The places selected for research were chosen so that they were both close to the border but not too far away as well.

To pilot one’s way through this maze, gathering vast amounts of material, took the best part of three years: there were interviews to be conducted, documentation to be collated, discussions to be held before one could begin to feel a sense of satisfaction. Our resources were limited, forcing us to focus on specific areas in the border areas, both in India and Bangladesh. There was another reason for picking these hot spots: a smaller area meant better accessibility to research sites. In addition, we reasoned that those interviewed would drop their initial suspicions after repeated visits.

Indeed, visitors to most parts of rural India travel with a natural companion, suspicion. Suspicion of outsiders is a quality that we would do well to respect—how is a villager to check our credentials? He has only our word for it, or our display of an identity card (which may make no sense to him). The pleasant young man who is asking careless questions could well be a plainclothes police officer out to extract information. Consequently, the villager could be in deep trouble, not just with the police (for what reason he knows not and is too scared to ask), but even with his neighbours and fellow villagers. Why have all this jhan jhat, goes the reasoning. Better just to smile and avoid direct answers.

This is especially true of areas such as Assam and the North East whch are constantly on the boil.

The complexity of the fieldwork and the difficulties of data-collection were driven home at our first meeting over breakfast with Nurul Islam, the then Congress MP from Dhubri. Islam was a tall man, a chain-smoker whose ponderous gait disguised a sharp political mind.

‘You want to know about foreigners in Dhubri?’ he asked, rather brusquely. I explained to him the project and its nuances, the need for data and fieldwork here and elsewhere, the importance of looking at the whole picture. ‘There are no foreigners here, all this is propaganda, innocent people get victimized, poor people suffer,’ he snapped at us.

It was not an auspicious beginning; I think Anindita started to wonder if our journey would end before it had really begun. I persisted, talking about the history of the region, the demographic changes, the need to replace emotionalism with logic and facts. His bushy eyebrows picked up at that.

‘I’m getting a boat to travel across my constituency tomorrow, would you like to come?’ he asked. I responded positively although I was not too happy about travelling with a Congress MP and his aide, the Congress MLA from South Salmara, Wazed Ali Choudhury. But here was a chance to talk to people on the chars, the islands and the banks of the river and its many channels.