India faces a persistent threat of cross-border terrorism from Pakistan and has an ongoing border dispute with China. As one of the world’s fastest growing economies in a largely impoverished and unstable neighborhood, the country is also often the destination for economic migrants and contraband. This is why border management remains a priority at the Ministry of Home Affairs. The department has been setting up infrastructure to enable better surveillance of the international borders and coasts by security forces.

The Department of Border Management was created in January 2004, towards the end of the term of a federal government led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). When the government was in power and BJP leader LK Advani the home minister, Pakistan army’s incursions into Jammu and Kashmir led to a brief war; Bangladesh Rifles had occupied an Indian village in bordering Meghalaya, taken 16 BSF personnel hostage and tortured and killed them; and an Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu was hijacked and the Indian Parliament complex in New Delhi attacked, both by Pakistan-sponsored outfits.

According to Indian intelligence agencies, Pakistan-sponsored terrorists looking to enter India have now turned their attention to the Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bangladesh borders due to the presence of the army along the Line of Control in Jammu & Kashmir. The November 2008 Mumbai attacks, when gunmen arrived by sea and went on a shooting spree in the city, exposed the weakly guarded Indian coastline. The department has therefore moved in to ramp up the surveillance infrastructure along the 15,106.7 km land border and 7,516.6 km coastline.

On the agenda of the department are more fences, floodlights, outposts and roads for the borders, and police stations and vessels for the coasts. Fencing of thousands of kilometers of the borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh borders is nearing completion. The 2010-11 report of the Ministry of Home Affairs says 861 kilometers of fencing along Indo-Bangladesh border had to be redone after it was “damaged due to adverse climatic conditions, repeated submergence, etc.” This project alone will cost around Rs. 8,840,000,000 ($177,367,575.70 USD). The cost of fencing and floodlighting the Indo-Pakistan border has also escalated due to recent disruptions caused by floods and earthquakes. Outposts are being added and roads built along the borders to enhance surveillance and accessibility. Before the actual construction work began, land had to be acquired from the locals and if the fence or road passed through a forest or wildlife sanctuary, clearances obtained under the Forest Conservation Act and Wildlife Act.

Apart from securing the borders, the department also provides funds to the states for the Border Area Development Programme. Since these outlying areas are among the least developed in the country, the funds will be spent on improving conditions of roads, electricity, drinking water, telephone connectivity and other basic necessities. For the fiscal year 2010-11, Rs. 6910000000 ($138,643,659.29 USD) has been released to the 17 border states, with Jammu & Kashmir being the largest beneficiary at over a billion rupees. According to the guidelines, the program would be implemented in the 0-10 km (from the border) region first, followed by 10-15 km and 15-20 km regions.

The Parliament passed the Land Ports Authority Act in 2010 to pave the way for a body that oversees Integrated Check Posts (ICP) to be built in the major entry points along the international border. All functions associated with the movement of vehicles and people like immigration, customs and security clearance will be performed by the ICPs. Thirteen ICPs have been proposed along India’s borders with Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

In the wake of the Mumbai attacks, coastal security was reviewed. Additional coastal police stations were proposed, along with a single database to register all private vessels plying Indian waters, mandatory transponders on all vessels, identity cards for fishermen and multipurpose identity cards for the coastal population.

Attached or Autonomous Bodies

The department doesn’t actually man borders. That responsibility lies with the BSF, the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) -- which monitors the Indo-Nepal border -- and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), which mans the borders, and the Indian Coast Guard and the state police forces that secure the coasts, the department also oversees the government’s infrastructure divisions like the Central Public Works Department, Engineering Projects India Limited, National Projects Construction Corporation Limited and Border Roads Organization to equip them with the necessary infrastructure. The department has also supplied the coastal states with interceptor boats built by the Goa Shipyard Limited and Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Limited, Calcutta. On the coastal projects, it collaborates with the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Shipping and the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries.

The BSF’s Shoot First Approach

In December 2010, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report, “Trigger Happy,” on the abuses by the BSF against both Indian and Bangladeshi nationals along India’s border with Bangladesh in the state of West Bengal. Bangladesh’s human rights organization, Odhikar, which collaborated with HRW on the research, documented 1,000 killings by the BSF over the past decade. According to HRW, all the border crossers killed were unarmed.  Their alleged crimes included cattle rustling, smuggling drugs and crossing the border in search of employment and to meet relatives. BSF personnel can be prosecuted only if the Ministry of Home Affairs grants permission. The BSF claims that it conducts internal inquiries against its personnel when it receives complaints but none of them guarding the Indo-Bangladesh border has so far been publicly convicted of a crime.

Abandoned Ship Off the Coast of Mumbai

Almost three years after 10 Pakistani gunmen aboard a dinghy passed unchecked through the Indian waters and arrived on Mumbai’s shores, an abandoned 1,000-ton oil tanker, MV Pavit, strayed onto the city’s Juhu-Versova beach on July 31 in similar fashion. The ship had been left to sink near Oman about a month before it ran aground in Mumbai after seawater flooded its engine room and the British Navy rescued its Indian crew. “The Pavit could, after all, have been carrying terrorists, contraband or, even worse, toxic chemicals that could have claimed the lives of thousands,” read an editorial in The Hindu. Millions of rupees that the Ministry of Home Affairs spent on “new ships, equipment and staff” had nothing to secure the coasts, the newspaper noted. Meanwhile, Defense Minister AK Anthony promised an investigation and met with Navy and Coastguard officials to ascertain how the abandoned ship had breached the three-layer naval security perimeter in place after the November 2008 terror attacks. Home Minister P Chidambaram denied there was a security lapse.

The BSF patrols in West Bengal are deployed in villages a few kilometers from the Bangladesh border. This has only made the plight of the villages, which happen to be already heavily populated and poor, worse. The locals have restricted access to areas beyond the BSF outposts and are therefore cut off from their farms or markets.

E.N. Rammohan, a former head of the BSF, admitted to HRW that the outposts are too close to the population: “To operate successfully, a border force needs a corridor that has no habitation. In West Bengal, I had recommended that all these villages be re-sited so that these problems for civilians don’t occur.” Instead of the villages being relocated, the locals told HRW that the BSF should operate at the border itself. “The BSF should shift their posts to a few yards from the actual border, not be here, in our villages,” said an Indian man who was accused of smuggling while bringing grain from the market and beaten up.

In September 2011, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reached an agreement with his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina on ceding 111 Indian enclaves that were in Bangladeshi territory in return for 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in Indian territory. These enclaves, most of which are in the Coochbehar and Jalpaiguri districts of West Bengal and in the Kurigram, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhaat and Pachagarh districts of Bangladesh, have been “stateless” since Partition and deprived of access to healthcare and education. While the move freed thousands from misery, the BJP, which has always advocated tough measures against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, accused the ruling Congress of adopting a “soft line” and giving land to Bangladesh.