ABSTRACT
The earthquake of 2001 was in many ways a catalyst for the kind of 'development' that many in Kachchh have welcomed openly. Once derided as an isolated backwater, a remote border district, residents of Kachchh were deeply resentful of the fact that they did not get their due from the province that they were a part of. The perception that Gujarat simply did not take Kachchh into consideration as an important constituent unit of the province has had some currency for a while. A comparative study of different groups on the border reveals that marginal populations react variously to changing state regimes. Mobility and migration is a recurrent theme in the preceding chapters. Kachchh has a foundational relationship to mobile populations: traders, pastoralists, emigrants and immigrants. Mobility threatens with possible disorder and the transgression of carefully constructed boundaries. 'Tradition' comes into being in a moment of heightened anxiety about the future.
