Azmeary Ferdoush is a postdoctoral researcher in geography at the University of Oulu, Finland. Overall, he studies how artificial notions of borders and limited spaces influence human mobility and vice versa. His research interests include, but are not limited to, borders, enclaves, (non-)citizenship, nationalism, the state, qualitative methods, South Asia and the Arctic. Belonging and national identity in India and Bangladesh are complex, historically rooted in the quarrels between Hindus and Muslims and the partition of India in 1947, mainly on the basis of religion. After partition, territorial nationalism based on religion reached a new level of public consciousness, which was strongly reflected in the enclaves. The politically appropriate and religion-based division pushed millions of people to leave the newly independent state, where they would be a minority (Muslims in India moved to Pakistan while Hindus migrated the other way). At that time, Muslims in India and Hindus in Pakistan lived in fear of persecution. Enclaves were no exception. At the time of the exchange in 2015, many Muslims living in the Indian enclaves in Bangladesh came across the border and had exchanged their land in India with Hindus in the enclaves of Bangladesh after partition. Hindus moved to the Indian mainland, while Muslims moved to Indian enclaves in Pakistan/Bangladesh. In most cases, these Muslims were unaware of the existence of enclaves and the realities of landlocked life and believed they had themselves acquired land in Pakistan.
This migration to and from enclaves has therefore served as an escape from hostile local environments. Such an exchange of countries and nationalities began shortly after partition and continued irregularly for decades. The enclaves between India and Bangladesh, also known as chiṭmahals (Bengali: ছিটমহল chiṭmôhôl[1],[2],[3],[4]) and sometimes called Pasha enclaves[5], were the enclaves along the border between Bangladesh and India in Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam and Meghalaya. In the main part of Bangladesh, there were 102 enclaves of Indian territory, which in turn contained 21 Bangladeshi counter-enclaves, one of which contained an Indian counter-enclave – the only third-order enclave in the world. On the Indian mainland, there were 71 Bangladeshi enclaves with 3 Indian counter-enclaves. A 2010 joint census found that 51,549 people lived in these enclaves: 37,334 in Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and 14,215 in Bangladeshi enclaves in India. [3] [6] Most of the men in the Mekhliganj resettlement camp are unemployed. The government had promised jobs, but only a few were made available. People who used to cultivate their own land in the Chhitmahals now have to cultivate other people`s land, and there is no place in the camp to create a garden to grow vegetables for their families. An agreement to own 162 enclaves – mostly land islands resulting from ownership made centuries ago by local princes – had proved elusive in the decades that followed. Ghosal, Aniruddah.
2015. Indo-Bangla Land Exchange: The New Indians. The Indian Express, December 6, 2015. Available online. After Bangladesh`s independence from Pakistan in 1971, India and Bangladesh committed themselves to resolving the issue of land demarcation between the two countries. On 19 March 1972, the Prime Ministers of Bangladesh and India, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Indira Gandhi, signed in Dhaka, on behalf of their respective Governments, a 25-year Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Peace, which may be extended by mutual agreement. This pact was the first step towards resolving the border dispute. In 1974, the premiers of both countries signed the Land Borders Agreement. (AGREEMENT ON LAND BORDERS BETWEEN INDIA AND BANGLADESH, Ministry of External Affairs, Website of the Government of India (May 16, 1974).) Alam, Shafiqul. 2015. Heartbreak as the land swap between Bangladesh and India divides families.
Agence France-Presse, 31 July 2015. Available online. The only initiative to connect the enclaves to their mainland was taken under the 1950 agreement, which allowed government officials access to the enclaves on their own. But the agreement was never implemented due to its complicated procedures and hostile Indo-Pakistani relations. But most importantly, the inhabitants of the enclave were able to move with a certain degree of freedom until the introduction of strict passport/visa and border controls in 1952. Since then, India and Pakistan/Bangladesh have ignored the needs of the enclave`s residents, who have been gradually isolated from state regulations due to physical distance from the mainland and political difficulties in securing government access. Neither side was sincerely willing to exercise sovereignty over its enclaves, and the real human scale of the enclave problem was not fully grasped. However, nearly seven decades without governance, problems related to anarchy, the complexity of land ownership, and the influence of local politics may not be solved as easily, and it remains to be seen whether the enclaves` complex history will end successfully.
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