[Reader-list] Killing thy neighbour: India, and its Border Security Force

[Swadhin Sen]

Killing thy Neighbour.
India, and its Border Security Force
rahnuma ahmed
 
 
Felani's clothes got entangled in the barbed wire when she was crossing the Anantapur border in Kurigram.  It
was 6 in the morning, Friday, 7th January 2011. Felani was 15, she
worked in Delhi and was returning home with her father after ten years.
To get married. She screamed. The BSF shot her dead. They took away her
body.

 
The
fence is made of steel and concrete. Packed with razor wire,
double-walled and 8-foot high, it is being built by the government of
India on its border with Bangladesh. When completed, it promises to be
larger than the United States-Mexico fence, Israel's apartheid wall
with Palestine, and the Berlin wall put together. It has been dubbed
the Great Wall of India. 

 
The
fence is being constructed, with floodlighting in parts, to secure
India's borders against interests hostile to the country. To put in
place systems that are able to "interdict" these hostile elements. They
will include a suitable mix and class of various types of hi-tech
electronic surveillance equipment such as night vision devices,
handheld thermal imagers, battle field surveillance radars, direction
finders, unattended ground sensors, high powered telescopes to act as a
"force multiplier" for "effective" border management. According to its
rulers, this is "vitally important for national security." 

 
Seventy
percent of fencing along the Bangladesh border has been completed. In
reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha on November 10, 2010, the Indian
state minister for home affairs said, fencing will be completed by
March 2012. One estimate puts the project's cost at ₤600 million. 

 
The
colonial boundary division between East Pakistan/Bangladesh and India,
notes Willem van Schendel, had little to do with modern concepts of
spatial rationality. It was anything but a straight line, snaking
"through the countryside in a wacky zigzag pattern" showing no respect
for history, cutting through innumerable geographical entities, for
example, the ancient capital of Gaur. It was reflective of someone with
an "excessively baroque mind" (The Bengal Borderland: Beyond state and
nation in South Asia, 2005)

 
The
fence divides and separates. Villages. Agricultural lands. Markets.
Families. Communities. It cuts across mangrove-swamps in the southwest,
forests and mountains in the northeast (Delwar Hussain, March 2, 2009).
It divides villages. Everyday village-life must now submit to a tangle
of bureaucracy as Indian Muslim law clerk, Maznu Rahman Mandal and his
wife Ahmeda Khatun, a Bangladeshi, discovered after Ahmeda's father
died. To attend the latter's funeral in the same village, Bhira, they
would now have to get passports from Delhi, visas from Kolkata (Bidisha
Bannerjee, December 20, 2010). It split up Fazlur Rehman's family too,
the fence snaked into their Panidhar village homestead, his younger
brother who lived right next door, is now in another country (Time,
February 5, 2009). Other border residents have had their homes split in
two, the kitchen in one country, the bedroom in another. 

 
To
access one's field, or markets, residents must now line up at long
queues at the BSF border outposts, surrender their identity cards. They
must submit to BSF's regimen, which often means disregarding what the
crop needs. As Mithoo Sheikh of Murshidabad says, "The BSF does not
understand cultivation problems." By the time we get to the field it is
noon. Sometimes we get water only at night. But we have to stop working
at 4pm, because they will not let us remain in the field. If we
disobey, they beat us, they file false charges. ("Trigger Happy."
Excessive Use of Force by Indian Troops at the Bangladesh Border, Human
Rights Watch, December 2010).

 
This
lack of `understanding' percolates to the topmost levels of both border
forces. During an official visit to Bangladesh and talks between the
BSF and the BDR (Bangladesh Rifles, recently renamed Border Guard
Bangladesh) in September 2010, Raman Srivastava, director general of
the BSF, in response to allegations that BSF troopers were killing
innocent and unarmed Bangladeshi civilians said: “The deaths have
occurred in Indian territory and mostly during night, so how can they
be innocent?” Ideas reciprocated by the BDR chief Maj. Gen. Mainul
Islam in March 2010, who, while explaining that there was a history of
“people and cattle trafficking during darkness” said, “We should not be
worried about such incidents [killings]…. We have discussed the matter
and will ensure that no innocent people will be killed.” 

 
Abdur
Rakib was catching fish in Dohalkhari lake, inside Bangladeshi
territory. It was March 13, 2009. A witness saw a BSF soldier standing
at the border, talking loudly. "It seemed that he wanted the boy to
give him some free fish." Heated argument, verbal abuse. "The BSF
pointed a gun at the boy. The boy ran and the soldier started to
shoot." Two were injured. Rakib was shot in the chest. He died
instantly. He was 13.

 
Smuggling,
cattle rustling and human trafficking has increased in the border areas
as poor farmers and landless people faced by population increases, poor
irrigation, flooding, and continuous river erosion struggle to make
ends meet. While both BSF and BGB accuse each other of corruption, the
reality, says the recent Human Rights Watch report, is that some
officials, border guards, and politicians on both sides are almost
certainly involved in smuggling. It quotes a senior BSF official,
"There are a lot of people involved, including our chaps. That is why
only these farmers, with one or two cows are caught, not groups that
ferry large consignments of cattle or drugs." 

