Life After Partition:
A Study on the Reconstruction of Lives in West Bengal
Anasua Basu Raychaudhury*
The partition of the Indian subcontinent was a watershed in the history of the region. On
the one hand, the erstwhile British colonies were being de-colonised immediately after
the World War II, and on the other, their political liberation came in a fractured state. The
phenomenon of this fractured identity was not only a state affair as such. In fact, the
millions living in Punjab and Bengal bore the brunt of partition in a way that still defines
their existence in many ways.
The partition of Bengal not only killed thousands of people, but also uprooted and
displaced millions from their traditional homeland, their desh.1 Large number of people,
either being directly victimised, or due to fear of violence, left their homes, hoping that
they would find peace and security on the other side of the border.
For Punjab, partition and exchange of population – the Hindus coming from
Western Punjab to India and the Muslims moving from Eastern Punjab into Pakistan –
was primarily a one time affair. Of course, the exchange of population in the West was
neither peaceful nor voluntary. It was accompanied by large-scale massacres.
Nevertheless, the contours of the problem emerged clearly and the matter was more or
less settled once and for all.
But, for Bengal, the influx continued for many years after partition, and continues
in different forms. Some analysts have correctly indicated that, while "the Partition of
Punjab was a one-time event with mayhem and forced migration restricted primarily to
three years (1947-50), the Partition of Bengal has turned out to be a continuing
process."2 Therefore, displacement and migration from East to West, that is former East
Pakistan and Bangladesh to West Bengal is still "an inescapable part of our reality."3
Even Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, confessed in a press
conference at Nagpur on January 1, 1950 that, "West Bengal has suffered more from
Partition and its after-effects than any province or any part of the country. The Punjab
also suffered, but it suffered more in the sense of mass killing of the people, while
economically West Bengal has suffered more"¦"4 The evacuee property left by the
Muslims, who migrated to West Pakistan, helped the displaced persons from the West
Pakistan to settle down in Punjab and the adjacent areas. Moreover, a large number of
displaced people were absorbed in the government jobs and in the jobs in the armed
forces. The Government of India not only looked into the compensation claims for
immovable properties of the displaced, but also made an assessment of all other assets
in detail to compensate the refugees arriving from West Pakistan.5 The situation in the
East was definitely not so. The displaced in the East had neither adequate compensation
nor rehabilitation to reconstruct their lives.
If the better-off people from East Pakistan could reconstruct their lives with
relative ease in West Bengal, for those belonging to the middle class and lower middle
class, it was almost impossible. Many of them had to spend ten, fifteen or twenty years in
refugee camps before they could imagine a better life. Those who did not go to the
camps and settled in the jabar dakhal colonies on the margins of Calcutta also continued
with a hand-to-mouth existence for many years. Many of them could never return to their
traditional family occupations and, therefore, felt a sense of alienation and irreparable
occupational loss even after partial rehabilitation. In other words, the partition of Bengal
had a long-term impact on the economy and culture of the region.
Bengal was facing this unprecedented human misery at a time when the
international refugee care agencies were in their nascent stage and, therefore, were
unable to look beyond the displaced people on the European soil in the aftermath of the
World War II. The unenviable task of rehabilitation of the refugees in the post-partition
Bengal was, therefore, to be carried out within and by the impoverished economies that
were left for this region. Very often the community network and support became
important tools of sustenance apart from the inadequate state assistance. In this paper,
we shall explore some of these experiences of the people displaced from East Pakistan
and settled in West Bengal that we have gathered from the affected people themselves.
From the narratives of the displaced, it would be possible to understand how they
perceived their own victimisation, their struggle to reconstruct their lives, and to what
extent, it came into conflict with the identity imposed upon them. However, as the
narratives are told from someone's own perspective "to take control of frightening
diversity and formlessness of the world",6 "the historical self configures memories
differently from the way the ahistorical self does".7
But, even if the memories of the refugees remain subjective in nature, these
could act as a rich archive of experiences of the displaced. A social scientist has perhaps
rightly pointed out that "memory begins where history ends."8
Keeping these in mind, the present paper would intend to capture the
reminiscences of the uprooted people, their struggle to resettle themselves in a partially
different environment, and their agony against the Government policies of relief and
rehabilitation. For the sake of our analysis and understanding, we shall depend upon the
official publications, especially of the Ministry of Refugee, Relief and Rehabilitation,
Government of West Bengal, those of the Department of Rehabilitation, Government of
India and the Lok Sabha Debates and West Bengal State Legislative Assembly Debates
along with the memories of a few victims of partition.
