Introduction
History leaves behind more than memories; it leaves institutions, assumptions, and unresolved tensions that continue to shape political life long after the events themselves have passed. One of the more difficult inheritances confronting Bangladesh in the aftermath of the political transition of August 2024 is not simply the recalibration of its relationship with India, but a growing unease regarding the character of the border that separates the two states. Once frequently invoked as a symbol of regional cooperation and pragmatic engagement, the Bangladesh–India frontier is increasingly emerging as a space where domestic political pressures, competing narratives of citizenship, and contested understandings of sovereignty converge.
Recent allegations of so-called “push-ins” along the border have generated considerable controversy in both countries. At the centre of the debate lies a question that is as legal as it is political: can a state, in pursuit of migration control and national security objectives, circumvent established procedures by physically transferring individuals across an international boundary without formal nationality verification, judicial oversight, or meaningful coordination with the receiving state?
The significance of this question extends well beyond the immediate circumstances of any individual case. It touches upon foundational principles of constitutional governance, the obligations imposed by international law, and the sovereign equality upon which the modern interstate system rests. The controversy is therefore not merely a diplomatic dispute arising from border management. It is, more fundamentally, a test of how democratic states reconcile executive power with legal restraint, and how far administrative expediency may be permitted to encroach upon the rule of law.
At stake is not only the fate of those directly affected by such removals, but also the integrity of the legal frameworks through which questions of nationality, migration, and belonging are meant to be resolved. The border, in this context, becomes more than a territorial demarcation. It becomes a site where competing conceptions of authority, citizenship, and legality are brought into sharp relief.
Human Consequences Beyond Border Politics
Public debates concerning migration are often conducted in the language of statistics, security, and state policy. Lost amid these abstractions are the individuals whose lives become entangled in bureaucratic determinations of nationality and belonging. Yet it is precisely at the level of individual experience that the consequences of contested border practices become most visible.
A number of recent cases reported by journalists and human rights observers have raised concerns regarding due process, administrative accountability, and the treatment of individuals accused of being foreign nationals. While these cases do not, in themselves, establish the existence of a systematic policy of extrajudicial expulsions, they nevertheless illuminate the human consequences that may arise when questions of citizenship are resolved through executive action rather than transparent legal procedures.
Among the most widely reported examples is that of Sonali Khatun, a pregnant domestic worker detained during a police operation in New Delhi. According to media accounts, members of her family asserted that they had resided in West Bengal for many years and possessed documentation supporting their claim to Indian citizenship. Despite these assertions, she was reportedly transported to the Bangladesh frontier and expelled without meaningful access to legal representation or judicial review. Separated from family members and caught between competing administrative claims, she found herself in a condition of legal uncertainty from which neither state appeared willing or able to provide an immediate resolution.
Similar concerns emerged in the case of Amir Sheikh, a labourer detained in Rajasthan. Investigative reporting suggested that authorities disregarded documentation presented on his behalf before facilitating his removal toward the border. His eventual return reportedly occurred only after sustained media scrutiny prompted administrative reconsideration. The episode raised uncomfortable questions regarding the reliability of procedures used to determine nationality and the safeguards available to those contesting official decisions.
Another frequently cited case involved Chonabanu, a resident of Assam who allegedly faced detention and removal despite ongoing proceedings relating to her citizenship status. The significance of such cases lies not merely in their individual circumstances, but in what they reveal about the vulnerabilities that arise when unresolved questions of nationality intersect with broad administrative discretion.
Collectively, these incidents point to a deeper problem. They demonstrate how individuals can become trapped within competing systems of governance, where one state declines to recognise them while another hesitates to accept responsibility for them. In such circumstances, nationality ceases to function as a stable legal status and instead becomes the subject of administrative contestation.
The consequences are profound. Those affected are not simply migrants, foreigners, or anonymous figures within border statistics. They are individuals whose access to rights, legal protection, and social belonging becomes contingent upon bureaucratic determinations over which they possess little control. Their experiences expose one of the central dilemmas of contemporary border governance: the capacity of administrative institutions to create zones of uncertainty in which accountability becomes fragmented and legal protections become increasingly fragile.
Under such conditions, the border acquires a significance that extends beyond geography. It ceases to be merely a line separating sovereign territories and becomes, instead, a space where the ordinary guarantees of law risk becoming contingent, contested, and, in some instances, diminished.
