BORDER FENCING IN INDIA: BETWEEN COLONIAL LEGACY AND CHANGING SECURITY CHALLENGES

Transcription

1 International Journal of Arts & Sciences, CD-ROM. ISSN: :: 07(05): (2016) BORDER FENCING IN INDIA: BETWEEN COLONIAL LEGACY AND CHANGING SECURITY CHALLENGES Said Saddiki Al-Ain University of Science of Technology, UAE Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Morocco India has km of land borders and a coastline of about 7516 km. Only 5 out of 29 Indian states have no international border or coastal line. Those long borders are shared with seven countries - China, Pakistan, Bhutan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Such extensive and porous borders that run through different kinds of terrains mountains, hills, plains valleys, forests, desert, and swamps sometimes are difficult to monitor, especially with different territorial disputes and security troubles still exist in large parts of Indian borders. Because of these artificially created boundaries that engendered many territorial disputes and left large areas porous for a variety of irregular and illegal cross-border activities, India has erected different types of barriers along its national borders. In addition to security aspects, border fencing has also political reasons closely related to the way in which these international borders were drawn. The paper discusses the complicated characteristics of India s borders with its neighboring countries, deals with the Indian strategy of fencing borders with some its neighbors and shows whether the fortification and militarization of the Indian borders by building fences and other security measures has succeeded or failed to achieve the designed goals. Keywords: Fences, Border, India, Territorial dispute, Security. Introduction Current national borders in South Asia are distinguished by two particular features: first, topographic diversity and, second, the arbitrariness by which European colonial powers delineated South Asia boundaries and imposed the notion of the territorial state. The same applies to the Post-Soviet states in central Asia where borders demarcated unilaterally or artificially without taking into account prevalent ethnic, religious, linguistic, geographical, or economic conditions. As a result of these artificially created boundaries that engendered many territorial disputes and left large areas porous for a variety of irregular and illegal cross-border activities, the countries of the region have resorted to the construction of different types of barriers along their national borders in an attempt to resolve these problems that largely resulted from the manner in which nation-state has been built in the region. To fight cross-border security problems and irregular immigration, some Asian governments, especially in South, Central and Southeast Asia, have built barriers along its national border as a simple solution to complex problems. The Asian countries have known in the last decades a huge increase in the cross-border drug trafficking. This is due to the large size and diversity in the production of the drug in the region, for example, Afghanistan has been for a long time the world s largest producer of opium, and is set to remain so for the foreseeable future because of the collapse of the state institutions. Some of the region s countries became major transit routes for drug smuggling, including Iran and Pakistan. 111

2 112 Border Fencing in India: Between Colonial... In addition to security aspects, border fencing has also political reasons closely related to the way in which these international borders were drawn. Since many of these borders were artificially and not based on natural landmarks and cultural facts, they are always easy to cross and source of dispute. So, due to border disputes between Asian countries, fencing can be seen also as unilateral attempts to finalize these borders as the de facto demarcation lines. On the other hand, some of those fences revive the long-lasting territorial disputes, especially in the Indian subcontinent. Countries of Asia can be divided into two groups in terms of the reasons and purposes of the construction of these barriers: barrier-building countries (India, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Malaysia and Thailand); and targeted Countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar, North Korea and Kyrgyzstan). If Pakistan carries out the project of fencing its border with Afghanistan, in this case, it will be at the same time a barrier-building and targeted country. Like all boundaries in South Asia, India s boundaries are also man-made, 1 and do not clearly reflect the ethnic and geographical realities on the ground. As a result, they have led to different political and territorial disputes with some neighboring countries. India has km of land borders and a coastline of about 7516 km. Only 5 out of 29 Indian states have no international border or coastal line. Those long borders are shared with seven countries - China, Pakistan, Bhutan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Such extensive and porous borders that run through different kinds of terrains mountains, hills, plains valleys, forests, desert and swamps sometimes are difficult to monitor, especially with different territorial disputes and security troubles still exist in large parts of Indian borders. The complexity of India s border also lies in its 7,516.5 km maritime boundaries which are shared with seven countries Pakistan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. With the exception of Pakistan and Bangladesh, India has virtually demarcated all its maritime boundaries with other neighbor countries by bilateral agreements. I divide this paper into two major sections. The first discusses the complicated characteristics of India s borders with its neighboring countries, and the second deals with the Indian strategy of fencing borders with some its neighbors. Indian Borders between Colonial Legacy and Complex Cultural Composition There are three types of Indian borders according to their vulnerability and the manner in which they have been delineated. History, culture, and religions played a significant role in defining the Indian borders: the first category gendered from the separation movements because of cultural and religious reasons like indo-bangla and Indo-Pakistan borders. Some important parts of those borders are still disputed. The second resulted from reciprocal invasions and reflect regional competition for influence and power like Indo-Chinese borders. The third inherited from the colonial period like the Indian Border with Myanmar, Bhutan, and Nepal. The latter was demarcated by bilateral agreements or, at least, are quiet and stable until today. India- Bangladesh and India-Pakistan Borders: Territorial Disputes and Cultural Misunderstandings India-Bangladesh Border The km long Indo-Bangla border is the longest land border that India shares with any of its neighbors. In spite of all efforts made in the last four decades, since the secession of the East Pakistan 1 Pushpita Das (ed.), India s Border Management: Select Documents (New Delhi: Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, 2010), p.1.

