Great Wall of India To Fence Bangladesh Out

It seems immigration, or issues referring to it are in the news this week.

In what is a masterstroke by India, we have managed to build nearly 2/3rds of a fence on the common border with Bangladesh.

The same way the US faces illegal immigration from Mexico, does India face illegals entering from Bangladesh.

In a country already overflowing with people, this causes greater hurdles. I for one will empathise with those who come in, to a small degree. No sane person will leave his home, life and everything he or she knows and just venture out to a new land illegally and with no idea of what the future holds. The conditions have to be so desperate at home that they would think of giving up everything and going to another country with literally the shirt on their backs.

However, the government of the land is equally to blame for the corruption and everyday incompetence in running and governing a country. Hence, this story makes interesting reading.

Like the United States, India has an immigration problem. India is a developing country with a booming economy. Its neighbor, Bangladesh, is an impoverished mess with 150 million people crammed onto what is mainly a flood plain about the size of upper New England plus Massachusetts. India surrounds Bangladesh on three sides; on the fourth is the Indian Ocean, which frequently stirs up catastrophic typhoons………Something urgently needed to be done, and India went ahead and did it.

Without fuss, without bother, without much debate, India began building a fence all the way around its 2,050-mile border with Bangladesh. The fence consists of two rows of 10-foot-high barbed wire stretched between posts studded with spikes. Coils of barbed wire fill the space between the two rows. Work began in 2000, and about 1,550 miles of the fence has been completed.

Contrast that with the outcry and anguish in the United States over a plan to build a 700-mile fence across part of its border with Mexico. Contrast that with the inability of Congress to do anything about illegal immigration. [link]

Maybe US politicians can learn something from their Indian counterparts.