International Law and the Limits of Sovereign Discretion
The Indian government has frequently emphasised that India is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. As a matter of treaty law, that assertion is entirely correct. Unlike many Western states, India has neither enacted a comprehensive domestic refugee statute nor formally accepted the obligations contained within the Convention framework.
Yet the legal significance of this fact is often overstated.
Contemporary international law governing migration, expulsion, and the treatment of non-citizens does not derive solely from refugee treaties. Rather, it emerges from a broader and increasingly interconnected body of norms encompassing international human rights law, customary international law, and general principles regulating the conduct of states.
Central to this framework is the principle of non-refoulement, one of the most influential doctrines in modern refugee and human rights law. In its simplest formulation, the principle prohibits states from returning individuals to territories where they face persecution, torture, or other forms of serious harm.
Article 33 of the Refugee Convention articulates the principle in unequivocal terms:
“No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to territories where his life or freedom would be threatened.”
The more complex question is whether the principle binds states that have not ratified the Convention.
A substantial body of legal scholarship, along with the position adopted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), maintains that non-refoulement has acquired the status of customary international law. Under this view, the principle binds states irrespective of treaty ratification because it reflects a norm that has become sufficiently widespread and accepted within international practice.
Other scholars adopt a more cautious position. While acknowledging the considerable influence of non-refoulement, they argue that its precise status and scope remain contested, particularly in contexts involving irregular migration rather than formally recognised refugees. States continue to differ regarding the extent of their obligations, the circumstances in which exceptions may apply, and the relationship between refugee protection and migration control.
The debate remains unresolved. Nevertheless, even adopting the narrower interpretation does not eliminate international legal constraints on state conduct.
Human rights law independently imposes procedural and substantive obligations that are directly relevant to allegations of arbitrary expulsions.
India ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1979 and thereby accepted a range of obligations concerning the treatment of individuals within its jurisdiction.
Several provisions of the Covenant are particularly significant in this context.
Article 9 protects individuals against arbitrary arrest and detention. Importantly, arbitrariness in international law extends beyond mere illegality. A deprivation of liberty may comply with domestic legislation and yet still be considered arbitrary if it lacks procedural safeguards, is disproportionate, or is otherwise unreasonable in its operation.
Article 7 prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Border removals do not automatically engage Article 7. However, situations involving physical abuse, prolonged family separation, abandonment in dangerous environments, or exposure to severe hardship may raise serious concerns under its provisions.
Article 13, where applicable, provides additional protections concerning expulsion. It states that an alien lawfully present within a state’s territory may be expelled only pursuant to law and should ordinarily be afforded:
- an opportunity to present reasons against expulsion;
- access to review of the decision; and
- the opportunity to be represented before the competent authority.
Exceptions may exist where compelling national security considerations are involved. Even so, the underlying principle remains clear: expulsion should be lawful, individualised, and subject to procedural scrutiny.
These provisions reflect a broader transformation in international legal thought that has unfolded since the middle of the twentieth century.
Historically, the treatment of non-citizens was regarded largely as a matter of domestic jurisdiction. States enjoyed wide discretion, and international law imposed relatively few constraints upon decisions relating to admission, exclusion, or deportation.
That position has gradually changed.
Modern international law does not deny states the right to regulate migration. Nor does it challenge the fundamental principle that sovereign governments possess authority over their territorial borders. What it does insist upon is that such authority be exercised through lawful procedures and in accordance with minimum standards of human dignity.
The legitimacy of state action, in this view, derives not merely from the possession of power but from the manner in which that power is exercised.
This distinction is particularly relevant to the push-in controversy. The central legal issue is not whether states may deport foreign nationals. International law has long recognised that they may.
Rather, the issue is whether the determination of nationality and the implementation of removal can occur through informal, opaque, or coercive processes that bypass established procedural safeguards.
The answer increasingly offered by contemporary international law is that sovereignty and legality are not competing principles. Sovereignty is strengthened, not weakened, when exercised through transparent and accountable legal institutions.
Statelessness: The Invisible Humanitarian Crisis
Among the many concerns raised by allegations of informal expulsions, perhaps none is more troubling than the risk of statelessness.
Public discussions of migration often focus on questions of legality, border control, and national security. Far less attention is devoted to the condition that may emerge when disputes over nationality remain unresolved. Yet statelessness represents one of the most profound forms of legal vulnerability in the contemporary international system.
