Unattached Women, Able-Bodied Men: Partition, Migration and Resettlement in Bengal [1 ed.] 9781032306247, 9781032342160, 9781003321057

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Unattached Women, Able-Bodied Men

This book is one of the few gendered histories of the Partition experience in Bengal. Tracing the afterlife of the Partition in Bengal through the gendered experience of displacement and resettlement, it analyses the spatial reconfigurations that were brought about. Drawing heavily on police records, private papers, newspapers and memoirs, this work enters the realm of personal time in the lives of the migrant and refugee and follows them to see how the spaces that they inhabited, the city of Calcutta and its suburbs, were transformed to accommodate them and imposed with new meanings and, one might say, new borders. It highlights how ‘fear’ came to be the dominant emotion associated with the migrants’ flight, how it was subsequently politicized and how it became the cornerstone of the refugees’ bargaining with the state. Furthermore, it focuses on how the state, in its attempt to become a charitable institution, put in place a gendered structure of relief and, later, rehabilitation. This work also shows how camps and colonies became the sites of political contestation, how the refugees found a brand of Leftist politics particularly useful for their purpose and how it became the cornerstone of their newfound identity. A major intervention in Partition studies, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian history, migration and diaspora studies, gender studies and politics. Tista Das teaches history at Bankura University, India. She obtained her PhD from the University of Calcutta, Kolkata. She was a junior research fellow at the Peace Studies Group, Department of History, University of Calcutta. Her research focuses on the afterlife of the Partition in India and narratives of life in refugee camps and colonies in post-partition Bengal. She has focused on the experiences of women in this narrative. She has worked on ways and means of reading violence and those of reliving the experiences of the Partition in South Asia through remembrance and forgetting.

Unattached Women, Able-Bodied Men Partition, Migration and Resettlement in Bengal Tista Das

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Tista Das The right of Tista Das to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-032-30624-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-34216-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-32105-7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003321057 Typeset in Sabon by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

To my parents

Contents

List of Tables viii Acknowledgements ix Abbreviations xi Select Glossary xii Introduction 1 PART I

The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar

19

1 Violence and Migration

21

2 Crossing the Border

52

PART II

Through Barbed Wires

69

3 Camp Refugees and the State

71

4 The Inmates

99

PART III

Creating Homes

119

5 Life in the Colonies

121

6 The Women of the 1950s

149

End Words

165

Bibliography 173 Index 180

Tables

2.1 Figures of Arrival of Refugees per Year 3.1 Number of Inmates of PL Camps and Institutions in West Bengal 3.2 Camp-Wise Distribution of Vagrants 4.1 The Number of Deaths in Eight Wards of Dhubulia Camp, 6 June 1950–7 July 1950 4.2 Zones of the Dankaranya Project

53 75 82 105 114

Acknowledgements

It was in another time that the initial work on this project had begun. It began as a doctoral project which itself had taken ten long years to get done. It was much later that the idea of a book germinated and it was again years later that it crystallized into a plan. The book, therefore, has gained years with me. I hope that this has been for good. I have incurred many debts along the way over the years. In the very first place, I wish to thank Professor Bhaskar Chakraborty, my teacher and supervisor without whose guidance and care I could, in no way, hope to begin, go about and finish this project and find my way through a mesh of ideas. I wish to thank all my teachers at Presidency College, Kolkata and the University of Calcutta for inculcating in me a deep love for the discipline of History. I am thankful to the Peace Studies Group, Department of History, University of Calcutta for funding my doctoral project in the initial years which helped me go about working in the archives and libraries without having to worry about a job. I thank my students, my friends and colleagues at Hooghly Mohsin College, Keshiary Government College and Bankura University who have helped me to go off the hook whenever I needed to work on this project. I am deeply indebted to everyone at the National Library, Kolkata; the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi; the National Archives, New Delhi; the West Bengal State Archives, Kolkata; the Special Branch, Kolkata Police; and the departmental and central libraries of the University of Calcutta for giving me access to their collections and providing me with all the assistance that I needed while working. I am grateful to the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University for giving me access to the Ashoka Gupta files. I realised that writing a book and publishing it are two different things, altogether. I sincerely thank Aakash Chakrabarty, Brinda Sen and their team at Routledge for taking care of the nitty-gritty of the publishing process and for being patient with me. I thank my sister and my brother-in-law for keeping the house running while I worked and for having faith in me. I thank my friends, old and new, far and near, for lending me their ears when I needed them most, for discussing and critiquing my ideas, bearing with me and for making all the adjustments to fit my schedule in all our plans together. I could never hope

x Acknowledgements to finish this book without them by my side. I thank my niece Mohor for doing her best to distract me from my work whenever possible and for the endless music and conversations. My parents have not lived to see this project completed, but they have been an integral part of the journey. I dedicate this book to them.

Abbreviations

AIWC CPI DDA DKSBS GA KMPP MARS NFIW NVBKP PEPSU PL PS RCPI RCRC RERC RSP SP UCRC

All India Women’s Conference Communist Party of India Dandakaranya Development Authority Dakshin Kalikata Sahartali Bastuhara Sanhati General Assistant Krishak Mazdoor Praja Party Mahila Atma Raksha Samiti National Federation of Indian Women Nikhil Vanga Bastuhara Karma Parishad (All India Refugee Council of Action) Patiala and East Punjab States Union Permanent Liability Police Station Revolutionary Communist Party of India Refugee Central Rehabilitation Council Refugee Eviction Resistance Committee Revolutionary Socialist Party Socialist Party United Central Refugee Council

Select Glossary

Ansars/Ansar Bahini Voluntary guards/a paramilitary outfit Arpanpatra Certificate of occupation Bainanama Agricultural land purchase arrangements/agreements Bal Mandir/Balwadi Creche Bangal People of East Bengal Bargadar Share-cropper Barujibi Betel growers Beedi A thin cigarette wrapped up in a leaf Bhita Homestead Danga Barren lands Dhaki Drum player Dheki Manual rice-husking device Ghat Steamer station Ghoti People of West Bengal Goonda Goons miscreants Hat Marketplace Kaviraj Ayurvedic doctor Mashima Aunt Mukhya Sevika Chief nurse

Introduction

In the heady days of India’s independence from two hundred years of colonial rule, in the midst of the celebrations, millions of citizens found themselves on the wrong side of the border. From then on, it was a journey from being a citizen to a member of a minority community to a migrant to a refugee. This journey saw no end. It was the most bizarre state of affairs. Both officials and the people were baffled by the impact of the hastily drawn lines. The borders defined the life of the nascent nation and those who crossed them remained the children of these borders. This book attempts to tell the tale of this journey. It talks of how the journey of millions defined the state while at the same time testing its limits. It is an attempt at a narrative of the spatial politics involved in this movement. It tries to understand how the refugees produced a space for themselves within the bordered territory of a nation which refused to incorporate them within its body politic. It also attempts to come to terms with the fact that borders failed to settle the nation, so to speak. Therefore, the story of the Partition could not end with the events of August 1947. Partition cannot be seen as simply the price of freedom. Even if it is perceived as such, one needs to go beyond the question as to why the price had to be paid. It also needs to be seen why the chapter remained open long after the day of the nation’s tryst with destiny. The way the drama unfolded toppled the official faith of the times in the Partition as the solution to many problems. The case of the Partition, therefore, has to be reopened. This, however, does not mean that preoccupation with the story of post-Partition society or politics is new. This study simply tries to trace the journey of the migrants to make sense of the times of Partition. It places the narrative of the Partition along with the most defining feeling in the minds of the men and women of the times – something akin to the great fear that Georges Lefebvre had identified in his study of the French Revolution of 1789.1 There is a certain thread that ties the incidents of violence. It is fear that acts as this thread, which does not let the incidents of violence in the case of Bengal to be perceived as intermittent. The connotations of this fear make the Bengal experience a peculiar one. On one hand, they did not let the new state relegate the Partition to its past. The constant trickle of migration, the scale varying according to the actual incidents, the ‘original panics’,2 so to speak, forced the state to bear the DOI: 10.4324/9781003321057-1

