Assam: An open border

The key factor in the current Assam agitation is the influx of a large number of foreigners into the state, mostly from Bangladesh. Assam agitators estimate the annual infiltration at 300,000. India's border with Bangladesh is about 3,000 km, running through five states - Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram and West Bengal. Rich and fertile Assam is the ultimate eldorado for many a famished Bangladeshi. Some of them enter Assam directly through the 231 km Indo-Bangladesh border running along the Goalpara district (147 km) on the North-western flank of Assam and Cachar (84 km) on the south. Others cross through the borders along neighbouring Meghalaya, West Bengal and Tripura and move to Assam. The leaders of the Assam agitation allege that border controls are lax, providing unlimited opportunities for would-be infiltrators. The Central and state governments recently have taken steps to strengthen the policing along the frontiers, India Today correspondent Arul B. Louis who recently toured the border areas in Dhubri subdivision of Goalpara district near about 300 km from Gauhati the trijunction of Assam, West Bengal and Bangladesh reports:

While the rest of Assam echoes with the raucous din of the agitators protesting against the foreigner's infiltration into the state, the borders are quiet. In fact there is hardly a border. Emerald green fields of rice, millets and jute roll undulatingly across the gentle plains, dotted with small villages which are seldom more than clumps of thatched huts. Occasionally they are broken by gurgling streams or earthern embankments raised during wars of yesteryears to provide cover from firing across the border.

All that separates India from Bangladesh are the ubiquitous border pillars, about 75 centimetre high box-like concrete structures embedded in the earth. They are serially numbered with the four points of the compass engraved on top and marked on the respective sides with "India" and "Bangladesh". The main pillars are spaced one kilometre apart with 10 sub-pillars between them every hundred metres. Many of them lie in the middle of fields and people work nonchalantly around them. "Policing this boundary is like trying to close a sieve with little plugs," said an official who had been associated with border security.

There are no natural barriers to deter infiltrators. Even the Brahmaputra which marks off the frontier on some stretches ironically also helps infiltration. Little islands which spring up periodically in the middle of the river help the illegal immigrants. These are used as launching pads for the border runners who entrench themselves during the fierce monsoons and the fertile alluvial soil provides a source of livelihood till they are ready to move on.