Enclave kids

The organisation spearheaded the dwellers’ movement for citizenship.

In July 2015, India and Bangladesh swapped enclaves in each other’s territory as part of a historic agreement that took 40 years to finalise. India took in 14,856 people living in 51 Bangladeshi enclaves and Bangladesh accepted 37,369 living in 111 Indian enclaves -- 979 of whom chose Indian citizenship.

On the Indian side, the enclaves were strewn across West Bengal’s Cooch Bihar district comprising of expansive plains where the international border was often a paddy field or an electric pole with few patrolling soldiers.

Families in these areas had lived in harmony for several generations, and would effortlessly cross the open border. Locals said the “fake fathers” agreed to let enclave dwellers use their names out of empathy and some also paid visits to schools when guardians were called.

Sengupta argued the case was exceptional and needed the government to adopt a policy for allowing corrections. “Otherwise, the past will continue to haunt them forever. The issue needs to be raised in the assembly but the local MLA is silent,” said Sengupta.

Local Trinamool Congress leader and Dinhata MLA, Udayan Guha, said the administration was looking into the matter. However, Kaushik Saha, the district magistrate, told Hindustan Times that he was not aware of the problem as he was new to the district.

“I have been travelling from pillar to post and have written from the local block development officer, chairman of school education board to the chief minister and the President of India, requesting that we should be allowed to rectify our school records and certificates. We have not heard back from anyone so far,” said Rahaman Ali, son of Naskar Ali.

In school documents, his father is mentioned as Shahar Ali, a neighbour.

A batch of students also met officials from the secondary and higher education boards in the state. Officials told them that the records cannot be changed without a bill passed in the assembly.

But Miyan isn’t giving up hope. “We fought for decades to get our citizenship. We will fight through this.”