India-Bangladesh relations to get a booster shot
The recent progress towards operationalising the India-Bangladesh land agreement has been made possible because of a rare bipartisan consensus in New Delhi. The pact is one of the biggest boosts to bilateral ties in recent years. It will clean up the currently chaotic boundary and put in place a clearly demarcated international border. Once finalised and fenced, the new border will allow the authorities on both sides to effectively patrol the region and clamp down on illicit trade, trafficking and infiltration. Equally importantly, it will bring into the mainstream more than 50,000 people who currently live in adversely-held territories and enclaves. These areas legally belong to one country but are controlled by the other. Their residents have no confirmed citizenship and no access to schools, hospitals or jobs, or even electricity provided by either nation.
Once the land boundary agreement is enforced and the enclaves are exchanged, these people will be redeemed from their stateless status. On the Indian side, this means some territory from West Bengal, Assam and Meghalaya is being seceded to Bangladesh, while from the Bangladeshi side, some territory is being transferred to West Bengal. This transfer will happen almost entirely on paper, as the pact only codifies existing ground conditions. Minimal transfer of population is expected and there will be no real loss of territorial control. Yet, astonishingly, it was this transfer of land that had held up the land boundary agreement for several years on the Indian side, though Bangladesh had ratified the agreement soon after it was signed, in 1974. In 2011, both countries signed a protocol during then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Bangladesh, which resolved the remaining disputes arising out of the 1974 agreement, paving the way for a final border agreement.
Unfortunately, it has taken another four years for the matter to be brought before Parliament. A weak Government at the Centre and electoral compulsions later on were some of the reasons for the delay in this last phase. More recently, vote-bank politics at the local level threatened to derail the process yet again, as was evident in the Assam dispute. Assam is scheduled to hold an Assembly election in 2016 and certain BJP leaders in the State were of the opinion that seceding territory in such a time would hurt their poll performance. Having done well in the municipal election, the BJP in Assam believes that it has a good chance of forming the Government in the State, and it did not want to take any risk that could rock the boat. Thankfully, the central leadership was able to bring local leaders on board and do what was in the larger interest of the nation.
On Tuesday, the Union Cabinet cleared the land boundary bill, which will now have to be passed by both Houses of Parliament and then adopted by half of the State legislatures, since it involves an amendment to the Constitution of India. The implementation of the land boundary agreement will hopefully give momentum for the resolution of the other major bilateral dispute — the Teesta water-sharing deal. It will also bring India the political capital necessary to push other issues, such as access to the North-East through Bangladesh and enhanced cooperation in counter-terrorism.