Tribals, migrants and insurgents: Security and insecurity along the India-Bangladesh border

Global Change, Peace and Security

Volumn 24, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 165-182

  McDuie Ra, Duncan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES   (Australia)

Author keywords

Border fence; Borderlands; India Bangladesh border; Meghalaya; State enclosure

Indexed keywords

EID: 84860903605     PISSN: 14781158     EISSN: 14781166     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14781158.2012.641286     Document Type: Article

References (142)

1. Sanjoy Hazarika, Rites of Passage: Border Crossings, Imagined Homelands, India's East and Bangladesh (New Delhi: Penguin, 2000);
2. Reece Jones, 'Agents of Exception: Border Security and the Marginalization of Muslims in India', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2, no. 5 (2009): 879-97;
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4. Willem van Schendel, The Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia (London: Anthem Press, 2005).
5. Ravina Aggarwal, Beyond Lines of Control (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004);
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7. Parshotam Mehra, Essays in Frontier History: India, China, and the Disputed Border (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007);
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9. Reece Jones, 'Sovereignty and Statelessness in the Border Enclaves of India and Bangladesh', Political Geography 28, no. 6 (2009): 373-81.
10. Nihar Nayak, 'India-Nepal Peace and Friendship Treaty (1950): Does it Require Revision?', Strategic Studies 34, no. 4 (2010): 579-93;
11. Jon Whelpton, 'Nepal and Bhutan 2008: A New Beginning?', Asian Survey 49, no. 1 (2009): 53-8.
12. Michiel Baud and Willem van Schendel, 'Toward a Comparative History of Borderlands', Journal of World History 8, no. 2 (1997): 212.
13. For examples in Asia see Andrew Walker, The Legend of the Golden Boat: Regulation, Trade and Traders in the Borderlands of Laos, Thailand, Burma and China (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1999);
14. Laura Schoenberger and Sarah Turner, 'Negotiating Remote Borderland Access: Small-Scale Trade on the Vietnam-China Border', Development and Change 39, no. 4 (2008): 667-96;
15. Janet Sturgeon 'Border Practices, Boundaries, and the Control of Resource Access: A Case from China, Thailand and Burma', Development and Change 35, no. 3 (2004): 463-84.
16. Literature on India's global aspirations and its regional hegemony is vast. For examples see Anushree Bhattacharyya and Debashis Chakraborty, 'India's Cross-Border Infrastructure Initiatives in South and Southeast Asia', The International Spectator 46, no. 2 (2011): 109-25;
17. S. Faizi, 'Imperative of Reforming India's Foreign Policy', Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 49 (2004): 5216-18;
18. Amrita Narlikar, 'India's Rise to Power: Where does East Africa Fit in?', Review of African Political Economy 37, no. 126 (2010): 451-64;
19. David Scott, 'India's "Extended Neighborhood" Concept: Power Projection for a Rising Power', India Review 8, no. 2 (2009): 107-43.
20. Sharon Pickering, 'Border Narratives', in Borders, Mobility, and Technologies of Control, ed. Sharon Pickering and Leanne Weber (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006), 45.
21. Sreeradha Datta, 'Security of India's Northeast: External Linkages', Strategic Analysis 2, no. 8 (2000): 1503.
22. Van Schendel, Bengal Borderland, 212.
23. Peter J. Bertocci, 'Bangladesh in 1985: Resolute Against the Storms', Asian Survey 26, no. 2 (1986): 224-34;
