India Scraps Tax on Sanitary Products after Protests

India joins Ireland, Kenya, and Canada as one of the four countries worldwide with tax free menstrual products.

Image Credit: Nick Kendrick. CC BY 2.0

Almost a month ago, in response to widespread protests, India declared sanitary pads tax-free.

"This was a most-awaited and necessary step to help girls and women to stay in school, their jobs, to practise proper menstrual hygiene,” Surbhi Singh, founder of Sachi Saheli, a menstrual health charity, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The decision to tax menstrual products was made over a year ago under the new national goods and services tax that united all India’s states in a single tax system with the same rates for the whole country. Under the new tax tampons were taxed 12% - the same amount as many luxury items. This was despite the fact that many contraceptives as well as condoms were exempt.

The tax sparked widespread protests and inspired the organization She Says to coin the slogan #lahukalagaan - Hindi for tax on blood. One petition by lawmaker Sushmita Dev to revoke the tax received 400,000 signatures. “Clearly the government had put forth frivolous arguments for one year and then delayed it,” Dev tweeted in response to the tax.

After over a year of protests, petitions, and widespread outrage, the tax was finally repealed late this July. Finance minister Piyush Goya told reporters that India’s “sisters and mothers will be happy to hear that sanitary pads have been given a 100% exemption and brought down to a tax rate of zero. Now there will be no [tax] on sanitary pads.”

Despite their new tax exempt status, it is incredibly hard for Indian women in rural areas to acquire sanitary products—according to the BBC four out of five women in India lack proper resources for menstrual care. Sanitary pads cost between five to twelve rupees each, meaning that often rags, ashes, leaves, and even sawdust are the only options for girls and women. The lack of sanitary care is tied to dramatically increased rates of infection, but is also linked to girls missing or dropping out of school.

India’s decision to exempt sanitary pads from taxes is adding the the global conversation surrounding period poverty. The charity Plan International UK released information that 1 in 10 girls and women under 21 can’t afford to purchase sanitary products. Women, as well as transgender and nonbinary people who menstruate, have their period for an average of 2,535 days of their lives. For those without access to sanitary products, that’s almost seven years of struggling to attend school or work without necessary products. Even people who can afford pads or tampons often experience anxiety around setting aside enough money to afford them each month.

According to Jo Feather, the ActionAid senior policy advisor, the issue is tied to gender inequality. She told the Independent that, “to solve period poverty globally we need to collectively address the issue of gender inequality at its root. We must not allow women and girls to be identified primarily by their biological functions and ensure their periods are celebrated, not ashamed, and can be a positive step in exercising empowerment.”

A significant aspect of period poverty is the stigma in many countries surrounding the topic. Often this taboo silences women, and keeps lawmakers from passing the necessary legislation that could make sanitary pads and tampons available to all women.

 

 

EMMA BRUCE is an undergraduate student studying English and marketing at Emerson College in Boston. While not writing she explores the nearest museums, reads poetry, and takes classes at her local dance studio. She is passionate about sustainable travel and can't wait to see where life will take her. 

Did 4 Million in India Actually Become Stateless Overnight

A released list of citizens has many worried about the future citizenship status of those excluded.

On July 30th a three year effort in India to update Assam, India’s National Register of Citizens (NRC), overseen by the Indian Supreme Court, released its final draft list. It is the first update since 1951 when the NRC was first carried out to count citizens and their holdings. Critics view the list as a reflection of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s policies as many of the four million excluded are Muslims, who make up ⅓ of Assam’s 32 million.  

And because of the increased discrimination against Muslims in Assam, the intentions of the NRC update are under question.  Many see the proposed 2016 Citizenship Amendment Bill as an embodiment of the discrimination. The amendment, were it to be passed, would grant citizenship to Hindus who fled Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Bangladesh—but not Muslims. Considering this, UN human rights experts have voiced the opinion that “local authorities… are deemed to be particularly hostile.”

The main concern though for international organizations is that even with legitimate documents, many officials are faulting individuals for minor technical issues. These errors include spelling errors, age inconsistencies, or confusion caused by various names. Aakar Patel, Executive Director of Amnesty International India, addressed such potentially misguided intentions by cautioning the government that the “NRC should not become a political tool.”

