Word: bsf
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...Bangladesh, every inch is important," particularly as it loses ground to rising sea levels, says Sreeradha Datta, a political scientist at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi. Bangladeshis in the area understandably bristle at the idea of being fenced in. "There are 17 companies of BSF here," says Mohammed Nazrul Islam, 37, a Bangladeshi who lives in one of the enclaves. "If the fencing is erected, in 20 or 30 years, then what will they do? Will they also build a wall...
...Privately, BSF officers admit that the ban makes little sense; dozens of Indian citizens are killed every year while trying to earn the fee of about $22 for getting a cow across. (The animals can eventually be sold for as much as $900 each.) Legalizing the trade would reduce the border violence and open a new stream of tax revenue. But few on the border expect that to happen in a majority-Hindu country. "Which government is going to allow the export of cows for slaughter?" Mitra asks. "That would just be political suicide...
...them are female, sometimes divorced. They have no other choice." Criminalizing the trade makes this already poor border population vulnerable to abuse by trading agents and border guards. Academics who study informal border trade say the volume of smuggling would not be possible without the collusion of the BSF. "There will always be black sheep," says BSF chief Kumawat, "but it's not rampant." In interviews with sex workers in the town of Petrapole, many told Sikder that they started as smugglers and turned to prostitution to finance more smuggling or to get back released goods that had been seized...
...Nowhere is this more apparent than in the enclaves of Cooch Behar. The story, as it was repeatedly told to me by various BSF officials, goes like this. The Raja of Cooch Behar and the Nawab of Rangpur, the rulers of two minor kingdoms that faced each other near the Teesta River, staked games of chess with plots of land. To settle their debts, they passed chits - pieces of paper representing the territory won or lost - back and forth. When Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the law lord who partitioned India, drew the 1947 border, Cooch Behar went to India and Rangpur...
...Like everywhere else on this border, mistrust lies just beneath what is meant to be an open exchange. In that way, Petrapole is no different from Panidhar. Here, the suspicion is out in the open. After dark, no one leaves their houses, or they risk getting stopped by the BSF, who have orders to shoot if threatened. On my way back to the main road with my BSF escorts, two men cross our paths. "They're Bangladeshi," one officer says. And they send them on their way. There's an unusual feature of the Ichamati River here: every six hours...