: The India Fix: BSF's expanded jurisdiction underlines India's current moment of federal breakdown #IndiaNEWS Welcome to The India Fix by Shoaib Daniyal, a newsletter on Indian politics. To get it

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The India Fix: BSF's expanded jurisdiction underlines India's current moment of federal breakdown #IndiaNEWS
Welcome to The India Fix by Shoaib Daniyal, a newsletter on Indian politics. To get it in your inbox every Monday, sign up here. Have feedback, interesting links or memes? Send them to shoaib@scroll.in. In 1981, the United States government changed the rules in such a way so as to allow for ketchup to now be classified as a vegetable. The bizarre legal definition was to help save money on school meals, passing of a condiment in place of real food. Fast forward forty years and the Indian government has pulled off a similar lexical feat. In October, the jurisdiction of the Border Security Force in the states of West Bengal, Punjab and Assam was extended to 50 km from the international border. The word “border� might mean a line drawn on a map. But now the “border� for the BSF would encompass a third of Bengal and at least nine districts of Punjab, including major cities such as Amtitsar. Semantic summersaults aside, what does this mean on the ground? The BSF is a paramilitary force under the Union government while under the Indian Constitution, police and law and order are state subjects. So while the BSF can carry out raids, it cannot detain anyone beyond a day and cannot prosecute crimes. For that...Read more

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