But how does one prove their citizenship? Each individual and every member of their family must provide two forms of documentation. The first is considered List A: documentation of an individual’s ancestors who were either on the 1951 NRC or any voter lists between 1951 and March 24, 1971.  The cut-off date is in accordance with the 1985 Assam Accords, which stated any individuals who fled violence after Bangladesh declared independence a foreigner.

Then the individual most prove their connection to their legacy person through List B documents, such as a birth certificate.  Still, both set of documents are difficult to obtain as many are poor illiterate families who either cannot access historical records or simply do not have the relevant documents.

Villagers wait outside their local NRC Center to verify their documents (Source: Reuters).

And for those not on the final list, they will be left with only those rights “guaranteed by the UN” according to Chief Minister of Assam, Sarbananda Sonowal. In other words, these individuals would be stateless: losing land rights, voting rights, and even access to welfare. For those individuals, the state has mentioned foreigners returning to Bangladesh; but Bangladesh has said it is not aware of any of its citizens living in Assam. And even though many news platforms have noted the construction of a new detention center to better process foreigners, Sonowal has said no one will be sent to detention centers

Considering this, South Asian director of the Human Rights Watch, Meenakshi Ganguly said the government must “ensure the rights of Muslims and other vulnerable communities.” And for many human rights activists, such protections are crucial to preventing a parallel to the Rohingya’s loss of citizenship in 1982.

Currently, officials are reaching out to individuals not on the list and educating them on how they can file claims and objections to their status. Members of the Supreme Court have also emphasized that the list “can’t be the basis for any action by any authority” in its current draft form. Although the  “legal system will [ultimately] take its own course” according to Siddhartha Bhattacharya, Minister of Law and Justice.

 

 

TERESA NOWALK is a student at the University of Virginia studying anthropology and history. In her free time she loves traveling, volunteering in the Charlottesville community, and listening to other people’s stories. She does not know where her studies will take her, but is certain writing will be a part of whatever the future has in store.

INDIA: Sadhu: Beyond the World of Illusion

When a rare outside viewpoint gives context to your own life, you can’t help but feel the mold within you bend and twist into something new. In Varanasi, one of the oldest inhabited cities on Earth, I came to know India’s holy men, the Sadhu

Derived from the Greek asketes, meaning “monk” or “hermit,” ascetics are individuals who chose a life characterized by severe self-discipline and abstinence from all forms of indulgence. Almost every major religion breeds ascetics, and for many thousands of years, there have been wandering monks who have renounced all earthly possessions, and chosen to dedicate their lives to the pursuit of spiritual liberation. For many of these individuals, reality is dictated only by the mind, not material objects. India’s holy men, the Sadhu, are one such example.

Above: Portrait of Baba Nondo Somendrah in Varanasi.

Varanasi is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, and it is thought that people may have lived in this place for about 3,000 years or longer. As the epicenter of Hindu faith, it is similar to Jerusalem for Christians and Mecca for Muslims. The images in this story are part of my “Holy Men” series, featuring religious ascetics from around the world.

Above: Shiv Ji Tiwari stands on a sunken temple in Varanasi.

I first began this collection with a photo series from the North of Ethiopia focusing on Coptic Christianity. Although Coptic Christian monks and Sadhus live in different corners of the world, the connection all of these subjects have to each other is profound. I have been working with some of the same sadhus from Varanasi since I was 16 years old, and coming to know these individuals has truly been a life changing experience.

When a rare outside viewpoint gives context to your own life, you can’t help but feel the mold within you bend and twist into something new.

Above: Ascetic priest Baba Vijay Nund rows a boat along the Ganges River.

In particular, I came to know some members of the Aghori, an intense sect of Sadhu infamous for overcoming all things taboo. For instance, they may meditate on corpses, even eat human flesh as part of a sacred ritual, or keep a skull as a reminder of the impermanence of life.

The Aghori have a profound connection with the dead. Death is not a fearsome concept, but a passing from the world of illusion.

Sadhus live a very different life from most of us. A sadhu renounces his earthly life, all his worldly attachments, and leaves home and family. As part of this renunciation, they also leave behind their clothes, food and shelter, and live on the generosity of others. Another part of renouncing your former life is to attend your own funeral and die to yourself, and be reborn into your new life as a sadhu. Below you see Magesh, who left a well paid job as an IT computer consultant to pursue to path of Aghora. After years of practice, he finds no temptation to return to his old life.

