Description:This comprehensive study explores issues pertaining to the stateless status of the ethnic Buddhist Chakma refugees in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, who originally belonged to the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHTs). What sets it apart is its holistic overview of the social history of the Chakmas from the colonial period onwards. While analyzing and emphasizing the current plight of the Chakmas in India as stateless refugees, it raises the concomitant question of what it takes to qualify as citizens of a modern postcolonial state.