2 Introduction legacy of the Partition each day for more than two decades. On the other hand, they defined the refugee and were used by the refugee as the bargaining counter in their dealings with the state. In Bengal, due to the nature of violence that preceded and followed the Partition – the intermittent, longdrawn and, what Haimanti Roy has termed, ‘routine small-scale violence’3 – the refugees’ fear of violence was emphasized as something lesser than actual violence. Their migration was seen in official circles as either a temporary affair or a movement towards a secure economic future. Therefore, their demands from the new state became somewhat ‘illegitimate’.4 The Government of India stressed the ways and means to reverse the trend of migration rather than emphasizing sustaining the migrant population. Fear, therefore, became the coin on one side of which was stamped the government narrative with its emphasis on actual incidents of violence so that fear, on its own, became an insufficient justification for migration; on the other side of the same coin was embossed the case that the refugees tried to build up to justify their migration and demand state help on the basis of the same fear. The anxiety and the panic that seeped into the lives of the minorities around the time of the Partition were heightened by the image of the enemy from the other community. The situation was volatile, and the slightest rumour would unsettle the uneasy peace. It was as much the events as the stories woven around them which played an important role in shaping the collective memory of violence. The situation brings to mind the kind of fear that pervaded in the minds of the people of Bengal in the 1740s about the rumoured raids of the Maratha army, the Bargis or the fear in the minds of the British officers and the members of their families of the marauding Sepoys in 1857. The memoir of the wife of a British doctor who lived at the time at the Lucknow Residency, comes to mind in this context. She writes – May 21st, Ascension Day There is terrible fear now that something is wrong at Cawnpore. The 2nd Cavalry have been some time suspected of disaffection; and last night Sir H.L. received despatches, which are kept a profound secret. No one knows what has happened, which makes us all the more anxious and nervous. Every time we hear the slightest noise – loud voices, a horse galloping by, a gun fired, or any calls to see C., and they speak in an under-tone – one’s heart is in one’s mouth.5 This anxiety and nervousness aroused at the ‘slightest noise’ and the fact that no one knows exactly ‘what has happened’ are noteworthy. The fear became more real for the minorities as various theories of conspiracies came up. The Ansars – the citizen militia – became the representative of the Government of East Pakistan for these people. The police who searched them along the borders, the voices of authority, had all become, for them, players in this great game of conspiracy. As the fear of ‘miscreants’ backed by the state formed in their minds, the shove came to a push. The

Introduction  3 exodus of the migrants, the movements, helped in spreading fear so that panic crossed the bounds of the locality. The fear of the loss of honour in the decade of the 1940s came to be coupled with the fear of the loss of lives in the decade of the 1950s. It is necessary, at this point, to speak of the ‘original panics’ of post-1947 Bengal. One can clearly identify three distinct phases of the panic between 1947 and 1964. The first was, of course, the year of the Partition –1947. Then came the riots of 1950. An important year in terms of migration was 1952. However, it was due more to the talks regarding the introduction of passports rather than to incidents of violence. The third phase might be regarded as 1964 when the Hazratbal incident created a fresh scare. These panics were woven with the memories of violence around the time of the Noakhali riots and the great Calcutta killing of 1946. This weaving served to create a distinct unchanging image of the other community since times immemorial, of what their men and women were capable of, of how they were never to be completely trusted. Stories of the breach of trust fanned such notions. The narrative of violence made migration the only option available. As is evident by now, restricted to Bengal, this study wishes to retell the story of violence and migration associated with the Partition in the east. However, within this grand narrative, there is a little narrative that wishes to retrieve the experience of women. This has, in any case, remained a silent zone, as migrant families, usually, have maintained silence about how women were special victims of Partition violence. In comparison, the stories about their life in refugee camps and their roles in the process of resettlement in the colonies have a greater visibility. It goes without saying that women formed a special category since, over and above the fact that they were minorities and later, refugees, they were women on whom the honour of a community rested. They were also the potential mothers of refugees. In addition to actual violence, the fear about the violence against women’s honour has been a major factor in migration, forming an important strand of what has been described as endemic violence. Even while keeping in mind this multiple sense of victimhood, one must also remember, that these women, when they crossed borders and became refuge seekers, could not be reduced to bare lives.6 Their negotiations with the state redefined the contours of the latter. The focus of this work is on Bengal between 1947 and 1964. The first, of course, is the year of the Partition. In many respects, 1964 becomes important. First of all, it marks a very important phase of migration. As I shall try to chart out in the subsequent chapters, it marked a definite change in the composition of the rioters, raising issues about the identity of the bad Muslim. The bad Muslim, the rioter, the enemy was clearly identified, in the minds of the Hindu refugee, with a linguistic, regional and cultural group, namely the ‘Behari’ working-class Muslim, who worked in the mills and were much affected by the atrocities of Hindu rioters in Bihar. The presence of the ‘Behari Muslim’, the outsider, had been felt as early as the 1950s. However, the riots of 1964 squarely placed the blame on the shoulders of the ‘Behari Muslim’ millworkers. Second, 1964 also sets a watermark in the way the communist movement progressed. It was in this year that the

4 Introduction Communist Party of India (CPI), born in 1925, was divided and the CPI (Marxist) came into being. This, in its turn, is significant because it began a new chapter in the politicization of the refugees along communist lines.

The Bengal Landscape and the Partition Having marked the time frame, the stage where the drama unfolded must be delineated. It is, perhaps, not simply a linguistic turn that explains why the Partition story has been narrated as a drama unfolding through tragic acts. That the event generated a range of experiences and involved a variety of speech acts through which the ideas of victimhood came to be presented made this analogy inevitable. It remains, therefore, any researcher’s business to mark the stage on which this drama came to be enacted. The historical references to Gaur, Pundra, Sumha, Rarh, Tamralipti, Samatata, Banga, Bangal and others pointed to parts of the region. Bengal, later, came to mean the area in which the Bengali-speaking people lived. If there is one feature that stands out in this region, it is the presence of an elaborate river system. Bengal is a land of rivers. The history, the rise and fall of dynasties, the perpetual discomfort with the Delhi-Agra-centric governmental authority and its culture were largely owing to its rivers – the Ganga, Brahmaputra, Meghna, Padma, Teesta, Ichamoti, Atrai, Karotoya and other streams. The rivers change names as they cross borders. Through the years, they have changed courses, with important changes as late as the nineteenth century. Along with the shifting streams, the course of history has changed time and again. The soil is mostly new alluvium, especially in the east, that is, present-day Bangladesh. Bengal, prior to 1947, was bound in the north by the Himalayas, the northernmost districts being those of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar. In the east, the region below the Khasi and Jaintia hills drained by the Surma comprised the districts of Mymensingh and Sylhet among others. In the west, the districts of Birbhum, Purulia and Bankura delineate the boundaries. Dwarbhanga, derived from Dwarbanga, literally, the gateway to Bengal, along with the seat of the poet Bidyapati, the lands of Mithila, had been lost a long time ago. In the south, the districts of Medinipur, 24 Parganas, Faridpur, Khulna, Barisal, Chittagong and others made way for the rivers to flow into the Bay of Bengal creating, breaking and re-creating sandbars in the process. The line of partition that Sir Cyril Radcliffe drew up after independence raised several eyebrows. The Boundary Commission for Bengal included two Muslim members, Justice M.M. Akram and Justice M.A. Rahman, and two Hindu members, Justice Bijon Kumar Mukherjee and Justice C.C. Biswas. Of the sixteen pages of the report that was drawn up on the basis of the work of the Commission, nine pages were dedicated to Bengal. One of the contentious regions was the Khulna District, which had hoisted the flag of India a few days prior to the Partition but suddenly found itself clubbed with Pakistan. On the other hand, Murshidabad and Malda, which were expected to form a part of Pakistan, became Indian districts. However,

