This talk by Ishani Dasgupta (University of Wisconsin, Madison) examines the liminal identities of Tibetan refugee soldiers in India's Special Frontier Force (SFF). Drawing on interviews with veterans in Bylakuppe's old age home, the study reveals how the Indian nation-state exploits refugee communities for military labor while having denied them citizenship, pension, and official recognition. At the same time, it reveals the overlapping and complex commitment of the refugee soldier to their host nation, and simultaneously to enduring aspiration for Tibetan self-determination.

12:15 PM - 1:45 PM
Haines Hall, Rm 352

This talk examines the liminal identities of Tibetan refugee soldiers in India’s Special Frontier Force (SFF). The 2020 death of commander Tenzin Nyima in clashes with the PRC shattered decades of concealment surrounding this paramilitary unit. His state funeral—honored with both Indian and Tibetan flags—ignited mourning across Tibetan exile settlements and brought attention to the paradox of Tibetan refugee military service in the Indian army. Drawing on interviews with veterans in Bylakuppe’s old age home, this study reveals how the Indian nation-state exploits refugee communities for military labor while having denied them citizenship, pension, and official recognition. At the same time, it reveals the overlapping and complex commitment of the refugee soldier to their host nation, and simultaneously to enduring aspiration for Tibetan self-determination.

Ishani Dasgupta is the Assistant Instructional Professor at the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights at the University of Chicago. Her research examines displaced populations in South Asia, with a focus on the Tibetan exile community, their resistance politics, and the citizenship practices that sustain a deterritorialized Tibetan nation. Drawing on extensive ethnographic and archival fieldwork, her work traces how communities without sovereignty create national worlds and forms of belonging amid violence, displacement, and state neglect. She is currently completing her book project, Refugee Nation: Citizenship, Resistance, and the Deterritorialized Tibetan Polity.

This event is presented within the Culture, Power, and Social Change (CPSC) Colloquium (UCLA Department of Anthropology) and co-sponsored by the UCLA Program on Central Asia and UCLA Center for India and South Asia.

Download file: Dasgutpa_Flyer-0c-wvt.pdf

Sponsor(s): Program on Central Asia, APC, Center for India and South Asia, Anthropology, Culture, Power, and Social Change Interest Group