The Possibility of an Enhanced Mode of Bilateral Relationship Across the India-Bangladesh Border of West Bengal: An Anthropological Approach in Search for the Alternative Views Amnd Emerging Possibilities (original) (raw)

The Enclaves of the India-Bangladesh Border

The Enclaves of the India–Bangladesh Border, 2023

This book examines the nature of statelessness in the India-Bangladesh enclaves. It traces the historical background and the causative factors for the origin and evolution of these enclaves in a specific geographical region of pre-colonial North Bengal. The author studies the ways in which colonial intervention in this region created administrative complications in the enclaves and critically examines the postcolonial changes in Indo-Bangladesh bilateral relations, especially in resolving boundary disputes. The volume also looks at the lives of the people inhabiting the enclaves and their struggle for survival amidst conflict. Rich in archival sources, the book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of history, border studies, Indian history, South Asian politics, South Asian history, Partition studies, international relations, political studies, and refugee studies, especially those interested in India-Bangladesh relations.

REVIEWING THE MIGRANT ISSUE : BORDER AND PEOPLE IN INDO-BANGLADESH RELATIONS

Avishek Chanda, 2020

Despite occasional ups and downs, India and Bangladesh have maintained friendly relations since the latter begun its journey as an independent nation in 1971. These two South Asian neighbouring states are home to various linguistic and religious communities that are spread across borders. It has been difficult for both states to manage the porous border effectively resulting into unregulated cross-border people's movement which often evokes adverse and violent reaction from the indigenous community. Both States have sometimes engaged in mutual blame game with regard to illegal migration and illicit trade along the border. This has popped up as a serious non-traditional security threat which frequently triggers the 'securitization' and 'identity' narratives. In order to sustain friendly relations between these neighbours, this issue must be dealt with promptly with great care and understanding for mutual interest keeping Bangladesh's potential importance in BIMSTEC and Act East policy in mind.

Bangladesh-India border issues: A critical review

I critically review the literature on the Bangladesh-India borderlands to raise a couple of questions: What are the major themes and issues on the Bangladesh-India border? What are the research prospects on the border issues between the two states? Bangladesh and India share a common border of 4096 km, with a range of cross-border issues determining their bilateral relationship and cooperation. Several border issues have not only clouded these relations but have also led to the exchange of fire between the two countries' border security forces over disputed territory. This contribution broadly reviews Bangladesh-India cross-border issues and specifically calls attention to Bangladesh-India cross-border relations in the realm of comparative border research, which will expand our socio-political, economic, geographic and cultural understandings of bordering practices and border policies.

This World and the "Other": Muslim Identity and Politics on the Indo-Bangladesh Border

Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 2023

This article investigates the "othering" of Muslims in two Northeast Indian states: Assam and Tripura, in a region known for its ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity, and long history of militancy and civil unrest. Northeast Indian politics thrives on disagreement between "Us" and "Them" and tensions over illegal migration, drawing on overlapping or intersecting frames of "othering." This study asks why and how the political "othering" of Muslims persists, and why the religious frame, or the Hindu-Muslim divide, is more salient in some parts of the region than in others. Drawing on fieldwork on the Indian side of the Indo-Bangladesh border in Tripura and southern Assam, historical records and contemporary print media archives, this study compares the role of Hindu-Muslim contention in the politics of the two neighboring states and finds reproduction of the Hindu-Muslim divide in Assam and resistance to Muslim "othering" in Tripura. The theoretical contribution of this article is to confront the concept of "othering" with colonial and post-colonial frameworks of representation to understand how contemporary non-Western "worlds of difference" capitalize on, reproduce and resist vestiges of colonial representations.

