Delhi-Dhaka talk enclaves again

JYOTI MALHOTRA

New Delhi, March 31, 2007 : India and Bangladesh agreed to cut through their political hostility of the last few decades to agree today that officials from both governments would undertake the first ever survey of enclaves and adverse possessions in the other’s territory.
In a bilateral meeting between External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Bangladeshi counterpart Iftekhar Choudhury in the capital, New Delhi promised to speedily work through a series of tariff and non-tariff barriers that were not only impeding trade, but had created such serious misperceptions in Dhaka that they were seen to be jeopardizing the entire relationship.
Today’s discussions were dominated by the intention to keep the positive momentum. New Delhi did not raise the issue of insurgent camps, although Mukherjee said India complimented the army-backed government of Fakhruddin Ahmed for its efforts to improve ``peace and security’’ in the country.
Both sides are now hoping that the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chief Advisor Fakhruddin Ahmad on April 2, on the eve of the SAARC summit, will take the agenda significantly forward.
The decision to undertake a first-ever joint survey ``very soon,’’ of 51 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and 11 Bangladeshi enclaves in India will possibly come as a huge relief to the few thousand people who have been living there in abysmal conditions since partition in 1947.
There will also be a joint survey of the ``adverse possessions’’ , little bits of territories that both citizens have illegally occupied in the other country.
The Foreign Secretaries will also meet regularly to discuss all issues, a forum that is common between most countries, but hadn’t been held between Delhi and Dhaka for the last two years.
However, there was no mention of any joint intention to demarcate the remaining 6.5 kms of the boundary in today’s talks.
Analysts said that a joint survey of the enclaves and adverse possessions will only show what is already known, that there was no contest over either the territory involved in the enclaves or the number of people who lived there.
In fact, it was only after the boundary was fully demarcated could the enclaves be absorbed into each other’s country, as had been envisaged by the Indira Gandhi- Mujibur Rahman Land Agreement in 1974.
Former high commissioner to Bangladesh Deb Mukherjee pointed out that both India and Bangladesh were ``equally culpable of not moving’’ all these years.
Some analysts felt that political issues in West Bengal on the Indian side, where all the Bangladeshi enclaves lie, as well as in the Bangladeshi districts where the Indian enclaves are, had prevented the resolution of the issue so far.
On paper, those living in the Indian enclaves are Indian citizens, and vice-versa, and during elections have the right to cast their vote in ballot boxes that are sent with considerable difficulty through neighbouring territory that is mostly hostile.
In effect, the ballot boxes are stuffed and the poll in those parts mostly rigged, the analysts said.
ENDS