BORDERLAND LIVES: EVERYDAY NEGOTIATION OF SPACE AND POWER ALONG THE BANGLADESH–INDIA BORDER
BORDERLAND LIVES: EVERYDAY NEGOTIATION OF SPACE AND POWER ALONG THE BANGLADESH–INDIA BORDER
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The Bangladesh–India border, stretching over 4,000 kilometers, is among the most complex and densely populated international boundaries in the world. While official narratives often frame the border as a space of national security, regulation, and sovereignty, for millions of people living along this boundary, it is a lived space shaped by everyday practices of negotiation, survival, and resistance. This article explores the human geography of the Bangladesh–India border through the lens of those who inhabit it—people who are neither entirely within one state nor entirely outside it, navigating the liminal zone between legality and informality, inclusion and exclusion.
Geopolitical Context and Historical Legacy
The roots of the contemporary borderland experiences lie in the colonial and post-colonial partition histories. The 1947 Partition of British India created new geopolitical divides, carving out East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from India and generating large-scale population displacement. The border was further complicated during the 1971 Liberation War, when millions of refugees crossed into India, leaving a lasting imprint on the region's demography and politics (Samaddar, 1999). Since then, the border has become increasingly securitized, particularly with the construction of the barbed-wire fence initiated by India in the early 2000s (Jones, 2012).
Everyday Lives and Informal Border Practices
Despite state efforts to render the border impermeable, life in the borderlands reveals a different reality. People routinely cross the border informally for familial visits, agricultural work, trade, or even education. In districts like Satkhira, Rajshahi, and Sylhet, border residents engage in informal barter trade or cross-border kinship activities that blur the line between legal and illegal (van Schendel, 2005).
Women, in particular, play a central role in sustaining these informal economies, often acting as couriers or engaging in low-risk trade activities (Cons, 2016). These practices demonstrate the agency of borderlanders in adapting to restrictive regimes while challenging state sovereignty in subtle but meaningful ways.
Surveillance, Violence, and the Border Security Forces
The presence of the Border Security Force (BSF) of India and the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) marks the everyday geography of the border with fear and violence. Numerous human rights organizations have documented instances of extrajudicial killings, harassment, and arbitrary detention of civilians along the border (Human Rights Watch, 2010). These security forces function not only as instruments of national defense but also as enforcers of an uneven spatial order, where the sovereignty of the state is experienced as a form of daily intrusion.
Moreover, access to identification documents such as voter IDs, ration cards, and land records often determines one's ability to claim rights or cross the border legally. Many borderland residents, particularly in informal settlements, find themselves excluded from such documentation processes, rendering them vulnerable to both state and non-state violence (Ibrahim, 2019).
Space, Power, and Everyday Resistance
The concept of the border as a static line is misleading. Instead, borders are socially produced and contested spaces. Residents of the borderland constantly negotiate their belonging and mobility, challenging the fixity of state boundaries. Acts such as informal crossings, forging alternative documentation, or resisting eviction become forms of everyday resistance.
Children cross barbed wires to attend schools, farmers reclaim lands fenced off by authorities, and local leaders mediate between state officials and undocumented villagers. These acts exemplify what Scott (1985) termed as "weapons of the weak"—strategies deployed by marginalized populations to contest dominant power structures without overt rebellion.
Conclusion
The Bangladesh–India border is more than a geopolitical divide; it is a lived space of contradictions, where people simultaneously comply with and subvert state regulations. Through the lens of human geography, we understand the border not merely as a territorial line but as a socio-spatial construct negotiated daily by those who inhabit its margins. Their lives speak to broader themes of citizenship, identity, and state power, raising critical questions for border studies, migration policy, and regional geopolitics.
References:
Cons, J. (2016). Sensitive space: Fragmented territory at the India–Bangladesh border. University of Washington Press.
Human Rights Watch. (2010). Trigger happy: Excessive use of force by Indian troops at the Bangladesh border. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org
Ibrahim, M. (2019). Documenting the undocumented: Citizenship, legality, and survival in the Bangladesh–India borderlands. South Asian History and Culture, 10(3), 321–338.
Jones, R. (2012). Border walls: Security and the war on terror in the United States, India, and Israel. Zed Books.
Samaddar, R. (1999). The marginal nation: Transborder migration from Bangladesh to West Bengal. SAGE Publications.
Scott, J. C. (1985). Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. Yale University Press.
van Schendel, W. (2005). The Bengal borderland: Beyond state and nation in South Asia. Anthem Press.
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