1. Joya Chatterji, ‘Rights or Charity? Government and Refugees: The Debate of Relief and Rehabilitation 1947–50’, in Suvir Kaul (ed.),Partition of Memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India(Delhi, 2001).
2. I draw upon Bourdieu's work on social capital here. See Pierre Bourdieu,Distinctions: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste(Cambridge, MA, 1984).
3. The fieldwork in Delhi was conducted over different periods in 2001–2, 2005 and 2007.
4. The citizenship rights of the displaced people from Pakistan were guaranteed in retrospect under Part II (clauses 5 and 6) of the Constitution of India adopted on 26 January 1950. According to the rules, all those who had ‘migrated to the territory of India from the territory now included in Pakistan shall be deemed citizens of India at the commencement of this constitution’. The cut-off date for this provision was 19 July 1948, after which special registration had to be undertaken. This did not mean that migration took place in one clean sweep since people often travelled back and forth, unable to decide where to settle down. This is borne out by numerous records of litigation over property with the office of the Custodian General of Evacuee Property. See Syed Mohammad Husain,The Law and Practice Relating to Evacuee Property in India(Delhi, 1954).