3 Said Saddiki 113 (now Bangladesh) in 1971, to demarcate the entire Indo-Bangladesh border, 6.5 km remain to be defined and dispute over fixing the border still exist in some parts. In June 2015, the governments of the two countries exchanged instruments of ratification to make operational the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement, which unanimously passed by Indian parliament on May 7, 2015, in a remarkable moment of the history of India-Bangladesh relations. In addition to the arbitrary division and the vague demarcation of the border which made Bangladesh surrounded by India on three sides (east, north and west), the enclaves 2 that had embedded in the heart of the two countries for more four decades, had been one of significant obstacles in strengthening bilateral relations and a long-lasting cause of the escalation of tension between the two neighbors. More importantly, the artificial delineation of the border has severely affected the traditional life of the local population who find themselves cut off from their relatives, traditional markets, agricultural land, medical facilities, etc. The India-Bangladesh border does not reflect any geographical or historical realities, but rather it is, in fact, a political and religious boundary. The partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 divided the population of the subcontinent in terms of religion. The secession of Pakistan both west and east- was intended to create a state with a majority Muslim population, but this goal has not fully achieved because of the overlapping ethnic and religious communities across the border and inside the new states. Muslims constitute 14.2% of India s population with about 172 million adherents (Census of India, 2011), whereas Hindu Bangladesh makes up about 8.2% of the Bengali population according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. The Indo-Bangladesh border is generally marked by three different topographies: flat/plain, riverine, and hilly/jungle with practically no natural obstacles. 3 The porosity and the various configurations of Indo-Bangladesh border, which stretches 4096 km, facilitates the movements of people across the border, especially from Bangladesh, which is the main source of irregular immigrants in India. The way in which people settling along the border is also another challenge facing the India s border surveillance strategies. The people of the two countries work in close proximity and the boundary passes through the middle of several heavily populated villages and divides some houses into the two sides of the border. 4 This situation makes it difficult to control the movement of people across the border. Due to the high permeability of the India-Bangladesh Border, movement of people across this border, especially from Bangladesh to India, is characterized by its diversity comprising irregular immigrants, refugees, and climate-displaced people. The fact that, people living in the villages adjacent to the border do not subscribe to any concept of nationality or recognize the boundaries of the nation-state 5 has exacerbated the difficulty of controlling the border. Each year, many Bangladeshis try to cross to India seeking for job and opportunities for good living, fleeing harsh environmental conditions, or escaping political and religious persecution. Thus, in recent years, checking cross-border movements and activities has presented a major challenge to the Indian government. 2 On June 6, 2015, the two countries signed a historical agreement to exchange those enclaves and allow people living in border enclaves to choose to live in India or Bangladesh. There were 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in Indian Territory and around 111 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh. In 1974, the two countries signed in New Delhi a Land and Boundary Agreement to demarcate the border and prevent border conflicts. According to the agreement, these enclaves were to be exchanged except for Berubari, Angarpota and Dahagram. See, Harun Ur. Rashid, Indo-Bangladesh Relations: an Insider s View (New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 2002), p N. S. Jamwal, Border management: Dilemma of guarding the India Bangladesh border, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 28, No.1 (Jan-Mar 2004), p.8. 4 Ibid., p.9. 5 Smruti S. Pattanaik, India Bangladesh Land Border: A Flawed Inheritance and a Problematic Future, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 35, No. 5 (September 2011), p. 745.

