ABSTRACT
'Borderlanders hardly think of themselves as living in the margin. The borderland is the centre of their world' – says Willem van Schendel in the conclusion of his seminal work on the Bengal borderland. The nature of the study of borders has, likewise, evolved from political to geographical and, eventually, sociological, ethnographical and economical discourses. Each border around the world has a unique story to tell. The stories contribute in their own ways towards the larger discourse on borders, offering new perspectives to understand their uniqueness. The 'life-cycle' approach of borders suggested by Schendel and Michiel Baud provides useful tools for understanding the evolution process of the West Bengal-Bangladesh border from its genesis to its form, which, in the process, provides tools for understanding the evolution of border consciousness. The identity of a 'border people' is produced by a modification of the various other primary and secondary identities–of that of ethnic, religious, gendered, economic–into a larger spatial identity.
