What is the effect of the militarisation of the friendly India-Bangladesh border on human lives?

Standing by the wooden doorframe with an om and a swastika carved into it is Amena Bibi, a matronly Muslim woman in her late fifties. With two recently married sons and two teenage daughters, Amena-khala manages a full household with a firm hand in the Bangladeshi border village of Bibiganj. Most of the family was out on this day that I was visiting, and Amena-khala told me we had a couple of quiet hours to talk. As I finished my first cup of tea I asked if I could photograph the house. Amena-khala agreed, but stiffened ever so slightly as she followed my gaze when I stepped out from the dark room to the sunlit porch. I smiled at the bottle of shaving cream occupying the niche in the wall designed to hold idols, a common feature of Marwari mansions designed to display Hindu religiosity. That seemed to put Amena-khala at ease again, though neither of us mentioned it. As we walked through and around the house, there were visible incongruities between the built structure and its present occupants: the oms etched into every carved door, the niches in the wall meant for Hindu idols, the private well at the back for...

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