When he was young, Lal Baba’s parents arranged a marriage for him. Uncertain about his future, he ran away from home in Bihar Siwan and took up the lifelong task of becoming a sadhu. He has dreadlocks (jatas) several meters long, which have been growing for over 40 years. For sadhus, jatas are a sign of renunciation and a life dedicated to spirituality.

Another important and sacred ritual for Aghori sadhus, is covering themselves with human ash, which is the last rite of the material body.

To many Hindus, Sadhus serve as an earthly reminder of the divine, and may take on the role of a healer as someone who can help to rid others of negative energies. As a part of their daily routines, sadhus will arise before sunrise and bathe in cold water, before starting their daily prayers.

Above: Vijay Nund performing morning rituals in the Ganges River, the most sacred river in Hinduism.

The Ganges River is an important subject in this photo series, creeping into the background, giving the holy men and their students a sense of environment. In the Hindu faith and Indian society, the Ganges River holds a prominent, special, and sacred place. Hindus believe that the Ganges is divine, in part, because it flows from the heavens. This is understandable when you realize that the Ganges is primarily composed of Himalayan meltwater, which falls from the heavens as snow.

Above: Saurav Kumar Pandey and Amit Byasi, Batuk students in Varanasi.

One of the most sacred aspects of the Ganges is that Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges reduces a person’s sins and increases the chances for eternal liberation from the cycle of life, death and rebirth.

Above: Baba Vijay Nund on the steps of Chet Singh Ghat on the banks of the Ganges River.

Although considered extremely polluted with human waste, garbage and industrial waste, the Ganges is still considered sacred, and some believe there’s nothing that can be done to diminish its holiness. The Ganges has been the spiritual and physical lifeblood of northern India for ages.

Above: Baba Mooni conducting Aghori Puja in the Ganges river.

The unique perspectives of the Sadhu, and other ascetics like them, challenge the way we interpret the world around us. There are so many places to explore and people to photograph, it keeps me up at night.

Above: Portraits of Baba Mooni and Shiv Ji Tiwari.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA

JOEY L
Photographer / Director / Blogger. Clients include National Geographic Channel, US Army, ACLU, Lavazza. Ongoing projects in Iraq / Syria, Ethiopia & India. joeyl.com

BANGLADESH/INDIA: From No-Man's Land to the Unknown

For decades, more than 50,000 people have been stranded, without access to basic rights, on tiny islands of no-man’s land locked within India and Bangladesh. 2015 finally saw an end to these enclaves, or ‘chitmahals,’ bringing hope and change to communities living on the world’s most complex border.

The party lasted long into the night across remote patches of northern Bangladesh. As the clock struck midnight people played music, danced and sang using candles for light, and for the first time in their villages they raised a national flag. Similar events were also taking place on the other side of the border in India just a stone’s throw away. 

For 68 years, ever since the formation of East Pakistan in 1947 (which later became known as Bangladesh), the residents of one of the world’s greatest geographical border oddities have been waiting for this moment; for their chance to finally become part of the country that has surrounded yet eluded them for so many years.

At 12.01am on July 31st, 2015, India and Bangladesh finally exchanged 162 tracts of land — 111 inside Bangladesh and 51 inside India. 

Known in geographical terms as enclaves, or locally as chitmahals, these areas can most easily be described as sovereign pieces of land completely surrounded by another, entirely different, sovereign nation.

Inside an enclave, a man prepares jute by removing the long, soft vegetable fibres that can be spun into coarse, strong threads, and keeping the sticks. For many enclave dwellers, jute is where most of their income comes from and also what they use to build their houses.
 

Enclaves aren’t as rare as you may think, and until now this part of South Asia has contained the vast majority. Existing around the world, mostly in Europe and the former Soviet Union, they were once much more prevalent — until modern day cartography and accurately defined borders eliminated many. Some still remain, such as the Belgium town of Baarle-Hertog, which is full of Dutch territory. The locals have turned the unusual border into a tourist attraction. However, for this region of southern Asia, where political and religious tensions run high, the existence of enclaves is not so jovial. Life for those who are from these areas is far harder than in neighbouring villages, only minutes away.
 

Sisters Lobar Rani Bormoni, 11, and Shapla Rani Bormoni, 12, stand in a paddy field in the enclave in Bangladesh where they born.
 

