Little bits of India are in Bangladesh, and little bits of Bangladesh are in India. The existence of enclaves on either side of the border is a bizarre anomaly that might finally be solved by a swap.
The islands of land result from ownership arrangements made centuries ago between local princes, surviving partition of the sub-continent in 1947 after British rule, and Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence with Pakistan.
Many thousands of people live in the enclaves — often without basic services such as electricity, schools and hospitals because they are cut off from their national governments.
Photo: AFP
Most historians believe the messy situation originates from 18th-century peace treaties between the kingdom of Cooch Behar (now in the Indian state of West Bengal) and the Mughal empire.
However, local folklore suggests some enclaves were wagers during chess games between the Maharaja of Cooch Behar and the Fauhdar of Rangpur, who then ruled northern Bangladesh.
Rezanur Rahman Reza, 46, is the headmaster of a school in Dahagram, a large and relatively well-served Bangladeshi enclave inside India where about 15,000 residents live.
“None of my parents’ generation could even go to school, so they can’t read or write,” he said. “And residents in other enclaves still live in dark ages without electricity, legal rights or any land deeds.”
The exact number of people in the enclaves is uncertain, but estimates range from 150,000 to 300,000.
There are no marked borders separating the enclaves from the surrounding land, but there are checkpoints and the movements of those who live in them are controlled.
“Now is the time to settle this problem because the ties between the two nations are the best since 1975,” said Akmal Hossain, a professor of international relations at Dhaka University.
“I have been to an Indian enclave located in Bangladesh and the residents are some of the most unfortunate, stateless people, without any basic facilities,” he said. “This should have been settled a long time back.”
The residents of the enclaves and the surrounding areas are all Bengalis, whether they hold Indian or Bangladeshi citizenship. All speak the same language and could be either Hindu or Muslim. Officials in New Delhi and Dhaka are now working to negotiate a deal over the 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and 55 Bangladeshi enclaves in India.
“Both sides have begun a land survey of the enclaves and other border lands illegally possessed by the other. We shall also launch a headcount of enclaves’ residents very soon,” senior Bangladeshi official Kamal Uddin Ahmed said.
The largest enclave is about 1,900 hectares while the smallest is just the size of a couple of soccer fields. And there are even enclaves within enclaves, making the puzzle fiendishly difficult to solve.
Ahmed said the negotiations are based on unimplemented parts of a 1974 border agreement.
The deal, signed by India’s then-prime minister Indira Gandhi and Bangladesh’s founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, has been revived in part because Rahman’s daughter Sheikh Hasina is now prime minister.
Under Hasina, cross-border relations have improved after decades of mistrust, with Bangladesh gaining favor with India by handing over fugitive Indian rebels.
The Indian enclaves in Bangladesh are bigger in total than the Bangladeshi enclaves in India, and any net loss is likely to infuriate India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist group which is antagonistic towards Muslim Bangladesh.
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