How identity politics is redrawing the India–Bangladesh borderlands

Detailed summary

Identity politics along the India–Bangladesh border increasingly challenges citizenship, belonging and the shared histories of border communities.

The India–Bangladesh borderlands are not simply spaces of territorial contestation. They are landscapes shaped by shared histories, cultural continuities and deeply intertwined human relationships. These borderlands hold a profound place in Bangladesh’s history. At Baidyanathtala (later renamed Mujibnagar), near the Indian border, the country’s first government took its oath on 17 April 1971. During the Liberation War, millions of Bangladeshis crossed the border into India, fleeing atrocities committed by Pakistani forces.

Recent developments in India's northeastern border states point towards an increasingly troubling politics of identity. Demolition drives in Assam's Dhubri district targeting villages largely inhabited by Bengali-speaking Assamese Muslims, the normalisation of derogatory expressions such as Miya, and controversies surrounding villagers' encounters with the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) in Tripura have raised questions that extend beyond individual incidents. Who is considered an Indian? Why are certain communities repeatedly required to prove their legitimacy?

These questions reveal a changing relationship between territory, identity and citizenship. For people living along the border, belonging is increasingly negotiated through markers that extend beyond legal documentation: their names, language, attire, religious practices and perceived cultural affiliations. The border, in this sense, is becoming more than a geographical boundary. It is also a political instrument for distinguishing between those who are considered insiders and those who are treated as outsiders.

This is the cartography of othering: the process through which political narratives redraw the social boundaries of belonging, even within internationally recognised national territories.

The problem becomes particularly acute when religious identity is conflated with national allegiance.

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Daily Star. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.