World Watch. The references to Edward O. Wilson’s work on consilience are from the special issue of March-April 1999

‘Immigrant Adaptation and Native-Born Responses in the Making of Americans’, Special issue, International Migration Review, Vol. 31, Winter 1997, Centre for Migration Studies, New York

‘People in Camps’, Forced Migration Review, August 1998, Oxford, UK

Acknowledgements

Without question, the first line of credit must go to Dr V.A. Pai Panandiker, President of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), who backed this idea from the very beginning and placed the superb facilities at CPR at my disposal. Dr Pai, who has been supportive in other areas of common concern—the North East and Indian policy-making—has built up a unique institution at CPR with a good team. CPR has been a kind host to me, and my office, with greenery bursting through the windows, has been both base and sanctuary.

The Population Foundation of India (PFI) deserves many thanks for its financial support which helped fund part of the project. I am especially grateful to Dr Bharat Ram, Dr K. Srinivasan, Executive Director of the PFI, and Dr R. Natarajan, former deputy director and leading demographer. All of them must have despaired at my work ever seeing the light of day.

HIVOS, the Dutch NGO, with its South Asia base in Bangalore, provided the other funding for the study. Ben Witjes, whose initial interest led to HIVOS extending this support, was extremely helpful and so was Ms Susan Mathews.

Without this support provided by all three groups, Rites of Passage could not have been completed.

The responsibility for the delay in putting this book together is entirely mine. Filming of the documentary on Brahmaputra river in India, Tibet and Bangladesh, membership of the first National Security Advisory Board and frequent travel in India and abroad ate into both time and energy.

My family, Minal and Meghna, gave immense support and showed abounding generosity; a writer under stress, or at any time, is more than a handful.

Anindita Dasgupta of Guwahati, between a full-time job teaching history at Cotton College, Guwahati, and finishing her Ph.D., showed initiative, courage, patience and persistence in conducting extensive fieldwork, interviews and documentation in Assam and Meghalaya under difficult conditions. I still have a lot of material which I hope to publish gradually—but all of which couldn’t be put in here. Although we may not agree on some issues, I think we respect each other’s perspectives.

In Bangladesh: Anwar-ul Raquib of Dhaka University made several trips to Kurigram and other research sites, collected data and helped with my travel. His associate, Firdouz, was a cheerful companion in the last field trip. I wish them well in their plans for the future, in management and in government respectively.