Introduction  5 parts of Malda, as also parts of Nadia and Jalpaiguri became territories of Pakistan. The Bongaon subdivision of Jessore and the Balurghat subdivision of Dinajpur were given to India while the rest of the districts were made part of Pakistan. Bengal was finally divided. The Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri subdivisions were separated from the rest of Bengal. The biggest gain for India was the retention of Calcutta. The challenge before Sir Radcliffe and his colleagues seems to be to create borders that would take care of religious sentiments while at the same time interfering as little as possible with the river systems. They tried to keep the entire Hooghly belt – the areas on the banks of the Hooghly from the point where it tapers out of the Ganga till it flows into the Bay of Bengal – with India so that the authority of the Calcutta Port could work best to maintain the navigability of the river. Needless to say, not all sentiments could be satisfied. Apart from the partitioning of a few districts, which created obvious difficulties, the fact that the Chittagong Hill tracts, with a predominantly Buddhist population, were given to Pakistan did not make the Indian leaders particularly happy. The greatest problem was that of religious minorities – on both sides of the border. Even before migration across borders started, Partition made them homeless within their own state. Even without a territorial shift, they had lost their state, as it were. As is typical of a post-colonial state, in its hurry to catch up with the developed world around, the borders had to be perceived as permanent, inflexible fixtures, however synthetically created. As state borders were created in a hurry by the colonizers’ pens, a kind of cartographic anxiety remained inherent. The new governments of these states had to make the borders work by all means. After the bloodbath of the Partition, the emergence of two civilized states had to be legitimized through the borders. If borders created nations, rather than the other way round, the borders remained the repositories of rumours and memories. Those who found themselves on the other side of the border were fated to live in a present that was beyond the scope of their times. They lived in a ‘post-colonial’ time seeped in colonial moorings. The borders represented most clearly or most vaguely the spirit of the colonial times. And the borders, no matter how fixed and finalized, remained passages linking this to that.

Writing the Partition How does one write about the Partition? It needs no mention that an event with such a huge impact on human history would inform and people memoirs, poetry, fictional representations and academic writings. However, to retrieve the story of the Partition, it would not be enough to look at the writings on the event. It would be useful to note how the Partition has become the text for writing on experiences and perceptions. Partition historiography had, for long, excluded the voices of the people who experienced it. The language that accommodated the narrative of high politics had almost nothing to do with the partitioned people.

6 Introduction Writings on the Partition are as old as the event itself. Contemporary records, mostly memoirs by British officials, have dealt with the unrest of the times when the demand for Pakistan reached its peak. In this context, the memoirs if Sir Malcolm Lyall Darling and Sir Francis Tuker,7 come to mind. In the British accounts, the contribution of Lord Mountbatten, the last British governor general, to the transfer of power to the Indian leaders was emphasized. Penderel Moon’s account8 would fall into this category. With the publication of The Transfer of Power documents9 and the availability of the Towards Freedom volumes,10 Partition studies have found a new boost. With these and the accounts of Indian leaders like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, M.K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Vallabhbhai Patel and Rajendra Prasad, the Indian perspective on the intricacies of the political decisions regarding the Partition have come to light. Partition historiography has for long enriched our knowledge of why India was partitioned. There has been a host of writings on the emergence of separatism, the rise of popular communalism and imperial policy by a whole range of scholars including Francis Robinson, Ayesha Jalal, Suranjan Das, Anita Inder Singh, Sugata Bose and many others.11 This engagement with the high politics of the Partition has been a much-needed exercise. The way the leaders of the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League and the British government took part in this drama and created the event which decided the destiny of the nation and its masses, has been traced. Mushirul Hasan, Ian Talbot, Joya Chatterji and a host of other historians have also done so. In this context, the question of mobilization of the masses has been quite engaging. The central theme has been that of identifying the ones responsible for the tragic act. Partition has been seen as something bad. Therefore, one had to put the blame on someone. The will of the people has been accommodated in this narrative as the failure of the leaders to rally the masses once the ball had been set rolling. Peter Hardy12 and Francis Robinson had written about the historical roots of the Partition which could be traced to a conflict since the late nineteenth century between the Hindu and Muslim elites over professional opportunities and control in electoral politics. Suranjan Das, Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal have worked on the intricacies of communal mobilization at the ground level in late colonial India which would set the stage for the Partition. Mushirul Hasan had primarily dealt with the Partition in terms of its ‘process, strategy and mobilization’;13 to see, according to him, the complexities of the years 1937–1940 embodied in three paradoxes- the League being catapulted to prominence after years in the political wilderness; Jinnah’s transformation from a secular politician to an ideologue of Muslim nationalism; and the Congress acceptance of the partition plan with seeming alacrity, thus relinquishing its vaunted principles of national unity.14

Introduction  7 These works have tried to find the hour of Partition, to see exactly at which moment Partition became inevitable, to see when the forces of communalism overpowered the hard strategies of all-India politics that had been using the communal forces for so long. In these accounts, some high points of violence have been identified when the will of the community had polarized the population and ultimately forced the state to bring about the Partition. The responsibility of the government in creating this polarization has also been seen. The story has therefore been one of unleashing the powers of Frankenstein. Anita Inder Singh had worked on the colonial government’s responsibility in bringing about the division of the nation into two, which was unfolded through a series of negotiations at the high levels of the political arena. The result of such negotiations was the point at which Partition became inevitable. After August 1946 the communal conflagration resulted in tens of thousands of casualties. This was the breaking point. A handful of riots would not have led to it. As the British realized their administrative weakness the ‘inevitability’ of partition seemed imminent.15 From this all-India perspective, there has been a shift in Partition historiography to regional perspectives which would gradually entail a shift of focus from high politics to a social history of the Partition. While there has been a host of writings on the Punjab story, Joya Chatterji in Bengal Divided (1995)16 has seen how an upper- and middle-class Hindu minority in a Muslimmajority province – Bengal – had looked at Partition as the only way to regain a political foothold. In doing so, she has loosened the link of separatism with Muslim politics alone. The evolution of a parallel Hindu separatism has been taken into account. The focus on the question as to why the Partition happened and at which point it became inevitable has remained. The question of violence associated with the event of the Partition has engaged a host of historians. Suranjan Das’s Communal Riots in Bengal (1991) analyses the context of massive violence in Bengal that prepared the ground for the final division of territories. Vazira Zamindar in The Long Partition (2007)17 gives an account of another kind of violence – what she describes as bureaucratic violence – which was manifest in the great haste in which the lines of territorial divisions were drawn, the callousness and failure of the two governments in dealing with organized violence and neglect in the work of rehabilitation. Joya Chatterji’s The Spoils of Partition (2007)18 has also addressed such issues. Recently, Uditi Sen has explored how the figure of the refugee whose claim on the state is both as a refugee and a citizen, had assumed centrality in the post-Partition nation states. Practices of governance have therefore found their place in writings on the Partition.19 Recent writings on the Partition have explored several new dimensions. The focus has shifted from looking at the event as a culmination of a process in which an already present vertical communal divide led to a sad but inevitable partition of the nation into two in the hands of the British colonial masters. Looking at the Partition as something that has happened in the

