A MAKESHIFT CHECKPOINT holds up(阻挡，延误) bikes, business and lives. Along a village road in Hakimpur, in the Indian state of West Bengal, two girls in burqas(罩袍) wait as a border guard rummages(翻找，搜查) through their rucksacks. Behind them is an uneasy kilometre-wide buffer zone—still within Indian territory but governed without its freedoms.(她们身后是一片令人不安的、宽达一公里的缓冲区——仍属印度领土，却在不享有其自由的情况下被治理。) Yet unlike many borderlands, this is not no-man’s-land(无人区); 25,000 inhabitants live in its seven villages. A crowd gathers to complain to The Economist about mounting(不断增加的) restrictions and checks.
一个临时检查站拦住了自行车、生意和生活。在印度西孟加拉邦哈基姆普尔的一条村路上，两名身穿罩袍的女孩等待着，一名边防警卫正在翻查她们的背包。她们身后是一片令人不安的、宽达一公里的缓冲区——仍属印度领土，却在不享有其自由的情况下被治理。然而与许多边境地带不同，这里并非无人区；七个村庄里住着两万五千名居民。一群人聚拢过来，向《经济学人》抱怨日益增多的限制和检查。
The buffer is against “infiltrators(渗透者)” from Muslim-majority Bangladesh who, according to India’s home minister, Amit Shah, threaten the country’s security, economy and demographic balance(人口结构平衡). He has promised to “hang every Bangladeshi infiltrator upside down” and likened them to termites(把他们比作白蚁). Undoubtedly there are many, perhaps millions, of Bangladeshis living without the right papers in India; but the government cites sensationalist(耸人听闻的) estimates of up to 20m of them and swears they will all be kicked out(驱逐，赶走). India is not a dharamshala(印度教慈善客栈) (a charity guesthouse), Mr Shah recently told intelligence officers.
缓冲区是为了防范来自穆斯林占多数的孟加拉国的“渗透者”，据印度内政部长阿米特·沙阿称，这些人威胁着印度的安全、经济和人口平衡。他曾扬言要“把每个孟加拉国渗透者倒吊起来”，还把他们比作白蚁。毫无疑问，印度有许多——或许数百万——没有合法证件的孟加拉国人；但政府引用耸人听闻的估计，称其多达两千万，并誓言将他们全部驱逐。沙阿最近对情报官员说，印度不是一座招待所（慈善客栈）。
He is right: some of its eastern borderlands are more akin to(类似于) an open-air prison. One half-baked plan would have guarded its riverine stretches with snakes and crocodiles.(一项考虑不周的计划曾打算用蛇和鳄鱼来守卫其河流地段。) Last year about three dozen Bangladeshis died at the hands of(死于……之手) Indian border guards, according to Ain o Salish Kendra, a Bangladeshi human-rights organisation. But Indians, too, are trapped by the shrill(尖锐的) politics of the borderland.
他说得没错：印度东部的一些边境地带更像一座露天监狱。一项考虑不周的计划曾打算用蛇和鳄鱼来守卫其河流地段。据孟加拉国人权组织“法律与调解中心”称，去年约有三十多名孟加拉国人死于印度边防警卫之手。但印度人同样被边境地带尖锐的政治所困。