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Third Eye
Hot Spots of an Unquiet Border: By: R.S. Mooshahary

India-Bangladesh border is 4095.7 km long - the longest international border India shares with any country. An unnatural border that divides the ethnically similar communities who have historical relationship and interdependence, it cuts through the villages in its zigzag course across the meadows and mountains. The border areas have dense population right up to the zero line, which enables them to move unidentified across the border. There are also undemarcated stretches (6.1 km in three spots), enclaves (111 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh and 51 Bangladeshi enclaves inside India) and adverse possession of land by both the countries. These factors throw great challenges to effective border management and they often lead to stands-off between the border guarding forces - the Border Security Force (BSF) of India and the Bangladesh Rifles - engaging them in intermittent exchange of firings with consequent casualties at times.

India is determined to make the border peaceful and crime-free, and has invested enormous resources to achieve it which Bangladesh does not appreciate. Of the land border of 2979.5 km, border fencing is complete in 2275 km up to the end of March, 2007. Besides the fencing, there are Border Observation Posts (BOPs)/Watch Towers at an interval of three to four km. In the border along the rivers, which is 1116.2 km where fencing is not possible, the floating border observation posts and speedboat patrolling execute the task of border policing. The ongoing fencing is formidable with two rows of barbed wires mounted on concrete base and layers of concertina wires in the middle, unlike that done earlier which was only single-row barbed wire structure and has since degraded requiring replacement. It is especially so in the Assam sector where fencing first started in the later part of eighties.

The entire stretch of fencing is 150 yards from the zero line on our side. Bangladesh is opposed to our fencing within that stretch on the ground that the agreement of 1975 between the two countries does not permit erection of any defensive structure in 300 yards equally divided on either side from the zero line. It is a deliberate misinterpretation of the agreement because the fencing is not a defensive structure but only preventive policing measure to stop cross-border illicit activities. Nevertheless, Bangladesh is hell-bent on disallowing the fencing in 150 yards of our land, resulting in continuing confrontation between the border guarding forces.

By fencing off 150-yard border territory to Bangladesh side, India has practically disowned 149 villages with a population of about 90,000 in a vast tract of land. It amounts to abdication of sovereign responsibility to the people whose land and houses are outside the fence. The people and their property there are clearly at the mercy of another country as the fencing impedes the exercise of sovereign jurisdiction by India. At places, fencing has divided the homesteads, fishponds and the village markets rendering people's life miserable. There is no compelling reason for India to submit to the irrational interpretation of an agreement, which is military-specific and not relevant to policing imperatives of either country. Indeed, Bangladesh too can erect it on their side or at least share the cost of ours as it is a measure for the common good of both the countries.

There is a suggestion to convert the fenced-off area as the no-man's land by depopulation and relocation. If acted upon, this will create a crime-prone zone and abet criminal activities further. There are already matters of concern along the border, which are threat to our national security, and no-man's land will add fuel to these explosive developments. Innumerable madrassas have mushroomed all along the border in particular, the Qaumi-Deobandi denomination, which tend to promote sectarian outlook. The government must remain proactively vigilant against religious practices that carry threat to national integrity and security by espousing exclusive culture with a bias for fundamentalism. Therefore, instead of no-man's land, the need is to promote a composite population character and this is achievable by settling there those who have developed a national outlook and discipline through their professional exposure. They are the members of our armed forces - defence and police forces combined - who may settle there and promote sense of security and unity in that unquiet stretch of our soil. This is an imperative to preclude the expanding fundamentalism and militant networks along the border belt.

Bangladesh stands to lose an enormous economic advantage by border fencing, besides the infiltration by its citizens to India. Cattle smuggling generates a huge business as cattle there are worth their weight in gold; they being the source of meat, leather and other ancillary products in an impoverished land. All those benefits accrue to them at the expense of India. The talk is that about a third of the daily meat available in Dakha alone is from India, which caters to not only local consumption but also export of processed meat. The BSF seizes about one lakh cattle heads annually in West Bengal-Bangladesh border alone, which are for clandestine trade, and surely many times more might actually be smuggled across taking advantage of the flaws in border management. So roughly on a seized-to-smuggled ratio of 1:4, it will be about 4 to 5 lakh cattle going to Bangladesh on a yearly basis.

These cattle do not just belong to the border States alone. There is a well-coordinated network for collecting the cattle from hinterland States and transporting them to West Bengal-Bangladesh border. There the clandestine cattle traders sell them to the professional cattle smugglers in numerous cattle haats dotting the border. The cattle smugglers have close links with the agents along the border and the irony is that even the cattle seized by BSF, when auctioned by the customs department, land back into their net as they have complete monopoly over this aspect of trade. It is not going to be possible to stop this lucrative business unless the cattle transportation from various States to the border is controlled. Indeed, India can augment its export revenue by legalizing the cattle trade or by processed meat export.

The other items smuggled from India are rice, wheat, sugar, boulders, timber, consumer durables and the cough syrup commercially marketed as Phensydyl in India. It is in great demand in Bangladesh and used there as an addictive. In fact, to meet its growing demand, cottage industries have sprung up for multiplying this product by crude method of dilution all along the entire West Bengal-Bangladesh border.

Bangladesh is paranoid about our border policing. They have not permitted our floating border observation vessels to sail to Dhubri despite our best efforts at the highest level. These vessels are docked in the Sundarban waters some 90 km away from Kolkata waiting for permission of the Bangladesh authorities to cross their waters for the past three years. They are determined to keep the border as porous as possible not only for facilitating the movements of the livestock and goods, but more importantly the illegal migration of its people to our soil. As is their wont, they also facilitate cross-border movements of terrorists and circulation of fake currencies in India.

Eastern India has faced the demographic invasion from Bangladesh for decades and it has created an ethnic conflict of disturbing proportion in this part of the country. India needs to reprioritize its border management strategy recognizing the Indo-Bangladesh border as the perennial source of destabilization. Bangladesh is a greater threat to India - not in military strength but in view of its demographic predilection for religious exclusivity that foments intolerance of our liberal and pluralist philosophy. It is more insidious than the military might as it subsumes the identity of a population in a manner a hungry python engulfs its prey.

In April 2005, on arrival at the Zia International Airport, Dakha, leading a delegation as the Director General, BSF, for a conference there, the Bangladesh media welcomed me by asking why in the age of globalization that underscored seamless frontiers, India was going ahead with the fencing. I quoted poet Robert Frost and replied that good fencing made good neighbours. Yes, the fencing, besides helping to contain cross-border criminal activities, will also ensure clear-cut demarcation of the boundaries, prevent day-to-day irritants, and will foster friendlier neighbourliness.

(The writer, a former Director General of the Border Security Force and the National Security Guard, is currently the State Chief Information Commissioner Asom)