In this exploration, we shall consider 1958 as the cut-off year. This is for two
primary reasons: first, the year 1957 marked as the end of an era of the first popularlyelected
government, and therefore, signified the changes in the government policies
towards the relief and rehabilitation of the displaced persons; and second, which is the
offshoot of the first one, was the decision of the Government of West Bengal to wind up
the work of relief and rehabilitation in the transit camps in West Bengal by March 31,
1958, and not to recognise any 'immigrant' as a 'displaced' in need of relief and
rehabilitation beyond that date. Moreover, we shall confine our discussion to the
experiences of those displaced people, who found shelter in some of the jabar dakhal
colonies and the refugee camps set up in West Bengal.
One more small point before we proceed further. We shall frequently use the
term 'refugee' in this paper, but, by 'refugee', we shall mean a person who has been
uprooted from his/her desh, and we shall not use the term 'refugee' as it appears in the
UN Convention of 1951 and the UN Protocol of 1967.9
Partition and displacement in the East
The uprooted and displaced Hindus who were termed as refugees came phase by phase
from East Pakistan to West Bengal. The first batch of refugees arrived after the riot in
Noakhali and Tippera in 1946. The shelter-seekers continued to trickle in till the end of
1949. Those, who came during this phase, mostly belonged to the upper and upper
middle strata like the landowning, merchant and professional classes.
The next major influx took place following the massacre in several districts of
East Bengal, particularly in the village called Kalshira in the Bagerhat subdivision of
Khulna district on December 20, 1949 and then Rajshahi, Faridpur and Barisal in
February 1950. This time, those who crossed the border were very poor, mostly
agricultural labourers.
It is worth mentioning that, the Nehru-Liaquat Pact, signed in April 1950, failed to
provide the way for the return of the refugees to their homeland. Later on, when the
'passport system' was introduced for travel from Pakistan to India on 15 October 1952,
more people started to arrive. It was a "now or never kind of situation", which scared
many people during this phase.10 Influx again began after 1960-61, and reached a
crescendo during 1964-65. Finally, came the massive exodus, when the West Pakistani
rulers took the route of genocide to silence the Bengalis in East Pakistan.
While the discourse of partition victim-hood of the East Bengali Hindus reflected
their acute sense of insecurity with regard to dhon, (wealth), pran (life) and maan
(honour),11 the reason for the exodus of bhadralok, immediately after the partition, was
largely due to a fear of losing dhon and maan rather than pran in a numerically and
politically subordinate group in a Muslim-majority nation. A small section of these people
was able to sell their property in East Bengal or exchanged property to acquire capital to
reinvest the same in private industries. Within a short period, they integrated with the
local population. There was also a large educated middle class, who, though, did not
have enough money with them but had 'social capital'12 for their survival. Some of them
found jobs, or could restart their medical or legal practice again. Almost all the Hindu
government servants serving in East Bengal gave an "option" for India.
In the 1950s, also came millions of displaced peasants and agricultural labourers
who possessed almost nothing but their manual labour. The threat of their pran forced
them to leave their desh.13 Most of them were from the so-called lower castes, like
Namasudra, Mahisya and Sadgop communities. Initially they hesitated to leave East
Bengal because of two reasons. First, being agricultural labourers they did not want to be
detached from their traditional cultivable land, and second, due to the influence of their
leader Jogen Mondal, who held a cabinet post in Pakistan at that time, they decided to
stay back.
But, it is quite known now that, the people, who finally took the hard decision to
leave desh and to cross over to the other side of the border for safety and security,
contributed a lot to the progress and prosperity of their adopted land. The refugees
definitely felt some kind of detachment from their new place of residence, but that
detachment did not come in their way to make the adopted land more liveable.
Who was a refugee?
Immediately after the partition, when the mass exodus was going on in full swing in the
eastern part of India, the Government of India defined the term 'displaced' in the following
words:
"A displaced person is one who had entered India (who left or who was
compelled to leave his home in East Pakistan on or after October 15,
1947) for disturbances or fear of such disturbances or on account of
setting up of the two dominions of India and Pakistan."14
Those Hindus, who had left East Pakistan before 15 October 1947 due to the communal
frenzy, were excluded from the previously mentioned official definition. At that time, the
'passport system' was yet to be launched, and it was regarded as a special case since
the refugees had citizenship rights in both the states. Therefore, the Indian Government
probably thought the term 'displaced' more suitable than 'refugee'.
