India’s Border Crackdown Is Forcing Bengali Muslims Off Their Own Land In The Ganga-Padma Delta

Nirmal Char, Murshidabad district, West Bengal: “In the Sundarbans, tigers eat you. Here, it’s the BSF.”

As we sat sipping tea on his mud porch, Rana Ahmed spoke quietly, almost meditatively. A reserved man with a weathered face and a faded cotton gamcha around his neck, he was referring to India’s Border Security Force (BSF).

Outside his modest home in Nirmal Char—a shifting sandbar island in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district—we talked about the geopolitical limbo in which he and thousands of other Bengali Muslims live.

Like most char dwellers or charuas, Rana’s home was simple: two thatched mud rooms, an open-air kitchen, and a shed for livestock, if there were any. No one here builds anything permanent. Every charua or char dweller knows the river can change course any day.

When it does, they will have to move, seeking new land and new homes along its uncertain path.

This certainty of movement and the unpredictability of the river have long defined life in the chars. But that mobility is now under strain. Once porous, the riverine frontier with Bangladesh has hardened into a securitised border that demands proof of sedentariness—of fixed belonging.

It’s a kind of statelessness. “Even to access our own land on the Indian side, we have to show citizenship documents to the BSF every day,” said Rana, in his early 50s, a father of four. Like his father before him, he’s farmed black gram and jute on these shifting lands for over 30 years.

“The security forces are always suspicious of us,” said Rana. “They don’t treat us like citizens.”

I was at Rana’s home to listen to stories of erosion and the lingering wounds of Partition. His uncles migrated to East Pakistan in the late 1960s, but his father stayed.

“You can’t just give up land and walk away,” he said. “The border split my grandfather’s land—half ended up in East Pakistan, half in India. It was decided that my uncles would go there, and my father would till what remained here.”

Now, seven of Rana’s 10 bighas lie submerged under the Ganga-Padma. He tills the remaining three, waiting for the river to shift again and reveal what was once his.

The Muslim ‘Infiltrator’

With the Partition of the Indian subcontinent, the chars of the Bengal basin—shifting sandbanks along rivers like the Ganga-Padma—became contested borderlands.

In districts like Murshidabad, these fertile stretches, home to largely Muslim communities, were suddenly recast as frontier settlements.

Traditionally, charuas lived with the rhythm of the river, adapting to erosion and newly formed land. The border between India and Bangladesh was once fluid, allowing movement shaped by geography rather than politics.

That changed with rising securitisation and anti-Muslim narratives that framed Bengali Muslims as “infiltrators,” disrupting lives that had long been defined by mobility and coexistence.

Today, the Border Security Force (BSF) enforces an opaque permit regime. Charuas must now seek permission—often arbitrarily granted or denied—to access their own farmland or even approach the river. Identity checks, denied access, and coerced labour are common.

The result: crop failures, deepening despair among farmers, and a steady exodus. Once mobile within the chars, many now migrate across India as precarious, dispossessed workers.

At Nirmal Char, about 12 km from the Bangladesh border, farmers and fishermen must submit identity papers to the Border Security Force to access their own fields or the river. Permission is arbitrary—granted or denied at the discretion of officials/ PANCHALI RAY

The Big Erosion

Rana’s home lies barely 15 km from the Indo-Bangladesh border in the lap of the river. The land underneath was created by what is often referred to as the “boro bhangon” or the big erosion.

The erosion began in full measure after the Farakka barrage, slung across the Ganga, started regulating the river in 1985. It was built to revive a major tributary, the Bhagirathi-Hooghly river, and restore the port of Kolkata. But it also restricted the natural course of the Ganga, which shifted channels as it migrated left around 1988 for almost 12 years.

The boro bhangan’s impact was felt most in Akheriganj, Murshidabad district, eroding border settlements and towns, including the only road that connected the area with the district headquarters.

By 2002, the Ganga-Padma had returned to its older channel, but in the years of accretion and erosion Akheriganj sank and Nirmal Char emerged.

A makeshift bridge spans the right channel of the Ganga-Padma in West Bengal, cutting Nirmal Char off from the mainland. In the monsoon, when the river swells, it is crossed by boat; in summer, it recedes to a bed of sand. During the transition months—when the water is too shallow for boats yet too deep to ford—villagers build temporary bridges/ PANCHALI RAY

Today, Nirmal Char covers an area of about 61 km and is home to six villages adjacent to the India-Bangladesh border, falling under the Akheriganj gram panchayat or village council.

