Because the talk went to Indian reservations, I wanted
to mention something.
Before the English came into the Indian subcontinent,
the area had many fiefdoms, principalities, sultanates
etc. There were very, very many enclaves within them
(and that's an understatement). During the British
time, they became 5 or 6 different orders of
territories generally depending on size, some
sovereign in everything except foreign policy to some
which survived totally on British control. When the
British left, the territories had a choice of joining
India, Pakistan or be independent. However it was
suggested, by Britain and the two countries to be
formed, that the territories within a certain country
should join it. And this suggestion almost bordered
on a threat. If India and Pakistan didn't feel
threatened by small territories within them, we would
have seen a very messy situation, enclavewise, indeed.
Only three of the kingdoms, Hyderabad, Junagadh and
Kashmir, caused problems at the time of independence
by causing arguments on ownership and Kashmir among
them still does.
By the way, the India-Bangladesh enclave formed
because one of the territories, Cooch-Behar, chose to
join India, and it had enclaves within British
territory which became part of Bangladesh and vice
versa.
Arif
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free!
http://photos.yahoo.com/