Moreover, although India became independent on 15 August 1947, the extended
period of two months was given to the people for setting themselves in the country of
their choice.15 However, in the later phase these 'displaced' people were referred to as
'migrants' and were divided into two broad categories – the 'old migrants' and 'new
migrants'. To quote the Manual of Refugee, Relief and Rehabilitation of the Government
of West Bengal:
"(a) Those who migrated between October 1946 and 31 March 1958 are
known as 'old migrants'. Their rehabilitation was governed by the West
Bengal Act XVI of 1951"¦
(b) Those who came between 1 January 1964 and 25 March 1971, are
known as 'new migrants'."16
One should not forget that, many people crossed over to West Bengal between 1958 and
1964, who were excluded from the definition of 'migrants'. Moreover, although many
people came from East Pakistan to India with 'migration certificates', they were treated
like refugees and in many cases they were sent to the camps because they need
rehabilitation and relief for their survival.17
East remained East
While West Bengal was the largest recipient of refugees for her geographical and cultural
proximity to East Pakistan, not all districts of the state were equally affected by the
problem. In most cases, the refugees from the western parts of East Pakistan came to
the adjacent districts of West Bengal, whereas, the displaced from the central and
eastern parts of East Bengal preferred to resettle themselves in 24 Parganas (then
undivided), and in and around Calcutta. However, the refugees from the northern part of
East Bengal tried to remain in the adjacent districts of the northern part of West Bengal.
Though the Annual Report of the Department of Rehabilitation of the
Government of India pointed out that, in the first phase of the refugee flow during the year
1946 to 1952 2.52 million refugees arrived in West Bengal, the year between 1953 and
1956 were marked as crucial (See Table 1). Gradually, by December 1957 the refugee
influx reached the highest point in the east. The number of the refugees crossing the
international border went up to 3,16,000.18 Now, these figures can hardly give one any
idea of the pain, trauma and agony through which the displaced might have gone due to
the ruptured economic, social and cultural ties with their original homeland. Nevertheless,
they are important to understand the scale and magnitude of the post-partition
displacement in the East.
Table 1: Month-wise Break-up of Refugee Influx to West Bengal
Month 1953 1954 1955 1956
January 5,248 4,077 15,674 17,011
February 5,961 5,710 22,848 42,360
March 7,507 5,821 26,503 15,167
April 6,900 6,002 15,070 18,039
May 6,032 6,656 18,190 34,657
June 4,798 6,354 21,146 24,734
July 5,026 6,208 22,957 27,442
August 4,147 8,127 13,813 -
September 3,223 10,644 9,371 -
October 4,379 10,352 13,757 -
November 3,212 11,073 11,535 -
December 4,214 22,776 18,709 -
Total 60,647 1,03,800 2,09,573 1,79,410
Source: Relief and Rehabilitation of Displaced Persons in West Bengal (Calcutta: Home [Pub.] Department,
Government of West Bengal, 1956), p. 17.
Initially, the Government of India attempted to discourage the migration of East Bengalis
to India. It became clear from the instruction given by Mohanlal Saksena, the then
Rehabilitation Minister of the Government of India to the representatives of Tripura,
Assam, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal, in a meeting held in the Writers' Buildings on
March 2, 1950 that the Government's work would be restricted to relief only rather than to
rehabilitation. Moreover, Saksena was in favour of establishing the relief camps in the
border areas to facilitate their quick return to their homeland.19
But, the refugee situation in the East did not improve at all even in the late 1950s.
As a result of the Nehru-Liaquat Pact (1950), a large number of Muslims who had left
West Bengal before March 31, 1951, came back to West Bengal, and reclaimed their
land already occupied by the Bengali Hindu refugees from East Pakistan. While the
Muslim evacuees returned to West Bengal, there was hardly any reverse population flow
of the Hindus from West Bengal to East Pakistan.
But, during the initial phase, the Government of India was primarily concerned
about the resettlement of the refugees from West Pakistan, and the national leadership
was ambivalent regarding its responsibilities toward the Bengali Hindu refugees from
East Pakistan. Nehru's letter to Bidhan Chandra Roy, the then Chief Minister of West
Bengal reflected that kind of ambivalence. To quote him:
"It is wrong to encourage any large scale migration from East Bengal to
the west. Indeed, if such a migration takes place, West Bengal and to
some extent the Indian union would be overwhelmed "¦ If they come
over to West Bengal, we must look after them. But it is no service to
them to encourage them to join the vast mass of refugees who can at
best be poorly cared for".20
It made one thing obvious that the Indian Government's policy toward rehabilitation of the
Bengali Hindu refugees was not only inadequate, but also discriminatory in nature.21
Prafulla K. Chakrabarty, the author of The Marginal Men, and a major chronicler
of the partition refugees in the East, identified two basic reasons behind the
discriminatory attitude of the Indian Government. First, the refugees in the west were
more close to Delhi, the capital of India, where any trouble might destabilize the
Government, whereas the geographical distance from Delhi put the refugees in the east
in a vulnerable situation; and second, there was a large number of Punjabis in the armed
forces, and a military mutiny was possible, if their kith and kin were ignored.22
According to the report of the Planning Commission on the Rehabilitation of the
Displaced Persons, the larger part of the task of rehabilitating West Pakistani displaced
persons was accomplished before the end of the first Five Year Plan. Despite that, the
Second Five Year Plan provided Rs.187 million for the rehabilitation of the refugees.
