Incremental Dynamics of Resolving India-Bangladesh Border Issues: Re-thinking the Past to Construct the Future

This research paper enquires about the reasons for non resolution of the border issues between India and Bangladesh over a period of over six decades, even though the two countries claim to be friendly countries. This paper finds out that it is not possible to draw a single general border theory. Each border has something special to offer. Thus, both local as well as broader context of creation of a particular border is important to understand genesis of border issues between the countries. Thus, this paper considers that the borders are not only the political creation, but the social and cultural factors plays even bigger role. This paper investigates the reasons for delay in resolving the border issues between India and Bangladesh by using primarily the governance and policy analysis concepts/ tools. For policy analysis, it uses various Discourse Analysis methods also in additions to the concepts of policy cycle. It finds out that the most important part of the policy cycle is policy implementation where strategic management of reaction to the policy is vital for successful implementation of the policy. This paper finds out the reasons for delay in resolving the border issues between the two countries related to partition of British India and subsequently the partition of Pakistan, demarcation of boundary at the time of its creation, role of political regimes and fundamentalist forces, and also flaws in strategic management of various policy interventions (bilateral agreements) between the two countries.