Border practices: labour and nationalism among Brogpas of Ladakh

Abstract

Abstract Scholarly writings on Kashmir have primarily discussed state-centred initiatives that are aimed at fostering nationalism among border communities. In this paper, I use the example of Brogpas—a border community living on the contested line-of-control between India and Pakistan—to argue that national identity for Brogpas is the product of fostering their national boundaries through their everyday labour practices. A focus on khral (mandatory labour) among Brogpas illuminates how national identities are constituted in the peripheries rather than being ‘imposed and built from the centre outward’.1 1. Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p 8. Brogpas pronounce khral as ‘thal’. I thank Prof. Ravina Aggarwal for the transliteration and John Bray for sharing with me his paper on corvee transport labour in the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Khral also underscores the centrality of border practices in creating and maintaining national consciousness.2 2. Ravina Aggarwal, Beyond Lines of Control: Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). The customary practice of khral demonstrates that citizenship to the village and the Indian nation-state are not construed as distinct processes by Brogpas. Brogpas establish and/or maintain their allegiance to a particular village by doing khral that among other things includes working for the Indian army as porters. An attention to khral highlights how national identity is instantiated among Brogpas though everyday practices of working for the Indian border rather than through mere symbolic constructions of an imagined community.