Humanitarianism at the Limits of Sovereignty: Polish Refugees in Princely India

Nationality and racialization significantly determined refugeedom—the matrix of bureaucratic practices, laws, social and cultural relations, and refugee experiences (Gatrell, 2016). This was particularly true for the six thousand Polish nationals in a refugee camp near Kolhapur, a quasi-sovereign territory with native rule (Princely State) in Britain’s Indian empire. British colonial officials in New Delhi and London relied on the private land and finances of Princely States like Kolhapur, Nawanagar, and Jamnagar to provide refuge for displaced Polish nationals. But with that privacy came limitations on the Government of India’s ability to act when refugees came into conflict with the local population and with the priorities of colonial governance.

This paper zooms in on administrative records of the Kolhapur refugee camp to unravel the specificities of the Polish refugee experience in the landscape of camps for foreigners in the British Raj during the Second World War. It argues that in establishing the camp in Valivade in 1942, Kolhapur’s rulers sought an opportunity to extend their power on the new stage offered by international humanitarianism. However, in doing so they also created an enclave of allied “aliens” that were simultaneously racialized as white and “Other” by the surrounding population and by British imperial officials, respectively. This presented camp administrators with specific challenges to determine what laws, rules, and standards of behaviour to ascribe to the refugees.