8 Introduction past has the problem of seeing it as a solution that has settled the life of the Nation. Ranabir Samaddar had re-opened the chapter: Partition … will never be a settled fact, in the sense of settling something like the birth of a nation or disorder. In producing the differences it will remain unsettled and unsettling, provoking the ‘others’ in the subcontinent. Even while receding into a past of over half a century, partition remains a reality, more so as it becomes a concentrated metaphor for violence, fear, domination, difference, separation and the unsatisfactory resolution of problems; a metaphor, in one word, for the past, one that goes on making the present inadequate.20 It is into such territories of the unsettled nation that the tracing of memory had begun. Urvashi Butalia, Veena Das, as also Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin among others, have traced this other side of the story. The need to see the faces of the Partition, especially those of women, had been felt. Besides, the need to read between the lines, of making meaning of silence as much as the uttered words in memoirs and interviews have also been felt. In these writings, the narrative of displacement has become gendered so that the story of women has begun to be retrieved. Yet the story of 1947, while being one of the successful attainment of independence, is also a gendered narrative of displacement and dispossession, of large-scale and widespread communal violence, and of the realignment of family, community and national identities as a people were forced to accommodate the dramatically altered reality that now prevailed.21 It is here – in the realm of memories, recollections and the narrative of the experiences of women – that this work wishes to enter. The collective memory of the tragic event does find its place in the Bengali novels and films, even though authors in Bengal have remained more or less silent about the brutality of the experience unlike contemporary authors from the Punjab. The emphasis has been, rather, on nostalgia and feelings of desolation while recounting the lives left behind as also the deep resentment and disillusionment with the process of rehabilitation. However, the varied ways in which the Partition and the post-colonial moments found their place in literary activities have engaged scholars in recent years and produced some of the finest readings of literary representations and testimonies.22 The experience of the Partition is multilayered and nuanced by differences which the recent historical literature has begun to recognize. Historians have also approached the issue of violence by tracing it from below. They have seen how people lived through these years and they have tried to understand how emotions and sentiments, matters of the private domain, created public images and stereotypes. This meant, in the first place, an account of the experiences of victims and the perpetrators (not as permanent but as shifting categories) of violence. It also provided

Introduction  9 space for oral accounts of the memories of the Partition while noting silences in the recollections. Such narratives were, therefore, concerned with the afterlife of the Partition. The focus of partition studies has, in fact, shifted from the years leading to the event to the years around and those following the event. Gyanandra Pandey has placed violence vis-avis the notions of civilization and community. In doing so, he has reduced the distance between community and the state. He has made violence belong, as it were, to the modern state. Therefore, violence has not remained a pre-modern phenomenon. To see violence in his terms, one has to realize that the communal and the modern cannot be studied as distinct spheres in which violence would be accommodated in the former and the event of the Partition brought about by negotiations of political leaders in the latter: the discourse of violence here is at the same time a discourse of community, that ‘community’ and ‘violence’ constitute each other, and that the borders of community like the borders of violence are always uncertain.23 This was a way of focusing on the ‘fault lines of nationhood’ that had been put in place by the drawing of borders.24 The question of rehabilitation has engaged historians and such work has formed another strand of literature on the Partition. Among these works might be included first-hand accounts of officials engaged in the rehabilitation programmes of the government. Hiranmay Bandyopadhyay’s Udbastu (1970)25 is an important work in this regard. It is a detailed account of the resettlement of refugees from East Pakistan. Bandyopadhyay has provided a first-person narrative of the way the enormity of the problem baffled the officials and how the day-to-day problems were handled. Prafulla K. Chakrabarti26 reconfirmed much of what Bandyopadhyay had written while dealing with the political mobilization of the refugees in great detail. Gyanesh Kudaisya27 has also written about this history of resettlement in the context of Bengal. Joya Chatterji has seen how the politics of rehabilitation would be played around the notions of refugee rights and state charity.28 The stereotype of seeing refugees as simply victims has been seriously challenged by Pradip Kumar Bose and Nilanjana Chatterjee among others. The question of agency has been brought to the fore. Gargi Chakravartty has provided insights along such lines.29 It has also been recognized that the experiences of women around the times of the Partition cannot simply be narrated as a tale of victimhood and trauma. A sense of triumph in women who came out and became bread earners and gained certain economic decision-making powers can also be discerned, as Jasodhara Bagchi and Shubhoranjan Dasgupta have shown.30 The agency of the refugees as they resettled themselves in a hostile environment came to be focused in these works. It is these intricacies and nuances of the experiences of the Partition that need to be taken into account in any narrative that deals with the partitioned times.

10 Introduction

The Argument and the Narrative As one begins an enquiry through the meandering lanes of a certain narrative of the past which revolved round the singular event of the Partition, one becomes aware that at every turn, the narrative has to cross paths with the present. The exercise of looking into Partition politics was not new and therefore for any researcher, the idea of the Partition came with certain presumptions. Besides, the South Asian researcher is invariably burdened with the memory of the great event that has been handed down as a family heirloom. As it gradually becomes possible to negotiate with the event from a distance, the temptation, as also the need to belong to the trauma of the Partition, assumed new meanings. The Partition was primarily a known event. As one tries to come to terms with the cultural and social ramifications of the event, one invariably tries to retrieve (impose) a certain totality of the social positionings of the people involved. To the researcher, therefore, the migrant loses all other identities and is solely defined by their victimhood. As I began the project of retrieving the faces of the Partition, I became acutely aware of the existing structures of enquiry. Not surprisingly, I found it difficult to read the event in any other light. All official records assumed a character – of being a means, a tool to suppress facts. Therefore, as a natural corollary, all refugee accounts became the source of facts. The second problem that I faced concerned the purpose of the research. I failed to find a singular lead. Was the discovery of new facts, so long overlooked in Partition historiography, the purpose of my research? As I directed all my energies towards the goal of discovery of virgin lands, I realized that I was succumbing to the structures which had been in place for long and that the faces of the Partition that I wished so hard to see became blurred. Therefore, the only thing left for me to do was to make an about-turn and simply search for a point of entry that would help me look at the known facts in another light. I needed to enter the twilight zones, so to speak, where feelings became as important as events. I realized that the most defining emotion, if any, in the air during the days of the Partition was fear. My project became one of charting out the paths of fear. I would look at the Partition through the lens of the fear that it generated. As I settled myself into this lead-less zone, I was aware that I would have to note the power struggles between different classes, castes and gender categories as much as negotiations between the government and the refugees. I came to read my sources as not just different sides of the story of the Partition but as mirroring different and multiple stories of the Partition. The book is divided into three parts. Part I is largely a narrative of violence associated with the Partition in Bengal. It tries to trace the history of violence through the years after the Partition, to see how the practice of violence was not simply purposeless savagery, a thing of the uncivilized past. However, one recognizes at the outset that violence can never be explained. What this study tries to do is to establish the relationship between

Introduction  11 the changing mentalities and identities with the spurts of violence and to take a look at the rioters, the victims, the good neighbours, the profit seekers and so on. It focuses on how violence forced people to belong to particular communal groups. The preponderance of symbols has obviously been noted. But the purpose was to go beyond that and see how the use of these symbols also, in a way, became the means of accommodating people from the other community into one’s own communal group. As cutting of hair for a Sikh had become a signal of his conversion and, therefore, accommodation in the West (the Punjab), so, too, had the breaking of conch shell bangles and wiping off the vermillion mark from the forehead made the accommodation of the Hindu wife into the folds of the other community become possible. One must also note that the enemy is not merely a religious category. It is a cultural category. This would become evident when the good Bengali Muslim neighbour of the 1950s is placed against the ‘Behari’ Muslim mill worker of the 1960s. The way the victims have narrated the incidents needs careful reading. In the first-person accounts, the actual incidents seem to have happened mostly to other families while the fear justifying migration has been general. This is especially true of violence against women. The absence of narratives of violence against women in one’s own family is noteworthy. However, stories of the abduction of someone else’s wife or sister are rampant. This part of the book is an attempt, therefore, to place Bengal within the narrative of Partition violence. It also tries to find the stages of migration of the refugees. It deals with the way the status of the refugee is acquired. It moves along with the minorities as they transformed themselves from the victim to the migrant to the refugee. In the process, some refugees became ‘deserters’ while the Muslims who left for East Bengal/East Pakistan (it should be mentioned here that East Bengal came to be called East Pakistan since 1956), leaving their properties behind, became the ‘evacuees’ in official terminology. It looks at the waves of migration in the East that makes the history of the Partition here different from that in the West. This narrative begins with the Noakhali and Calcutta riots of 1946 and moves onto the great push of the 1950 Khulna riots, the passport scare of 1952 and finally the riots of 1964. The focus, however, is on the refugee’s journey into India. It tries to note the stages of their movement, first from home by foot or bullock carts to the ferries, trains and finally the arrival at the station platforms on this side of the border. The hazards of the journey, a heavy price for independence from colonial rule, have been noted. The point that stands out is that the loss of home was not a one-time affair. It happened time and again. In fact, homelessness became a way of life. As the refugee moved away from home to reach a new home, to a promise of safety and security, the journey of the newborn state in creating a space for this child of the Partition began. The question of rehabilitation characterized the State as it were. For many, this journey remained incomplete and for many others, it was unending. Meanwhile, the stages of the refugees’ stay became fields of contestation for the relief- providers. There is an