4 114 Border Fencing in India: Between Colonial... India-Pakistan Border Like the Bangladesh boundary, the India-Pakistan boundary, which spans 3325 kilometers, is also geographically complicated and runs through diverse terrain making it extremely porous, which facilitates irregular cross-border movement and allures villagers adjacent to the border in various smuggling activities. 6 Mahmud A. Durrani (2001), an academic and retired Pakistan Major General, distinguishes between four categories of the Pakistan-India borders, as follows: 7 First, International Border, also known as the Radcliff line, is about 2,200 kilometers long and is officially recognized by the two countries since August 1947 as their international border. This line defines the border between the Pakistani and India provinces of Punjab in the north and culminates at the disputed Sir Creek in the south. Second, Working Boundary is the 200 kilometers of border between the old States of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan s Punjab, starting from the northern edge of the international border, and is considered now by India as an international border. Third, Line of Control or the Cease Fire Line is about 767 kilometers long and divides the former princely state of Kashmir into the Pakistan-controlled and the Indiancontrolled portions. Fourth, Line of Contact (Holding) is about 95 kilometers long and considered as the present line of contact between the deployed Indian and Pakistani troops fighting along the Siachen glacier. 8 The border between India and Pakistan is the most sensitive of India s border because of the dispute over Kashmir, which is still the most militarily active border in India, having been the site of three wars and one near war. 9 The instability on the India-Pakistan Border has marked the relations between the two countries since the partition of the sub-continent in 1947, and fueled rivalry, mistrust and enmity between the two countries. Since the separation of Pakistan from India, the border of the two big neighbors in South Asia has witnessed a relentless conflict over the Kashmir region. Because of the Indian and Pakistani possession of nuclear weapons and their capability to wipe each other out, the Indian subcontinental became one of the most dangerously unstable regions in the world. The dispute over Kashmir always threatens to spark armed conflict between the two countries. The annexation of Kashmir by India in 1947 has been the core dispute between the two countries. In 1954, when India announced that Kashmir's accession to India was final, the 1949 Ceasefire Line (CFL) became the de facto border between the two states thereby bifurcating Kashmir. 10 Since that time, India has tried a number of measures, including erecting fences to fortify the lines of separation with Pakistan. India-China Border: a Fault Line between Two Regional Powers Although India gained its independence in 1947, it had not shared a common boundary with China until 1950 when China annexed Tibet, which was seen a political buffer between the two countries. Since then the entire India-China border, which extends 3,488 km long, is still disputed because China has not yet recognized the controversial McMahon Line. 11 The McMahon Line was drawn in 1914 to delineate the boundary Between Tibet and British India. The McMahon line is recognized by India as the international 6 Pushpita Das (ed.), India s Border Management: Select Documents, op.cit., p Mahmud Ali Durrani, Enhancing Security through a Cooperative Border Monitoring Experiment: A Proposal for India and Pakistan, Cooperative Monitoring Center, Occasional Paper/21, July 2001, p.26. See also the following Pushpita Das Book who distinguihses between three different categories of Indo-Pak border. Pushpita Das (ed.), India s Border Management: Select Documents, op.cit., pp Mahmud Ali Durrani, ibid. 9 Rick Ozzie Nelson (dir.), Border Security in a Time of Transformation: Two International Case Studies Poland and India, A Report of the CSIS Homeland Security & Counterterrorism Program, Europe Program, and South Asia Program, July Rajat Ganguly, India, Pakistan and the Kashmir Dispute, Working Paper (Asian Studies Institute, 1998), p Pushpita Das (ed.), India s Border Management: Select Documents, op.cit., p.40.

