How security is strangling haats

In the India-Bangladesh borderlands, border haats are the lifelines of commerce and kinship. Informally practised for generations, cross-border markets, or border haats, were formalised to legitimise and regulate cross-border exchange with a view to improve the livelihoods of border communities on both sides. For border communities, these haats have been economic anchors where small-scale vendors could sell locally produced goods directly to customers across the border. These haats also served as spaces where cross-border families could continue their shared cultural practices. It represented the human face of bilateral relations, despite periodic diplomatic tensions.

Today, these vital economic and social lifelines face an existential threat, caught in the crossfire of rising fundamentalism and increasingly militarised border security. As fundamentalist forces gain ground in Bangladesh and security concerns escalate, the delicate balance that allowed these markets to flourish is collapsing, and with it, the livelihoods of countless border residents. While Bangladesh has long grappled with various forms of religious extremism, recent developments have witnessed concerning trends. The space for fundamentalist ideologies has expanded, manifesting in attacks on religious minorities, pressure on secular institutions, and growing influence of radical groups in border regions.

This shift has profound implications for border management. Security agencies on both sides have intensified surveillance and enforcement, responding to legitimate concerns about cross-border militancy, arms smuggling, and radicalisation networks. The result is a progressively militarised border regime that treats all cross-border movement with suspicion since August 2024, including the small-scale trade that border haats were designed to facilitate.

The human cost of this deteriorating security environment is staggering. Closure of border haats disrupted the income of daily-wage vendors following increasingly dangerous informal networks. The problem extends beyond immediate income loss, where heavy-handed regulation has created opportunities for powerful intermediaries. The middlemen with political connections and border officials capture lucrative segments of cross-border trade.

Small traders, for whom border haats were meant to empower, find their margins squeezed as they become dependent on these gatekeepers. These have resulted in corruption and arbitrary fees and erode transparency.

Women traders face particular vulnerabilities. Many border haats enabled women to participate in cross-border commerce safely, providing them with independent income and economic agency. As security measures intensify and markets become less predictable, women’s participation has declined sharply. The loss extends beyond individual households; it represents a reversal of hard-won progress toward gender equity in these conservative border communities.

Beyond fundamentalism, the border witnesses significant smuggling (cattle and narcotics), human trafficking, and illegal migration. The imperative to control these illicit flows is legitimate and necessary. Rescuing border haats needs simplified procedures, such as trader registration systems and safeguards that protect small vendors from predatory intermediaries and maintain robust security for genuinely suspicious activities.

Creating an alternative framework with “light-touch regulation” ensures regular haats, targeted security measures, rather than a blanket approach of suspicion. 

The current approach of treating border permeability itself as the problem does more harm than benefit. Heavy enforcement indiscriminately targets traders and criminals alike. It pushes bona fide trade into informal channels, where it becomes indistinguishable from smuggling, making the security challenge worse rather than better.

The fate of border haats is a litmus test for India and Bangladesh as to how they manage their complex relationship in ways that serve ordinary citizens over security imperatives. These markets represent the best of what bilateral cooperation can achieve, where haats restore connection and improve lives in the remotest places. 

Allowing the security response to fundamentalism to destroy border haats would be a tragic policy failure. It would impoverish thousands of families who have no alternative livelihoods. It would eliminate one of the few spaces where cross-border communities can maintain human connections. And it would validate the narrative of those who seek to divide rather than unite.

The borderlands have always been spaces of exchange, movement, and hybridity. Border haats embody borders as opportunities, not barriers. Delhi and Dhaka must demonstrate wisdom to choose facilitation over restriction and human security over militarisation. The policy choice will determine not just the fate of a few markets but the future of an entire border region and the people who call it home.

(Yhome is Senior Fellow and Editor, Asian Confluence, Shillong, Meghalaya, and Sunetra is associate professor of government and public policy, O P Jindal Global University, Sonipat)