24. Iqbal Narain and Nilma Dutta, 'India in 1986: the Continuing Struggle', Asian Survey 27, no. 2 (1987): 181-93.
25. Ministry of Home Affairs, Department of Border Management (2010), http://www.mha.nic.in/uniquepage.asp?ID_PK=450 (accessed July 13, 2010).
26. Ibid., 24.
27. N.S. Jamwal, 'Management of Land Borders', Strategic Analysis 28, no. 1 (2004): 24.
28. Willem van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 97.
29. Willem van Schendel, 'Stateless in South Asia: The Making of the India-Bangladesh Enclaves', The Journal of Asian Studies 61, no. 1 (2002): 132.
30. Jones, 'Sovereignty and Statelessness', 380.
31. Pushpita Das, 'India-Bangladesh Border Management: A Review of Government's Response', Strategic Analysis 32, no. 3 (2008): 367-88;
32. Pushpita Das, 'Evolution of the Road Network in Northeast India: Drivers and Brakes', Strategic Analysis 33, no. 1 (2009): 101-16.
33. Ministry of Home Affairs, Border Management, 24.
34. Ibid., 7.
35. Ibid., 4.
36. Ibid., 20.
37. Kulbir Krishnan, 'Policing the Indo-Bangladesh Border', Strategic Analysis 25, no. 5 (2001): 666.
38. The Armed Forces Special Power Act 1958 is a law applied in 'disturbed' areas of the Northeast. It allows for arrest without warrant, firing upon civilians and bans the assembly of more than five people. No legal proceedings can be brought against members of the armed forces under the auspices of the Act.
39. Duncan McDuie-Ra, 'Fifty-year Disturbance: The Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Exceptionalism in a South Asian Periphery,' Contemporary South Asia 1, no. 3 (2009): 255-70;
40. Dolly Kikon, 'The Predicament of Justice: Fifty Years of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in India', Contemporary South Asia 1, no. 3 (2009): 271-82.
41. Das, 'India-Bangladesh Border Management', 374.
42. Krishnan, 'Policing the Indo-Bangladesh Border', 670.
43. Van Schendel, Bengal Borderland, 302.
44. Ibid., 303-14.
45. Ibid., 192-8.
46. Claire Fox, The Fence and the River: Culture and Politics at the US-Mexico Border (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999);
47. Marc Rosenblum, 'Moving Beyond the Policy of No Policy: Emigration from Mexico and Central America', Latin American Politics and Society 46, no. 4 (2004): 91-125.
48. D. Subha Chandran and P.G. Rajamohan, 'Porous or Rigid? Towards Stable Borders in South Asia', South Asian Survey 1, no. 7 (2007): 122.
49. Prakash Singh, 'Demographic Movements: The Threat to India's Economy and Security', Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement 11, no. 1 (2002): 99-100.
50. Imtiaz Ahmed, 'Environmental Refugees and Environmental Distress Migration as a Security Challenge for India and Bangladesh', in Facing Global Environmental Change, ed. U.O Spring et al. (New York: Springer, 2009), 295-308;
51. John Podesta and Peter Ogden 'The Security Implications of Climate Change', The Washington Quarterly 31, no. 1 (2008): 115-38.
52. Sujata Ramachandran, '"Operation Pushback": Sangh Parivar, State, Slums and Surreptitious Bangladeshis in New Delhi', Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 23, no. 3 (2002): 311-32.
53. Pranati Datta, 'Push-Pull Factors of Undocumented Migration from Bangladesh to West Bengal: A Perception Study', The Qualitative Report 9, no. 2 (2004): 335-58.
54. Josy Joseph, 'Securitization of Illegal Migration of Bangladeshis to India', Institute of Defence Studies Singapore Working Papers Series 100, no. 6 (2006), http://hdl.handle.net/10220/4390 (accessed July 25, 2010).
55. Ramachandran, 'Operation Pushback'.
56. Sujata Ramachandran, 'Of Boundaries and Border Crossings', Interventions 1, no. 2 (1999): 245-6.
57. Anuj Nadadur, 'The "Muslim Threat" and the Bharatiya Janata Party's Rise to Power', Peace and Democracy in South Asia 2, nos. 1-2 (2006): 100.
