The BJP declared it was opposed to the Land
Boundary Agreement with Bangladesh, calling it flawed and one-sided. It further warned that it won't
support the amendment to allow implementation of the pact when the Bill comes
up in Parliament this session. BJP president Rajnath Singh also
brought up the issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed in Dhaka in 2011 was a continuation of what the
BJP-led government had started. The longer India takes to resolve this, the
harder it will get with geography taking a toll and rivers changing course. Under Sheikh Hasina, India has got unprecedented
cooperation from Bangladesh on security issues. Dhaka has handed over men
without an extradition treaty, it has uprooted training camps and disrupted networks of northeast insurgents operating form its territory, and
taken action against terrorists from Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Indian Mujahideen. In other words, it
has acted to curb Pakistan's ISI.
The Land Boundary Agreement is a result of
painstaking negotiations, consultations with people living in the affected
areas and the state governments of Assam,
Meghalaya, Tripura and West Bengal. These state governments have already given
their written consent. They want official boundaries realigned to maintain
status quo on territories in ''adverse possession'' to prevent uprooting large
numbers of people who want to stay where they are. When the people most
affected and the relevant state governments are agreeable, for the BJP to raise
objections appears to be a needless exercise in useless politics.
The agreement is eminently practical because it
deals with the situation on the ground and does what the people want after
extensive opinion surveys. Most significantly, it will not lead to displacement
- a major plus for any thinking politician. What is important to understand is that the
exchange of enclaves is only a notional one since the protocol basically
converts a de facto reality into a de jure one. Bangladesh has already ratified
it. It would be wise for Indian political parties to come together to show that
India's democracy is mature
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