Border Nation: Indigenous Peoples, State, and the Border in Indo-Myanmar Borderlands

Border studies in general and the historiography of nation-making process in South Asia with its exclusive focus on Partition Studies have overlooked indigenous people voice and experience. This also implies that certain border regions received far more emphasis whereas certain regions are accorded a marginal status. In this paper, we situate indigenous people’s experience of border-making in Indo-Myanmar borderlands. In doing so, we note that borderlands are not homogenous spaces, with the experience and functions of the border being interpreted differently by various social actors. Taking indigenous Mizos of the Indo-Myanmar borderland as a case study, the paper examines how indigenous communities’ understanding of their history, memory, place, politics, and nationhood are entangled with the border. Using a multiperspectival study of borders, we take an approach that considers the Indo-Myanmar border “beyond the line” by highlighting the border’s dynamism and exploring alternative social and political imaginaries that inform lives in the borderland.