By Hassan Ali

There are some fundamental disputes between India and Bangladesh. Such disputes are cross-border killing of Bangladesh nationals, land, maritime boundary demarcations, the sharing of waters from 54 common rivers, informal trade, transnational crime, and internal interference affairs in India that have adversely affected their relationship.

Bangladesh and India share 4,096-kilometre-long international border, the fifth-longest land border globally, including 262 km in Assam, 856 km (532 mi) in Tripura, 318 km (198 mi) in Mizoram, 443 in Meghalaya, and 2,217 km in West Bengal. Since the inception of Bangladesh, they witness many killings on the border. According to the different reports, more than 5000 Bangladeshi nationals were killed by Indian forces. Between January and December, at least 101 Bangladesh nationals were shot dead and tortured to death by the Indian Force (BSF) in the border areas. Last year 2020 witnessed the highest number of killings on the border.

Bangladesh's government criticizes and condemns the killings and reminds the Indian government, again and again, to bring down the killings to zero. However, India's hegemonic behavior continuously violates sovereignty of its neighbor and in addition; India is openly doing violation of Human rights. The Bangladesh-India border is now the bloodiest one in the world due to the hegemonic foreign policy of the Indian forces. The Bangladesh-India border has now become one of South Asia's deadliest killing grounds. 

Bangladesh’s Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal in a statement condemned the illegal and inhuman conduct by forces on the border in parliament. If we visualize the last decade, in 2011, the killing of the Bangladeshi girl Felani-hardly 15 year old- by the Indian Forces and a picture of her body hanging upside down from the border wire fence on the border, carried by the international media, triggered an outcry across the globe. Bangladesh commenced a conference in Dhaka with BSF, stealthy the same statement passed by the BSF delegation that they try to bring the killings on zero. However, the question arises that who will answer the killings of more than 5000 Bangladesh nationals? However, the tragic incidents continue to paint painful stories. In the recent incident, the BSF shot a Bangladeshi woman to death along the border of West Bengal in India, just a day ahead of the BGB-BSF conference.

As the world knows, Bangladesh has achieved decades of impressive economic growth, with expectations of breaking eight percent annual GDP growth of 2019. Bangladesh is the emerging economy in the region that fears Indian hegemony. India is engaging Bangladesh on border and water disputes, and on the other side, India makes a trilateral highway between Myanmar, Thailand, and India across near the border of Bangladesh. India, later or sooner wants to engage other powers to use the route and create hurdles for Bangladesh and destabilize the Bangladeshi economy through border killings and divergent water flow. Although Chevron is one of the largest foreign investor companies, producing  55 percent of Bangladesh's domestic natural gas. USA companies are the largest foreign investors in Bangladesh. Gradually many countries are maintaining their diplomatic ties with Bangladesh, but on the other side, India is creating hurdles for Bangladeshi via different means. China is also a great partner of Bangladesh. India is provoking the world to engage Bangladesh and deploy its forces in the Indo-pacific region. Continuously violations of border and involvement in inhuman activities by Indian forces against civilians allow the international community to engage with Bangladesh in the region and achieve their goals.

India's forces do not stop there. They also intervene and violate Bangladesh's sovereignty. Many forces personnel indulge in smuggling, and they also cross the border of Bangladesh. They send fishers to smuggle and disrupt forces' attention and achieve their goals. In recent days Bangladeshi border guards opened fire at a Border Security Force (BSF) team along the Indo-Bangla river line frontier in West Bengal. According to the BGB issued at late night in Dhaka, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) said that the patrol team tried to detain three Indian fishers who had entered into Bangladesh waters in an engine-run boat, two of them managed to flee. Four-armed BSF men, including one in uniform soon intruded 650 yards inside the Bangladesh territory with a speedboat to take away the detained fisherman. Such violations are part of India's forces agenda to Bangladesh's destabilization.

However, the reason that compels Bangladeshi people to visit India is not one-dimensional as it looks from the newspaper articles. One of the main reasons for visiting India is both the sides Bengalis are living. There is relationship for centuries because historically and legally, Bengal is the part of Bangladesh and many of the same tribes are living on both sides.