Funds were quite liberally available for the completion of the housing scheme already
approved, and for mitigating unemployment in the townships and colonies of displaced
persons through schemes for setting up industries. The continuation of the training and
education schemes for the displaced people also remained crucial to the policy of the
government.
The Report of the Planning Commission admitted at the end of the First Five year
plan that, the continuing influx of the displaced persons from East Pakistan made the
problem of rehabilitation in the eastern states particularly difficult. Although the Second
Five Year Plan altogether provided Rs.668 million for the rehabilitation schemes of the
displaced persons in the eastern states, the Government of India decided to review the
financial provision in the third year of the Second Plan, and it was said, "if needed",
provisions for the additional fund would be made.23 But, the sanction of this sum of
money was not adequate enough to manage the entire refugee situation in West Bengal.
By and large, there was an immediate recognition of the gravity and magnitude of
the refugee problem in the West, and therefore, new townships of Faridabad, Rajpura
and Tripuri were constructed to permanently rehabilitate the displaced in the pucca
houses. Work centres and industries were also set up with the government help in those
areas along with the basic amenities, like schools and hospitals. East did not witness any
such development, except may be a small township in Fulia. Even the reception centres
for the refugees in the West were of superior quality than their counterparts in the East.
Whereas the cash dole was given in a standardised form in the West, that was not the
case in the East. Some work centres in the West were only training centres without
provision for residence, but each home was a complete unit providing not only residence
but also education in different stages, professional or practical training and employment
for at least a short length of time, as it was in Hoshiarpur. No such facility was available in
the East. The rate of grants in the West was also in a way of a generous scale compared
to that in the East. It was seldom below Rs.30 per month and was sometimes at a higher
rate according to the professional training chosen. The rate of grant in the East was
almost the same but several categories were excluded from this privilege. Women
refugees taking a course of training in teaching or nursing in a recognised institution or
hospital were not given any stipend but were only allowed to attend the vocational
training centres specially set up for refugees. In addition to the stipends amounting to
Rs.30 per head to the trainees, the government provided the houses, the establishment
and equipment cost and a revolving cost of raw materials in the West. On the other hand,
except in Titagarh and Gariahat work centres (which were for men), the grants for women
under these heads in West Bengal were very meagre.24
In short, both the Governments (Government of India as well as the State
Government of West Bengal) were slow in responding to the refugee crisis in West
Bengal. Under the circumstances, relief and rehabilitation process was mainly restricted
to those, who registered themselves in the official records and took shelter in relief and
transit camps.25 In other words, the problem as a displaced was, in a way, sometimes
more acute for those who crossed over to West Bengal in the early years of the partitionrelated
crisis.26
Jabar dakhal colonies and the 'politics of agitation'
Let us first consider the case of those refugees who crossed over to West Bengal from
East Pakistan from the late 1940s and early '50s, and who primarily belonged to the
upper or middle classes. Due to their class character, their natural destination was
Calcutta where they hoped to find jobs or professional opportunities suitable for them.
Many of them had friends, relatives and acquaintances in Calcutta, who initially helped
them to resettle here. In a way, a social network system of these displaced people played
an important role to reconstruct their lives in the other side of the border. Neither of these
two groups of people was interested to go to the relief camps. Even those who belonged
to the middle class and comparatively worse off families, and did not possess much
resources, did not want to settle in the refugee camps mainly because of their maan
(honour).
Against this backdrop, the squatters' colonies, an important part of the life and
landscape of West Bengal, definitely a significant part of Calcutta, mushroomed.27 In
some cases, where the land was acquired through legal means and procedures, the
government termed the areas of refugee settlement as 'private colonies'. But, in other
cases, apparently vacant land, owned by the government or by big landowners, was
acquired through forcible occupation. This process of 'collective takeover' was known as
jabar dakhal.28
Though the squatters' colonies flourished in other parts of West Bengal, in
December 1950, there were about 149 squatters' colonies, all of which grew up in
Calcutta, 24 Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly districts. A large concentration of these
squatters' colonies was found in the southeastern portion of the Calcutta Metropolitan
District, especially in the areas like Jadavpur, Tollygange, Kasba and Behala.
