Abstract
This chapter argues that the border between India and Bangladesh serves as a site for formal and informal structures of interaction and exchange, with various actors and processes complementing, contesting, and overlapping in their functions and priorities. While the respective national governments seek to encourage cross-border trade and promote economic corridors, these national policies find local reflection in the much-trumpeted establishment of border haats, or official cross-border markets. A close examination of the political processes shaping this border policy reveals both India's desire to simplify its own edges and the multi-layered and contradictory manner in which this policy is implemented at the border itself. Based upon fieldwork conducted in Meghalaya and Tripura, this chapter examines how the multi-layered infrastructure of border management and governance affects local community interactions and flows of goods, political processes, and cross-border connectivity.
Keywords: Northeast India, Bangladesh, informal markets, border haats, border infrastructure
Introduction
On a patch of land where the Khasi Hills fade into the plains of Sylhet, a market is held on every fifth day. This market is operated by local residents to facilitate the exchange of goods between two distinct groups of people. The Khasi highlanders bring with them the fruits of their forest plots – betel nuts, oranges, gourds, and, when in season, pineapples – and begin to gather from the morning, drinking tea and buying from and selling to one another amid the profusion of semi-permanent trading stalls, thrown together from wood and concrete. They are there to await the appearance of the market itself later in the day, which occurs once their counterparts make themselves ready. The Bengali farmers who form the other side of this exchange bring their harvest with them – a collection of aubergines, tomatoes, huge green beans, and cauliflowers – together with fish and non-agricultural products like plastic toys and helium balloons. Trade between these two groups, who are largely unable to speak one another's languages, is smoothed over by the presence of a number of self-appointed translators, who take up stations behind groups of traders and facilitate the process of exchange. In the main, the market looks like an excellent demonstration of comparative advantage, with the distinct agricultural ‘baskets’ of the plains and hills being brought together for the profit of all concerned.