12 Introduction attempt to see this space (in this case the station platform) as the space which was crisscrossed by contenders. Various non-governmental organizations tried to gain access to the relief operations. The refugees became the vehicle through which their presence could be felt. I have tried to understand how the station platform broke up the older notion of the family unit and became the site for new moral codes. The experience of women in this journey demands particular attention. Much happened to them in transit. Apart from the threats and events of being raped and harassed, they faced other less visible problems. They were searched by male officials; instances of pregnant women facing the hazards of the roughest and most uncomfortable journeys were rampant. There were also instances of delivering babies on station platforms. Moreover, women continued to play their traditional roles of cooking and looking after their children wherever they went, be it the station platforms, the camps or the colonies. The second part of the book traces the next stage in the journey – the entry of the refugee into the camp. It begins with an understanding of the kind of refugees that went into the camps. They were the ones who had not been able to secure a foothold for themselves or, in other cases, a squatter who had been put into a camp by the government. It marks out the categories of camps – relief camps, transit camps, worksite camps and permanent liability (PL) camps. This stage of the refugee’s journey is therefore as a person whose presence is recognized by the government, in other words who is visible to the government. This part is divided into two sections corresponding to the two ends of the process of rehabilitation – the government and the refugee. The first section delineates the government plans through the various stages of rehabilitation. As the government plans are unfolded, the contours of governance become visible. As the process of categorization goes on, the refugees become resources of the various projects of development. Stress is laid on their settlement outside the state of West Bengal in areas where plans of refugee development zones could be floated. The second section moves into the camp space. The execution of the government plans is looked into. More important, it tries to see what the plans did to the refugee; in other words, it tries to find the refugee in their camp. As this is done, one clearly finds the refugee trying to recreate the bounds of domesticity within the camp space. As camp life becomes an instrument of levelling, the refugee goes against it and tries to delineate notions of privacy, sometimes simply by creating the illusion of a wall with the help of a piece of cloth. As women were forced to come out to keep life running, since doles from the government were nominal, this chapter tries to show that it did not always give these women a sense of liberation. Camp life, with its restrictions and boundaries, did not free these women. This chapter puts emphasis on one aspect that brought the camp refugees closest to the notion of normalcy – the establishment of schools. There is an attempt to trace the interaction of the state with the camp refugees. For the refugees, the notion of the government, which operated at various levels, was multilayered. This becomes clearer while talking about the refugees of the permanent liability

Introduction  13 camps. The old, the infirm, unattached women and the orphans qualified as permanent liabilities. The very phrase implied that they were the most helpless of the lot of refugees and least likely to be rehabilitated anytime soon. A state of permanent dependence was granted which, for many, meant long periods and for some, forever. The permanent liabilities were not a homogeneous category. There were different degrees of permanence as well as different degrees of dependence. Thus, the infirmaries and the camps for women, although both of the PL category, were essentially different from each other. There is an emphasis on one aspect of the government rehabilitation policy regarding the PL camps – the process of ‘weeding out the ineligibles’. It was this that made contestation inevitable. One must remember that the notion of rehabilitation was gendered so that marriage became an important means of rehabilitation for women. A comparison between the rehabilitation scenes of Punjab and Bengal seemed apt here. Part three enters the ultimate site of rehabilitation – the colony. It recognizes that the refugee in a colony is closest to the natural citizen. Also, since in many cases, one came to live in a colony through one’s own efforts, it also becomes a story of success, of being able to choose where to reside and how. As the refugee in a colony is closest to the citizen, the colony is closest to home. This part of the book delineates the modes of negotiation that the refugee needed to gain a foothold. It marks out the main players in this context– the refugee, the State and the political parties. It shows that the thrust of the refugee movement under the political parties was to unify issues. It is through this movement that the refugee of the colony could fight for the refugee in the camp. This part charts out the organizations that worked for the refugees and sees how the colony committees became not only the representative voice of the refugees but also the grounds of infiltration of political parties (political colours first and then political affiliations). It shows how the emphasis on relief operations gradually extended to include specific economic demands like the abolition of Zamindari. The need to build colonies on the lands of Zamindars made a demand for land ceiling particularly relevant. The first chapter in this part of the book tries to argue that the situation was ripe for the entry of Left politics. That the Left came to rope in the refugees was not an accidental success. The refugees also, on their part roped in the Left. They were not mere pawns who made Left infiltration possible. They used the party platform successfully. The next few sections of the chapter deal with the facts on the ground – how the entry of the Left was made possible and the modes of protest that came to signify the refugee movement in Bengal. This chapter takes the examples of a few colonies as representative of colony life in general. As the space of one’s home in the colony became the site of politics, the refugee became a political being and the move to protect one’s home from the eviction operations gathered new meaning. In this context, women, standing in the front lines of resistance, children in arms, using household implements as weapons, would have new roles to play. It might be reasonable to argue that through their involvement in politics, the coming out of women became

14 Introduction more comprehensive. It is on that note that the second part of this section and the final chapter of the book deals with the life of women in camps and colonies. There is a focus on the specificities of life in PL camps where women remained isolated from the presence of men. In the ultimate analysis, there is an attempt to figure out the presence of the state in the lives of these women. Through its many rules and regulations, the state perhaps re-created the bounds of patriarchy that the women had been forced, under the circumstances, to stay away from. As women physically protected their camps and as they interacted with the various tiers of government officials, ties of commonality were created. The women became camp women. The chapter moves on to read the lives of the colony women and those of the female activists who worked among them. It is useful, I think, to see the Partition in terms of how it affected the life of the nation, in other words how it remained with the independent nation. I wish to argue, first of all, that the finality of a state’s limits is non-existent. A nation is always ‘in the making’. Therefore, what follows from this is the fact that there is no one Partition, that the Partition cannot be contained. However, this is what the state tried to do. In trying to perpetuate a state of exception,31 the state tried to keep the distinction between the citizen and the refugee/alien alive. As the status of refugees became dependent on the date of migration, the Partition was given the status of an event in the past. The thrust of refugee politics was against this. The Partition and the way it came about were, after all, accountable for many of the post-Partition events. As Samir Kumar Das feels, Much of post-Partition communal violence on either side of the international border has its roots in Partition and the subsequent reorganization of borders.32 Second, violence cannot be measured in terms of the number of deaths or the visibility of violent events. In the Punjab, the concentration of violent events in the three years since 1947, the exchange of population between East and West Punjab and the literature that traced the thread of violence so well as in the works of Sadat Hasan Manto, Bhisham Sahni and others made Partition violence look more real than what the waves of migration in Bengal could do. Here, the issue of rehabilitation had perhaps relegated the story of violence to the background. The scarcity of literary accounts of this kind of violence is also remarkable. One does find a greater preoccupation with the sketching of a romantic past, of lands of abundance and peace, lands watered by the mighty Padma and the Meghna, all classes happily coexisting, religion being translatable into festivals, and so on. This has made a need to trace Partition violence in Bengal more acute. In this context, I wish to focus on the lives of women, who experienced the kind of violence that they did because they were refugees and women and the potential bearers of future refugees. Even in the story of rehabilitation, they would have a special place since it remains particularly relevant to note

