At CPR: Prof B.G. Verghese, K.C. Sivaramakrishnan, former Urban Development Secretary, Rajmohan Gandhi, Ved Marwah, recently appointed Govenor of Manipur, and Gen V. K. Nayar.

Kamaljit Kumar and the CPR library staff who were always helpful.

Mr P. Dhokrekar, Chief of Adminstrative Services, and his accounts team, P.K. Rao, P. Khanna and M.C. Bhatt helped me keep track of the health of my project’s finances.

Among others, Kamini Mahadevan, my editor at Penguin Books India, who prodded, pushed, cajoled and made key suggestions.

Preeti Gill, for reading the initial drafts, and urging me to discipline my writing hours.

In Switzerland:

Rajiv Kapur of UNHCR and his wife Smriti for their help and hospitality in Geneva, and the solitude of their farm house in Delhi, and Mohan Ram’s quiet efficiency which helped fine-tune a chapter and other work.

In Britain:

Belinda Wright, Barbara Harrell-Bond, David Turpin of Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Programme; also Dr Amrita Dhillon and Dr Fabian Essler.

In the United States:

Dr Amartya Sen, then of Harvard University, and Dr Sharon Stanton Russell of MIT and her many colleagues and assistants in Cambridge, Massachussetts; Prof Ashutosh Varshney and Vibha Pingle, and also Michael Teitelbaum of the Sloan Foundation.

But above all, my thoughts go to the one person to whom I owe this interest and involvement in issues of migration, displacement and refugees, and the deeper underlying questions: the late Myron Weiner. This book is dedicated to his memory.

Myron was without doubt one of the extraordinarily gifted persons I have had the privilege of knowing. His interest in the world and especially the subcontinent and our little North Eastern corner was deep and abiding. I had the privilege of sharing a platform in December 1993 at MIT with Myron in the chair and Prof Amartya Sen as one of the speakers. I was also the second listed speaker on Ayodhya: India, a year later. I suppose I was asked to speak since I had reported on the situation for the New York Times after the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya.

Representing the BJP was a Dr Mody from New York. Myron steered that discussion through a potential minefield with skill and sensitivity, silencing an angry scholar who interrupted Dr Mody, and ensuring that everyone got a decent hearing. Of course, we can all guess what the sentiment of the house was!

His intellectual brilliance apart, Myron was an extremely warm and caring man who wrote with dedication every summer at his Vermont home; he loved the winter skiing at Vermont and spent time with his family. He had the instincts of a first-rate investigative journalist and field researcher: he could ‘smell’ a situation that was blessed with many opportunities and complications and swiftly see ways to move forward.

We miss him and his energy, curiosity and honesty which touched all those who had the privilege of knowing him.

Sanjoy Hazarika

New Delhi

14 November 2000

Credits