5 Said Saddiki 115 border, whereas China is still rejecting this demarcation line and claiming the eastern Himalayas which is administered by India. The territorial dispute between India and China escalated in the 1950s and in the beginning of 1960s and resulted in the 1962 war between the two countries, which ended with a new status quo border known as Line of Actual Control (LAC) that separates India from China-Tibet. As the LAC has never been delimited in addition to the mistrust of China after the 1962 conflict, India moved towards closer relations with the US and made the nuclear weapon. Because of the lack of flow of people and goods across the Chinese-Indian boundary, the management of this disputed border does not pose serious challenges to the two countries. Therefore, the erection of a fence along this border may not be on the table. Moreover, the Himalayan Mountains are natural barriers preventing significant cross-border interaction in the region. India and China have had little political interaction for most of their history, despite their geographical proximity. The tensions between the two nations has increased because of the dispute over the Tibet border region and escalated owing to their competing strategies and ambitions in South Asia. Given the strategic importance of south Asia, the two giant neighbors are expected to be in constant competition for regional leadership. Moreover, rising natural resources and energy demand from the two countries, due to their rapid industrialization and economic growth over the last two decades, lead them to more competition, especially in Africa where Chinese and Indian companies are investing more and more. The challenge is that the two countries are competing for the same resources and in the same battlefields. On the other hand, India and China have also common interests on the management of the international economic and financial systems that led them to converge their efforts with some developing countries and mitigate their disagreements, as it was reflected in the creation of the BRICS group. India-Myanmar, India-Nepal, and India-Bhutan Borders: Quite and Stable India-Myanmar Border India and Myanmar share both a 1640 km land border and a long maritime border in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The two borders were delimitated and demarcated by two bilateral agreements: the land boundary agreement signed on March 10, 1967, and ratified shortly thereafter, and the maritime boundary agreement of The India-Myanmar border, like other international Indian sub-continental frontiers, is known by high porosity. Additionally, the India-Myanmar border topography varies from low mountains in the south to high ridges and peaks in the north, adjacent to the Himalaya. As a result, unlike the India-Bangladesh borderland, the region is one of low population density. 12 As Pushpita Das (2013) points out, the India-Myanmar border is marked by a high vulnerability that is stemmed from a number of factors including: first, the boundary has not yet crystallized on the ground as lines separating two sovereign countries. Second, the border traverses a region which is infested with numerous insurgencies. Third, the India-Myanmar border has a unique arrangement in a place called the Free Movement Regime, which permits the tribes residing along the border to travel 16-km across the boundary without visa restrictions. This place becomes a safe haven for different illegal activities like drug smuggling, human trafficking, infiltration and cross-border movements of insurgents. Fourth, the inadequate management of this border by India US State Department, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Burma India Boundary, International Boundary Study, No. 80 (May 15, 1968), p Pushpita Das, India-Myanmar Border Problems: Fencing Not the Only Solution, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, November 15, (accessed April 5, 2015)

6 116 Border Fencing in India: Between Colonial... Indo -Nepal Border Nepal-India boundary, which runs along three sides west, south and east, of Nepal, is 1580 kilometers and dates back to the Anglo-Nepal War of The Nepal-India border has been open since 1950 when the two neighboring countries signed the Nepal-India Peace and Friendship Treaty in the same year. 14 The unrestricted movement of people across the border over the centuries has enhanced social and cultural ties and expanded economic and political interdependence between the two countries people, 15 who share many commonalities. Although, there are many border disputes have not yet been resolved, the special relationship between the two countries is not seriously affected and the movement of their people is allowed through any point of the border. Indo-Bhutan Border Even if the demarcation process of the 669 km long India-Bhutan border took a long time from 1961 to 2006, it is now one of the two most Indian stable borders in addition to its border with Nepal. With the exception of a small part along the tri-junction with China, the entire India-Bhutan border is now officially demarcated. 16 Bhutan is surrounded by China and India. Since its border with China is still completely closed because of their dispute over the common border and the absence of diplomatic relations, 17 India remains the only window for Bhutan to the outside world. Fencing off Indian Borders: One Policy and Different Contexts The common denominator that characterizes the structure of India s border barriers is the main component by which they are set up. Almost all of these barriers are made up of barbed wire fence. Comparing with other cases, including US-Mexico border fence, Israeli barriers, and fences of Ceuta and Melilla, the Indian border barriers are, in general, low tech and low cost. Despite the diversity of goals targeted by the Indian border fencing policy, security concerns occupy the top priority of the border control systems. Security reasons contain a wide range of illegal infiltration, including insurgency activities, terrorism, drug trafficking, and organized crimes. Preventing irregular crossings, especially undocumented immigrants, is the second most important purpose of the Indian border fencing policy. The porosity of these borders and the existence of some border tribes within more than one adjacent country, make border control extremely difficult. Additionally, disputes over border demarcation have complicated the construction of fences in some areas. The linkage between territorial disputes and the construction of border fences appears clearly on the India s border with Pakistan and Bangladesh, in which political concerns remain the key determinant of India s border fencing policy. It is difficult to deal with all of India s border barriers by classifying them into specific groups with similar characteristics, because of their various goals and different contexts in which they were built. Therefore, taking into consideration a large number of the cases studied which are similar in some characteristics and different in others, I preferred to address each one separately. 14 Vidya Bir Singh Kansakar, Nepal-India Open Border: Prospects, Problems and Challenges, Institute of Foreign Affairs, Kathmandu, Nepal, (accessed April 4, 2015). 15 Pushpita Das (ed.), India s Border Management: Select Documents, op.cit., p Pushpita Das (ed.), India s Border Management: Select Documents, op.cit.,p Bhutan is the only one of China's 14 neighbors with which it doesn't have diplomatic relations.

