ABSTRACT
In response to increasing cross-border movement of people, drugs, weapons and ammunition between India and Pakistan in the Punjab borderland in the 1980s, the Indian government sanctioned the construction of a fence along parts of its border with Pakistan. This chapter explores how the fence shaped the mobility of those the state sought to control and stop – drug traffickers, criminals and terrorists – but also of those wishing to work in close proximity to the borderline. It shows how the area between the boundary and the fence became a space of exclusion to which access became strongly regulated by the state through security forces: They determine who can and who cannot go to the land beyond the fence, pointing to the securitization of the Punjab borderland. The securitization of everyday life has affected development in this border region, leading the Indian government to respond through the Border Area Development Programme, which is fraught with prioritizing security concerns over development goals.
