Every night, as the rivers darken along Bengal’s border, small groups slip through the water. By morning, they have new names, new papers, and a new country- India, that doesn’t even know they’ve arrived.
The Border That Breathes
Just after midnight, the Ichamati River is almost still. The only sound is the slow creak of a bamboo boat and the muffled splash of bare feet stepping into Indian soil. It lasts barely five minutes, a crossing so quiet it could be mistaken for a dream. By sunrise, they are gone, blended into the paddy fields of Bongaon, the lanes of Barasat, the slums of Kolkata. For the locals, this is not news. For the police, it is routine. For India, it is a problem that grows larger every single day, and one that no one seems willing to confront.
Across more than 2,200 kilometres of Bengal’s border with Bangladesh, this silent movement of people has become so normal that the border itself has lost meaning. It doesn’t divide two nations anymore, it bleeds them together.
The Man Who Wasn’t Indian
A few months ago, police in Barasat arrested a man named Narayan Adhikari. He was polite, hardworking, and well-known in the fish market. His Aadhaar and voter ID showed him as a citizen. But Narayan wasn’t Narayan. He was Nurul Haq, a Bangladeshi national who had crossed the river years ago and built an entirely new identity, Hindu name, Indian documents, even a bank account. He paid taxes. He voted. He lived like any other Indian. And he would never have been caught if not for a tip-off.
“His papers were flawless,” said a police officer who investigated the case. “The only mistake he made was trusting the wrong person.”
Nurul’s story is not an exception. It’s a window into something much bigger, how entire networks now exist to help illegal migrants melt seamlessly into Indian life.
A System Designed to Be Exploited
West Bengal’s geography is its curse.
Its border with Bangladesh is 2,216 km long, more than half of India’s total frontier with its eastern neighbour. Much of it, rivers, creeks, and swampy delta terrain, is impossible to fence. The Border Security Force (BSF) does what it can: patrols, barbed wire, searchlights. But the terrain, and political apathy, make complete control impossible.
“We can’t fence a river,” admitted a BSF officer posted in Nadia. “People come in boats, sometimes whole families. We stop some, but many get through.”
According to BSF figures published in June 2025, more than 2,688 Bangladeshi nationals were intercepted or pushed back from Bengal’s border sectors over three years, 2,410 in South Bengal and 278 in North Bengal.
That’s just the visible trickle. A 2018 study in the Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences estimated that around 1,000 Bangladeshis cross into India every day, most through West Bengal’s porous riverine stretches.Even if that number is half right, India faces hundreds of thousands of illegal entrants each year, a demographic shift larger than most Indian towns.
Border Data Snapshot
| Region | People Intercepted |
|---|---|
| South Bengal | 2,410 |
| North Bengal | 278 |
| Total Bengal | 2,688 (BSF Official Data) |
| Estimated illegal crossings daily | 1,000+ |
The Business of Infiltration
Illegal immigration is not chaos, it’s commerce. Investigators describe a well-oiled supply chain:
- Bangladeshi agents charge ₹5,000–₹10,000 per person to guide families to crossing points.
- Indian middlemen handle transport and bribes to bypass BSF patrols.
- Document fixers in border towns like Bongaon and Basirhat forge Aadhaar and voter IDs for ₹2,000–₹5,000.
- Political brokers use these identities to quietly add new “voters” to local rolls.
Within weeks, a foreign national becomes an Indian on paper.
Info Snapshot
- Total Border Length (India–Bangladesh): 4,096 km
- Bengal’s Share: 2,216 km (> 50%)
- Intercepted in Bengal (2023–25): 2,688 people
- Estimated Illegal Crossings Daily: ~ 1,000 (RJHSS)
- Bangladesh Land Lost to Erosion Annually: 10,000 hectares
- Population Displaced Yearly: 200,000 people
- Cost of Fake Aadhaar in Border Towns: ₹ 2,000–4,000
“These networks feed off corruption and political protection,” said a senior officer from the West Bengal Home Department. “It’s one of the biggest undocumented industries in the state.”
The Politics of Looking Away
Every Political parties knows it’s happening. No one truly wants to stop it. For the Trinamool Congress, confronting the issue risks alienating minority voters concentrated in border districts. For the BJP, it’s a convenient talking point but a logistical nightmare in Bengal’s swampy terrain.
In April 2025, opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari alleged that more than 70,000 new voter applications in North 24 Parganas and Murshidabad were connected to illegal entrants. The Election Commission’s probes drag on while rolls keep swelling. Votes are immediate. Demographic change is forever.
“You can’t stop infiltration if politicians need it to win elections.
It’s not a border problem anymore. It’s a political business model.”
— Retired BSF Inspector, South Bengal Sector
The Cost to India
Illegal immigration hits India on every front:
- Wages collapse: Cheap, undocumented labour undercuts locals in construction and fisheries.
- Land & welfare fraud: Fake deeds and ration cards let illegal settlers claim public land and subsidies.
- Security breaches: The same smuggling corridors move counterfeit currency, narcotics, and extremists.
- Demographic imbalance: Census data show that border districts like Malda and Murshidabad have grown 2–3 times faster than the state average, a pattern matching BSF infiltration zones.
(Eurasia Review, 2024)
This isn’t theory. It’s visible on the ground, in stagnant wages, overcrowded schools, and swelling voter lists.
When Compassion Becomes a Loophole
Bangladesh loses nearly 10,000 hectares of land each year to river erosion, displacing more than 200,000 people annually, according to its Ministry of Water Resources. Many move west, where the same river simply continues into India.
Most are poor, desperate, and unarmed. But unregulated compassion is not policy, it’s negligence.
India cannot solve Bangladesh’s ecological and economic crisis by silently absorbing its overflow population. What began as humanitarian tolerance has become demographic corrosion, a slow, silent loss of territorial and cultural cohesion.
What India Must Do Now
1. Complete border fencing and install smart surveillance sensors across vulnerable river belts.
2. Launch biometric audits of voter rolls and ration lists in border districts.
3. Crack down on document-forging syndicates and their political backers.
4. Create a centralised Border Security Coordination Cell linking BSF, state police, and intelligence.
5. Pursue firm but humane repatriation. Compassion without control is surrender.
The Border at Dawn
When dawn breaks over the Ichamati, the mist hides everything, the fences, the guards, the footprints in the mud. Somewhere, another group is crossing, guided by the same calculation: India won’t notice. And perhaps they’re right. For decades, India has treated this as a political inconvenience rather than an existential challenge. Illegal immigration is no longer a humanitarian question. It is the slow undoing of sovereignty itself. If India cannot secure its borders in Bengal, it may soon find it has no borders left to defend.
Note: The writer is a Retired High Ranking Official of BSF, who has served extensively in the India-Bangladesh Border. He wishes to remain unnamed.
