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Author Chattha, Ilyas, author.

Title The Punjab borderland : mobility, materiality and militancy, 1947-1987 / Ilyas Chattha
Published Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2022
©2022

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Description 1 online resource (xxii, 313 pages)
Contents Cover -- Reviews -- The Punjab Borderland -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Preface and Acknowledgements -- Note on Transliteration -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Partition, Borders and Borderlands -- Characteristics and Consequences of Smuggling -- Sources and Methodology -- Overview of the Chapters -- Notes -- 1 Making of the Border -- Clarifying the Boundary Line -- The Pant-Mirza Agreement of 1955 -- Border Bureaucratic Imperative -- 'Fluctuating Boundary' -- Burji Border -- Policing the Border
Rhetoric of Espionage and Surveillance Installations -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 2 Cross-Border Flows -- Crossing Points -- People -- Non-Borderlanders -- Meos -- Biharis -- Border Dwellers -- Criminalising the Cattle Communities -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 3 Illicit Cities -- Border Goods -- 'Twin Cities' -- Clothing -- Paan -- Major Operators in Lahore -- Contraband and Consumer Patriotism -- Post-Independence Developments: The Catalytic Role of Contraband Economy -- Paan Gali: A Contraband Hub -- People Smuggling -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 4 Illicit Global Gold Trade and Wagah-Attari Crossing
Partition's Hidden Treasure -- Hajj and Gold Smuggling -- Global Gold Traffic and the Punjab Border -- Gold Operators in Lahore and Cross-Border Contacts -- Global Gold Racket and Wagah-Attari Crossing -- Global Gold Smuggling Routes to Pakistan -- Gold Smuggling and Karachi's Islands -- Kassim Bhatti: A Fisherman to 'King of Gold Smugglers' -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 5 The Making of Contraband Culture -- Borderland Culture -- Border Ballad and Contraband Solidarity -- Bhai-Bandi: Oral Accounts and Archival Sources -- Border Work: New Forms of Labour -- Blackia -- Birth of a New Borderland Elite
Ghurki Smuggling System -- 'Gold Kings' -- Seth Abid: 'Pakistani Gold King' -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 6 The Regulation of Cross-Border Flows and State Patronage -- 'The Border Smuggling Force' -- Mukhbir System -- Anti-Smuggling Measures -- Anti-Smuggling: Weaponry against Rivals -- 'Gold Kings' and State Patronage -- Transnational Flying Gold -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 7 Guns, Drugs and the End of the 'Good Old Days' -- An Institutionalised Smuggling System -- Guns -- Guns to Drugs -- Securitisation of the Border -- Fencing the Border -- The End of the 'Good Gold Days' -- Oral Histories
Conclusion -- Notes -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Glossary -- Appendix -- Punjabi Border Ballads/Folklore Translations -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary The Punjab Borderland offers a fascinating insight into how the new international boundary between India and Pakistan was made, subverted, and transformed. Dispelling the established historiographical narratives of an increasingly militarised border that presents as the epitome of animosity and a classic example of inter-state tension, this book offers a corrective to these accounts by bringing out narratives of border crossings and social relations built on mutual benefit and trust. It conceptualises the making of the vast contraband as an analytical tool, not merely as borderland societies' modes for evading the state imposition of a partitioned geography on their local lifeworld, but as a catalyst for enabling social mobility and political empowerment for the population involved and a thriving market for consumption in the urban centres. It reveals a 'bottom-up' history of the Punjab border and the invention of the borderland society, narrating a story with local meanings and transnational dimensions
Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on December 09, 2021)
Subject Borderlands -- India -- Punjab -- History -- 20th century
Borderlands
Boundaries
SUBJECT India -- History -- Partition, 1947. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh97003291
India -- Boundaries -- Pakistan
Pakistan -- Boundaries -- India
Subject India
India -- Punjab
Pakistan
Genre/Form Electronic books
History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781009049184
1009049186