 
A
culture of impunity prevails, says Kirity Roy, head of Manabadhikar
Suraksha Mancha (Masum), a Kolkata-based human rights organisation. We
have repeatedly approached the courts, the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC), the National Minorities Commission, the National
Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the National
Commission for Protection of Child Rights. But none of the cases raised
have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion. In some cases, family
members appeared before the BSF court of inquiry but we, as the de
facto complainant, were never summoned to appear or depose before any
inquiry conducted by BSF. No verdicts have been made public.

 
Neither
has BSF provided any details to Bangladeshi authorities of any BSF
personnel having been prosecuted for human rights violation. Impunity
is legally sanctioned as the BSF is exempt from criminal prosecution
unless specific approval is granted by the Indian government. A new
bill to prohibit torture is being considered by the Indian parliament,
it includes legal impunity.

 
On
April 22, 2009, when Rabindranath Mandal and his wife were returning to
Bangladesh after having illegally gone to India for Rabindranath's
treatment, a BSF patrol team from Ghojadanga camp detained them. She
was raped. Rabindranath tried to save her, they killed him. The
following morning, the BSF jawans left her and her husband's dead body
at the Zero Line at Lakkhidari.

 
The
reason for building the fence, said an Indian Ministry of External
Affairs spokesperson, is the same as the United States' Mexico fence.
As Israel's fence on the West Bank. To prevent illegal migration and
terrorist infiltration. 

 
But
Rizwana Shamshad points out that the hysteria generated by the Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the 1980s and 1990s—Bangladeshi
Muslim `infiltration' by the millions constitutes a serious strain on
the national economy, it poses a threat to India's stability and
security, it represents a challenge to Indian sovereignty, demographic
changes will soon lead to Bangladeshi citizens demanding a separate
state from India—did
not withstand investigation. A study carried out by the Centre for
Study of Society and Secularism in 1995 revealed that the BJP-Shiv Sena
allegations were not only an exaggeration, but a complete fabrication.
Fears and insecurities had been deliberately whipped up to consolidate
Hindutva ideology; migrants, it seemed, were more preoccupied with
struggling to make a living. While the BJP-Shiv Sena had alleged that
there were 300,000 illegal Bangladeshi migrants in Mumbai, they were
able to detect and deport only 10,000 Bangladeshi migrants, when in
power (1998-2004). 

 
The
numbers vary with each media or official report, writes Rizwana. A BJP
National Executive meeting declared over 15 million (April 1992).
Nearly 10 million, said former Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta (May
6, 1997). The group of cabinet ministers (home, defence, external
affairs, finance) set up by prime minister Vajpayee post-Kargil,
reported 15 million (2000). The definitions, she adds, are prejudiced:
Muslim migrants are described as `infiltrators.' Hindu migrants as
`refugees.' Neither is there any mention of the Indian economy having
benefited from cheap labour. 

 
The
HRW report notes, few killed by the BSF have ever been shown to have
been involved in terrorism. In the cases investigated, alleged
criminals were armed with nothing but sickles, sticks and knives,
implements commonly carried by villagers. Nor do the dead bodies bear
out BSF's justification that they had fired in self-defense. Shots in
the back indicate that the victims had been shot running away. Shots at
close range signal they were probably killed in custody. 

 
BSF
kills Indian nationals too. In Indian territory. Basirun Bibi and her 6
month old grandson Ashique, May 2010. Atiur Rahman, March 2010.
Shahjahan Gazi, November 2009. Noor Hossain, September 2009.
Shyamsundar Mondal, August 2009. Sushanta Mondal, July 2009. Abdus
Samad, May 2009. The imposition of informal curfews on both sides of
the border at night, reportedly to prevent the accidental shooting of
villagers, has not lessened the number of innocent people killed. 

 
Beatings,
torture, rape, killings. What could be the reason for such compulsively
violent behaviour? According to the HRW report, it could have been
caused by previous deployment in the Indo-Pakistan border in Kashmir,
by "difficult and tense periods of duty."

 
However,
checkpoints, curfews, hi-tech electronic surveillance equipment,
harassment, intimidation, beatings, torture and sniper fire remind me
of Gaza. Not surprising, given that once finished, the fence will "all
but encircle Bangladesh" (Time, February 5, 2009). 

 
The
1947 colonial border division was reflective of someone with an
"excessively baroque mind." Its brutal enforcement through fencing,
through the deployment of trigger happy BSF soldiers, speak of a
Nazi-state mentality. 

 
Not too far-fetched given Israel and India's "limitless relationship" (Military Ties Unlimited. India and Israel, New Age, January 18, 2010).
This includes Israeli training of Indian commandos in urban warfare and
counter-insurgency operations (in Kashmir), and proposals for offering
the Border Security Forces specialised training. Given Israel's
behaviour, which Auschwitz survivor, Hajo Meyer, likens to the Nazis. "I can write up an endless list of similarities between Nazi Germany and Israel".

 
Israel's
inability to learn to live with its neighbours is increasingly turning
it into a "pariah state" (British MP). Its "paranoia" has been noted by
Israelis themselves (Gideon Levy). That a similar future awaits India,
is increasingly clear.
----------------http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/editorial/4482.html

Published in New Age, Monday December 10, 2011 http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/editorial/4482.html

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Swadhin Sen Archaeologist - Assistant Professor   Dept.of Archaeology            Tel:       +88 02 779 10 45-51 Ext. 1326 Jahangirnagar University      Mobile:  +88 0172 019 61 76   Savar,Dhaka. Bangladesh    Fax:      +88 02 779 10 52    swadhin_sen at yahoo.com; swadhinsen at hotmail.com www.juniv.edu