“These enclaves are officially recognised by each state, but remain un-administered because of their discontinuous geography. Enclave residents are often described as “stateless” in that they live in zones outside of official administration — since officials of one country cannot cross a sovereign frontier into administered territory,” explains Jason Cons, a Research Assistant Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and author of the forthcoming book, ‘Sensitive Space: Fragmented Territory at the India-Bangladesh Border.’
 

Muslim men from Dhoholakhagrabari enclave pray in their mosque. Mosques are usually the only solid structures that exist inside the enclaves.
 

Several folktales tell of the origin of these enclaves being the stakes in a game of chess between two feuding maharajas in the 18th century, or even the result of a drunken British officer who spilt spots of ink on the map he drew during partition in 1947. Captivating as these stories are, the most likely explanation dates back to 1711 when a peace treaty was signed between the feuding Maharajah of Coch Behar and the Mughal Emperor in Delhi. After the treaty their respective armies retained and controlled areas of land, where the local people had to pay tax to the respective ruler, thus creating pockets of land controlled by different people.

Prior to 1947, when this region was entirely Indian territory, living in these locally-controlled enclaves made little difference. However, during the drawing of the boundary between India and Bangladesh, the Maharajah of Coch Behar asked to join India — on the condition that he retain all his land, including that inside the newly formed East Pakistan, which his ancestors had rightly won control of over 200 years ago.

So, through no fault of their own, the lives of 50,000 people turned upside down — for decades they have been stranded on islands of no-man’s land.

A man fishes at dusk using his large bamboo fish trap. This river exists just outside the enclave but as it’s in Bangladesh territory, enclave dwellers are forbidden to fish here otherwise angering the local fishermen. 

Enclave dwellers fish in a flooded paddy.

During the early 1970s a framework to find a solution to this problem was put in place — called the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement. For forty years, as governments came and went, neither the Indian nor the Bangladeshi politicians were able to agree with their counterparts at the time. And whilst the politicians squabbled, the residents suffered.

Only informal work, like at this sawmill, is available for enclave dwellers in Bangladesh.
 

On the ground there are no border fences or security checkpoints, and without realising it, you can walk in and out of India countless times, crossing an international boundary completely obliviously. However, there is a serious lack of infrastructure and this has been one of the most serious problems facing the residents. Paved roads quite literally stop at the boundaries to the chitmahals, as do electricity poles. The enclave inhabitants in Debiganj District of Bangladesh, as non-Bangladeshi citizens, were even barred from sending their children to school, also receiving no state assistance or even the most basic of hospital treatment.

Sheltered within their small bamboo house, located inside the enclave of Dhoholakhagrabari, Eity Rani, 14, and Shobo Rai, 8, carefully do their homework by the light of an oil lamp. Life is much harder for children who are born in enclaves.

 A Bangladeshi man sits in a shop in the market of a small town that sits between enclaves.

Every Saturday a jute market is held in Debiganj. For the many inhabitants of the enclaves that surround the town, jute is where most of their income comes from.

Wearing just a lungi — a traditional sarong worn around the waist — Sri Ajit Memo is sitting in the middle of a small muddy courtyard, surrounded by houses made of bamboo and jute sticks. At 55 years old, his family have lived in a Dhoholakhagrabari chitmahal for generations. Chewing on the twig of a certain tree that locals here use as an alternative to toothpaste, he explains, “All kinds of problems exist here. The government doesn’t care about us, or our children, and so it’s very difficult for them to even go to school. Honestly, we are Indian, but how can we feel this way when we get no help from them?”

For enclave dwellers on both sides of the Indian-Bangladeshi border, the entitlement to receive even the most basic of rights has eluded them.

Reece Jones, an Associate Professor in Political Geography at the University of Hawai’i Manoa, who has visited many chitmahals on both sides of the border, explains further, “After decades in this situation many people have found ways around it through bribes to officials or through friends who helped them to obtain the documents they needed, such as school enrolment forms for their children. However, the situation was not stable or secure. They were extremely vulnerable to theft and violence because the police had no jurisdiction in the enclaves.”
 

Rupsana Begum, 7, (pink dress) and Monalisa Akter, 7, (orange dress) are from an enclave but were able to come and study at Sher-e-Bangla Government School because their parents managed to acquire fake documents and were able to pay the school.