Approximately 40 such colonies were established by the year 1950.29 (See map.)
The refugees built up their own shelters in these areas virtually without any
government aid. In order to link the habitation with livelihood, the colonies were set up
near the towns or industrial areas. But, the squatters' colonies were not limited to the
cities and suburbs. In rural areas, the refugee peasants took over the uncultivated
wasteland. Such land was seized not only for habitation, but also for cultivation. This type
of agricultural colonies was established in Bankura, Birbhum, Midnapore, Burdwan,
Nadia, Murshidabad, 24 Parganas, West Dinajpur, Malda, Coochbihar and Jalpaiguri
districts.30
While recollecting his memories of those days' struggle for reconstructing their
lives in not so alien land like Calcutta, Himanshu Majumder (75), a resident of Bijoygarh
colony said:
"There was no colony as such when I came here with my father from our
desh, Barisal. Perhaps it was November or December 1947. I knew
Santosh Dutta quite well due to my political connection since the prepartition
days. Santoshda sent me a message that if we want to resettle
in Calcutta, we must come here as early as possible "¦ In fact, when I
arrived here I came to know that Santoshda, with the help of others,
already formed an informal group who met and decided about a piece of
land, which appeared alright. I got a plot of five or six cottah on my first
night in Calcutta. We constructed a thatched hut to live in. We used
Hogla leaves to cover our roof. The land was low-lying and marshy. We
cleared the land, installed tube-well and made the place liveable "¦"31
Amiyaprova Debi (74), another resident of Bijoygarh, who came from Chittagong of East
Pakistan, portrayed almost a similar picture. In her words:
"There was a military barrack in the area which was constructed for the
Americans during the Second World War. So, a wide concrete road
already existed there connecting Jadavpur to Tollygunge. Besides the
military barracks, there were huge, vacant lands, the property of the
private landlords, like Layelkas. There were sometimes fierce battles with
the hired goons of the landlords, who also had the support of the police.
We fought back refusing to yield. At the same time, we also carried on
negotiations with the private owners of the land and the Government.
The area was full of snakes. There were least possible public amenities.
We had to carry drinking water on our own as there were initially no tubewells
in the area, no electricity, "¦ We were quiet well-off there in our
desh, and here we had to start our lives again like beggars living in a
basti (slum)-like area without electricity, water supply, drainage and other
basic sanitary amenities "¦"32
It became clear to the shelter-seekers in the jabar dakhal colonies by the early '50s that,
they had no other option but to raise their voice to get justice so far as relief and
rehabilitation was concerned – what Anil Sinha calls as 'the epic battle of Kurukshetra' in
order to attain 'just and legitimate' demands.33 Sinha argued that, these jabar dakhal
colonies were classic examples of the organised resentment of the East Pakistani
refugees against the rehabilitation policies of the Congress government.
In 1948, with the formation of the Nikhil Banga Bastuhara Karma Parishad (All
Bengal Refugee Council for Action), the politics of agitation among the refugees of the
squatters' colonies took a concrete shape for the first time.34 In the initial phase, the
Parishad had two groups of members: the pro-Congress group wanted permanent
rehabilitation of the refugees without antagonising the government authorities at the
Centre and the State, and the other group comprised mostly Left-minded members. In
1949, those Left-minded members took over the leadership of the Parishad, except the
post of the President, which was occupied by a 'Hindu Mahasabha sympathiser'. Since
then, the Parishad organised meetings and demonstrations in the squatters' colonies,
and this sort of 'unionisation' helped the refugees to launch the protest movement in an
organised manner.
In fact, the introduction of the Eviction of Persons in Unauthorised Occupation
Land Bill (later known as Eviction Bill), which after subsequent modifications became Act
XVI of 1951, triggered off the politics of agitation of the refugees in full scale against the
anti-refugee policies of the Congress Government. The Government felt that, the forcible
and unauthorised occupation of private and government lands and premises
requisitioned by the Central and State Governments and other public bodies had created
problem that could not be resolved by the normal process of legal action. In other words,
the squatters' colonies violated the sanctity of private property guaranteed by the
Constitution. But, Dr. B.C. Roy, Chief Minister of West Bengal, argued that the
Government possessed virtually no power to evict a squatter in unauthorised occupation
of land or premises except through a prolonged process of legal action and the
enactment of the Bill sought to reconcile the demands of law with the needs of the
refugees35.
