Mini-India

This contribution to political anthropology, migration research, and postcolonial studies fills a gap in the hitherto under-represented scholarship on the migrant and settler society of the Andaman Islands, called ‘Mini-India’. Focusing on political, social, economic, and cultural effects of migration, the main actors of the book stem from criminalized, low-caste, landless, refugee, repatriated, Adivasi, and other backgrounds of the subcontinent and South East Asia. Settling in this ‘new world’, some underprivileged migrants achieved social mobility, while others remained disenfranchised and marginal. Employing the concept of subalternity, this ethnographic study analyses various shades of inequality that arise from communities’ material and representational access to the state. It elaborates on the political repercussions of subaltern migration in negotiations of island history, collective identity, ecological sustainability, and resource access. The book is divided into three parts: Part I, titled ‘Theory, Methodology, and the Field’ introduces the reader into subaltern theory and the Andamans as fieldwork site. Part II, titled ‘Islands of Subalternity: Migration, Place-Making, and Politics’ concentrates on the Andaman society as a multi-ethnic conglomerate of subaltern communities in which stakes of history and identity are negotiated. Part III, titled ‘Landscapes of Subalternity: An Ethnography of the Ranchis of Mini-India’ focuses on the Ranchis, one particular community of 50,000 subaltern Adivasi migrants from the Chotanagpur region. It highlights the exploitative history of Ranchi contract labour migration, which triggered specific forms of cultural and ecological appropriation as well as multi-layered strategies of resistance against domination to achieve autonomy, autarchy, and peaceful cohabitation in the margins of the state.