple states in the country. In West Bengal the process took a quick turn to controversy as the ruling Non-BJP regime of the state has taken a hard turn towards linguistic and ethnic nationalism and perceives the attempts at roll revision as an act of heartland aggression on federal structure and cultural autonomy. The BJP led NDA regime at the centre further exacerbated the war of words by hinting that the state government has been soft on illegal immigration, which, given the status of West Bengal as the pre-eminent border state in eastern India became a sensitive issue culturally, historically and demographically. This paper focuses on settlements of Dalit refugees of Partition and Liberation war period in the border districts of southern West Bengal. The paper argues that the experience of caste and refugeehood has produced a language for negotiating with ever tightening matrices of state identificatory regimes. Socially and legally precarious subjects, like dalit refugees and borderland residents have evolved mechanisms for self-documentation in dialogue with agents of the state. Such marginalised populations have built their own form of bureaucratic logic and argumentation along with local institutions of support.