The United Central Refugee Council (UCRC), formed on June 4, 1950, launched
a resistance movement against this Bill. The UCRC hastily outlined a three-fold
programme of action:
a) to start an intensive propaganda campaign by involving all refugee organisations
of the colonies, barracks, slums etc.;
b) to organise a volunteer force in each colony area with a sizable refugee
population for the safety and security of the refugees; and
c) to mobilize fund for the campaign.
In this way, the UCRC tried to help the refugees to increase their consciousness
about their rights and thereby made the civil society more vibrant for the first time since
independence36, which Nilanjana Chatterjee has termed as a dynamic interplay between
'official discourse' and the refugee counter-discourse.37 Although in this way the Leftists
gradually became influential among the squatters, the refugees never became puppets of
the Communists.38 Rather, the UCRC worked as the mouthpiece of the helpless,
displaced persons from East Pakistan. In other words, the politics of rehabilitation by the
Government triggered off a new politics, which may be termed as 'the politics of
agitation.'39 This politics of agitation was an active resistance to the politics of
rehabilitation initiated by the Governments (the Government of India and that of West
Bengal together). Moreover, this politics of agitation by the displaced persons along with
their shared memories provided the shelter-seekers a specific identity.
Life and times in the refugee camps
After briefly considering the struggle of the displaced in the jabar dakhal colonies to
reconstruct their lives, let us now turn our attention to some of the camps that were set up
to provide shelter to the incoming displaced persons. As the cross-border influx continued
interminably in the 1950s, the helpless, uprooted people reached the reception and
interception centres at the Sealdah station. From there, they were subsequently sent to
the transit camps. Although many of these refugees were supposed to be sent to other
parts of the country, instant arrangements could not be made possible for their travel.
Therefore, the relief and transit camps were set up in different parts of West Bengal to
provide immediate help to these people.
At the peak of the inflow of refugees from across the border with East Pakistan,
the government mainly set up three types of camps, namely, women's camps, worksite
camps and Permanent Liability (PL) Camps. The inmates of the women's camps
comprised mostly women and children who had no male member of their family to look
after them. Bhadrakali and Bansberia women's camp in Hooghly district, Ranaghat
Women's Home in 24 Parganas district were such women's camps.40 As time passed by,
many of the inmates of these women's camps were permanently rehabilitated along with
their family members in and around the camp area.
Second, in order to counteract the demoralising effect of the prolonged stay in
the camps, the government introduced a system of keeping able-bodied men engaged in
useful work for the development of the area, where they were supposed to be
rehabilitated. Accordingly, 32 such worksite camps were set up in West Bengal. Bagjola
camp and Sonarpur R5 scheme in 24 Parganas are examples of such worksite camps.
The refugees were also kept engaged in many Central Government-aided projects like
the Damodar Valley Corporation projects etc.41
Finally, the PL camps were for those refugees who were considered unfit for any
kind of gainful employment through which they could be rehabilitated. They were mainly
old, infirm, invalid and orphans. These PL camps were located in Dudhkundi in
Midnapore district, Bansberia in Hooghly, Chandmari, Cooper's Camp (partially), Chamta
and Dhubulia in Nadia district, Habra, Ashoknagar and Titagarh in 24 Parganas district.
On November 30, 1952, the population of these camps and the homes was 34,000,
including the population of the orphanages. The number soon increased to 37,000.
According to the report on the Relief and Rehabilitation of the displaced persons in West
Bengal, in 1953, the number of camp admission of the refugees was 10,474, in 1954, the
number was 46,904, and in 1955, the number increased to 1,09.834.42
In most cases, the military barracks and tunnel-shaped huts made of iron
constructed for Allied soldiers (during the World War II) were converted originally into
camps for the refugees. Thousands of refugees, the displaced persons who arrived either
by train or by truck from across the border, were dumped in these camps. When some of
these camps became overpopulated and the government could not provide any more
space in these makeshift military barracks or huts, the additional refugees got tents to live
in.
Consequently, the camp life was not always satisfactory but sometimes subhuman
in nature. While narrating her experiences in the Coopers' camp, Hironprova Das
(75), a resident of the Coopers' Notified Area, said:
"Even in the dormitories of those barracks, each refugee family was
allotted a little space. Each family marked its occupied area with pebbles,
stones and tit-bits and sometimes did not even have a sleeping space for
the members of the refugee family. So far as the tent was concerned,
each refugee family comprising four members got one tent, and a bigger
family (with more than four members) got two tents to live in. Under
such circumstances, there was absolutely no question of any privacy.