58. Van Schendel, Bengal Borderland, 325.
59. Van Schendel, History of Bangladesh, 208-9.
60. Sreeradha Datta, 'Islamic Militancy in Bangladesh: The Threat from Within', Strategic Analysis 30, no. 1 (2007): 145-70.
61. Human Rights Watch, Breach of Faith: Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Bangladesh (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2005);
62. Ishtiaq Jamil and Pranad Kumar Panday, 'Conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh: An Unimplemented Accord and Continued Violence', Asian Survey 49, no. 6 (2009): 1052-70;
63. Ali Riaz, 'Bangladesh in 2005: Standing at a Crossroads', Asian Survey 46, no. 1 (2007): 107-13.
64. Humayun Kabir, 'Replicating the Deobandi Model of Islamic Schooling: The Case of a Quomi Madrasa in a District Town of Bangladesh', Contemporary South Asia 1, no. 4 (2009): 415-28;
65. Hiranmay Karlekar, Bangladesh: The Next Afghanistan? (New Delhi: Sage, 2005).
66. Pant, 'India and Bangladesh'.
67. Das, 'India-Bangladesh Border Management';
68. N.S. Jamwal, 'Border Management: Dilemma of Guarding the India-Bangladesh Border', Strategic Analysis 28, no. 1 (2002): 5-36;
69. Krishnan, 'Policing the India-Bangladesh Border'.
70. Ajit Dovel, 'Islamic Terrorism in South Asia and India's Strategic Response', Policing 1, no. 1 (2007): 63-9.
71. Jamwal, 'Management of Land Borders', 11.
72. Reece Jones 'Geopolitical Boundary Narratives, the Global War on Terror and Border Fencing in India', Transactions of the British Institute of Geographers 34, no. 3 (2009): 301.
73. Ibid., 292-3.
74. Gordon Means, 'Cease-Fire Politics in Nagaland', Asian Survey 11, no. 10 (1971): 1005-28.
75. Veena Sikri, 'India-Bangladesh Relations: The Way Ahead', India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs 65, no. 2 (2009): 153-65.
76. Subhir Bhaumik, Troubled Periphery: Crisis of India's North East (New Delhi: Sage, 2009);
77. Lawrence Cline, 'The Insurgency Environment in Northeast India', Small Wars and Insurgencies 1, no. 2 (2006): 126-47;
78. Jaideep Saikia, 'The ISI Reaches East: Anatomy of a Conspiracy', Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 25, no. 3 (2002): 185-97;
79. Sean Winchell, 'Pakistan's ISI: The Invisible Government', International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence 16, no. 3 (2003): 374-88.
80. Jamwal, 'Management of Land Borders', 17.
81. Harinder Sekhon, Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in North East India (Delhi: Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict, 2005).
82. J.N. Roy, 'Illegal Migration from Bangladesh and Security Situation in the North-east', in Illegal Migration from Bangladesh, ed. B.B. Kumar (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 2006), 97-100;
83. Myron Weiner, Sons of the Soil: Migration and Ethnic Conflict in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978).
84. Hazarika, Rites of Passage, 154-7;
85. Shrat G. Lin and Madan C. Paul, 'Bangladeshi Migrants in Delhi: Social Insecurity, State Power, and Captive Vote Banks', Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 27, no. 1 (1995): 3-20;
86. Ramachandran, 'Operation Pushback';
87. van Schendel, Bengal Borderland.
88. Duncan McDuie-Ra, 'Vision 2020 or Re-vision 1958: The Contradictory Politics of Counter-insurgency in India's Regional Engagement', Contemporary South Asia 17, no. 3 (2009): 313-30.
89. This has been well covered in literature spanning the last thirty years. See Paula Bannerjee et al., 'Indo-Bangladesh Cross-Border Migration and Trade', Economic and Political Weekly 34, no. 36 (1999): 2549-51;
