Exchanging enclaves … chhitmahals
Friday, 27 August 2010
Farida Shaikh
In the 1918 census of Bengal, W.W Hunter described Cooch Behar as a 'well cultivated plain of a triangular shape intersected by numerous rivers.' Subsequently, some scholars associate this topographical feature with the emergence of Chhitmahals as a problem area in independent India. For Bangladesh, the problem of Enclaves was a token of inheritance!
Currently between the two countries Bangladesh and India, these 'slivers of land in… border areas' are known by two names. Is this a difference in semantics only?
Available sources indicate that along the northwestern boundary there are at least 192 enclaves, the political status and exchange protocol of which are yet to be settled. Of the total number, 119 enclaves inside India are claimed by Bangladesh while 73 enclaves inside Bangladesh are claimed by India.
The areas of the enclaves range from 0.405 hectare to 20.72 sq km. Some estimates suggest that by exchanging 95 to 119 enclaves (total area of 49.21 sq km) with Indian's 73 to 130 enclaves (80.29 sq km) Bangladesh will gain an area of only 31.08 sq km but this will solve a long-standing problem.
An Enclave is a geographical territory which is completely surrounded by foreign territory (including foreign territorial water) such a territory is called an enclave in respect to the surrounding foreign territory, and an exclave in respect to the territory to which it is politically attached.
There is much variation in the number of existing enclaves. According to Brendan Whyte's PhD thesis on Indo-Bangladesh enclaves, Bangladesh has 92 exclaves in Cooch Behar and district of Jalpaiguri, India. Largest Bangladeshi exclave Dahagram-Angarpota is connected to rest of Bangladesh through the Tin Bigha Corridor a tiny Indian territory leased by Bangladesh.
There are 106 Indian exclaves in Bangladesh, Panchagarh, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat and Kurigram all bordering Cooch Behar. Three of these exclaves are embodied in Bangladeshi enclaves. The largest Indian enclave Balapara Khagrabari of 3 villages embodies 10 Bangladeshi exclaves. One of these Bangladeshi exclaves, part of, Upanchowki Bhajni embodies an Indian enclave part of Dahala Khagrabari which is the world's only enclave within an enclave! The second largest Indian exclave is called Shalbari, five villages and four Bangladeshi exclaves.
Chitmahals in West Bengal means land settlement which precedes the state government's land reform program. The word also means an enclave, which are small and scattered pieces of landmass belonging to one country but are located in another country. Chit means a fragment and mahal means land. Chitmahals are enclaves that are geographically separated from the main land but paying revenue to it.
Between Bangladesh and India the total number of Chitmahals is uncertain. Currently there are 130 Indian chitmahals, 20,957 acres in Bangladesh and 95 Bangladeshi chitmahal in India covering 12,287.37 acres. According to Oxfam, an international NGO there are 1.5 lakh people, 2002, in Indian chitmahal who are citizen of neither country. There are 50,000 people living in India as evicted from chitmahal, in eastern and north eastern India.
Bangladesh has virtually no administrative control over many of its small enclaves, which measure less than an acre. Because of this, Bangladesh is not in a position to conduct development activities there or ensure normal civic life for those people who live there, although, it is generally supposed that under the Constitution, they are entitled to enjoy the rights and privileges of citizenship.
In India, the Association for the Protection of Citizen's Rights for Indian Chitmahal Residents and Oustees, APCRICRO have approached political parties, Central and State government officials with their demands.
Bangladesh and India had set up a Working Group in June 2001 to demarcate the borders and resolve the adverse possession issue and other pending problems.
Why has the Chitmahal problem remained unresolved? Arindam K. Sen, organization chairperson, said: "What started as a problem of demarcation of the border at the time of Independence has remained unresolved with the Governments of India and Bangladesh not being able to come to an agreement as to where the border should be? We have had no reply to our numerous representations to the Government of India."
Other demands are that the Chitmahals be connected to the Indian mainland by providing corridors. Official meetings between India and Bangladesh have not touched on the issue. A milestone in resolving the India-Bangladesh border issue was the India-Bangladesh Accord of 1974. This document has been taken up in all the meetings of the Working Groups held to resolve border problems. Although it made headway in the matter of the exchange of enclaves, it remained silent on Chitmahals. Clearly, the government needs to find solutions on its own.