In Dhoholakhagrabari enclave students and their teacher sit in a madrassa class. Because enclave children have a difficult time accessing the education system in Bangladesh the locals of this enclave formed an Islamic Foundation funded on donations.

Today, after decades left living in limbo in these randomly placed no-man’s lands, around 47,000 people on the Bangladeshi side and some 14,000 on the Indian side have finally been given the right make a choice: stay where they have lived for generations with official citizenship of the country that will absorb them, or return to their country of origin.

None of the residents living in Bangladeshi enclaves within India asked to return to Bangladesh and as a result they will now all become Indian citizens. However, on the other side of the border in Bangladesh, whilst the vast majority of the Indian enclave dwellers decided to stay and become Bangladeshi citizens, 979 people requested to return to India. For these families, the enclave saga has yet to end.

Of those 979 individuals, a total of 406 come from Debiganj district. In 2011, a team of Indian officials visited every home in every enclave in Bangladesh and produced the first ever detailed census of all those living within the Indian enclaves. This report formed the basis of all subsequent decisions on the status of each person living in the enclaves.
 

An old lady inside her home, which has no running water or electricity, in Dayuti enclave.
 

Dhonobala Rani, 70, gets emotional knowing that she has to leave her son (in the blue shirt) behind in Bangladesh, as she takes Indian citizenship.

Several months after my visit to document the enclaves during the final days of their existence, those who had chosen to leave for India finally crossed the border, leaving their homes in Bangladesh forever. In India they were given land and began the process of integrating into Indian society. Those who chose to stay behind in Bangladesh also started to receive such basic rights as eligibility to vote and access to health care.

Let us hope that after decades of struggle on these isolated political islands, the lives of these ex-enclaves dwellers can begin to reach some level of normalcy. In the end, after so many years of uncertainty, the world’s strangest border region has now become a thing of the past.

A lady from Ponchoki Bhajini village, in the enclave of Dhoholakhagrabari. She has chosen to leave for India, to start a new life as an Indian citizen. 
 

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA.

LUKE DUGGLEBY

Luke Duggleby is a British freelance documentary and travel photographer living in Bangkok.

BANGLADESH: From No-Man's Land to the Unknown

For decades, more than 50,000 people have been stranded, without access to basic rights, on tiny islands of no-man's land locked within India and Bangladesh. Last year finally saw an end to these enclaves, or 'chitmahals,' bringing hope and change to communities living on the world's most complex border. 

The party lasted long into the night across remote patches of northern Bangladesh. As the clock struck midnight people played music, danced and sang using candles for light, and for the first time in their villages they raised a national flag. Similar events were also taking place on the other side of the border in India just a stone’s throw away. 

For 68 years, ever since the formation of East Pakistan in 1947 (which later became known as Bangladesh), the residents of one of the world’s greatest geographical border oddities have been waiting for this moment; for their chance to finally become part of the country that has surrounded yet eluded them for so many years.

At 12.01am on July 31st, 2015, India and Bangladesh finally exchanged 162 tracts of land — 111 inside Bangladesh and 51 inside India. 

Known in geographical terms as enclaves, or locally as chitmahals, these areas can most easily be described as sovereign pieces of land completely surrounded by another, entirely different, sovereign nation.

ABOVE: Inside an enclave, a man prepares jute by removing the long, soft vegetable fibres that can be spun into coarse, strong threads, and keeping the sticks. For many enclave dwellers, jute is where most of their income comes from and also what they use to build their houses. 

Enclaves aren’t as rare as you may think, and until now this part of South Asia has contained the vast majority. Existing around the world, mostly in Europe and the former Soviet Union, they were once much more prevalent — until modern day cartography and accurately defined borders eliminated many. Some still remain, such as the Belgium town of Baarle-Hertog, which is full of Dutch territory. The locals have turned the unusual border into a tourist attraction. However, for this region of southern Asia, where political and religious tensions run high, the existence of enclaves is not so jovial. Life for those who are from these areas is far harder than in neighboring villages, only minutes away.

ABOVE: Sisters Lobar Rani Bormoni, 11, and Shapla Rani Bormoni, 12, stand in a paddy field in the enclave in Bangladesh where they born. 

