Care to explain what exactly did you find so funny about the comment?
Since you, as usual, insist on being polite about things, here ya go.
The “humor” of my comment was more like “Fence off the three countries from each other.....you’ve GOT to be kidding!!”
Too much to say, but this is a brief description of all that went through my mind.
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were one country, people, culture, tradition, history, etc. for 2 and ½ millenia. Both Bangladesh and Pakistan were “created” only in 1947, based on religion. There are still MILLIONS of Muslims in India, though I doubt there are more than a few Hindus in either of the two break-away countries.
Both Punjab and Bengal were provinces of India that existed for as long as India existed. They were split in half at the partition. They had their own language, history, rulers, traditions, their own people. The Bengali language is known for its beauty, poetry and music. The Punjab was also famous for its rise of Sikhism, a very weird mixture of Hinduism and Islam, the brainchild of Guru Narak. (It’s the world’s 4th largest religion, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism).
These two provinces, ripped in half by religion, simply cannot close off their borders to the other half of themselves. Their roots go back just too far and deep. There were MILLIONS and MILLIONS killed during the time right after partition (August 15, 1947) but the hostilities didn’t start then. They started with the introduction and rise of Islam dating as far back as 1209. There are STILL feuds in India about temples and mosques TODAY that date back 600 years.
Indians have been fighting with each other for as long as they have been Indians. But they really are family feuds. At least, that's what THEY say. They don’t want to break up their family but they will continue to feud. (It broke Ghandi’s heart, spirit and soul that Indians, both Hindus and Muslims, were insisting on the split. If he hadn’t been assassinated – by a Hindu of all people – the partition might not have happened.) It’s always hard for outsiders to watch this, but it’s USELESS to interfere in ANY way, shape or form. In fact, interference is greatly resented.
That fighting still doesn’t break the longer, deeper ties of their history.
All the hoop-la about fences is political propaganda and....hoop-la. That goes for the rest of the borders as well. The Muslims and Christians in India are immersed almost as deeply in the Hindu religion/culture/history (The three are inseparable.) as are the Hindus. The Pakistanis in the Punjab province and the Bangladeshis in the Bengal province WON’T be fenced off from their brethren in India....and vise versa.
Like I said at the beginning, the “humor” of my comment was more like “Fence off the three countries from each other.....you’ve GOT to be kidding!!”
Personally, I don’t think that India has what it takes to close their borders. The Commies did (USSR and eastern European satellites) and do (China, southeast Asia, Cuba) . All it takes is TONS of money/soldier-power and the iron-will of die-hard communism.