
History Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Publication Source
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
Abstract
This essay contextualises the emergence of a document regime which regulated routine travel through the deployment of the India–Pakistan Passport and Visa Scheme in 1952. It suggests that such travel documents were useful for the new Indian state to delineate citizenship and the nationality of migrants and individual travellers from Pakistan. The bureaucratic and legal mediations under the Scheme helped the Indian state to frame itself before its new citizens as the sole certifier of some of their rights as Indians. In contrast, applicants for these documents viewed them as utilitarian, meant to facilitate their travel across the new borders. The contrast and contestation between such different perceptions helps us to understand the continued significance of documentary identities in contemporary India.
Inclusive pages
329-349
ISBN/ISSN
0085-6401
Document Version
Postprint
Copyright
Copyright © 2016, Taylor & Francis
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Volume
39
Issue
2
Peer Reviewed
yes
eCommons Citation
Roy, Haimanti, "Paper Rights: The Emergence of Documentary Identities in Post-Colonial India, 1950–67" (2016). History Faculty Publications. 129.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/hst_fac_pub/129
Included in
Islamic World and Near East History Commons, Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons
Comments
The document available for download is the author's accepted manuscript, provided in compliance with the publisher's policy on self-archiving. Permission documentation is on file. To read the publisher's version, use the DOI provided.