“These enclaves are officially recognised by each state, but remain un-administered because of their discontinuous geography. Enclave residents are often described as “stateless” in that they live in zones outside of official administration — since officials of one country cannot cross a sovereign frontier into administered territory,” explains Jason Cons, a Research Assistant Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and author of the forthcoming book, ‘Sensitive Space: Fragmented Territory at the India-Bangladesh Border.’

ABOVE: Muslim men from Dhoholakhagrabari enclave pray in their mosque. Mosques are usually the only solid structures that exist inside the enclaves.

Several folktales tell of the origin of these enclaves being the stakes in a game of chess between two feuding maharajas in the 18th century, or even the result of a drunken British officer who spilt spots of ink on the map he drew during partition in 1947. Captivating as these stories are, the most likely explanation dates back to 1711 when a peace treaty was signed between the feuding Maharajah of Coch Behar and the Mughal Emperor in Delhi. After the treaty their respective armies retained and controlled areas of land, where the local people had to pay tax to the respective ruler, thus creating pockets of land controlled by different people.

Prior to 1947, when this region was entirely Indian territory, living in these locally-controlled enclaves made little difference. However, during the drawing of the boundary between India and Bangladesh, the Maharajah of Coch Behar asked to join India — on the condition that he retain all his land, including that inside the newly formed East Pakistan, which his ancestors had rightly won control of over 200 years ago.

So, through no fault of their own, the lives of 50,000 people turned upside down — for decades they have been stranded on islands of no-man’s land.

ABOVE: (Left) A man fishes at dusk using his large bamboo fish trap. This river exists just outside the enclave but as it’s in Bangladesh territory, enclave dwellers are forbidden to fish here otherwise angering the local fishermen. (Right) Enclave dwellers fish in a flooded paddy. 

During the early 1970s a framework to find a solution to this problem was put in place — called the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement. For forty years, as governments came and went, neither the Indian nor the Bangladeshi politicians were able to agree with their counterparts at the time. And whilst the politicians squabbled, the residents suffered.

ABOVE: Only informal work, like at this sawmill, is available for enclave dwellers in Bangladesh. 

On the ground there are no border fences or security checkpoints, and without realising it, you can walk in and out of India countless times, crossing an international boundary completely obliviously. However, there is a serious lack of infrastructure and this has been one of the most serious problems facing the residents. Paved roads quite literally stop at the boundaries to the chitmahals, as do electricity poles. The enclave inhabitants in Debiganj District of Bangladesh, as non-Bangladeshi citizens, were even barred from sending their children to school, also receiving no state assistance or even the most basic of hospital treatment.

ABOVE: Sheltered within their small bamboo house, located inside the enclave of Dhoholakhagrabari, Eity Rani, 14, and Shobo Rai, 8, carefully do their homework by the light of an oil lamp. Life is much harder for children who are born in enclaves.

ABOVE: (Right) A Bangladeshi man sits in a shop in the market of a small town that sits between enclaves. (Left) Every Saturday a jute market is held in Debiganj. For the many inhabitants of the enclaves that surround the town, jute is where most of their income comes from. 

Wearing just a lungi — a traditional sarong worn around the waist — Sri Ajit Memo is sitting in the middle of a small muddy courtyard, surrounded by houses made of bamboo and jute sticks. At 55 years old, his family have lived in a Dhoholakhagrabari chitmahal for generations. Chewing on the twig of a certain tree that locals here use as an alternative to toothpaste, he explains, “All kinds of problems exist here. The government doesn’t care about us, or our children, and so it’s very difficult for them to even go to school. Honestly, we are Indian, but how can we feel this way when we get no help from them?”

For enclave dwellers on both sides of the Indian-Bangladeshi border, the entitlement to receive even the most basic of rights has eluded them.

Reece Jones, an Associate Professor in Political Geography at the University of Hawai’i Manoa, who has visited many chitmahals on both sides of the border, explains further, “After decades in this situation many people have found ways around it through bribes to officials or through friends who helped them to obtain the documents they needed, such as school enrolment forms for their children. However, the situation was not stable or secure. They were extremely vulnerable to theft and violence because the police had no jurisdiction in the enclaves.”

ABOVE: Rupsana Begum, 7, (pink dress) and Monalisa Akter, 7, (orange dress) are from an enclave but were able to come and study at Sher-e-Bangla Government School because their parents managed to acquire fake documents and were able to pay the school.

