Offers a new theory of the minority as a political form and shows how majoritarian projects are built through its appropriation.

Around the world, national majorities are telling themselves a potent story: that they are the ones in danger. In countries as otherwise different as the United States, Serbia, and Turkey, this narrative drives political movements. These movements are not aberrations, but rather expressions of a logic embedded in the modern nation-state—a logic that turns people into numbers, numbers into votes, and difference into enmity.

In The People, in Parts, anthropologist Natasha S. Raheja homes in on a paradox visible along the India-Pakistan border. When Hindus cross into India from Pakistan seeking refuge, they are admitted as minorities in need of protection. Yet in India, their welcome into the putative majority is selective and conditional. Drawing on long-term research in the Thar Desert across Sindh and Rajasthan, Raheja examines how migration, caste, and religion shape recognition. How does majority-minority status shift by crossing a border? She argues that what appears to be bureaucratic confusion belies an intricate political machinery.

The People, in Parts offers both a searing diagnosis of minority-majority politics and the governance of migration and a reframing: The problem is not simply about who belongs and who does not but also how nationalist belonging crosses state borders, pointing to strains within liberal democracy and the nation-state order.