The problem of enclaves is connected to 1947, boundary commission, under the Mountbatten Plan that was formed to divide Bengal and Punjab between India and Pakistan. Working 'with the greatest speed' the commission at pleasure did cut 'across thickly populated and long-settled areas, each of which formed an integrated economy and system of communication. Inhuman hardship followed. It was unacceptable and unpopular. It became a subject of controversy. Due to this whimsical execution of the award, enclaves on both sides of the border exist as irresolvable problems even today.
The elite class consisting of both Hindu and Muslim zamindars, nawabs, local leaders and owners of tea estates are said to have influenced working out of the award in Bengal in their own interests with fair and foul means. Bangladesh has thus inherited the enclave problem created by the 1947 partition.
In 1952 India and Pakistan entered upon an agreement aiming to 'exchange the enclaves between the two countries'. But when a part of southern Berubari (7.39 sq km), an East Bengal enclave adjacent to the Boda thana of Panchagarh district, was about to be handed over to East Bengal, opposition in India against the decision was so strong that it was decided 'to retain the piece of land by India, but in exchange for a stretch of an acre of land called 'Tin Bigha' to link Angarpota-Dahagram enclave under Patgram thana of the Nilphamari district with mainland East Bengal'. This decision was not implemented for more than two decades because of legal wrangles on the Indian side.
In 1974 an agreement was signed between Bangladesh and India to put into effect demarcation of boundaries at selected stretches. The agreement also spelt out handing over of a part of South Berubari to India in exchange of a passage linking Angrapota- Dahagram with Patgram of Bangladesh.
The handing over of the Tin-Bigha corridor/ passage, 178x85 meters, was delayed, and eight years later in 1982 another agreement was signed. The revised agreement gave residential jurisdiction to India and limited access to Bangladesh on the use of the corridor between enclave(s) and the mainland.
The implementation of this agreement was delayed on account of opposition in the border region. It took some time to settle these differences and in 1992 another protocol was signed on use of the corridor for movement of people and vehicles between enclave and the mainland Bangladesh.
The control of the corridor rested with the Indian authorities, and the problems of connecting other enclaves continue as before.
The writer can be reached at e-mail : farida_s9@optimaxbd.net
In the 1918 census of Bengal, W.W Hunter described Cooch Behar as a 'well cultivated plain of a triangular shape intersected by numerous rivers.' Subsequently, some scholars associate this topographical feature with the emergence of Chhitmahals as a problem area in independent India. For Bangladesh, the problem of Enclaves was a token of inheritance!
Currently between the two countries Bangladesh and India, these 'slivers of land in… border areas' are known by two names. Is this a difference in semantics only?
Available sources indicate that along the northwestern boundary there are at least 192 enclaves, the political status and exchange protocol of which are yet to be settled. Of the total number, 119 enclaves inside India are claimed by Bangladesh while 73 enclaves inside Bangladesh are claimed by India.
The areas of the enclaves range from 0.405 hectare to 20.72 sq km. Some estimates suggest that by exchanging 95 to 119 enclaves (total area of 49.21 sq km) with Indian's 73 to 130 enclaves (80.29 sq km) Bangladesh will gain an area of only 31.08 sq km but this will solve a long-standing problem.
An Enclave is a geographical territory which is completely surrounded by foreign territory (including foreign territorial water) such a territory is called an enclave in respect to the surrounding foreign territory, and an exclave in respect to the territory to which it is politically attached.
There is much variation in the number of existing enclaves. According to Brendan Whyte's PhD thesis on Indo-Bangladesh enclaves, Bangladesh has 92 exclaves in Cooch Behar and district of Jalpaiguri, India. Largest Bangladeshi exclave Dahagram-Angarpota is connected to rest of Bangladesh through the Tin Bigha Corridor a tiny Indian territory leased by Bangladesh.
There are 106 Indian exclaves in Bangladesh, Panchagarh, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat and Kurigram all bordering Cooch Behar. Three of these exclaves are embodied in Bangladeshi enclaves. The largest Indian enclave Balapara Khagrabari of 3 villages embodies 10 Bangladeshi exclaves. One of these Bangladeshi exclaves, part of, Upanchowki Bhajni embodies an Indian enclave part of Dahala Khagrabari which is the world's only enclave within an enclave! The second largest Indian exclave is called Shalbari, five villages and four Bangladeshi exclaves.
