Posted on 12/28/2005 6:33:43 AM PST by CarrotAndStick
Villagers on the Bangladesh border say the fence will cut them from their homeland
TO REACH the baked earth of his mustard field each day, Mohammed Safiqual Biswas must pass coils of barbed wire and armed guards and show his identity card at a security check. The problem is not where Mr Biswas has come from, but where he is going to. His fields lie 60 miles east of Calcutta, right in the no mans land between India and Bangladesh.
Next month India plans to fence off this area of West Bengal as part of a little-known £600 million project to erect a steel barrier right along its 2,500-mile border with its much smaller Muslim neighbour. As a result Mr Biswas and his village of 2,000 people will be sealed off from their own country.
Well be fenced out of India, the 30-year-old farmer complains. What if theres an emergency and we have to go to the mainland? What if theres no one at the gate to let us out? Well be completely cut off.
India is 30 times the size of Bangladesh and the two nations share South Asias longest border. But despite Indias help during Bangladeshs War of Independence in 1971 against what was then West Pakistan, relations between the two countries have deteriorated in recent years.
While the worlds attention has been focused on the Israeli security barrier sealing off the West Bank, India has been building a far longer fence to keep out Islamic militants, thwart cross-border smuggling and stop human trafficking.
More than 1,300 miles of the barrier has been erected in the six years since building began. Snaking through jungles, rivers and the villages of five states, Delhis floodlit, 12ft double fence packed with razor wire will render India a fortress against her neighbour.
The problem India faces is that 100,000 of its citizens live and farm on a 150-yard patch of land hugging the international border known officially as the zero line, and they live on the wrong side of the fences designated path.
Entire villages, including schools, temples and mosques lie in what will effectively become no mans land. Although Bangladeshis and Indians along the border have lived cheek by jowl for decades, and share the Bengali language and culture, relations between them are strained by suspicion.
The Indian villagers fear that once the fence is built they will be harassed by Bangladeshs security guards. They say that locked away from Indian guards their fields and homes could be looted with impunity by Bangladeshi farmers.
Rabreya Bachhri, who lives in Jayantipur, the same village as Mr Biswas, says: Even now the Bangladeshis cross over at night from their side and steal our cooking utensils and cows. Were very worried about our future. India has to look after us and keep us inside the fence or it will make us Bangladeshi.
Sandwiched between two nations, the villagers say that they get a raw deal from both countries. The Indian and Bangladeshi security forces accuse them of colluding in smuggling and illegal immigration.
Officers from Indias Border Security Force say that Bangladeshis claim they are entering India for medical treatment but do not have the required travel documents. One senior officer said: Even those who come with documents dont go back. The number of people coming into India is less than the number returning.
Officials say that the fence has already stemmed the flow of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants attempting to cross into India from about 65,000 annually a decade ago to just 10,000 this year.
Shivajee Singh, a border security force inspector-general, said: When the fence was put up the numbers came down.
But Delhi is increasingly concerned about infiltration by militants from a country with a large, poor Muslim population that was scooped from India by partition. It accuses Bangladesh of harbouring insurgent groups fighting for accession from India from its northeastern states of Assam, Tripura and Manipur.
There are also concerns about the rise of radical Islam after the spate of bombs and violence in Bangladesh. Militancy is a new dimension, Mr Singh said. Earlier people came for employment. Now were getting reports that theyre coming for terrorist activities.
India has consequently accelerated the barriers construction, hoping to complete it by spring next year. It will also increase the number of troops along its border with Bangladesh from 45,000 to 53,000. In a move to bring villagers such as Mr Biswas inside the barrier, India has asked Dhaka to permit it to build the fence within the zero line, an area that both countries promised to keep free from defence structures in an agreement made 30 years ago.
Delhi claims that its request has so far been refused. However, a senior official of the Bangladeshi Embassy in Delhi said that talks between the two nations were continuing. Were always open to discussion with friends and neighbours, he said. But the agreement cant just be changed by wishful thinking.
Oh, okay. I misunderstood you. Do you like Kipling's poetry?
I must admit, I'm not that avid a reader of poetry, but the occasional good one grasps my interest.
Applauding, good for them.
Much of the above is because I "specialized" in American Lit. in college.
"How is this a China issue? Why are you linking every Indian piece to China?
"Rivals China's Great Wall"... uh, that wasn't the point of the piece, that was your own personal stupid opinion. "
Huh? WTF? That was the headline in the original article.
If an article is about the popularity of Kentucky Fried Chicken in China, it doesn't need a tag relating it to the state of Kentucky...
It's that obvious.
Whether it needs or not is upto the guy who writes the article or fries the Chicken.
Too bad you dont like it.....but what can I say. Get over it.
""Rivals China's Great Wall"... uh, that wasn't the point of the piece, that was your own personal stupid opinion."
LOL, you are just being too paranoid. I think the Chinese reference is there because of the wall's underlying similarities to China's Great Wall, which was built to keep the Mongolian barbarians from entering Mother China. The Indian wall is being built to keep the Islamic barbarians from entering Mother India.
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