Managing our borders

Needless to say, such meetings are a part of confidence building measures that are stipulated in the Guidelines For Border Authorities of 1975 concerning matters related to border management. The bi-yearly meetings are eagerly awaited events, as much for the symbolism they hold as for the very substantive issues that are put across the table by both the countries and the contribution they make in addressing the prickly matters arising on the borders from time to time.

Some of the proposals like simultaneous patrolling have come into operations and one would hope there would be more joint efforts in the actions of the two border forces, more intense than those resorted to by the people involved in trans-border criminal activities. One hopes that the DG level meeting will take place sooner rather than later.

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While talking about managing the borders there is one important aspect that most of us tend to overlook. While Mr. Radcliff may have in the most arbitrary way drawn the lines in making his land boundary award in 1947, by our failure to see the realities on the ground, we compound the matter even further.

It would be a mistake to consider the Indo-Bangladesh border as merely a strip of land joining the border pillars that demarcate the political division. Neither is it a lifeless line joining various points on the map. It is in fact a line that has divided families and cut across hearths, broken up homes, and separated homestead from the farmland that belonged to it. These are areas that are vibrant and alive. The reality is that natural interactions between people on the border that had existed for centuries were disrupted very literally with one stroke of the pen. Thus a more humane approach to some of the border issues is required of those manning our borders.

Indeed there are several border problems that must be tackled head on and resolved once and for all. One wonders why after thirty-five years the matters are still lingering? One cannot but get the impression of an attitude of skirting the issues, hoping that time might help their resolution. Time may be a great healer but it certainly does little to help solve issues that have per se not resisted resolution, but have not been resolved owing to lack of acuity on the part of the concerned persons.

There are a few issues that are creating tensions on the borders but space precludes one from touching upon all of those even most perfunctorily. What I shall attempt is to highlight only two issues that India and Bangladesh consider are impediments to efficient management of the borders.

The two issues that India feels militate against keeping the border peaceful are the issues of "illegal migration" and "insurgent camps in Bangladesh."

Without going into semantics, the validity of the term "illegal migration" is contested by some on the grounds that, since there is no regime of legal migration between the two countries, the question of illegality is a misnomer. Be that as it may, there is very little ground to dispute that there are cross border movements of people, exactly because of the very nature of the borders areas.

The compulsions for crossings are many and the cross border movements are not from one direction only. This is where the two countries need to take a more humane approach basing on the realities that exist on the ground. There is, however, enough ground to dispute the allegation that large-scale migration from Bangladesh has distorted the demographic content of some of the Indian states bordering Bangladesh, disturbing the equilibrium.

However, one cannot, overlook the human trafficking that occurs through the border, something that an alert border force can anticipate, as was seen done by the BDR recently.

As for providing Indian insurgents shelter inside Bangladesh territory, nothing that Bangladesh has said so far to refute the Indian claims have convinced India that we are not into the hurt-thy-neighbour game. One feels that Bangladesh should offer to take the Indian delegation to any location that the Indians allege are miscreant sanctuaries, to dispel their doubts.

However, some portions of the border, apart from being porous, are indeed not being overseen by either of the two border forces because of inaccessibility. And it is no secret that we are quite a bit short of the optimum strength to look after a border area of almost 4,100 km. And no one can put it past the miscreants' capability to use our terrain to transit through to other parts of their country.

The issue of border management, Bangladesh feels, has been greatly impaired by the fact that the Land Boundary Agreement of 1974 has not yet been ratified by the Indian government as yet, on the ground that the 6.5 km area still remains undemarcated.

Why this state should continue 35 years after the signing of the agreement and why the status of the border, which was determined finally, through the Noon-Nehru Agreement of 1959, and formally put into force by a constitutional amendment by India in 1960, should remain undetermined, is vexing.

Furthermore, one fails to comprehend why so many people are victims of BSF firing. Why is it that many of the victims have been farmers tilling their lands? Even some Indian nationals have died from BSF firings after being mistaken as a Bangladeshi. If some Bangladeshis do stray into the Indian territory, for one reason or another, can't they be apprehended without being shot?

There are several other issues that I shall address next week, but for the time being let me end by echoing the sentiments of an Indian scholar who says that borders in the subcontinent need not necessarily remain political barriers but can be transformed into areas of economic cooperation.

The author is Editor, Defence & Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.