This book is an effort to place the Bangladeshi migrations into India, especially into Assam, in a perspective that seeks to reflect a multidisciplinary, multidimensional approach. The book has been organized into fourteen chapters. In the first six, we look at the problem of thresholds—of what comprises ‘carrying capacity’ in nations: the thresholds of population, land and water as well as food and energy. The pressures that make people move, the places where they go to and how they are received there, are examined. We look at the scale, scope and concepts of migration, differentiate between refugee flows and migratory movements, and then view the disasters that overtake societies when these basic problems are ignored or not understood adequately. Chapters seven to thirteen analyse the dynamics, and tragedies of the Bangladesh-Assam/North East situation. Built on extensive fieldwork and conversations in Bangladesh and Assam, they tell the stories of both those who move and others who stay behind. The last chapter addresses policy alternatives, questions of nationality and citizenship from the perspective of the people as well as that of government. It looks at what, in my view, can and must be done—now and in the near future.

The telling of this story has been shaped both by my personal experiences and views, as well as by the facts of the situation. I have deliberately avoided placing large chunks of statistics in the body of the book. Readers will find extensive statistical material in the appendices and in footnotes.

As with my other books, I have chosen to follow the narrative style of writing here, one with which I am comfortable. There may be obvious drawbacks with such a style but I risk taking this approach because I want the book to engage people and provoke them, not to languish in some distant library. I want it to force a debate, to shake up governmental and societal approaches to the issue of migration. Perhaps that is being too ambitious—but innovative thinking must shape the agenda of our governments, whether it is the result of inputs by people outside the ‘system’ or those who are in it.

We need to think with our heads. For too long we have thought with our hearts.

This approach becomes even more important when we look at the literature of migration. This can be broadly organized into two segments: one, academic writing, focusing on theory and using case studies as opportunities to establish a particular legal, philosophical or political point; two, documents from international conferences, seminars and ‘projects’. In much of this literature, the people who move, who are at the heart of this phenomenon, are mere footnotes, if even that. They are statistics not stories as they should be: voices of people resonating across time and distance, telling us of their tales, forcing us to listen and heed. They do not form the core upon which a ‘project’ rests but only ‘materials’ to forge a case and develop an idea.