ABOVE: In Dhoholakhagrabari enclave students and their teacher sit in a madrassa class. Because enclave children have a difficult time accessing the education system in Bangladesh the locals of this enclave formed an Islamic Foundation funded on donations.

Today, after decades left living in limbo in these randomly placed no-man’s lands, around 47,000 people on the Bangladeshi side and some 14,000 on the Indian side have finally been given the right make a choice: stay where they have lived for generations with official citizenship of the country that will absorb them, or return to their country of origin.

None of the residents living in Bangladeshi enclaves within India asked to return to Bangladesh and as a result they will now all become Indian citizens. However, on the other side of the border in Bangladesh, whilst the vast majority of the Indian enclave dwellers decided to stay and become Bangladeshi citizens, 979 people requested to return to India. For these families, the enclave saga has yet to end.

Of those 979 individuals, a total of 406 come from Debiganj district. In 2011, a team of Indian officials visited every home in every enclave in Bangladesh and produced the first ever detailed census of all those living within the Indian enclaves. This report formed the basis of all subsequent decisions on the status of each person living in the enclaves.

ABOVE: (Left) An old lady inside her home, which has no running water or electricity, in Dayuti enclave. (Right) Dhonobala Rani, 70, gets emotional knowing that she has to leave her son (in the blue shirt) behind in Bangladesh, as she takes Indian citizenship. 

Several months after my visit to document the enclaves during the final days of their existence, those who had chosen to leave for India finally crossed the border, leaving their homes in Bangladesh forever. In India they were given land and began the process of integrating into Indian society. Those who chose to stay behind in Bangladesh also started to receive such basic rights as eligibility to vote and access to health care.

Let us hope that after decades of struggle on these isolated political islands, the lives of these ex-enclaves dwellers can begin to reach some level of normalcy. In the end, after so many years of uncertainty, the world’s strangest border region has now become a thing of the past.

ABOVE: A lady from Ponchoki Bhajini village, in the enclave of Dhoholakhagrabari. She has chosen to leave for India, to start a new life as an Indian citizen.

 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA 

 

LUKE DUGGLEBY

@LukeDuggleby

Luke Duggleby is a British freelance documentarian and travel photographer. He currently lives in Bangkok and is represented by Redux Pictures. 

 

VIDEO: E-Waste Tsunami in Delhi

A film to accompany the E-Waste Tsunami project. This film explores the industrialized landscape of the urban poor in a developing world metropolis. The urban poor are the community and sector of society to which the waste-picker and e-waste worker belong. The journey begins at the Bhalswa Landfill and associated communities in northwestern Delhi and then moves through the rapidly expanding infrastructure of the city. It concludes with a passage through unregulated housing developments that form a large part of this 21st century metropolis.

E-WASTE TSUNAMI

E-WASTE TSUNAMI peers behind the virtual world conjured by our computers and mobile phones to the very real world of electronic trash.

The ecosystems of production and consumption create the ecosystem of the receiver. In the receiver ecosystem are the environment into which products and materials are disposed, and the urban poor who work in the informal labor sector, generally in unregulated conditions
and facilities. Increasing consumer affluence, population growth, and decreasing product prices exponentially accelerate the e-waste problem. This project documents what’s happening at the frontline in the world of the receiver in a developing economy.

The photographic documentary, and film, produced by StudioFYNN,  provide a glimpse into the lives of those who work with e-waste on a daily basis in Bhalswa and Mustafabad, Delhi, India. While alternatives to toxic labor practices exist, only a handful of socially conscious and technologically equipped facilities are committed tobest practices with e-waste end-of-lifecycle. Given this highly complex problem, in what generative ways can diverse fields (such as industrialdesign, psychology, or urban policy) begin to model a more sustainable future?

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SHAUN FYNN

Want to see more? Check out STUDIOFYNN's Delhi Journey, an accompanying film for the E-Waste Tsunami project. 

SHAUN FYNN

@studiofynn 

Shaun Fynn is an acclaimed designer with over 20 years experience in advising and creating for Fortune 500 companies. Since founding STUDIOFYNN in 1997, he has developed the practice globally, working in areas of design research, photo documentary and design education. E-Waste Tsunami — a project that peers behind our virtual worlds to capture the real world of electronic trash — was on exhibition in The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center's Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries in New York City at the beginning of 2016.