7 Said Saddiki 117 Fencing of the Bangla-Indo Border The idea of fencing off the Indo-Bangladesh dates back to the 1960s when some politicians in the Assam region proposed erecting a fence along in order to isolate the population of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), 18 in conjunction with a campaign launched by the Government of Assam to deport Bangladeshis settled in the region. 19 On India s eastern border, even if some Islamic groups have used in recent years the porous Indo- Bangla border to enter India and carry out bombings, the security concerns remains a minor factor in determining the Indian policy of fencing its border with Bangladesh compared to other factors, particularly irregular immigration flows. In response to these challenges, India took the decision to fence off the entire Indo-Bangla border since 1986, 20 which is considered as the central component of India s border management strategy, a collection of policies and practices aimed at hardening the border and enclosing Indian Territory on its eastern periphery. 21 In 1989, the Government of India initiated the phase I of fencing its border with Bangladesh, which ended with erecting about 854 km, almost 20 per cent of the border. 22 In 2000, India sanctioned the phase II, which aimed at fencing km, and by January 31, 2005, km had been completed. 23 In addition to the fencing, India has also constructed a series of roads along its border with Bangladesh to facilitate the monitoring operations. So far, roads in a total stretch of approximately 2,866 km have been completed in phase I, 24 and about 2800 km of border roads and 24 km of bridges are expected to be built, under the phase II, along the India-Bangladesh border in the states of West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. 25 Since 2007, the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs has admitted that the most of the fence constructed under the Phase-I in West Bengal, Assam and Meghalaya has been damaged due to adverse climatic conditions, repeated submergence etc. 26 Accordingly, the Government of India has sanctioned a project named Phase-III for the erection of 861 km of fencing replacing the entire fencing constructed under Phase-I km of fencing has been replaced so far. The scheduled date for completion of the entire project is March Nevertheless, the India-Bangladesh border had not yet been entirely fenced off. The project has not reached the entire implementation stage because of land acquisition issues, public reactions, and difficult weather conditions. In 2014, Indian 18 Jolin Joseph and Vishnu Narendran, Neither Here nor There: An Overview of South-South Migration from both ends of the Bangladesh-India Migration Corridor, Working Paper No. 569, Migration Literature Review, No. 1, ( October 2013), p Sanjoy Hazarika, Rites of Passage: Border Crossings, Imagined Homelands, India s East and Bangladesh (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2000), p Sreeradha Datta, Security of India s Northeast: External Linkages, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 24, No. 8 (November 2000), p Duncan McDuie-Ra, Tribals, Migrants and Insurgents: Security and Insecurity along the India Bangladesh Border, in Global Change, Peace & Security, Vol. 24, No.1 (2012), p Rizwana Shamshad, Politics and Origin of the Indian-Bangladesh Border Fence, paper presented to the 17 th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia in Melbourne, July 1-3, 2008), p.9; Pushpita Das, The India-Bangladesh Border: A Problem Area for Tomorrow, Working Paper (Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, December 8, 2006), (accessed November 12, 2012). 23 Jamwal, Border Management, op.cit., p.22; see also Pushpita Das, The India-Bangladesh Border: A Problem Area for Tomorrow, op.cit.. 24 Ibid. 25 Willem van Schendel, The Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia (London: Anthem Press, 2005), p Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Annual Report , op.cit., p Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Annual Report , p Ibid.