90. Indraneil Das, 'The Trade in Freshwater Turtles from Bangladesh', Oryx 24, no. 3 (1990): 63-6;
91. Ishtiaq Hossain, 'India-Bangladesh Relations: Issues and Problems', Asian Survey 21, no. 11 (1981): 115-28;
92. Talukder Maniruzzaman, 'Bangladesh in 1974: Economic Crisis and Political Polarisation', Asian Survey 15, no. 2 (1975): 117-28;
93. Talukder Maniruzzaman, 'Bangladesh in 1976: Struggle for Survival as an Independent State', Asian Survey 17, no. 2 (1977): 191-200;
94. Bimal Kanti Paul and Syed Abu Hasnath, 'Trafficking in Bangladeshi Women and Girls', Geographical Review 90, no. 2 (2000): 268-76;
95. Sanjib Pohit and Nisha Taneja, 'India's Informal Trade with Bangladesh: A Qualitative Assessment', The World Economy 26, no. 8 (2003): 1187-214;
96. Mohammad J.U. Sikder and Baran Kumar Sarkar, 'Livelihoods and Informal Trade at the Bangladesh Border', Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 6, no. 3 (2005): 432-45.
97. Willem van Schendel, 'Easy Come, Easy Go: Smugglers on the Ganges', Journal of Contemporary Asia 23, no. 2 (1993): 206.
98. Anup Saikia, 'Global Processes and Local Concerns: Bangladeshi Migrants in Assam', in Illegal Migration from Bangladesh, ed. B.B. Kumar (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 2006), 201.
99. V.K. Shashikumar, 'The Subverted Indo-Bangladesh Border', Indian Defence Review 24, no. 2 (2009), http://www.indiandefencereview.com/2009/08/the-subverted-indo-bangladesh-border.html (accessed August 14, 2010).
100. Tusha Mittal, 'See No Evil, Hear No Evil', Tehelka 17, no. 16 (2010): 17-18.
101. Prasenjit Biswas and Chandan Suklabaidya, Ethnic Life-Worlds in North-East India (New Delhi: Sage, 2008), 1.
102. Bhaumik, Troubled Periphery, 1.
103. Yasmin Saikia, Fragmented Memories: Struggling to be Tai-Ahom in India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004).
104. Including the Jaintia/Pnar.
105. Duncan McDuie-Ra, 'The Constraints on Civil Society beyond the State: Gender-based Insecurity in Meghalaya, India', Voluntas 18, no. 4 (2007): 359-84.
106. Agatha Sangma in Vijay Simha, 'Treat Northeast as a Special Zone, Even If You Lose Money', Tehelka (online version) (2009), http://www.tehelka.com/story_main41.asp?filename=Agatha_Sangma.asp (accessed August 1, 2010).
107. Donkupar Roy in National Development Council, 'Address of Dr. Donkuparroy Deputy Chief Minister, Meghalaya at the Meeting of the National Development Council at New Delhi 9th December 2006', http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/52ndc/meghalaya.pdf (accessed August 29, 2010).
108. Duncan McDuie-Ra, 'Between National Security and Ethno-nationalism: The Regional Politics of Development in Northeast India', Journal of South Asian Development 3, no. 2 (2008): 185-210.
109. As Baruah has argued, the Indian government has been in the habit of appointing former military and security personnel as governors to Northeast states, creating a 'parallel political system, somewhat autonomous of the formal democratically elected governmental structure'.
110. Sanjib Baruah, Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of Northeast India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), 63.
111. 'Governor for Relook at Dist Councils' Existence', Shillong Times, September 20, 2008.
112. 'Meghalaya Fencing Hits Land Wall - BSF Blames Lax Govt', Telegraph Kolkata, February 2, 2010.
113. Ministry of Home Affairs, Status Report of Integrated Check Posts as on 24.06.2010 (2010), p. 2, http://mha.nic.in/pdfs/PR-IntCheck-240610.pdf (accessed July 14, 2010).
114. 'Indians, Bangladeshis Argue Over Fishing in Disputed Area', Shillong Times, February 23, 2010.
