DHAKA: Bangladesh and India sealed on Saturday a historic land pact to swap territories, which would finally allow tens of thousands of people living in border enclaves to choose their nationality after decades of stateless limbo.

Foreign secretaries of the two countries signed a protocol and exchanged instruments of ratification to make operational the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) in the presence of visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina.

The two leaders watched as officials of the two countries signed a raft of agreements and India announced a “$2 billion line of credit” to Bangladesh in an effort to deepen bilateral ties.

Mr Modi’s first trip to Dhaka since his election victory last May has been dominated by the deal aimed to fix permanently the contours of a border which stretches some 4,000 kilometres along India’s eastern flank.

Bangladesh actually endorsed the deal in 1974 but it was only last month that India’s parliament gave its approval, teeing up Saturday’s joint ratification ceremony between Mr Modi and Ms Hasina.

Under the agreement, the countries will exchange territories, with 111 enclaves being transferred to Bangladesh and 51 to India.

Thousands of people given option to choose citizenship afresh

People living in the enclaves will be allowed to choose to live in India or Bangladesh, with the option of being granted citizenship in the newly designated territories, and the enclaves would effectively cease to exist.

Around 50,000 people who are thought to live in the landlocked islands lack many basic services such as schools, clinics or utility services because they are cut off from their national governments.

Mr Modi, who was received by Ms Hasina at the airport, compared the agreement to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.

“We’ve resolved a question that has lingered since independence. Our two nations have a settled boundary. It will make our borders more secure and people’s lives more stable,” he said after the signing of the deals.

The Bangladeshi prime minister was similarly effusive, terming Mr Modi’s visit a “historic moment”.

She said she was “extremely happy” that with the land pact “a 68-year old humanitarian issue comes to a peaceful end”.

The two leaders also inaugurated bus services connecting the Bangla­deshi capital with four cities in eastern India, and Dhaka declared a special economic zone near a southern port exclusively for Indian investors.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2015

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