Most of its settlements are populated by Muslim and some Dalit farmers, the latter refugees from East Pakistan/Bangladesh. They migrated during the 1960s and 1970s, either due to economic hardship or communal violence.

This flood shelter, recently built to withstand the annual inundation of the Padma and its channels, is remembered by some as the third such structure—the previous two were swallowed by the river. During floods, villagers take refuge here for a few days until the waters recede/ PANCHALI RAY

Shifting Land & Borders

The chars of riverine Bengal, though extremely fertile, were considered wasteland, for their legally ambiguous status. With their transformation to contested borderlands between the nascent nations of India and East Pakistan, these unstable, water-bound lands posed challenges to nation-building efforts.

As rivers shift course, the physical markers of a border—pillars, fences, barbed wires and checkposts—disappear. As people move with the river, settlements displaced by erosion reappear in freshly formed chars, sometimes just a few kilometres away.

Nirmal Char has not seen large-scale erosion like the boro bhangon over the past two decades, yet it remains shifting land—constantly shaped by the Padma’s accretions and erosions. Fields, homes, and roads can disappear into the river within hours, even as new land emerges a few kilometres away/ PANCHALI RAY

In this fluid geography, distinguishing which char falls within Indian territory and which within Bangladesh is often impossible.

Rashid Ahmed, my interlocutor and host in the char, would often narrate these stories of erosion.

“I have lived with erosions since I was a little boy,” said Ahmed.

“As we sensed an erosion coming, we would seek new chars, cut down grass, clear land, and build homes,” he said.

“I have seen at least 15 such erosions in my lifetime. The border was open, so sometimes we were in Bangladesh and sometimes in India. Even the border security forces know that we move with the river.”

In his late 40s, Rashid had a face like old leather—cracked, weather-beaten, full of stories. His eyes twinkled with warmth and mischief, and he often laughed at my inability to grasp the char’s shifting realities.

Rashid, my host and guide, often took me across the chars, pointing out sites where temples, mosques, and houses once stood—now lost to the river in the boro bhangon. He would remind me that Akheriganj, today reduced to char land, was once a bustling commercial town/ PANCHALI RAY

Rashid owned 15 bighas (9.3 acres) of land near the border, though 10 lay submerged. He no longer farmed, relying instead on a small tea shop and the earnings of his three migrant sons to keep the household running.

His mud home, 15 km from the border, stood on rented land. The front had been converted into his shop, where he sat most evenings in his lungi and shirt, telling stories of floods, fortitude and fate.

“We lived with the Padma,” said Ahmed. “During the boro bhangon, we kept moving back and forth. No one really stopped us. Now, to even access our own land in India, we need permission from the BSF. I have stopped going to my own land.”

The Surveillance Regime

As the ‘Bangladeshi infiltrator’ narrative gains traction in Bengal’s political discourse, union home minister Amit Shah is setting the tone for the 2026 West Bengal assembly election, anchoring his campaign in themes of national security and border control.

On 7 March 2025, in a speech to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, Shah accused West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) government of encouraging illegal infiltration by issuing Aadhaar cards to Bangladeshi nationals and not allowing the completion of fencing along 450 km of the 2,216 km border that India shares with its neighbour.

The Immigration and Foreigners Bill 2025, which passed in the Lok Sabha on 27 March, apart from granting the government sweeping powers to control entry and exit of foreigners, also allows for the arrest of any individual without a warrant on “reasonable” suspicion, if the person does not possess valid documents.

The documentary regime that casts Bengali Muslims as perpetual “foreigners” and “infiltrators” has taken an especially harsh turn in Assam, where detention and deportation of Bengali-speaking Muslims is now common, as Article 14 has reported.

More recently, this suspicion has spilled across state lines—Bengali-speaking Muslims working as migrant labourers in other parts of India are increasingly being branded as Bangladeshi infiltrators.

In West Bengal’s borderlands—home for generations to Muslim farmers and fishermen—the growing securitisation of what was once a porous frontier has only deepened this stigmatisation, criminalising everyday life by the river.

The Price They Pay

As security forces set up check posts 10 to 15 km inside Indian territory, many charuas now find their farmland falls within these restricted zones.