Introduction  15 their roles within the refugee households. Their displacement made them come out, as it were, but the rules set by a patriarchal societal structure did not free them. Even in their moments of triumph,33 they had to bring together and strike a balance between their productive and their reproductive roles. The state, as it tried to impose a kind of order, perhaps made a re-imposition of patriarchal mores possible. This is especially true of the category of female refugees most dependent on the state, that is the permanent liabilities. Third, there is a need to see the refugees not merely as victims or agents but also as pegs whose movements and the kinds of lives they would lead could set the character of the state. The notion of state charity would help in the nation-building process and the issue of rehabilitation would get intricately associated with the project of developing a newly independent India. However, what becomes particularly interesting in this is the peculiarity of the situation in Bengal where refugee rehabilitation is stretched out over a number of years and therefore past the new and hopeful independent phase. The partition in Bengal refused to become the nation’s past. Fourth, it becomes relevant, in the case of Bengal, to see how the refugee situation became a fabric on which a new kind of politics could thrive. If the state’s basic purpose was to categorize the refugees, fit them into neat pockets and seal the process of rehabilitation as early as possible, the main thrust of refugee politics was to unify issues and all categories of refugees. If the government had its own rehabilitation policies, the refugee leaders fought for creating a counter policy. The political parties, therefore, started operations of their refugee units. Relief became central to this kind of politics. The women’s relief organizations, which focused mainly on opening free kitchens and other such relief work, became the vehicles of the penetration of party politics. The colony committees became the sites of their contest with each other. It is in this context that the role of the refugee women needs to be analysed. Their coming out would become more meaningful as they transformed their household implements into weapons to protect their new homes from eviction operations. Their politicization made them effective tools in this project of stretching the limits of the state. The bodies of these women acquired particular significance in many ways – first of all, in the way violence affected them. An attack on women would go a long way in defining the character of the community. The community that failed to protect its women could immediately be labelled as effeminate and, therefore, losers. The way women were attacked also defined the degree of entry gained into the inner core of a community. Rape became, significantly, a mode of entry. Besides, tattooing the body made the impact permanent. Then, as women fought for refugee rights in the streets or fought inside their homes against the eviction operations, their bodies became weapons along with other household utensils. They could be put at the forefront of such operations, babies in arms so that they became a protective barrier for their men. They became, therefore, the gateway into their homes and colonies. In their

16 Introduction search for work, their bodies became the modes of change as more and more women with their sandals and their wristwatches and tiffin boxes became a conspicuous presence in the streets. There is a need to look at borders and boundaries as state-created delineations which the partitioned people failed to understand. The history of the borders, including the logic behind it (in other words, the question of how the borders came about), has to be distanced from the people who crossed them. The differences in classes, castes, regions and gender need to be looked into. It is into such territory that I wish to enter. The purpose is not to provide a particular narrative of displacement and rehabilitation but rather to recognize the existence of as many of them as possible. The official discourse and the narrative provided by the refugee movement have been well charted out. This work wishes to take a hard look at the strands of attitudes, emotions and sentiments that worked around the refugee problem.

Notes 1 Georges Lefebvre, The Great Fear of 1789: Rural Panic in Revolutionary France, (published in 1932), translated from the French by Joan White, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1973. 2 The term and the concept have been borrowed from Georges Lefebvre’s work, referred to above, which has clearly delineated the way the great fear had spread on the eve of the French Revolution. 3 Haimanti Roy, Partitioned Lives Migrants, Refugees, Citizens in India and Pakistan, 1947–1965, New Delhi: OUP, 2012, p. 3. 4 Ibid., p. 11. 5 Anonymous, A Lady’s Diary of the Siege of Lucknow, (first published in 1858), New Delhi: Rupa and Company, 2002, p. 8. 6 See Giorgio Agamben, translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, California: Stanford University Press, 1998 (originally published in 1995). 7 Malcolm Lyall Darling, At Freedom’s Door, London: OUP, 1949, Sir Francis Ivan Simms Tuker, While Memory Serves, London: Cassell, 1950. 8 Penderel Moon, Divide and Quit, Great Britain: University of California Press of Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, Chatto and Windus Ltd., 1961. 9 Nicholas Mansergh and Penderel Moon, eds., Constitutional Relations between Britain and India: The Transfer of Power 1942–47, London: HMSO, 1983. 10 Sucheta Mahajan and Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, eds., Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for Independence in India, 1947, Part 2, New Delhi: OUP, 2015. 11 Francis Robinson, Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces’ Muslims1860–1923, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974; Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia History, Culture, Political Economy, Delhi: OUP, 1998; Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985; Suranjan Das, Communal Riots in Bengal 1905–1947, Delhi: OUP, 1991; Anita Inder Singh, The Origins of the Partition of India 1936–1947, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987; Ian Talbot, Provincial Politics and the Pakistan Movement the Growth of the Muslim League in North-West and North- East India 1937–47, Oxford, New York, Delhi, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Introduction  17 12 Peter Hardy, The Muslims of British India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972. 13 Mushirul Hasan, India’s Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization, New Delhi: OUP, 1993. 14 Mushirul Hasan, eds., Inventing Boundaries: Gender, Politics and the Partition of India, New Delhi: OUP, 2000, p. 5. 15 Anita Inder Singh, The Partition of India, New Delhi: National Book Trust India, 2006, p. 90. 16 Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided Hindu Communalism and Partition 1932–1947, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 17 Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia Refugees, Boundaries, Histories, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 18 Joya Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 19 Uditi Sen, Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 20 Ranabir Samaddar, A Biography of the Indian Nation, 1947–1997, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2001. 21 Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries Women in India’s Partition. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998. 22 See Debjani Sengupta, The Partition of Bengal Fragile Borders and New Identities, Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2016. 23 Gyanendra Pandey, Memory, History and the Question of Violence: Reflections on the Reconstruction of Partition, S.G. Deuskar Lectures on Indian History and Culture, Kolkata: K.P. Bagchi and Company for Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 1999, p. 23. 24 Gyanendra Pandey and Yunas Samad, Series editor David Page, Cross Border Talks: Fault Lines of Nationhood, New Delhi: Lotus Collection Roli Books, 2007. 25 Hiranmay Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, Calcutta: Shishu Sahitya Samsad Private Limited, 1970. 26 Prafulla K. Chakrabarti, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, Kolkata: Lumiere Books, 1990. 27 Tai Yong Tan and Gyanesh Kudaisya, The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia, London: Routledge, 2000. 28 Joya Chatterji, ‘Rights or Charity? Government and Refugees – The Debate over Relief and Rehabilitation in West Bengal, 1947–1950’, in Suvir Kaul ed., Partitions of Memory, Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001. 29 Pradip Kumar Bose eds., Refugees in West Bengal Institutional Practices and Contested Identities, Kolkata: Calcutta Research Group, 2000; Nilanjana Chatterjee, ‘The East Bengal Refugees A Lesson in Survival’, in Sukanta Chaudhury ed., Calcutta The Living City, V-II: The Present and Future, Calcutta: OUP, 1990; Gargi Chakravartty, Coming out of Partition: Refugee Women of Bengal, New Delhi: Bluejay Books, 2005. 30 Jasodhara Bagchi and Shubhoranjan Dasgupta ed., The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in Eastern India, Kolkata: Stree, 2003. 31 See Giorgio Agamben, translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, California: Stanford University Press, 1998 (originally published in 1995). 32 Samir Kumar Das, ‘State Response to the Refugee Crisis: Relief and Rehabilitation in the East’in Ranabir Samaddar, ed., Refugees and the State Practices of Asylum and Care in India, 1947–2000, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2003, p. 108. 33 See Jasodhara Bagchi and Shubhoranjan Dasgupta, ed., The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in Eastern India, Kolkata: Stree, 2003.

