India–Bangladesh enclaves
[3][6] The Prime Ministers of India and Bangladesh signed the Land Boundary Agreement in 1974 to exchange enclaves and simplify their international border.
[7][8] Under this agreement, which was ratified on 6 June 2015, India received 51 Bangladeshi enclaves (covering 7,110 acres (2,880 ha)) in the Indian mainland, while Bangladesh received 111 Indian enclaves (covering 17,160 acres (6,940 ha)) in the Bangladeshi mainland.
[12] After the Land Boundary Agreement, India lost around 40 square kilometres (15 sq mi) to Bangladesh.
According to a popular legend, the enclaves were used as stakes in card or chess games centuries ago between two regional kings, the Raja of Koch Bihar and the Maharaja of Rangpur.
[3] As far as historical records are concerned, the little territories were apparently the result of a confused outcome of a 1713 treaty between the Kingdom of Koch Bihar and the Mughal Empire.
Possibly, the Kingdom and the Mughals ended a war without determining a boundary for what territories had been gained or lost.
The desire to "de-enclave" most of the enclaves was manifested in a 1958 agreement between Jawaharlal Nehru and Feroz Khan Noon, the respective Prime Ministers, for an exchange between India and Pakistan without considering loss or gain of territory.
[citation needed] The Land Boundary Agreement was signed on 16 May 1974 between Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman which provided for the exchange of enclaves and the surrender of adverse possessions.
The issue of the undemarcated land boundary of approximately 6.1 kilometres (3.8 mi) in three sectors — Daikhata-56 in West Bengal, Muhuri River-Belonia in Tripura and Lathitila-Dumabari in Assam — also remained unsolved.
[19][20][21] Under the agreement, India received 51 of the 71 Bangladeshi enclaves (from 51 to 54 of the 74 chhits) that were inside India proper (7,110.2 acres, 2,877.4 ha), while Bangladesh received 95 to 101 of the 103 Indian enclaves (111 out of 119 chhits) that were inside Bangladesh proper (17,160.63 acres, 6,944.66 ha).
[23] The Constitution (119th Amendment) Bill, 2013 was introduced in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India, on 18 December 2013.
[10][24][25] Nationalist groups in Assam strongly opposed the bill,[26] which would cause India to lose 10,000 acres of land, but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi supported it because it would make the border with Bangladesh easier to manage.
In the presence of Modi and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the foreign secretaries of the two countries signed the instruments of the land exchange.
[30] The exchange of enclaves and land parcels in adverse possession, and the boundary demarcation, was implemented in phases between 31 July 2015 and 30 June 2016.
The enclaves were to be exchanged at midnight on 31 July 2015 and the boundary demarcation was to be completed by 30 June 2016 by Survey Departments of the respective countries.
[3] In order to distinguish chhits having the same names, serial numbers established by Banerjee (1966)[36] are shown in parentheses, as (#).
In order to distinguish chhits having the same names, serial numbers established by Banerjee (1966)[36] are shown in parentheses, as (#).
