India must fortify Chicken's Neck: Is Bangladesh Becoming A Platform For Regional Destabilization?

In the deep folds of South Asian geopolitics lies a fragile corridor, a lifeline for the Indian Union - the Siliguri Corridor, infamously termed the "Chicken's Neck".

- ANWAR A. KHAN

This slender, vulnerable strip of land-barely 22 km wide-connects mainland India to its seven northeastern states. It is not just geography that converges here, but also the overlapping anxieties of power, sovereignty, and subversion. As regional tensions simmer and political agitation in Bangladesh deepens, the strategic anxieties surrounding this corridor have become more than a cartographer's concern-they have turned into real, volatile tremors across diplomatic tables.

At the core of this tectonic shift is Bangladesh, the land of martyrs and a nation forged in the blood of 1971, now hijacked

geostrategic lifeline of India. The Siliguri Corridor, situated in northern West Bengal, is a precarious bottleneck that holds together the Indian Union's fragile northeast. Surrounded by Bangladesh to the south, Nepal to the west, and Bhutan to the north, the corridor is an exposed artery. It is not just a logistical necessity but a national security imperative for India.

The terrain-dense forests, scattered hills, and bustling trade roads-offers no natural defense. In times of conflict or hostility, a mere 20-kilometer-wide incision could sever India's access to nearly 45 million people in its northeast. No Indian general, strategist, or diplomat can afford to look at this corridor with indifference.

This very geography explains India's historic obsession with keeping Dhaka within its orbit.