8 118 Border Fencing in India: Between Colonial... Ministry of Home Affairs set again a new deadline to continue fencing along the India-Bangladesh border, which was supposed to be completed by March While some of the disputes on the interpretation and implementation of India-Bangladesh boundary, which came into existence after India s partition in 1947, were solved, many still exist. 30 Although, the Indian government considered the fence as a protective device to prevent the influx of irregular migrants across the border, the Bangladesh government has strongly rejected this justification, based on the India- Bangladesh Agreement of 1975 which prohibited clearly the construction of any defensive structure of any kind or deployment any permanent or temporary border security forces by either country in their respective territories within 150 yards of the border. 31 Moreover, Bangladesh claimed that the fences intruded into Bangladeshi territory at several points and constituted an attempt to appropriate its territory. 32 In order to mitigate dispute between the two countries on the border management, they signed in 2011 a series of agreements aimed at making a common vision about the management of their border. The March 2011 Agreement on the non-use of lethal weapons by the Border Security Force, the Coordinated Border management Plan signed in July 2011, and the Protocol to the Agreement concerning the Demarcation of Land Boundary signed in September 2011 are some of such accords that are expected to transform the India-Bangladesh border from a border management nightmare to a zone of peace and prosperity. 33 Mehrotra-Khanna (2005) identified some major reasons that have rendered the India border management ineffective, including the incoherence of security personnel system, fragility, and inefficiency of different forces in charge of border control, and the porosity of the frontier. She concluded that these difficulties have kept the borders vulnerable and have, in turn, facilitated problems of all kinds of illegal infiltration, smuggling, and trafficking. 34 So, although fencing has undoubtedly made infiltration more difficult, it cannot end it. 35 Smugglers and irregular migrants have invented new ways, including cutting the barbed wire, to bypass the border security systems. Additionally, the two countries share almost 200 km of river border, mostly in Dhubri district of Assam and southern West Bengal, which is impossible to fence off. In relation to the demographic composition and distribution on the India-Bangladesh borderland, fencing the border cannot be effective in checking infiltration and stopping irregular cross-border activities, as long as each country has many enclaves and adverse possessions inside the other. This situation is expected to end after the entry into force of the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement (LBA), which had finally been ratified by both India and Bangladesh. In June 2015, the governments of the two countries sealed the ratification pact to operationalize the LBA and exchange the enclaves. The Arbitrariness and artificiality of Indo-Bangladesh border have been reflected in the effects of India s security control and fencing strategy along this border. The fencing has stopped or delayed in some places where more than 450 villages are located within 150 yards of the border that are excluded, by the 1975 Indo-Bangladesh border agreement, from construction defensive structure or deployment 29 The Telegraph, Fenced border by 2014, says Delhi, The Telegraph, April 29, (accessed March 29, 2014). 30 Jamwal, Border Management, op.cit., p Hiranmay Karlekar, Bangladesh the Next Afghanistan (New Delhi: Sage Publication, 2005), p.88. See also Jamwal, Border Management, op.cit., p V.K. Vinayaraj, India as a Threat: Bangladesh Perceptions, South Asian Survey, Vol.16, No. 1 (2009), p Pushpita Das, The India-Bangladesh Border, op.cit. 34 Mansi Mehrotra-Khanna, Security Challenges to India-Bangladesh Relations, Working Paper 1\2010 (Center for Land Warfare Studies, 2010), p Praveen Swami, Failed Threats and Flawed Fences: India's Military Responses to Pakistan's Proxy War, India Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2004), p.166.

9 Said Saddiki 119 security fences. 36 additionally, there are no less than 200 border villages are opposed to the fence, and in some border areas like Hilli in the Malda district of West Bengal, a row of houses have their front doors in India and their rear doors opening into Bangladesh. 37 The barbed wire fence does not only affect the social and economic life of the population and make them refugees in their motherland but also, it will deepen and perpetuate the arbitrary aspects of the border delineation. Fencing Pak-Indo Border Erecting fences and installing floodlight systems are the main projects carried out by the Indian government to secure its border with Pakistan from infiltration and other illegal cross-border activities. Pakistan has never ceased to reiterate its absolute rejection of the construction of the fence done by India along the border of Jammu and Kashmir, claiming that the barrier violates the United Nations Charter and the ceasefire agreement, and alters the status of the region which is still considered by Pakistan as disputed territory. Construction of the fences began in the late 1980s in the state of Punjab when India faced an armed Sikh separatist uprising and weapons were being smuggled from Pakistan. 38 In 1994, India pushed ahead with the construction of fences along the border of Jammu and Kashmir, but the process was stopped because of relentless Pakistani fire and resumed again along the international border in Jammu in early As on November 2009, of the 2,044 km identified for fencing along the India-Pakistan border, 1,916 km had been completed, 1,862 km had been floodlit, and 148 km of planned floodlighting remains to be completed. 