In formal terms, a stateless person is an individual who is not recognised as a national by any state under the operation of its laws.
In practice, however, the reality is often considerably more complicated.
Many individuals are never formally declared stateless. Instead, they occupy what scholars frequently describe as a condition of de facto statelessness. One state insists they do not belong. Another declines to recognise them. Administrative authorities dispute their identity, documentation, or nationality claims. The result is a form of legal limbo in which an individual exists without meaningful access to the protections ordinarily associated with citizenship.
The consequences extend far beyond questions of legal status.
Nationality remains the gateway through which most rights are exercised in the modern state system. Without recognised citizenship, access to political participation becomes uncertain. Freedom of movement may be restricted. Employment opportunities diminish. Access to healthcare, education, housing, and social protection becomes increasingly precarious.
The individual does not cease to exist. Rather, he or she becomes difficult for legal institutions to categorise and protect.
In this sense, statelessness represents a condition of legal invisibility.
Few regions understand this reality more acutely than South Asia.
The subcontinent’s modern history has been shaped by successive episodes of mass displacement and contested belonging. The Partition of British India in 1947 uprooted millions and generated enduring disputes over nationality, identity, and residence. The Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 produced another major wave of displacement, leaving complex legacies that continue to influence regional politics.
Citizenship disputes have periodically emerged across eastern India, particularly in Assam, Tripura, and West Bengal, where migration, language, and identity remain deeply interconnected. As a result, nationality in South Asia has rarely functioned as a purely technical legal category. It is embedded within broader questions of history, memory, culture, and political belonging.
This historical context helps explain why disputes concerning citizenship often carry consequences that extend well beyond administrative classification.
For those affected, the issue is rarely limited to documentation alone.
A person may possess a home, a family, a language, and a community. He or she may have lived in the same locality for decades and maintain deep social ties within it. Yet if legal recognition becomes uncertain, those lived realities may prove insufficient to secure the protections ordinarily associated with citizenship.
The tragedy of statelessness lies precisely in this disjunction between social existence and legal recognition.
Individuals who clearly belong somewhere in a social and human sense may nonetheless find themselves excluded from the legal frameworks through which rights are guaranteed and protected.
This is why procedural safeguards assume such importance.
Documentation can be incomplete. Administrative records can contain errors. Governments can disagree over nationality claims. Political priorities can shift. None of these realities is unique to South Asia.
What distinguishes constitutional and rights-based systems is the existence of procedures designed to prevent such uncertainties from resulting in irreversible harm.
Due process cannot eliminate every dispute concerning nationality. It cannot guarantee perfect outcomes. But it serves a critical function: it ensures that individuals are not left alone to confront the immense power of the state without access to legal protection, review, and accountability.
When such safeguards are weakened, the risk extends beyond wrongful deportation.
The greater danger is the creation of individuals who belong nowhere in law, even while belonging everywhere in life.
Sovereignty and the Bangladesh Question
Beyond the rights of individuals and the procedural obligations of states lies another dimension of the controversy that is no less significant: the question of Bangladeshi sovereignty.
Modern international relations are founded upon the principle of sovereign equality. Regardless of disparities in size, military power, or economic influence, states are regarded as juridically equal members of the international system. Each possesses exclusive authority within its territory and retains the sovereign prerogative to determine who may enter, remain, or be removed from that territory.
These principles are not mere diplomatic conventions. They constitute some of the most fundamental norms of contemporary international law and are embedded within the framework of the United Nations Charter and the post-1945 international order.
Viewed through this lens, the controversy surrounding alleged push-ins extends beyond migration management. It raises a more fundamental question about the limits of unilateral state action in matters involving disputed nationality.
If individuals are physically transferred across an international boundary without prior verification, diplomatic consultation, or the consent of the receiving state, the issue ceases to concern migration control alone. It becomes a question of whether one state may unilaterally compel another to assume responsibility for individuals whose nationality remains contested.
This distinction is crucial.
Bangladesh’s objections need not rest exclusively on humanitarian grounds. Even if every person removed were ultimately proven to be a Bangladeshi citizen—a proposition that remains disputed in numerous reported cases—the Bangladeshi state retains the sovereign right to verify such claims through its own legal and administrative processes.
Nationality is not merely a factual condition. It is a legal relationship between an individual and a state. Determining the existence of that relationship ordinarily requires institutional procedures, documentary verification, and, where necessary, diplomatic engagement between the states concerned.
