Marginal lives, peripheral practices: a study of border narratives along the West Bengal-Bangladesh border

The sovereign power of the state is in its most manifest form at its borders, embodied in the border guards, surveillance mechanisms and border regulations. But the negotiations between the border civilians and the state apparatuses are as integral to the understanding of the border milieu as are the state apparatuses themselves. This thesis looks at some aspects of border narratives with reference to the West Bengal- Bangladesh border, which has its genesis in the partition of Bengal in 1947. Secondary sources have been used in framing the research agendas, and field studies conducted in the border areas of West Bengal and Bangladesh have provided the evidence for the arguments made