‘Dere tun Dilli’ (From Dera to Delhi)’: Exploring identity formation of refugees from Dera Ismail Khan living in Delhi

The paper records oral narratives of first generation migrants from Dera Ismail Khan (DIK), a small district located in the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan, who moved across the border and lived in refugee camps before ‘settling’ in government allotted housing in Delhi. It primarily investigates the transformation of the ‘refugee’ into a ‘citizen’ and identifies the markers of what constitutes a ‘rehabilitated’ or ‘settled’ refugee. What role does memory play in the identity formation of such a community? What is remembered and what is forgotten? How does the State, and its performance of nationhood, influence a refugee’s self-image? By closely examining the relationship between the two, the paper will challenge the notion of an original or an ‘authentic’ culture, it will explore what is ‘lost and found’ during a mass exodus, and how does this experience allow for an expansion of the concept of ‘home’ to include disparate geographies, ways of living and multi socio-cultural relationships.The latter half of the paper will refer to the documentary film Dere tun Dilli (2012) made on the same theme, its journey of exploring theoretical arguments in an audio visual format and the reception of such a project by people of the community on which it is based.