115. This has been analysed extensively in recent years. See Walter Fernandes and Melville Pereira, Land Relations and Ethnic Conflicts: The Case of North Eastern India (Guwahati: North Eastern Social Research Centre, 2005);
116. Duncan McDuie-Ra, 'Anti-development or Identity Crisis? Misreading Civil Society in Meghalaya, India', Asian Ethnicity 8, no. 1 (2007): 43-59;
117. Aurelius K. Nongkynrih, Khasi Society of Meghalaya (New Delhi: Indus, 2002);
118. Aurelius K. Nongkynrih, 'Who is In? Who is Out? Equity and Customary Community Forest Management in Meghalaya, India', in Hanging in the Balance: Equity and Community-Based Natural Resource Management in Asia, ed. S. Mahanty et al. (Honolulu/Bangkok: East West Centre/RECOFTC, 2009), 47-62;
119. Balsa Sangma, 'The Alienation of Land Among the Garos', in Land, People and Politics: Contest over Tribal Land in Northeast India, ed. W. Fernandes and S. Barbora (Guwahati: North Eastern Social Research Centre, 2009), 53-7.
120. Teresa Rehman, 'The Peace of the Graveyard', Tehelka 6, no. 7 (2009): 12-13.
121. President of the Khasi Student Union, personal interview, February 22, 2005, Shillong, Meghalaya, India; President of the Federation of Khasi, Jaintia and Garo Peoples, personal interview, March 5, 2005, Shillong, Meghalaya, India.
122. 'Meghalaya Push for Fencing - New Survey to be Conducted in Disputed Areas along Border', Shillong Times, October 28, 2008.
123. 'Anti-fencing Lobby Harps on Stalling Works', Shillong Times, July 31, 2006.
124. 'BSF Wants More Forces to Curb Bangladesh Influx', Indian Express, January 3, 2009;
125. E.M. Jose, 'Fencing Delay Hits BSF Job', Telegraph Kolkata, July 8, 2010.
126. Dinesh Wagle, 'Dakhar Still', Himal Southasian 23, no. 7 (2010): 45-8.
127. Asian Centre for Human Rights, Torture in India in 2010 (New Delhi: Asian Centre for Human Rights, 2010), 29.
128. Kikon, 'Predicament of Justice'.
129. Government of Meghalaya, Budget Speech 2009-2010 of Dr. Mukul Sangma (2009), http://megassembly.gov.in/budget_speech/23-06-2009.pdf (accessed July 23, 2010);
130. Government of Meghalaya, Budget Speech 2010-2011 of Dr. Mukul Sangma (2010), http://megassembly.gov.in/budget_speech/26-03-2010.pdf (accessed July 23, 2010).
131. 'Indo-Bangla "Border Haats" in Northeast Soon', Daily Star, June 26, 2010;
132. '10 Haats to be Set up at Indo-Bangla Border', Meghalaya Times, June 22, 2010.
133. Accurate estimates of the actual volume of smuggling in Meghalaya are hard to find. Bhaumik cites figures that show a big gulf in estimates. One estimate is that illegal trade between India and Bangladesh is worth 1165 crore rupees annually (approximately US$255 million), though only 4% of this is through the Northeast, including Meghalaya, suggesting a quiet border. Another estimate is that there is almost US$390 million illegal trade conducted through the Northeast itself (but the majority of this is through the India-Burma border rather than the India-Bangladesh border, suggesting high-value commodities go across one border more than the other).
134. Bhaumik, Troubled Periphery, 197-8.
135. Ibid., 199.
136. 'Rampant Cattle Smuggling Into Bangladesh Worries BSF', Outlook India, December 6, 2008.
137. McDuie-Ra, 'Between National Security'.
138. Ministry of Home Affairs, Department of Border Management, 23.
139. Table adapted from Government of Meghalaya, Meghalaya Human Development Report 2008 (Shillong: Meghalaya Planning Commission, 2009), 112.
140. Planning Commission, National Human Development Report 2001 (New Delhi: Planning Commission Government of India, 2001).
141. 'Govt Neglect Puts Border People in Anger, Despair', Shillong Times, July 21, 2010.
142. 'Mih paidbah ki 50 shnong ka thain Nongjri ban maramot hi ia ka surot', U Nongsaiň, August 20, 2010.