In this article, I examine the 1971 war (better known as the war for the liberation of Bangladesh) from a western Indian perspective. I argue that this war between India and Pakistan—while it focused overtly on the independence of East Pakistan—had some significant consequences for the western border between Kutch (in Gujarat state) and Sindh (in Pakistan). I suggest that this military conflict and the subsequent brief Indian occupation of Tharparkar in Sindh allows for a significant re-thinking of questions of citizenship, identity and belonging that were sparked off in 1947 and that have been re-ignited in the context of recent debates over the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), enacted in December 2019.