It is not just elements on the fringes of the Bangladesh establishment who have threatened to exploit India’s vulnerability in the Siliguri corridor; some months ago, interim leader Mohammed Yunus had hinted at this weakness. While there have been angry ~ and predictable ~ reactions to these statements in India, including a reference to Bangladesh’s similar vulnerabilities by the Assam chief minister, these appear to miss the point.
Attempts to target the Chicken’s Neck will likely be made by non-state actors, and not the Bangladeshi state, and India’s response cannot be seen to be disproportionate. Therefore, before training its guns eastwards, the Indian security establishment ~ which must include the states of West Bengal, Bihar, and Assam ~ needs to take steps internally to fortify India’s position. The Siliguri corridor poses a unique security challenge, straddles as it does several districts of West Bengal, in addition to sensitive districts of Bihar. This in effect means that those bent on mischief can easily exploit this administrative ambiguity to hop from one of these districts to the other to evade the law.
Add to this the challenge posed by their complex demographics and the activities of radical elements in these districts ~ those who may already be here and those who can easily slip in from Bangladesh ~ and the situation begins to look increasingly alarming. In effect, any insurgent action in this area can quickly spiral out of control, especially if the local population is ambivalent, or some within its ranks choose to be complicit. It does not help that local leaders are allowed to create dangerous templates and get away with outrageous assertions such as the construction of a Babari mosque in Murshidabad, a proposition that blithely ignores the fact that Babar left this world nearly 500 years ago.
Thus, if India’s answer to an assault on the Siliguri corridor is to be meaningful, it must make district and state lines irrelevant to the extent they do not impede a strategic response. The next challenge to be considered is that the Army’s Eastern Command maintains a core headquarter at Panagarh, near Durgapur. Moving reinforcements from Panagarh to the Siliguri corridor will involve crossing the Ganga at Farakka. If Murshidabad and Malda districts, both contiguous to Bangladesh, are enveloped in strife, troop movement would be affected, forcing a long detour via Bhagalpur in Bihar. An alternate river crossing must be planned, and quickly. But above all this, the affected states and their leaders will have to rise above partisan politics to ensure that any threat to the Siliguri corridor is countered in measured and meaningful ways.
If this entails sacrificing some political ground, or even acquiescing to a unified command structure, so be it. The alternative is to allow internal fault lines to overpower national interests. Experienced leaders are at the helm in all three states, and at the Centre. They need to work together, and not at cross purposes, to ensure that any misadventure by elements in Bangladesh, or by their patrons elsewhere, is effectively thwarted.