Physical transfer alone cannot resolve the question.
For this reason, modern deportation systems typically operate through elaborate mechanisms of interstate cooperation. Consular authorities verify identities. Documentation is exchanged. Nationality claims are assessed. Receiving states formally acknowledge responsibility before transfers occur.
These procedures may be slow and occasionally frustrating. Yet they exist for an important reason: they prevent nationality disputes from becoming unilateral assertions of power.
When such safeguards are bypassed, the implications extend beyond the fate of particular individuals. The sovereign authority of the receiving state itself becomes implicated.
The central question is no longer simply: Who is Bangladeshi?
It becomes: Who possesses the authority to determine that fact?
Under ordinary principles of international law, the answer lies not in unilateral declaration but in bilateral engagement. Questions of nationality that affect more than one state are generally expected to be resolved through cooperation rather than imposition.
From this perspective, Bangladesh is entitled to maintain that disputes concerning nationality should be addressed through mutually recognised procedures and that no state may unilaterally externalise unresolved citizenship questions across an international frontier.
The irony is that Bangladesh and India already possess institutional frameworks designed precisely for such circumstances.
The Coordinated Border Management Plan (CBMP), first adopted in 2011 and revised in 2019, was intended to enhance cooperation between border authorities, improve communication mechanisms, facilitate intelligence-sharing, reduce tensions, and strengthen mutual confidence along one of the world’s longest international borders.
Underlying the agreement was a broader philosophy of border governance. Borders were not conceived merely as lines of exclusion or instruments of enforcement. They were understood as shared spaces requiring continuous coordination between neighbouring states.
This distinction is particularly important in South Asia, where borders frequently intersect with dense networks of social, economic, linguistic, and familial connections.
The Bangladesh–India frontier is not comparable to many modern boundaries drawn between historically distinct populations. Communities divided by the border often share languages, kinship ties, cultural traditions, and collective memories that long predate the emergence of the modern state system.
As a consequence, border incidents rarely remain confined to the border.
They shape public perceptions. They influence domestic political narratives. They affect diplomatic atmospheres and alter the broader tone of bilateral relations.
Even relatively isolated allegations can therefore assume significance far beyond their immediate circumstances. They become symbols through which larger concerns regarding respect, equality, and sovereignty are interpreted.
In international politics, symbols matter.
States may tolerate occasional administrative disagreements. They are often less willing to accept practices that appear to diminish their sovereign standing or reduce them to passive recipients of decisions made elsewhere.
This explains why the push-in controversy has resonated so strongly within Bangladesh. The issue is not solely whether particular individuals are Bangladeshi nationals. Nor is it simply a matter of migration enforcement.
At its core lies a broader concern regarding the preservation of sovereign agency—the principle that Bangladesh, like every other state, possesses the right to participate in decisions that affect its territory, its legal responsibilities, and the status of individuals who may ultimately become its citizens.
The controversy therefore occupies an uncomfortable intersection between migration governance and interstate relations. It is simultaneously a legal dispute, a diplomatic challenge, and a question of political symbolism.
For both countries, the stakes extend beyond the immediate management of the border. They touch upon the broader issue of how neighbouring states negotiate disagreement while preserving the mutual respect upon which stable bilateral relations ultimately depend.
The Border as a Space of Exception
The tension between legality and sovereign power has long occupied the attention of political theorists, legal scholars, and historians of the modern state. In recent decades, a growing body of scholarship has argued that contemporary borders increasingly function as what some theorists describe as spaces of exception—zones in which ordinary legal protections become weakened, suspended, or reinterpreted in the name of security, emergency, or administrative necessity.
The concept is not confined to any single country or political system.
Across the world, borders have become sites where states frequently claim powers that would be difficult to justify within ordinary civic life. Administrative detention, accelerated removal procedures, reduced procedural safeguards, and expanded executive discretion have become common features of contemporary migration governance.
Within the interior of the state, constitutional protections ordinarily constrain the exercise of public authority. Courts review executive decisions. Rights may be invoked against government action. Procedural fairness is expected to accompany the exercise of coercive power.
At the border, however, a different logic often emerges.
Governments frequently argue that migration control requires exceptional flexibility. Security concerns are invoked to justify expedited procedures. Administrative efficiency is prioritised. Judicial oversight may become more limited. Individuals encounter state power at precisely the moment when access to legal protections is often weakest.
The danger does not lie solely in the possibility of isolated abuses.
