The synergy between the People, Border and the State at the Indo-Bangladesh Borderlands in India: an Anthropological review of the Developmental and the Local-Governance actions of the state arising at the praxis

Borderlands are geographic places demarcated and defined by the state designed boundaries and the borderlands of Indo-Bangladesh region have been a subject to scarce politico-economic investments stemming from regional complications including security concerns. As the situation shifted towards favorable, these arenas turned into intense zone for emerging geopolitical strategy making and state-building. The Indian state with its development actions and governance functions, are proliferating across the Indo-Bangladesh borderlands in India. Owing to the phenomenon, this article intends to intertwine the actor-oriented ‘anthropology of borderlands’ with the politico-legal framework of ‘governance and development’; to locate the impact of ‘development and local governance initiatives’ of the state agencies and its functionaries on the people residing at the praxis. It also highlights the need for focusing on different political economic contexts for development and observe how people on the subject of development – are responding or reacting, sidestepping or resisting against a structural factor like the borderland that has acted on them; whereas, the state policies and its narrative of ‘Development’ have turned contradictory to the aspiration of the population at the praxis that is synergetic in terms of localized differences in demography and socio-political history.