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| India and Bangladesh Border (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Alyssa Ayres
India’s PM Narendra Modi has given his support to a 2011 agreement, which could have significant implications for the region.
After nearly seventy years, it appears that India and Bangladesh may at last resolve their border issues, a legacy of the partition of India in 1947. Following the failed effort of the previous Indian government to ratify a Land Boundary Agreement negotiated with the government of Bangladesh, announced in 2011 but never passed by the Indian parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has voiced his support. As I argue in the Indian Express this week, what may appear to be a local, low-profile regional development actually has significant impact for India and its role in the world.
The border itself—see the map left—is an astoundingly complicated matter. It isn’t an issue of positioning a line here and there, but rather a Queen Anne’s lace of extraterritorial islands on either side. In an excellent scholarly study (PDF) of the border, Willem van Schendel offers the details of how this border came to be, and the impact on citizens living in these islands of territory, known as “enclaves,” on both sides.
Read the full story at The Diplomat