As West Tripura is set to vote on Friday, Edhon Mia, Hafijur Rahman, Manowara Begum and many others living outside the barbed-fence along the India-Bangladesh border are waiting to cross over to exercise their franchise, hoping for a solution to their plight.
Hafijul, 55, who lives in West Tripura district’s Joypur area, said people like him are literally cut off from the rest of the country after the Border Security Force closes entry gates at sundown. They live on the other side of the border, where they have agricultural fields as well as ponds and other waterbodies used for pisciculture, which forms the mainstay of their livelihood.
Villagers registering themselves with the BSF. (Express photo)
“We can cross the fencing but if we do so, thieves will steal our produce and fish. So we are compelled to stay there,” he told reporters.
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Hafijur, who is a BJP panna pramukh (in charge of a number of houses in a booth), organises the 15 families who live outside the border for political events throughout the year. He hopes to get all his brethren to the polling booth on time after crossing the border gate.
“We don’t want to stay there but we are compelled to, because we want to guard our sole source of income–agricultural fields. If we get suitable compensation, we will come inside for good,” Hafijur said.
He said that if the barbed fence had been on zero point instead of 100 yards inside the zero line as is the case in Tripura, anti-socials from the other side would not have dared to interfere with the lives of Indians living on their own land, which is now outside the fence.
A different refugee story
Thanks to provisions of the 1971 Indira-Mujib Treaty and the Indo-Bangla Border Agreement signed in 1975 between the BSF and the then Bangladesh Rifles (now Border Guards of Bangladesh), there is no no-man’s land at the international border. Instead, barbed fences were erected by India and border pillars by Bangladesh at 150 yards from the zero line as per the border agreement.
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While the 1971 Indo-Pak war and the liberation of Bangladesh dramatically tilted the balance against Pakistan’s interests, a change in demography was the most imminent internal issue at hand for India. Bengali refugees from what was East Pakistan were not always received with open arms in other Northeast states, but Tripura’s story was quite different.
Villagers being checked by BSF jawans. (Express photo)
Tripura, a state with 14 lakh people, had sheltered nearly 15 lakh refugees and ran at least eight major muktijoddha (liberation warrior) training camps. The government swooped into action to feed and attend to 1.5 million refugees for months. The state then virtually became the headquarters of Bangladesh liberation planning and activity and one of the safe havens for refugees, apart from West Bengal.
While the small state’s demography was changed a lot in the process, the subsequent fencing-drawing exercise also affected the population living across the border.
While 95 per cent of Tripura’s 856-km international border is protected by barbed fence, several patches are still left unfenced because of local disputes.
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Border towns
Several important Bangladesh towns are located in close proximity to towns in Tripura. During the Liberation War, this proved to be a major impetus to the fleeing East Pakistani refugees as crossing the border barely a few kilometres from their homes was less taxing.
Akhaura in Bangladesh, which was an important sector during the war, is only 15 km from Agartala. The Akhaura integrated check post, which handles the bulk of immigration between the two countries in the Northeast, is within the city limits in the state capital.
Belonia in South Tripura district is divided nearly midway by the barbed fence with with Parshuram. Sabroom city is only 60 km from Chittagong, a major port in Bangladesh, and a few kilometres from Ramgarh.
Comilla in Bangladesh is 44 km from Udaipur, erstwhile capital of Tripura, while Bangladesh’s capital city of Dhaka is barely 120 km away from Agartala.
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Over five decades later, many families continue to cling to their ancestral land outside the barbed fence without adequate compensation and livelihood opportunities. The fencing process started nearly 20 years ago as per the Indira-Mujib Treaty mainly to ensure national security, prevent infiltration and insurgency and to reduce border-related crimes.
Bona fide Indian citizens but…
Though they are bona fide Indian citizens, Hafijur, Edhon and Manowara and others feel they are away from the mainstream of Indian life. They are often at the mercy of Border Guards of Bangladesh and anti-socials once the Indian border gates close at sundown.
So, while they are eager to vote in the parliamentary election, they want political leaders to address their issues effectively.
Indian children have to register themselves to enter as well. (Express photo)
“We frequently face problems with border gate timings. Fifteen families of us live outside the fence. We can’t work in our fields properly. Often, we can’t get our produce on time as it gets late to sell it in the local markets. If the government permanently takes us inside the fenced area, it will be the best solution,” Edhon Miah said.
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They want comprehensive compensation and resettlement plans to grant them access to government services and schemes.
Gates will remain open: CEO Puneet Agarwal
Chief Electoral Officer Puneet Agarwal has said the Election Commission, in consultation with the BSF, has arranged for eligible voters living outside the barbed fence to vote without any hurdles. He said that nearly 1,500 voters in the West Tripura constituency, which goes to the polling in the first phase, were living within 150 yards of the border fence. They would be given the opportunity to vote and the border gates would be kept open throughout the polling hours.
BSF Commandant Rajiv Vatsraj, in charge of the area, confirmed that the gates would remain open during the polling hours.
