ABSTRACT
Bangladesh is one of the closest neighbours of contemporary India’s East and Northeast. To understand the contemporary genesis of multi-dimensional issues of conflicts between India’s post-colonial Northeast and the present Bangladesh, cutting across both the pertinent issues of security and development, one necessarily has to begin with the event of India–Pakistan partition in 1947 and its consequences. Indo-Bangladesh border is, therefore, extensively a virtual maze of riverine terrain, enclaves and adverse possessions by both sides. India, on humanitarian grounds, had extended support and provided shelter to about 10 million people from Bangladesh during its Liberation War. The Indo-Pak War of 1971, which defeated Pakistan, had given birth to Bangladesh, and had brightened the scope of early returns of refugees to their motherland. The ethnic, cultural and religious network and bondage which developed during the colonial period has been acting as a strong pull factor to attract more people to cross the border and enter into this borderland.