The greater concern is the gradual normalisation of exceptional practices.
History repeatedly demonstrates that extraordinary powers introduced in response to perceived emergencies have a tendency to outlive the circumstances that originally justified them. Temporary measures become permanent features of governance. Administrative shortcuts evolve into institutional habits. What begins as an exception increasingly becomes the norm.
The border is particularly susceptible to this dynamic because those most affected by border policies often possess limited political influence and restricted access to legal remedies.
As a result, practices that might provoke intense scrutiny elsewhere can become embedded within border governance with relatively little public oversight.
The significance of the push-in controversy must be understood against this broader backdrop.
The issue is not merely whether specific allegations are true or whether particular administrative decisions were lawful. The deeper concern involves the kind of legal space the border is permitted to become.
If nationality may be disputed without adequate procedural safeguards;
if citizenship claims may be resolved through executive discretion rather than transparent adjudication;
if individuals may be transferred across international boundaries without meaningful review;
and if sovereign concerns can be subordinated to administrative convenience—
then the border risks evolving into a domain where legality itself becomes conditional.
Not absent.
Not entirely abandoned.
But diminished.
Such a development carries implications that extend far beyond migration policy.
Constitutional systems derive much of their legitimacy from the proposition that public power remains subject to law. Rights may vary according to circumstance. Governments may possess different powers in different contexts. Yet the underlying commitment remains the same: coercive authority should operate within a framework of accountability, review, and legal constraint.
When certain spaces are allowed to function according to a different logic, that commitment begins to weaken.
The border thus occupies a paradoxical position within the modern state. It is simultaneously a symbol of sovereignty and a test of constitutionalism. It marks the limits of territorial jurisdiction while revealing the limits of legal restraint.
The controversy surrounding alleged push-ins ultimately forces a broader question onto the political and legal agenda:
Can democratic states preserve their commitment to the rule of law when confronted with uncertainty over migration, identity, and nationality?
Or does the border inevitably become a place where exceptional powers eclipse ordinary protections?
The answer matters not only for migrants or border communities. It matters for constitutional governance itself. For the principles applied at the margins of the state often reveal more about the character of a political order than those applied at its centre.
Conclusion
The controversy surrounding alleged push-ins along the Bangladesh–India border is, at one level, a dispute about migration management. Yet to view it solely through that prism would be to overlook the deeper legal, constitutional, and geopolitical questions it raises.
At its heart, the debate concerns the relationship between sovereignty and legality. No serious argument can deny the right of a sovereign state to regulate migration or protect its borders. India, like every other country, possesses a legitimate interest in enforcing its immigration laws and addressing concerns arising from irregular migration.
Yet sovereignty is not synonymous with unconstrained discretion. Modern constitutional orders derive their legitimacy not merely from the possession of power, but from the legal limits imposed upon its exercise. Human rights norms and procedural safeguards do not seek to abolish borders or deprive states of their sovereign prerogatives. Rather, they seek to ensure that the management of borders remains subject to law rather than expediency.
The allegations surrounding push-ins therefore raise concerns that extend well beyond the fate of the individuals directly involved. They invite scrutiny of the processes through which nationality is determined, the safeguards available to those contesting official decisions, and the extent to which constitutional protections remain meaningful at the margins of the state.
For Bangladesh, the issue carries an additional dimension. Questions of nationality cannot be separated from questions of sovereignty. Every state possesses the right to determine who qualifies as its citizen and to insist that disputes concerning nationality be resolved through recognised legal and diplomatic channels. Where such procedures are circumvented, the matter ceases to concern migration enforcement alone and begins to implicate the broader principles governing relations between sovereign states.
This is particularly significant in the context of Bangladesh–India relations. The frontier separating the two countries is not merely an international boundary. It is the product of a shared and often turbulent history shaped by Partition, displacement, war, migration, and competing narratives of nationhood. Consequently, disputes arising along this frontier rarely remain confined to questions of administration. They quickly become entangled with larger concerns regarding identity, belonging, dignity, and statehood itself.
The challenge facing both countries, therefore, is not one of choosing between migration control and legal restraint, or between sovereignty and human rights. Such dichotomies are ultimately misleading. Effective border governance requires these principles to coexist.
Borders may divide territories, but their legitimacy ultimately depends on whether they remain governed by law, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to justice.
About Author:
Yusuf Ibne Humayun
Executive, The Bangladesh Dialogue