The India-Bangladesh border has witnessed a gathering of undocumented migrants queuing up to cross back to Bangladesh amid fears of detention in India. The 3-D policy (Detect, Delete and Deport) of the newly formed government in West Bengal state is at the eye of a political storm. The policy, aimed at identifying and subsequently deporting undocumented Bangladeshi migrants in West Bengal, has become the focal point of the political debate nationwide as a humanitarian crisis. This crisis which has been seen the inevitable consequence of log term continuous illegal migration from Bangladesh and the policy of previous government of West Bengal to look theses migrants as electoral vote bank. The situation is seen as a challenge to India’s secular socio-political fabric where even documented Bangladeshi and Muslim population is under constant fear of religious hostility. In addition to the above, the real issue is growing tension in bilateral relation between India and Bangladesh due to the issue of deportation and reverse migration in the case of Bangladesh where as both governments are seen taking effort to improve bilateral ties. Now both of them are facing the question which cannot be overlooked is the question of undocumented migrants.
The Bengal Frontier and Border Making in South Asia
Earlier frontiers, let’s go to the pre-colonial South Asia frontiers, were marked by a natural geographic feature, commonly a river or a mountain, which defined both the limits of royal authority and zones of cultural and ethnic transition. Yet, the frontiers allowed for a fair mixing of people from within and outside a cultural zone, thereby leading to what came to be known as frontier fluidity.
The arrival of the colonial powers in the region brought about a reign of annexation, the exchange of territories, and the drawing of boundaries, often in accordance with imperial political calculus. Noteworthy here is that the borders so drawn were often abjectly indifferent to the pre-existing primordial affinities premised either on ethnicity, religion, race and so on.
In the above context, earlier Bengal (comprising the present-day West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Assam, and Bangladesh) was a frontier in the conventional sense of the term. The first major attempt at border-making occurred in 1905, when Lord Curzon announced a partition of Bengal (annulled in 1911), ostensibly for administrative convenience (though aimed primarily at curbing the rising revolutionary national consciousness in Bengal). Subsequently, in 1912 and 1936, Bihar and Orissa (as it then was) were separated from Bengal. However, the most consequential exercise of border-making occurred in 1947, when the Hindu-majority western half became a province of the Indian Union, while the Muslim-majority eastern half became East Pakistan, which subsequently became Bangladesh in 1971.
Migration- Historical Waves and Continuities
The drawing of state borders in South Asia and their subsequent hardening over time replaced the frontier-era fluidity with stringent movement restrictions. Even as documented travel increased with the introduction of border check mechanisms, the domestic political, communal, and economic environment has triggered periodic undocumented mass migration across state borders in South Asia.
In this context, the Bengal border (firstly with East Pakistan and then with Bangladesh) witnessed the first wave of mass migration in between 1947-51 when millions of people — variously estimated at between three and five million — crossed the border in search of a homeland. The second major migration across the Bengal border came about in 1971, during Bangladesh’s liberation war, when the Pakistan Army’s Operation Searchlight triggered widespread violence and mass displacement, forcing an estimated 8–10 million people to flee into the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura.
Beyond the above two major connjuctural waves of displacements, granular and persistent migrations across the Bengal border have continued, albeit in less visible forms. In contrast to earlier waves of migration triggered primarily by war and immediate violence, these later inflows have been largely shaped by factors such as economic necessity, livelihood search, and uneven development across border regions. Persistent rural poverty, limited employment opportunities, and wage differentials have acted as key push factors for migrants from Bangladesh to undertake an undocumented migration across the border. The relative presence of economic opportunities, established social networks and cross-border linguistic affinities has facilitated these movements across the years. While there exist no definite official figures on the undocumented Bangladeshi migrants in India, the estimates vary widely from 12 to 20 million.
Undocumented Cross-Border Migration and Domestic Political Discourse
The initial influx of undocumented migrants and their refuge in West Bengal evoked a muted response from both the civil society and the political class. The upheavals associated with partition, communal violence and the liberation war were viewed through the humanitarian lens, with both the street and the state maintaining an accommodative stance vis-à-vis the migrants. The issue rarely featured as a major political issue in West Bengal. In summary, one may argue that public discourse surrounding migrants largely revolved around relief, rehabilitation, and humanitarian obligations.
