Shifting the borders inland: Policing powers of the Border Security Force
Published on: 21 October 2021, 01:22 pm
Amidst the recent decision to increase the jurisdiction of the Border Security Force in West Bengal, Punjab and Assam, RAVI NAIR examines the encroachment of Constitutional federalism by a union government gradually inching the country towards an authoritarian state.
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THE Union government's decision to extend the jurisdiction of the Border Security Force (BSF) to over 50 km in three states – namely, West Bengal, Punjab and Assam, from the barbed wire fence with Bangladesh and Pakistan, along with the grant of policing powers, is one more building block in the creation of a unitary authoritarian state.
Irrespective of the political party in power at the Centre and in the respective states, all of them have been increasingly ceding democratic space to the denizens of the "deep State" in India. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government brought about an even more draconian bill in 2011. At that point, then-Chief Minister Narendra Modi opposed the said Bill, stating it was an attempt to "create a state within a state".
It was later withdrawn in 2015 by the National Democratic Alliance government. However, the deep State was not to be thwarted.
In India, a series of notifications allocating policing duties to the Central Paramilitary Forces (CPMFs) — including the BSF and the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), both with similar border control mandates — have nudged the boundary separating army and police into effective oblivion.