The Afghan refugees of Lajpat Nagar: The boundaries between them and Delhi

The political and social implications of the refugee crisis have positioned refugee studies as a crucial discipline to understand politics in contemporary times. This article aims to contribute to the discipline by exploring the example of a community of Muslim Afghan refugees in Lajpat Nagar, Delhi, India, and studying their ‘refugee experience’ through the theoretical concept of ‘boundaries’ as developed by noted American sociologist Richard Alba. The article studies the various aspects of the segregation of the refugee community by focusing on the different constituents of the boundary separating them from the citizens. The article initially discusses legal boundaries, that is the legal marginalization of refugees in general and Muslim refugees in particular by the Indian state. Through the perceptual boundary, which involves the negative perception held among citizens towards the refugee community and vice versa, social distance between the citizens and the refugee community is widened. The spatial boundary, which is the de facto ghettoization of the refugee community to a certain geographical space, forces the citizens and refugee communities to maintain minimal contact with each other. Through the linguistic boundary, further conditions leading to reduced social contact are created. In the presence of so many intersectional boundaries, this article showcases how the boundaries are sometimes blurred, and how aspects such as food or commerce can help the process of boundary breaching. The study of boundaries, their formation, effect and permeability also throws light onto other important aspects of the lives of members of the refugee community – their perception regarding mainstream Indians, their daily problems and challenges, aspirations and demands.