40 Besides these means, the government of India started in 2007 deploying more specialized technologies on all its international borders, including in Kashmir, such as night vision devices, hand-held thermal imagers, battlefield surveillance radars, direction finders, unattended ground sensors, high-powered telescopes, etc. 41 According to some media resources, the fence consists of three layers, and is about 3.5 meters high. 42 In addition, landmines are laid along it as it runs from flat plains through mountainous forests to high passes. 43 There are two opposite approaches towards the LoC while India tries to maintain the status quo and impose the LoC as the legal international border by erecting fences and installing advanced censors along the Line, Pakistan tries to change this situation and prevent India from formalizing the LoC through both diplomatic means and proxy war. However, fencing borders do not work effectively without persuading Pakistan to take part with India in a joint strategy to control their common border. This remains a temporary solution unless the issue of Kashmir itself is resolved. Recently, the Indian government concluded, after discovered a 400-meter-long tunnel from Pakistan into India on July 28, 2012, that its expensive security border system, including fencing, unattended ground sensors, and other gadgets, has not worked as planned and not sufficient to monitor the country s 36 Chandra Moni Bhattarai, India-Bangladesh Border Fencing and Community Responses, Conference Paper, Annual International Studies Convention 2013, December 10-12, Delhi, India. (accessed December 8, Chandra Moni Bhattarai, India-Bangladesh Border Fencing and Community Responses, op.cit. 38 Rama Lakshmi, India's Border Fence extended to Kashmir Country aims to stop Pakistani Infiltration, The Washington Post, July 30, Sudha Ramachandran, India: No sitting on the Fence, Asia Times Online, December 3, 2003, (accessed February 7, 2012) 40 Ravinder Singh, Fencing and Floodlighting for Better Vigil along Borders, Press Information Bureau, Government of India, (accessed July 28, 2012) 41 Government of India, Annual Report of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (New Delhi: Government of India, 2008), p Binoo Joshi, India-Pakistan Border Fence affecting Wildlife, Indo-Asian News Service, 6/2/2008, (accessed February 7, 2012) 43 Ibid.

10 120 Border Fencing in India: Between Colonial... porous border. Accordingly, the Indian Home Ministry will build advanced structures to manage the country s more than 15,000-kilometer border with China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar. The new system uses satellites and costs more than $2 billion in subsequent years to manage the border. Detection of infiltration of Kashmiri dissidents and preventing them from carrying out attacks, whether in India or Jammu and Kashmir, remain the main reason for the building of the security fence along its de facto border with Pakistan. So, military and security objectives are the major determining factor in fencing and militarizing the India-Pakistan border, however, other goals, such as preventing irregular immigration and drug trafficking, are negligible. It is worth mentioning that the decline of cross-border infiltration in Jammu and Kashmir since 2004 is the result not only of the fencing but also political rapprochement between India and Pakistan in the last decade has played a significant role in this decline. Rampant corruption in border crossing and innovative methods used by those who cross the Indo-Pakistan border are likely to play an important role in sustaining illegal and irregular cross-border activities. 44 The porosity of the Line of Control (LoC) and its diverse geographical terrains and dense forests in some areas are among the reasons that limit the effectiveness of the fence. Furthermore, fences cannot be erected in the high mountains in which the two neighbors could deploy some measures of cooperative monitoring. Fencing the Myanmar-India Border In 2003, India and Myanmar decided to carry out a detailed study survey for fencing along the international border to check militancy and drug trafficking. 45 By the end of 2006, a 400 km border with Myanmar was already fenced and was being improved by raising the height. In addition, a stretch of 14 km near the international boundary at Moreh (a border town) has also been planned to be fenced. 46 Recently, Due to the problem of increased militant activities, the Government of India has decided to fence the area between BP No.79 to 81 on the Indo-Myanmar Border. 47 The last section of the fence has drastically affected the traditional life of many villages located along the Myanmar border and is likely to cause serious disturbance to migratory habits of wild animals and upset the breeding cycle. 48 Stopping irregular immigration, human trafficking, and narcotic trade were principal reasons that pushed India to fence a large part of its border with Myanmar. Concerning drug trafficking, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) concluded that Myanmar is the second largest opium poppy cultivating country (17% of global cultivation) 49 while India has traditionally been an important consumer of opium. 50 Besides, the opium consumed in Indian originates mainly in Myanmar 51 which ranks fourth of the countries in East and South-East Asia that are most frequently cited as a source of methamphetamine D. Suba Chandran and P.G. Rajamohan, Soft, Porous or Rigid? Towards Stable Borders in South Asia, South Asian Survey, Vol. 14, No. 1 (2007), p Mizzima News, India, Burma to fence the border, May 17, 2003, (accessed October 2, 2012) 46 C. S. Kuppuswamy, Indo-Myanmar Relations A Review, Working Paper 2043 (South Asia Analysis Group, November 2006). 47 Indian Ministry of Home Affairs, Annual Report , op.cit., p The Sangai Express, Border Fencing upsets Village Life in Moreh, May 9, 2011, (October 3, 2012); The Sangai Express, India-Burma border fencing likely to upset wildlife sanctuary, May 10, (accessed October 3, 2012) 49 UNODC, World Drug Report 2010 (Vienna: United Nations Publication, 2010), p UNODC, A century of international drug control, 2008, p.15, cited in UNODC, World Drug Report 2010, ibid., p UNODC, World Drug Report 2010, op.cit., p Ibid., p.114.

