“Settlement Colonies” as new “Camps”: Refugee Rehabilitation and the transformation of Partition Camps

Abstract

The temporality associated with Partition Camps fixed its meaning, as a time bound relief-measure and devoid of its dynamic nature. The lingering effect of its presence in the etymology of the places where it existed represented an effort towards preserving its significance while simultaneously stripping its meaning. The Rehabilitation of the refugees and the emergence of settlement colonies, sometimes at the place of the camp itself, was imagined by the state as the end of this process. The intermixing of people from different camps in multiple colonies complicated the process of memorisation of the complexities of one camp and hence makes it a difficult task of unearthing them.
Therefore, the marginalization of Partition Camps, both in state’s frameworks and its non-existence in scholarly interventions, needs to be seen in connection with the larger efforts towards Rehabilitation. This approach also expands the scope by including areas where camps were less significant or absent, yet rehabilitation still occurred. This paper trace the interconnection between Refugee’s experiences and state’s expectations in Uttar Pradesh, where half a million refugees were settled, by looking at rehabilitation pattern there. By doing this, it complicates the understanding of Refugee Camps by linking them to the institutionalisation of temporary measures into a permanent fixture in the post-colonial India state.