Part I

The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar

1 Violence and Migration

The Hindu from Bihar and the Muslim from Noakhali; the Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar – they were the ones that Samar Sen had written about, the ones who would be united in death overcoming all differences in life.1 However, what united them were threads of distrust and memories of atrocities. One can never be sure of the meaning of violence, of what constitutes it. Violence might seem to be a fixed referral, riots being its practice. But reading riots is not a straightforward exercise. It involves simplifications of sorts, ascribed to spaces where the riots occurred and of the actors involved. Across time and social contexts, riots have been assigned a certain kind of uniformity where the victims and perpetrators of violence interact with each other and create a territory of conflict and fear. In other words, riotscapes are always perceived in terms of similarities. Even before one begins a discussion, one is, therefore, familiar with the riot/riots in question. In the context of India, violence had been read as the difficult terrain through which one had to pass to become a part of the independent nation, a necessary evil. This amounts to seeing violence as the blood bath, the test that a nation needs to pass through to achieve statehood. It is the sacrificial altar that purifies the moment of birth. As Suvir Kaul puts it, the claim that all nations are founded in blood and that porous boundaries are sealed only through violence; sacrificial blood-letting, that is, is necessary for the making of strong nation-states. The vocabulary of martyrdom (shahidi) is an important feature of such understanding, and for good reason: senseless deaths are recuperated, those who were killed, however randomly, are seen to have died for a cause, the guilt of those who survived (or who participated in violence) is assuaged. In this vision, the nation, or the quam (community) demands its shaheeds, and is strengthened by them.2 I look at riots, here, as the incidence of violence and the possibilities of it. I shall argue that there is nothing called near-violence or almost-violence. In this sense, there is no fear of violence. This does not mean the absence of fear. It simply means that the fear is not a lesser category than violence DOI: 10.4324/9781003321057-3

22  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar itself. The fear of violence and atrocities in all garbs amount to violence. Violence is one whole. It cannot be measured by the number of deaths or the number of raped victims. It also cannot be measured by the concentration of events. Whether happening over a number of years and therefore being less conspicuous or happening within the span of a few years, violence remains real. The fear and the trauma that made men and women leave their hearth and home were what Chhabi Das, in her narrative, in Jagori Bandyopadhyay’s essay, ‘Meyeli Jibon’, calls ‘hutash’3 (this Bengali word could mean hahutash, or a sigh for something lost, or ‘hotasha’ meaning hopelessness). She recalls that her family had to leave because of a direct attack. Others left because of ‘hutash’. The kind of violence that the years around the Partition experienced was not what the modern mind would like to associate with the birth of a modern state. It was primitive. If violence was used as punishment, the punishment had the purpose of setting an example. Therefore, it was not just a question of taking lives; it also meant demeaning the victim’s honour. Limbs could be cut off, tattoos could be imprinted, a woman could be made pregnant or religious conversions could be used. The purpose was to leave a mark. This kind of violence, therefore, made women special targets. It changed the life of the victim permanently, making rehabilitation impossible. However, any explanation/rationalization is a matter of hindsight. The bewilderment of the men on the spot must be taken into account. One remembers Jaiba (of life), a short story by Narendra Nath Mitra,4 in which the plot revolves round a middle-class couple, the husband being a Lecturer of Chemistry, whose wife had been raped and made pregnant by rioters. She cannot live with this reality and wishes desperately to destroy the unborn child, her link with the past. However, the doctors are not confident to abort the child since the mother is well into her pregnancy. The husband loves his wife and tries to talk her out of any scheme of abortion at such an advanced stage. He has accepted her back into the folds of their life. The reader does not come across any character who messes with this order. The woman gives birth to the child, and arrangements are made to put the child in an orphanage, according to her wish. However, there is one fleeting moment when the mother looks at her child’s face with love. This moment does not go unnoticed, and the husband decides to take the child home. The husband, however, from this time on, develops an obsessive interest in biology, heredity and the study of the effect of genes on human lives. The wife faces the greatest crisis when she finds her husband looking at the child and making notes in his diary, and she becomes desperate to abort the child she has now conceived with her husband since she is afraid that the birth of this second child would only make her husband indulge in a comparative study. It is difficult to put a finger on the moment of violence in this story. Should one consider the moment when the woman was raped (which, of course, is before the narration begins), as the moment of violence? Or is it the moment when the woman decides to abort the child conceived through the act of rape? After all, this is when the woman breaks the societal moral

Violence and Migration  23 codes which assume that a woman is necessarily happy about motherhood and that it is the act of reproduction which makes her complete. Is such a destruction of order the moment of violence? How, then, does one read the moment when the husband looks at the child and jots down his notes? It is his response to his own fate rather than to his wife’s. He comes to terms with the horrid past. It does not break the order of his modern middle-class present as long as his wife is not able to accept the consequences of the past misfortune. However, when he finds that his wife has fallen in love with the child of those times of violence, this order breaks. A narrative of the Partition becomes, in a way, an effort in situating moments of violence and in gauging the bewilderment, much like the character of the husband, in the minds of the partitioned people; of not being able to push it back to the past. The territory of violence assumed specificities when related to a particular event, like the Partition, when religious conversion, religious slogans and such things assumed symbolic significance. One needs to see how violence linked the local with the national. How pockets became mini Hindustans or Pakistans.5 Should, then, the history of migration from East Pakistan into India primarily be a narrative of violence? This question became especially relevant since all agreements6 signed between the statesmen of India and Pakistan rejected the idea of an exchange of population and aimed at removing the fear and insecurity in the minds of the minorities so that they could go back to their homes. The restoration of order became the watchword and the trend of migration had to be reversed. The fear of violence, therefore, became, in official parlance, a category different from actual violence, a lesser category, to be precise. This scale of violence could therefore be measured by a general feeling of insecurity – of life, honour and ways and means of living as against such direct causes as actual riots, murder, abduction and rape. To quote from a memorandum submitted to the prime minister of Pakistan by members of the opposition party,7 The way in which the occurrences took shape with unmistakable political manipulation and bearings and the manner in which the administrative authorities generally handled the situation have naturally given rise to an almost irremovable apprehension in the minds of the most miserably plighted minorities in general that something equally or more terrible may happen every moment. Their sense of security thus stands completely shattered. In the midst of this all-encompassing gloom and sufferings, they see no ray of hope as to the protection of their life, honour, religion and property.

