Porous Bangladesh border helps mafia rule

Bangladesh border with West Bengal is a case study on how porous an international border can be.

- SUGATO HAZRA

Not only is this porous geographically speaking but also due to regular border trade, legal and illegal, among the people of both countries. The extent of the local participation in maintaining such open border could be seen when even the Border Guards of Bangladesh (BGB) joined its local population in objecting to India's BSF (Border Security Force) erecting fences along the border.

Evidently for local people on both sides, the so-called ruling party cadres of both West Bengal and Bangladesh who thrive on "border trade" and also law enforcement officials in both countries, the porous border is a source of additional income, therefore necessary.

People to people exchange between India and Bangladesh received a boost since 1971 with the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan. The existence of several enclaves in India and Bangladeshchhitmahals-helped the perpetuation of border trade. Little did the authorities in New Delhi think of the threats arising out of such illegal movements across the border. In any case, since Independence, West Bengal was a step child of the Central government ignoring rehabilitation of the huge number of Hindu refugees who were exposed to threats from a newly created hostile Pakistan. The myopia was best demonstrated in the Nehru-Liaquat pact of 1950, which innocently stated that the safety of the minorities in India and Pakistan would be responsibility of the respective governments. Nehru and his cabinet, barring Syamaprasad, turned deaf and dumb in studying the plight of Bengali Hindus.

Situation was so bad that even West Bengal Chief Minister, Dr Bidhan Chandra Ray had to send a few Dakota planes to evacuate Bengali Hindus from Dacca. In other words, New Delhi seemed satisfied as long as the Bengalis remained a problem of West Bengal alone.