The refugees definitely got shelter far away from their home and
communal hatred, but scarcity of water, lack of proper health care,
irregular supply of ration (dry doles) still made their lives unbearable. In
such a situation, many children died of dysentery in the camps. Dead
bodies of children were sometimes buried, but very often were simply
thrown away in the jungle for paucity of funds. The government used to
pay only Rs.16 for the cremation of a body."43
The Government had no carefully thought-out plan for the rehabilitation of camp refugees
in the East in the initial stage. It was only in 1955 and thereafter that the Government of
India decided to look at the problem of the East Pakistani refugees on 'a rational basis.'44
Between 1947 and 1955, the Indian Government provided ad hoc assistance to enable
the refugees to resettle themselves under the Byanama Scheme. Under this scheme a
camp refugee was allowed to choose a plot of land that he wanted to buy with the
Government loan.45 The Government used to grant loans for the rehabilitation of refugees
in the rural and urban areas depending upon the occupational background of the
displaced.46 However, in many cases there were tremendous irregularities to grant loan
to the refugees for purchase of lands for their resettlement. Sometimes, when the refugee
somehow managed to get money there was scarcity of cultivable land.
It has already been discussed that the refugees, who took shelter in the camps,
were mostly cultivators. Therefore, a lack of access to the cultivable land for a long period
of time naturally made them annoyed. The scarcity of cultivable land coupled with the
poor living conditions in the camps, including irregular supply of food and cash doles
gradually increased the grievances of the camp-dwellers. Incidents of passive and active
resistance emerged in many refugee camps. According to Prangobindo Das (76), once
involved in the refugee movement in the Coopers' camp:
"Initially we used to follow the non-violent methods to make the
government aware about our demands for the better likelihood. At that
time, we used to prefer the method of negotiation with the officers of the
'RR' Department of the Government as well as the method of
satyagraha. Of all the camps in West Bengal, we were more organised in
the Coopers' and always took a leading part in launching any protest
movement. We used to gather on the playground in front of the Kali
temple (Hindu goddess of power), and all movements usually started
from this place"¦"47
However, the camp protests entered a new phase in 1958 when the Government of India
took the decision to wind up the camps in the eastern region by July 1959. In view of the
continuing exodus from East Pakistan, the Government of India gradually realised that it
would be difficult for the cash-starved West Bengal to give shelter to all the incoming
refugees from the other side of the border. Therefore, it would be wise to select some of
the displaced persons who could not be rehabilitated in the economy in West Bengal, and
send them to other parts of the country.48 After all, the Government already made it clear
that there was a serious lack of available land for rehabilitation in West Bengal, especially
for agriculture. In such a situation, the incoming refugees were additional liabilities for
West Bengal.49 Against this backdrop, the Government of India decided to treat the East
Pakistani refugee problem "absolutely on a national level".50 It is interesting here to note
one of the statements of Sucheta Kripalani, a Member of Parliament, in this connection.
She said:
"It was not on West Bengal's decision that this country was partitioned.
This country was partitioned by a decision of India "¦" "Therefore, it is a
national problem and all the states should pull their weight in
rehabilitating them".
This was the spirit that was perhaps responsible for the Government's decision to send
the 'excess' refugees outside West Bengal to places like Dandakaranya of Madhya
Pradesh and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.51
It was decided at the official level that, mainly the refugees belonging to the socalled
lower castes like Namasudras, Kshatriyas, Poundra Kshatriyas, who took shelter in
the refugee camps and received doles from the Government, had to go to Dandakaranya.
However, the refugees, the original inhabitants of the Indo-Gangetic plains were reluctant
to go to the dry, 'alien land'. In no time, the Government stopped their doles temporarily.
Anadi Mondal, a PL member of the Chamta Camp of Nadia, said in the interview
with the author on 15 March 2002, that he, like other camp dwellers opposed to go to
Dandakaranya and as a result, the government stopped their doles temporarily. So they
did not have any other option but to go to Dandakaranya. In his own words:
"Jokhon Dandakaranyer haoa ailo, sarkar thika amago jor koira oi rukha
sukha jagae pathaite chailo. Amra jol desher manush, kyamne oi pathura
jagae thakum? Tai jaite raji hoilam na. Sarkar thika amago sahajyo
bondho koira dilo. Jetuku khaite paitam tao gelo go! Pore oboshyo amra
onek todbir korbar phole abar sahajyo paisilam, kintu tao bosor panch
bade. Er modhye oboshyo amago family re Coopers thika Chamta camp
e boshaisilo tenara." (When the wave of Dandakaranya came, the
government tried to persuade us to go to that dry area. We are people
from an area with water. How could we live in that rocky area? So, we
did not agree to go there. The government stopped all assistance to us.
Whatever assistance we used to get, that also was gone! We, however,
managed to receive assistance once again after a lot of request, but that
was after about five years. Meanwhile, our family was shifted from the
Coopers to the Chamta camp.)