In Nirmal Char, for instance, the local BSF post issues passbooks to farmers and fishermen, specifying the exact days and hours they’re allowed access to the river or their fields.

Rashid carried a passbook, which he used to check whether any of his land had reappeared from the river’s meanderings. These passbooks, or passboi, were issued to farmers and boatmen only after they submitted a stack of documents—fishing licences, land deeds, and certificates from panchayat members, among others/ PANCHALI RAY

These permits are fragile—revoked without explanation, even during sowing or harvest, causing serious crop losses. The system is opaque and arbitrary, with no clarity on why some are allowed through and others turned away.

To gain access, charuas are often made to fetch water, cut grass, clean posts, or run errands. Rashid recalled being denied entry or made to wait for hours.

“They can make you wait, send you off on chores—or just say no, depending on their mood,” he said. “Many have given up and migrated to cities to work as labourers.”

A check point on the char where farmers and boatmen would have to show the pass books with permission recorded to access the fields that lay within the Indian territory adjacent to the border. / PANCHALI RAY

One day, Rashid and I walked to the BSF check post to see the Padma flowing quietly beyond the trees. He spoke with warmth about the river of his childhood—but as we neared the post, he fell silent, tense. Halfway there, he asked if I’d brought my Aadhaar.

At the checkpoint, a BSF soldier spotted me immediately and called his superior. I was questioned for 30 minutes. While I waited, an elderly man sat crouched beside his cycle, a scythe tied to it, clutching a passbook. “Huzoor, I’ve been waiting three days,” he pleaded softly.

The soldier refused to let the old man through. Only when the officer overheard him—and saw me watching—did he instruct the jawan to let him through.

As the man stepped forward to get his passbook signed, Rashid whispered, “This was for your sake. Otherwise, he would have been sent back again.”

The Unmaking Of Life

The growing infrastructure of surveillance along the India-Bangladesh border has upended life in the chars, once sustained by the rhythms of the river. The short-term, circular migration that made life in these shifting sandbars possible is now under threat.

Charuas built their lives around seasonal farming, fishing, livestock rearing, and river trade—adapting to the constant cycles of floods and erosion. Despite the climate’s unpredictability, life flourished. But it is not the river’s fury that threatens them today—it is the relentless logic of militarisation.

Residents of Nirmal Char must ford the right channel of the Padma to reach markets, schools, or hospitals on the mainland. As border security has tightened, access to nearby markets and trade routes on both sides has been cut off. Now, even for vegetables, oil, or daily necessities, villagers walk 15–25 km before crossing the river on foot or by boat/ PANCHALI RAY

Routine patrols have morphed into a regime of surveillance, with checkposts and watchtowers policing everyday movement. Charuas are no longer seen as river-dwellers but as potential “infiltrators”, their lives governed by the arbitrary authority of border forces.

The ability to sow, harvest, or even walk to one's land now hinges on the mood of a security guard.

In Murshidabad’s chars, agriculture—once attuned to floods and silt—is now dictated by the discretionary powers of the BSF. Crops fail not because of weather but because permissions are denied. Entire livelihoods hang on whether one's identity is deemed "authentic" enough.

‘This Is My Life, But My Sons Refuse’

All three of Rashid’s sons now work as migrant labourers in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, in agriculture, construction, and sand mining.

“Three years ago, my eldest was detained while on his way to sow black gram,” Rashid recalled. “He was just 19. I had to bring a panchayat member to vouch for his citizenship. He spent a night in the camp. After that, he never went back.”

This is common across the region.

Almost every family has sons who’ve left the chars and refuse to return to their fields. Men are harassed, detained, even banned from sowing jute for “security reasons.” Crops wither for want of permission. Farming has become impossible.

Seasonal migration once sustained places like Nirmal Char. Now, access to land and river is uncertain, conditional.

When I asked Rana why he hadn’t migrated, given everything he’d seen, he replied, “The work is too hard. Only the younger men can do it. My generation has always lived by the river, at the border, negotiating with the BSF. This is my life. But my sons refuse.”

As the union government declares its intent to "secure the border" grows louder—home minister Shah said not even “a bird will cross”—its echoes are felt at the fragile edges of the char, the shifting sandbars of West Bengal’s frontier.

Yet rivers, sediments, winds, and water do not obey human-imposed borders: they move freely, shaping and reshaping landscapes across political lines.

(Panchali Ray is associate professor of anthropology and gender studies at Krea University, India. )

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