Chitmahals in West Bengal means land settlement which precedes the state government's land reform program. The word also means an enclave, which are small and scattered pieces of landmass belonging to one country but are located in another country. Chit means a fragment and mahal means land. Chitmahals are enclaves that are geographically separated from the main land but paying revenue to it.
Between Bangladesh and India the total number of Chitmahals is uncertain. Currently there are 130 Indian chitmahals, 20,957 acres in Bangladesh and 95 Bangladeshi chitmahal in India covering 12,287.37 acres. According to Oxfam, an international NGO there are 1.5 lakh people, 2002, in Indian chitmahal who are citizen of neither country. There are 50,000 people living in India as evicted from chitmahal, in eastern and north eastern India.
Bangladesh has virtually no administrative control over many of its small enclaves, which measure less than an acre. Because of this, Bangladesh is not in a position to conduct development activities there or ensure normal civic life for those people who live there, although, it is generally supposed that under the Constitution, they are entitled to enjoy the rights and privileges of citizenship.
In India, the Association for the Protection of Citizen's Rights for Indian Chitmahal Residents and Oustees, APCRICRO have approached political parties, Central and State government officials with their demands.
Bangladesh and India had set up a Working Group in June 2001 to demarcate the borders and resolve the adverse possession issue and other pending problems.
Why has the Chitmahal problem remained unresolved? Arindam K. Sen, organization chairperson, said: "What started as a problem of demarcation of the border at the time of Independence has remained unresolved with the Governments of India and Bangladesh not being able to come to an agreement as to where the border should be? We have had no reply to our numerous representations to the Government of India."
Other demands are that the Chitmahals be connected to the Indian mainland by providing corridors. Official meetings between India and Bangladesh have not touched on the issue. A milestone in resolving the India-Bangladesh border issue was the India-Bangladesh Accord of 1974. This document has been taken up in all the meetings of the Working Groups held to resolve border problems. Although it made headway in the matter of the exchange of enclaves, it remained silent on Chitmahals. Clearly, the government needs to find solutions on its own.
The problem of enclaves is connected to 1947, boundary commission, under the Mountbatten Plan that was formed to divide Bengal and Punjab between India and Pakistan. Working 'with the greatest speed' the commission at pleasure did cut 'across thickly populated and long-settled areas, each of which formed an integrated economy and system of communication. Inhuman hardship followed. It was unacceptable and unpopular. It became a subject of controversy. Due to this whimsical execution of the award, enclaves on both sides of the border exist as irresolvable problems even today.
The elite class consisting of both Hindu and Muslim zamindars, nawabs, local leaders and owners of tea estates are said to have influenced working out of the award in Bengal in their own interests with fair and foul means. Bangladesh has thus inherited the enclave problem created by the 1947 partition.
In 1952 India and Pakistan entered upon an agreement aiming to 'exchange the enclaves between the two countries'. But when a part of southern Berubari (7.39 sq km), an East Bengal enclave adjacent to the Boda thana of Panchagarh district, was about to be handed over to East Bengal, opposition in India against the decision was so strong that it was decided 'to retain the piece of land by India, but in exchange for a stretch of an acre of land called 'Tin Bigha' to link Angarpota-Dahagram enclave under Patgram thana of the Nilphamari district with mainland East Bengal'. This decision was not implemented for more than two decades because of legal wrangles on the Indian side.
In 1974 an agreement was signed between Bangladesh and India to put into effect demarcation of boundaries at selected stretches. The agreement also spelt out handing over of a part of South Berubari to India in exchange of a passage linking Angrapota- Dahagram with Patgram of Bangladesh.
The handing over of the Tin-Bigha corridor/ passage, 178x85 meters, was delayed, and eight years later in 1982 another agreement was signed. The revised agreement gave residential jurisdiction to India and limited access to Bangladesh on the use of the corridor between enclave(s) and the mainland.
The implementation of this agreement was delayed on account of opposition in the border region. It took some time to settle these differences and in 1992 another protocol was signed on use of the corridor for movement of people and vehicles between enclave and the mainland Bangladesh.
The control of the corridor rested with the Indian authorities, and the problems of connecting other enclaves continue as before.
The writer can be reached at e-mail : farida_s9@optimaxbd.net