Gradually, the resentment of the camp-dwellers in West Bengal against the Central
Government's decision to send them outside the state encouraged them to raise their
voice. The camp-dwellers of Bettiah in Bihar launched a peaceful satyagraha movement
in May 1958 for the fulfilment of their demands of improved living and economic
conditions in the camp to rehabilitate them. This showed a way out to the refugees living
in the camps of West Bengal. So, when the Government tried to force them to go to
Dandakaranya, these refugees revolted. They launched massive civil disobedience
movement in the Gandhian way and more than 30,000 camp refugees were arrested.52
Though this movement did not last long, it left a major impact on the psyche of the
refugees. It helped them to come out of their shell.
Initially, the refugees living in the camps expected that the organisations of the
squatters' colonies would join this movement, and would give it a stronger shape. Reality
was not so. The squatters' colonies stood apart with their own problems. They did not
intend to take part in this movement probably because of two reasons: first, they had
already acquired lands through jabar dakhal to start their lives afresh, and second, most
of them belonged to the middle class. Moreover, when the government took the decision
to recognise 133 squatters' colonies in the beginning of 1958, the camp-dwellers got
frustrated and felt somewhat alienated.
The role of the UCRC was very vital at this stage, whose activities mainly
confined within the squatters' colonies since its inception. Initially, the leadership of the
UCRC was not whole-heartedly accepted by the camp-dwellers. As many of the campdwellers
were of so-called lower caste Namasudra community, they chose their own
leaders from among themselves, and consequently, the leaders like Jogen Mondal,
Hemanta Biswas, Apurbalal Mazumder and P.R.Thakur came in the forefront.
Apart from the CPI the Proja Socialist Party (PSP)-led organisation Sara Bangla
Bastuhara Sammelan (SBBS), (All Bengal Refugee Conference), and the organisation
called Bastuhara Kolyan Parishod (Refugee Welfare Council), led by the Revolutionary
Communist Party of India (RCPI), started playing dominant role in the camps. The RCPI
was more active in the camps of Nadia. Since 1958, the UCRC started to bring together
the camp refugees with the help of PSP on a programme acceptable to all. Slowly but
steadily, rallies and demonstrations took the place of satyagraha as the weapon of
refugee movement. In course of time, the 'politicisation' and 'unionisation' of the refugee
movement inspired these uprooted, helpless people to become a part of the larger
through the politics of agitation continued to counter the policies of rehabilitation since
then.
Life rolled on with dreams shattered
Life after partition in the East was not easy at all – the displaced realised that with own
experiences like no one else. Their histories have not always been lettered, but their
narratives remain testimony to the nature of struggle they went through to reconstruct
their lives. Life definitely was not easy for the displaced in the West. But, at least there
were state initiatives to resettle and rehabilitate them in India. Government assistance
could not be a substitute for their loss and agony. But, starting their lives afresh was not
that difficult for many in the West.
The displaced, who crossed over to West Bengal, in particular, were not so
fortunate. Few among them, who could carry along a part of their past fortune, managed
to make their new dreams come true. For a large number of their fellow travellers, dream
was not that easily achievable. They had to fight for their existence, their means of
livelihood and for putting things together again. Some were even less fortunate and could
never dream again. Their desh was some place else and now it is a place of no return. It
can only be revisited in memories and nostalgia.
Maya Das of Bejoygarh colony in Kolkata is one of those extremely unfortunate
ones. She says:
"Bhalo ghorer i to bou silam ma! Swosurer jomi-joma asilo. Chash-bash
koira khaitam. Kintu dangae swami morlo. Kothae je shob haraiya gelo!
Ar kaure pailam na. Gramer lokego loge ei khane ailam. Chheletar
mathar byamo hoilo. Poisa silo na. Chikitsa koraite parlam na. Ekhon se
to pagol, ma! Ke amago khaoaibo kao? Tai Bhikha koron chhara upay
nai. Ei bhabe ei ek chilta ghore ma ar chhelete baincha asi. Ami morle or
je ki hoibo, tao jani na"¦" (I was indeed a bride of a well-established
family! My father-in-law had some land. We used to survive on
agriculture. But my husband died in the riot. I don't know where
everything was gone! I could not trace anyone again. I came here with
my fellow-villagers. My son became mentally unsound. I did not have
money. So, I could not arrange for his treatment. Now, his situation is
even worse! Who will feed us? So, I don't have any way other than
begging. My son and me somehow survive in this small room. I don't
really know what will happen to him after me"¦)53
Who will recreate her desh?
