Coloniality of Immigration Law and the False Dichotomies of Dunki and the Right Way

Abstract

Rajkumar Hirani’s film Dunki (2023) takes its name from an immigration method that is popular among undocumented immigrants originating from states such as Punjab, Haryana, and Gujarat in India. Using this film as a case study, this article critiques immigration and visa laws that engender methods of crossing borders such as dunki, identifies the inherent classicism and racism embedded in such laws, and explores how they generate a false dichotomy between dunki and the “right way” of immigrating. It argues how such laws are aligned with neocolonial ideological projects that seek to contain and control the mobility and circulation of bodies and epistemologies from former colonies, demonstrating how what Aníbal Quijano terms the “coloniality of power” operates in the context of contemporary visa and immigration law.