A Small Line Of People Crossed Into India

When I asked Krishna Gopal Sengupta, who had travelled through Bangladesh from Chittagong to Petrapole if the interim government had made any impact at ground level, he said, "it's been only a couple of days. They will need some time."
Shyam G Menon reports from Petrapole, India's entry point with Bangladesh.

The first thing I noticed as we exited the road leading to Kolkata's airport and got on to Jessore Road was how hemmed-in the road seemed on both sides.

Further ahead, the road leading to Petrapole via Barasat, Duttapukur, Habra and Bongaon appeared to wear its predicament on its sleeve.

It was a national highway leading to an international border but amazed for its narrowness and buildings close to the road's edge.

There was also apparent entrapment by the road's biggest saving grace -- huge trees on either side that shaded it lovingly.

The very same trees, one surmised, may have rendered a quandary of how to widen the road.

Who would cut down such magnificent trunks and foliage so that what is currently a mere two-lane-route to Bangladesh may sprout a couple of more lanes for the future? Tough call, I thought.

Somewhere past Barasat, it began to rain; a drizzle first, then a short-lived downpour. The resultant faint chill catalysed our need for a cup of tea.

We stopped at a tea shop just coming to life. It was still early morning, around 6.15-6.30 am.

A clutch of sleepy men sat on benches arranged close together at the centre of the shop, sullen faced but keenly watchful of the new arrivals.

Having checked us out, their attention returned to the television screen showing a young man singing.

Debu and I downed two glasses of black tea along with some locally baked biscuits.

Thus fortified, and the rain having tapered, we hopped back into the car and continued towards Petrapole.

A trip to the border wasn't part of my original agenda. But while in Kolkata visiting my friend, the turmoil in Bangladesh had peaked.

The country's prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who by most accounts had become quite unpopular, resigned and fled to India.

The agitation against a particular employment reservation scheme, spearheaded by Bangladeshi students, had claimed lives in the weeks leading to the climax.

News reports said that while the students had lit the spark, the movement attracted Opposition parties too for they -- and indeed many among the general public -- were disgruntled over Bangladesh's record of sham elections.

The protest by students became a convergent vortex.

In the days of Hasina's exit, the take-over by the Bangladesh army and the eventual appointment of an interim government headed by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, some more people lost their lives.

Looting was reported and there were allegations of the rioting in Bangladesh acquiring communal tones in some parts.

Unlike in India's north west border with Pakistan, relations with Bangladesh have always stood out for a greater sense of cultural cohesion and mutual understanding.

People regularly crossed the border, there were train and bus services to Bangladesh and there was a significant amount of trade passing through the land port at Petrapole.

When the Sheikh Hasina government collapsed, Petrapole was unwittingly pushed into the limelight for it was among access points to Bangladesh, from India.

Photos of the border crossing appeared in the media.

My friend decided that I should avail of his car and his driver, Debu, for a trip to Petrapole and a glimpse of the border.

Besides, the place was no more than 90 kilometres from Kolkata.

Dawn, August 10, Debu and I hit the road. The early hour was hoped to keep traffic light, which it did.

When we reached Petrapole, the border gates hadn't opened yet. Everything was calm and peaceful. Through the gates one saw Bangladesh on the other side.

For all the differences between people and habitats that narratives like to highlight, what struck me was the seamless organic continuity of the place where I stood into the place beyond those gates.

It's among the unsaid tragedies of borders.

One realises pretty fast that the distinctions are authored for the convenience of power, politics and governance.

The other side of the border was called Benapole.

On the Petrapole side, the road leading to the border was lined with the offices of transport bus operators and shops engaged in currency exchange.

Closer to the border, there were the offices of several customs house agents.

On the road were three-wheelers waiting to ferry people entering India and buses bringing in travelers headed to Bangladesh and those waiting to fill up with passengers heading to Kolkata.

Across the road, a huge building was taking shape -- Petrapole's new terminal.

Those invested in the business of crossing the border, quickly flagged us down assuming I was a visitor to Bangladesh requiring their services.

Having politely said no to them, we went in search of the sub-continent's best-known conversation-enabler -- tea.

Al Haj Akbar Habibur Rahman declined to be photographed. He had been running the small shop he was in, serving tea and selling snacks and odd items, since 2000.

Amidst serving me repeated cups of tea, he spoke of himself, Petrapole and recent days at the border crossing.

He grew up nearby and according to him, Petrapole had always been like this -- a road with a border gate and some shops and establishments lining it.

"I am from near here but on my passport, my address is identified as Haridaspur," he said.

We had passed through Haridaspur on the way in. Rahman had been abroad, including several times for Haj.

Having seen travel facilities overseas, he attached great hopes to the new terminal that was still under construction -- he wished for it to be like an airport.

"Kolkata's airport looks really good now," he said.

That day however, regular Petrapole, minus its proposed new terminal, was a shadow of its usual self in business.

While Rahman strived to stay positive and maintained that traffic was normal, enquiries with a transport operator showed that cross border passenger traffic had dipped in the wake of trouble in Bangladesh.

For instance, on August 10, there was none of the tourist traffic of earlier times.

According to those at Petrapole's shops, traffic from India was largely composed of people getting back home to Bangladesh with the return flow composed of Indians who had gone earlier trying to reach India plus Bangladeshis allowed to cross citing medical emergency.

Depending on who one spoke to, the portrait of the situation in Bangladesh varied.

Krishna Gopal Sengupta of Kolkata was among those who had arrived that morning from Bangladesh and was waiting for a bus to West Bengal's capital.

He had been to Chittagong to visit his uncle and had been there for a month.

The political unrest in Bangladesh aggravated during that period.

He said that the days of agitation had been days of uncertainty and concern for one's safety.

Notwithstanding this, he said his bus journey from Chittagong to Petrapole had been incident-free.

It wasn't a packed bus; there were few passengers.

He found it a bit discomforting that the police appeared yet to take up their duties on sections of the route and it was students who filled in for them.

While one bus operator I approached in Petrapole politely refused to talk to a journalist, another opened up. He confirmed that passenger traffic had come down.

It appeared to me that he saw the political unrest in Bangladesh as a people's movement with tussles therein between political parties. It was a view, I found, was shared by some senior journalists in Kolkata too.

According to Rahman, when the unrest in Bangladesh boiled over and border trade was stopped, a number of loaded trucks had got stuck at Petrapole's land port.

At the offices close to the border gate, I met Mr Jha, a customs house agent whose work involved freight passing through the land port.

According to him, the land port had resumed operations and freight movement between the two countries was happening.

"Our trucks are unloading on their side. Similarly, their trucks are unloading on our side. I can say that Petrapole and Benapole are secure," he said.

Perhaps the last word should belong to Sengupta, who had travelled through Bangladesh from Chittagong to Petrapole.

When I asked him if the interim government had made any impact at ground level, he said, "it's been only a couple of days. They will need some time."

By now, the border gates had opened and the security personnel posted there had come to life with a brief drill of marching and boots stomping the ground.

Debu and I watched people lining up to have their documents checked and then walking across the border to Bangladesh.

From the Bangladesh side, a similar small line of people crossed into India.

If they were all lined up together, one would struggle to say who was Indian or Bangladeshi.

Even the security personnel, if they swapped uniforms, would be hard to tell.

We returned to the car and headed back to Kolkata.

The nondescript two lane-road to an international border with Bangladesh was bustling with traffic.

I returned to India's biggest city in the east with hardly any feeling of having been near a line on the ground denoting another country.

Looking across those border gates had been like looking in the mirror.

Shyam G Menon is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com