Sovereignty and statelessness in the border enclaves of India and Bangladesh

Political Geography, 2009

This article investigates the 198 political enclaves along the northern section of the border between India and Bangladesh. The enclaves are a remnant of the partition of British India in 1947 and are effectively stateless spaces because most are small and located several kilometers within their host country, which has prevented any administrative contact with their home country. Drawing on interviews with current enclave residents, this article describes the creation of the enclaves and analyzes the disputes that prevented their normalization over the past 60 years. The enclaves provide an important site for scrutinizing the connections between bordering practices and sovereignty claims. They also demonstrate both the social benefits the sovereign state system has brought through the establishment of law and order and the devastating consequences it has caused by territorializing those basic social protections. The article concludes that the failure to exchange the enclaves displays the powerful role nationalist homeland narratives play in institutionalizing the concepts of sovereignty and territorial integrity, often at the expense of human rights.

India–Bangladesh Land Border: A Flawed Inheritance and a Problematic Future

Strategic Analysis, 2011

I ndia shares 4095 kilometres of land and river boundaries with Bangladesh. The border is porous, criss-crossed by rivers and hilly and mountainous terrain which has made the guarding of this border extremely difficult. Border is a political construction. People living in the villages adjacent to the border do not subscribe to any concept of nationality or recognise the boundaries of the nation state. For the people living in the 'borderlands', a non-existent line bars them from leading the natural existence they have led for centuries. In spite of the barriers their daily life takes them across the border to earn a living, whether as hired labourers or rickshaw pullers or accessing the medical facilities available across the border. The temperature of political relations between the two countries has an impact on the 'borderland'-which, however, has its own dynamic dictated by the security compulsions, border economics and activities that are intrinsic to the livelihood of the people living near the border. An issue of adverse possession has also emerged as a major flash point between the two countries, and in 2001 led to the killing of 16 BSF soldiers. Out of this vast boundary that India shares with Bangladesh, only 6.5 kilometres are yet to be demarcated.

Making Walls, Fencing Borders and Living on the Margin: Understanding the India-Bangladesh Border

JOURNAL OF BANGLADESH STUDIES, 2019

Emergence of nation states in the nineteenth century naturalized borders and boundaries as both inclusionary and exclusionary measures. Territorial integrity was viewed as the most tangible expression of the sovereignty of a nation-state, thus confirming a state's monopolistic jurisdiction over a particular territorial unit. Since then a clearly defined and enforceable boundary has remained at the heart of the existence of the nation-state, the goal of which is to accentuate territorialist consciousness. In the past decades walls and fences have continued to be erected between nation states. Against this background, this paper examines broader questions such as: why do nation states feel the necessity to erect these walls and fences? How these walls and new modes of surveillance impact the lives of the people who live on the border regions? The paper examines these questions, specifically looking at the ongoing fencing of the India-Bangladesh border. The border fencing project of India had its origin in the violent protest and anti-Bengali pogrom in Assam in the 1980s, but the physical construction began in 1989. The project was initially opposed by Bangladesh, but in recent years Bangladesh government has embraced the idea. In this paper, the fencing is discussed within the broader question of border and how fencing has become the material and symbolic manifestations of state power. The examination of Indian official narrative of the Indian government shows that the issue has been securitized and blended with growing xenophobic discourse in Indian politics. The paper also explores the lived experience of those who lives in the border areas. For them borders become doubly exclusionary.

West Bengal-Bangladesh Borders: Humanitarian Issues (Policies and Practices no. 68)

1. Chhitmahal: The Defacto Stateless of the Indi-Bangla Border by Atig GHosh 2. On the Edge: Women-Life and Confinement by Sucharita Sengupta 3. Continuum of Violence: The Case of Indo-Bangladesh Border by Paula Banerjee Atig Ghosh: Ghosh’s paper explores the lives and livelihood practices of de-facto stateless people in chhitmahals or enclaves along the border of India and Bangladesh. Sucharita Sengupta: Sengupta’s paper looked at the experiences of Bangladeshi women in Indian prisons arrested on the charge of cross-border migration without necessary documents. Paula Banerjee: Banerjee’s paper studied different forms of violence as an endemic attribute of border existence with specific focus on the Indo-Bangladesh border.