If national cultures are considered by their guardian states as bounded and homogeneous, territorial boundaries must also aspire to be social and cultural boundaries. In the context of Kachchh and Sindh, the border remains socially fluid even after decades of its territorial demarcation. But even as states attempt to nationalise their frontier spaces, inhabitants of frontier areas are not always passive subjects in the process. They need not always contest the state project; in fact, they may take decisions, based on their own particular circumstances, that unintentionally bolster the nationalist state project of defining borders. The paper discusses the migration of harijans from TharParkar, Sindh into Kachchh in 1971 and the implications of such a planned move for the themes above.
