Settlers, Saints and Sovereigns: An Ethnography of State Formation in Western India

An anthropological history of Kachchh, this book unfolds within the context of contemporary religious nationalism, communal; strife and border politics in Gujarat. It tries to analyse how, within these contexts, a region becomes a meaningful place for its inhabitants and how different peoples relate to locality through time, arguing that the concept of asmita (self-pride, identity) may be seen as a regional variation of Hindutava ideology in contemporary Gujarat. Ethnographically, it presents a glimpse into the lives of people who live along the Kachchh-Sindh border, or have crossed it in recent memory. It seeks to understand their views on the present and past as narratives of state formation in a border region, and how that accounts for its political borders