By H.H. Mohrmen
There were two news items that appeared in the public domain recently which had a connection with Bangladesh. The first was the arrest of a Bangladeshi national near Lad Denthring, close to Jowai, and the second was the visit of the Shillong MP to the border. In this article, I will try to address these two issues by taking into account the condition of the border and understanding the issues in their proper perspective. Let us begin by looking at how the border was created.
The Radcliffe Line
The demarcation of the Indo–East Pakistan border (now the India–Bangladesh border) in 1947 was part of the broader Partition of India and was defined by the Radcliffe Line. Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a British lawyer with no prior experience in India, was appointed Chairman of the Boundary Commissions for both Punjab and Bengal in June 1947.
The border was drawn primarily on the basis of contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims, while attempting to take into account “other factors” such as natural boundaries, communication, watercourses, and irrigation systems.
Radcliffe was given just five weeks to divide 175,000 square miles of territory with a population of 88 million people. The commission included representatives from the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, but due to deadlocks, the final decision was left to Radcliffe himself. The Radcliffe Line was finalized a few days before independence but was officially revealed on August 17, 1947, two days after India and Pakistan gained independence.
Crossing the Indo-Bangladesh Border Illegally
I had never thought I would share this story because it is not something rare; I know people cross the international border every now and then. People cross the border primarily for cultural reasons. Those who live on both sides of the border are the same people; they visit each other during times of joy and bereavement, birthdays, naming ceremonies, and church services.
The reason I crossed the border on that particular occasion was also because someone from the church I served had died. Families were divided, with one part ending up in one country and another in a different country; simply because those in power decided to draw a border through the land they lived on. I had to conduct the funeral, and the situation could not wait for me to arrange a visa. Besides, people cross the border with the tacit knowledge of the border forces on both sides of the divide.
I do not think it is wise for me to describe in detail how and from where I crossed, but in the latter part of the 1990s, I did cross and walk through the border without a visa, permit, or any document to identify who I was, for that matter.
I did not share this story until the serial bomb blasts in Assam on October 30, 2008. It was suspected that criminals from across the border were responsible for the blasts. That was when I realised that I must share my story to demonstrate how porous the border is and how easy it is to cross the international boundary.
After the story was published in one English daily, the BSF Director General, who obtained my number from the newspaper staff, called me and asked whether I had really crossed the border. I answered with a question of my own: “Do you want me to show you where I crossed from?” He later excused himself and told me what I already knew, that it is not easy to guard the border because of the terrain.
The Impact of Partition
There are two lessons I learned from this story. First, the Partition did not have much impact on the movement of people across the border. The two border forces understand the people’s need to move across. In fact, rather than Partition, it was the Bangladesh Liberation War that had a far greater impact on the people. There was a massive movement of people from then East Pakistan to India. Partition happened far away; there was no large-scale movement of people in this region, and it did not have much impact on those living along this side of the border.
About the People along the Border
The second and more important point is that the people living on both sides of the border are the same, the Khynriam, War, and Pnar—though the dominant population is War. Even the common language of communication is not Khasi but the War–Jaintia dialect.
How did our people come to live in what is now Bangladesh? This article focuses only on the area between the plains of Sylhet and the Jaiñtia Hills, which once formed part of the Jaiñtia Kingdom. The kingdom’s dominion extended southward to Sylhet, which was then called the Jayantia parganas. This area was once part of the great Jaiñtia Kingdom, and the people have lived there since time immemorial. They simply happened to be on the wrong side of the divide when the country was partitioned before independence.
There are no fewer than twenty thousand Khynriam, Pnar, and War people in Bangladesh, and they are the autochthons of the area, having lived there for generations. Except for fewer than a hundred families in Jayantiapur, the majority live in the hill areas of present-day Bangladesh, and their main occupations are betel nut (areca nut) and pan leaf cultivation.
Oranges and Trade along the Border
When I was a child, in the late seventies and early eighties, my grandmother had an orange orchard in Nongtalang. We would spend the early part of winter helping the family harvest the oranges when they ripened. I remember eating only the choicest oranges, but today the people of Nongtalang have to buy oranges from Jowai.
What is the connection of this story to the border? All the oranges produced from my grandmother’s plantation were exported to Bangladesh via Tamabil in Dawki. My point is that the border has never been a problem for those living along the Indo–Bangladesh border. As is always the case along borders, there is both legal and not-so-legal trade—but we will leave that discussion for another time.
Land Held in Adverse Possession
Let me share my third story, which has a connection with the recent visit of Dr Ricky Syngkon to the border. Once there was cross-border firing between the BSF and the then BDR at a place called Rhongkum near Muktapur. The firing lasted for several days, and we were asked to cover the flag meeting when the two sides decided to resolve the dispute. The conflict was over a rice plantation right on the border, and upon investigation, we learned that it was actually a family dispute.
The paddy field was owned by members of the Dhar clan, some of whom lived in India and others in Bangladesh. The Indian Dhar claimed they had planted the rice that season, but when harvest time came, the Dhar living in Bangladesh harvested it. The Indian Dhar complained to the BSF, and the firing started, eventually leading to the flag meeting between the two border forces.
The flag meeting also taught me a few lessons about land ownership along the border, which is peculiar to this region. While waiting for the meeting, I spoke with the BDR commander, who spoke with a British accent, and we discussed the dispute. It was clear that the disputed land lay partly in no man’s land and partly across the border pillar. The commander rightly pointed out that the land fell under Bangladeshi territory, a point with which I agreed.
However, before visiting the site, I had done my homework. I had spoken to Promiwell Lyngdoh, then Principal Secretary of the Jaiñtia Hills Autonomous District Council, who explained the concept of “land held in adverse possession.” This means that although the land falls under Bangladeshi territory, it is held by people living in India. These owners had been farming the land since before independence, so how could it be their fault that, with a single stroke of a pen, their land ended up in another country?
This is perhaps one of the most unpleasant outcomes of Partition that directly affected the local people in this region. It continued until recently, when locals had to part with their land simply because someone in authority decided to draw the border across it.
For those who question why people along the border vehemently oppose border fencing for so many years, one major reason is land held in adverse possession. Those who own such land across the border would inevitably lose it once fencing was erected. But the most important reason for opposing the fence is that the border itself is unnatural—it divides people who belong to the same ethnic group, speak the same language, share the same culture, and, most importantly, share kinship ties.