The above magnanimity underwent a sea change as public perceptions shifted. The swelling of the migrant population, increasing pressure on land, employment opportunities and public services set out a sense of panic and anxiety amongst the native population. In particular, the deteriorating law-and-order situation in the border districts, coupled with a perceived threat of demographic change, led to viewing the issue through the prism of resource allocation and welfare distribution.
In the above context, the response of the ruling political parties in West Bengal has been lukewarm and dismissive of the core concern. As such, the Left Front (1977-2011) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) (2011-2026) viewed the migrants through a humanitarian lens and took no major policy measures to address the growing unease among the native population. The issue became further entangled in the broader debate over centre-state relations when the incumbent parties in West Bengal traded charges with the centre over border management and stricter border vigilance. Over time, many from the migrants’ cohort became part of the electorate, making it politically advantageous for regional parties to maintain an accommodating and assimilative stance on the refugee question.
The coming of the Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the centre in 2014, however, altered the existing political discourse on undocumented migration. The BJP framed the migrant question from an aggressively securitised lens, projecting the undocumented migrants as both a social and a security threat to India. As such, the undocumented migrants’ question became the focal point of friction between the BJP and the TMC between 2014 and 2026, when the former accused the latter of a softer and appeasing stance towards the migrants. The debate on migrants attained unprecented salience after 2019, when the centre announced a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) and enacted the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to weed out undocumented migrants. The CAA-NRC move was strongly resisted in West Bengal, where the incumbent TMC portrayed it as a communal spectre-mongering and a threat to social harmony and the rights of vulnerable communities.
The recently concluded West Bengal assembly elections (AprilMay 2026) saw the BJP project the migrants’ question as its top poll plank. The election campaigns saw senior BJP leaders vowing to deport the undocumented migrants once voted to power. Against this backdrop, the BJP’s triumph in the assembly elections and the coming of the Adhikar-led BJP government in West Bengal saw the evaporation of the erstwhile generosity of the state government. In sum, the recent deportation moves by the West Bengal government should be construed in the broader context of a political promise being turned into a policy action.
Migrants and the India-Bangladesh Ties
Analogous to the above oscillation in the political discourse surrounding undocumented migrants in West Bengal (and India broadly), the Bangladeshi government has also seen periodic shifts in its stance. As such, the formative regimes of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1972-75) and General Ziaur Rahman (1977-81) expressed gratitude and indebtedness to India for granting amnesty and providing humanitarian shelter to a record number of refugees.
However, the subsequent securitisation of migrants in India prompted a more calculated response from successive governments in Bangladesh. Notably, even as the migrants’ issue has frequently been an irritant in India-Bangladesh bilateral ties, both India and Bangladesh have acknowledged the need for a lasting solution to the migrant crisis. The two governments, however, differ on the exact number of such undocumented migrants and the repatriation methods to be adopted for addressing the crisis. Furthermore, recent unilateral pushback measures by some provincial governments have led to confrontations between India’s Border Security Force (BSF) and Bangladesh’s Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), ultimately straining India-Bangladesh ties.
Conclusion
Migrants — documented or otherwise — have been an enduring phenomenon of the India-Bangladesh borderland. However, the creation of state borders and the rise of native anxieties due to unchecked migration place it within the purview of an elected government to prevent unauthorised entry into its territory. However, the state, in doing so, can ill afford a knee-jerk policy grounded more in populist poll plank than in administrative prudence and diplomatic coordination. Consequently, it is prudent for the West Bengal state government to insulate its policy from street rhetoric and seek durable solutions that require greater cooperation between India and Bangladesh on border management and a robust identification and verification mechanism, without undermining human dignity or altering regional security. Lastly, both the central and state governments should tread carefully on the migrant question, for its pitfalls may have lasting, momentous consequences for India’s neighbourhood foreign policy, border security, bilateral diplomacy, and regional cooperation.
*Dr Milind Dhaware, Assistant Professor, Centre for South Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,
*Ashish Kumar, Doctoral Research Scholar, Centre for South Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.