11 Said Saddiki 121 According to some Indian officials, 53 one of the main goals aimed at by fencing the India-Myanmar border (especially in Manipur province, a state in north-eastern India) is to check the free movement of separatist rebels and their new recruits to their base camps in the no-man s-land between the two countries. Dissident movements and organized crime groups finance their activities by smuggling drugs into India and exchange them for arms and ammunition and also to pay for the training of their cadres in camps run by other outfits. 54 The UNODC (2010) reported recently that the processing and trafficking of opiates constitute significant sources of income for insurgents in some opium-producing countries such as Myanmar. 55 Besides fencing the border, India has tried to cooperate with Myanmar in bordermanagement-related issues, including countering insurgency on the border, checking narcotics smuggling across the border, irregular immigration, sharing intelligence and organizing training for Myanmar s anti-narcotics officials to take strict measures in checking narcotics trafficking across the border between the two countries. 56 It is noteworthy that cross-border drug trafficking in this region is not a one-way track (from Myanmar to India), rather it has become a two-way traffic. Heroin and synthetic drugs come from Myanmar to India while chemical like acetic anhydride and ephedrine, essential from converting raw opium into heroin, are transported from India. 57 Fence remains useless and ineffective in reducing illegal cross-border activities, mainly because of the India s long porous and typographically hostile border with Myanmar, and corruption amongst the Indian agencies responsible for border control and law enforcement. 58 Conclusion It is clear that the fortification and militarization of the Indian borders by building fences and other security measures has largely failed to achieve the designed goals. That s why the Indian governments have never ceased to pump more money to reform the existing systems or adopt new ones. Specific geographical characteristics of the Indian borders and the rampant corruption in the border patrol forces make fencing and managing physically the border in this region extremely difficult. Additionally, one of the complicated issues raised by fencing the bilateral boundaries concerned disputes over the demarcation of the border. Some countries see this fencing policy led by India as a unilateral demarcation aimed at imposing de facto borders. Even if the security challenges facing India have been the major factor for the border fortification, it can be also an impetus to reinforce regional cross-border cooperation. The regional economic integration can be a solution for both territorial disputes and irregular cross-border movements. Such regional integration process can blur political aspects of south Asia s borders and transform them into spheres of economic and cultural interaction, especially in borderlands where local people share everything: cultural heritage and natural recourses. 53 See for example the statement of the Indian Major General C.A. Krishanan, Inspector General of Assam Rifles (South India) in Iboyaima Laithangbam, Fencing along Manipur-Myanmar Border progressing, The Hindu, September 8, 2010, (accessed February 12, 2012). 54 L. Kanchan, Negotiating Insurgencies, Faultlines, April 11, 2002; Pradip Saikia, North-East India as a Factor in India's Diplomatic Engagement with Myanmar: Issues and Challenges, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 33, No.6 (2009), p UNODC, World Drug Report 2010, op.cit., p Thin Thin Aung & Soe Myint, India Burma relations, in Challenges to Democratization in Burma (Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2001), pp.87, Langpoklakpam Suraj Singh, Indo-Myanmar Relations in the Greater Perspective of India's Look East Policy: Implications on Manipur, in Look East Policy & India's North East: Polemics and Perspectives, ed. Thingnam Kishan Singh (New Delhi: Concept, 2008), p.166; Bertil Lintner, Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency since 1948 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), p L. S, Singh, Indo-Myanmar Relations in the Greater Perspective of India's Look East Policy, op.cit., p. 166.

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