1940s At around the time of the Noakhali riots and the Partition, East Pakistan did witness violence, but the decade of the 1950s surpassed all earlier standards. The situation in the 1940s was well summarized in the accounts of

24  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar the migrants who came to West Bengal at around this time.8 These accounts bring out the way women featured almost always in the threats that the minorities faced. Jitesh Chandra Lahiri, sixty-five years of age, came from Rajshahi town. He left home on 30 January 1948. As was typical of many middle-class families, he had to keep his eggs in many baskets. He had a regular job, held some agricultural land and had his own business to manage. He mentioned that there were ‘anonymous letters, daring burglaries and arrest of respectable Hindus, obscene gestures to Hindu women, ban on sale of property by Hindus, beating up of Hindu businessmen, confiscation of fire arms followed by … wrongful occupation, molestation of women, desecration of temple’. Khagendra Nath Sen, sixty-six years of age was an advocate. He left Rajshahi town in April 1948. The reasons he mentioned were Muslim lawyers were very uppish [high browed] and discourteous immediately after Pakistan. One tried to stop him in the Bar Library. His two storied house was razed in [razed to] the ground on the false allegation that [that] was on land belonging to a mosque though the suit filed [by] them was dismissed. … Pakistan Government took no action. No freedom at [freedom in] Pakistan for Hindus. His colleague was beaten. He left because conditions were intolerable. These were the problems that specifically the upper-middle classes faced/ felt. Santosh Chowdhury, forty-nine years of age, lived in Munshiganj in Dhaka and then shifted to Kurigram in Rangpur and described himself as an ‘ex-revolutionary’. He had been imprisoned by the colonial government, and therefore, in his terms, his claim to the independent nation-state should have been unquestioned. However, he mentioned that after Pakistan all ex-revolutionaries were branded as communists and clamped into jail. He himself was often interrogated and taken to police station and threatened to disclose the names and whereabouts of other ex-revolutionaries. Usual term of abuse against Hindus was ‘Kafer’. Thefts were rampant. Freedom of speech non-existent. Petitioned and saw S.D.O. [sub-divisional officer] in vain. Came away stealthily after leaving all behind him. The notion of betrayal and the sense of being let down was hemmed into the plan of the Partition. The borders failed to ensure that these people, now branded as a communist and as Kafer, found their place in the history of the nation. This class of migrants had to leave because their honour was at stake, and they wanted to leave before it was too late.9 In the villages, especially in Noakhali, disturbances of a violent nature became endemic. The riots in Noakhali started on 10 October 1946. Earlier, the district magistrate of Chittagong, Mr Currim, had initiated a fundraising campaign. This was to help the Muslim victims of the Calcutta riots.

Violence and Migration  25 The Hindus made large contributions to this fund. During the fundraising, Ashoka Gupta’s proposal that funds could be raised for both the Muslim victims of Calcutta and the Hindu victims of Noakhali was turned down. This was the moment for the good Hindus to make their presence felt. M.K Gandhi reached Noakhali on 5 November 1946 – a lone man by now with an outdated message of peace and compromise. From November 1946 to January 1947, Ashoka Gupta worked in the Noakhali villages. She visited about ten riot-affected villages under the Ramganj Police Station (PS), all riot-affected villages under the Luxmipur PS and two such villages under the Begumganj PS. She found that apart from houses being burnt down, manual rice-husking machines, oil-pressing machines and handlooms were also broken and destroyed. The symbolic presence (or absence) of the husking machines which provided the daily staple of rice for the household is hard to miss. Such symbolic gestures reigned supreme and became the subjects of recollection, memorializing the Partition experience. Another such motif was the killing of a cow and to heighten the sense of unease, this could be force-fed. In the village Tumchar, Ashoka Gupta had stayed for almost half a year. The owner of the house where she stayed mentioned that the bullock that he owned had been killed and was forcefully fed to all villagers, both Hindus and Muslims. In the villages under the Luxmipur PS, chiefly inhabited by the low-caste Nath Jugis, such force-feeding of beef was also noted. The message was clear. If lives had been spared after all, one had to leave for good. As the riots raged, the rioters, the helpful good neighbours, the profit seekers and the victims (all shifting categories, one must remember) came to populate the scenario of changing mentalities and identities. The riots, then, needed simple binaries. The Muslim had to be Muslim enough; the perpetrator of violence had to remain so and needed the victim to thrive. Identities, like borders, had to be fixed. Ashoka Gupta’s account mentions a case in Bijoynagar under Luxmipur PS, where a man was asked to come to the Union Board office with his wife for interrogation. The reasons for interrogation were, however, not clear. They were called late at night, and the wife was separated from the husband and raped. This continued for three to four days. They could finally come out of the village on the pretext of the husband’s medical treatment. It might be surmised that not all such incidents were religious in nature. However, the attack on the minority community on the pretext of religion came within the realm of possibility. What this led to was the fact that the Hindus were not feeling safe anymore. The couple was taken to the police station. The officer-in-charge, however, advised them not to lodge any complaint since that could lead to further harassment. There was another case from the village Char Ruhita where the father of an eighteen-year-old girl desisted from lodging complaint in fear of further harassment. With all hope for justice gone, the people belonging to the minority community were losing their voice. What became evident was that the administration could no longer guarantee protection to the minorities. The greatest threat that the minorities faced and felt was the loss of the honour of women. Shaibal

26  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar Gupta, in his statement before the Commission of Inquiry (Exodus of Minorities from East Pakistan), in November 1965 points out that this was the most ‘raw’ wound for the minorities: What touches the Hindus in the raw, however, is the constant dread about the honour of the women folk. A forced conversion or a forced feeding of infidel food may be repudiated or revoked, but a woman abducted is lost for ever and a woman raped bears the shame and the stigma to the end of her days.10 There was no purifying ritual that could erase this stigma. What happened to the women remained with the community to set its character. Those who failed to protect their women remained losers and weaklings in popular perception, both Hindu and Muslim. Shaibal Gupta links the rise in the rate of rape and abduction with the ‘declining morals of Hindus’: The worse form [of such crimes] is abduction and rape or simply rape, and a tendency to such crime which was endemic in some predominantly Moslem parts of rural Bengal has received extra encouragement from the decreasing number and declining morals of Hindus which has sapped their capacity for selfdefence.11 The only way to get over this sense of defeat was therefore to remain silent about the fate of their women while at the same time justifying the fear by talking of atrocities against women in general, or against women of other families but their own. This silence is noteworthy in the first-hand accounts of the riot victims. Shaibal Gupta mentions that the Muslim neighbours behaved as if they had a free run of the Hindu houses and went inside the inner quarters of the houses. Proposals of marriage for Hindu girls came from Muslim families, and there were suggestions of conversion of married women so that they could be divorced from their husbands and remarried to Muslim men. What comes out from the account is that women found it increasingly difficult to live their routine everyday lives. Going out into the streets became almost impossible. On their way to schools and colleges, they had to face lurid remarks and indecent jokes. Even when they stayed at home, sometimes their husbands were called away at night on some pretext, and they were molested. After being molested or abducted, the girls were sometimes forced to declare that they had consented to it. In cases in which complaints had been lodged, the court usually set the accused free. This could be followed by a marriage within the court precincts which became quite a show. In the villages of Char Ruhita, Tumchar and Kalirchar, there were largescale conversions, cow killing and ‘feast in the hindu houses with cooked beef’12 became common. The word that Gupta chooses to describe this practice is significant. A feast was an obvious show of strength and worked to set an example. On the other hand, the ritual of conversions was rather simple. The men had to replicate the dressing pattern of Muslim men. They had to

Violence and Migration  27 wear the lungi and the small white cap that Muslim men usually donned. The local priest, the Molla, recited the Kalma, the Islamic prayer and the men had to repeat after him. For women, vermillion marks were erased and conch shell bangles broken. Hindu married couples could also be remarried according to Islamic customs. One must note that through these rituals, the minorities could find a place within the folds of the majority community, once they accepted the terms set out for them. They were spared from expulsion. There was no need, therefore, for the elaborateness of a feast. There were people wearing the Red Cross badges who were actively involved in rioting. The District Magistrate of Noakhali informed the Red Cross Organization of such activities and such practices were controlled. In Begumganj, there was another problem that the victims faced. The relief provided by the government did not always reach the victims. The local officials and the presidents of the Union Boards distributed a substantial portion of the doles among the majority community on grounds of poverty. These doles were, however, not meant for the poor, but for the riot-affected victims. Meanwhile, the statesmen were signing pacts to bring back peace. The K.C. Neogy-Ghulam Mohammed Agreement was signed on 19 April 1948 as a result of the discussions held at the Inter-Dominion Conference in Calcutta. It stated, Both in East Bengal and in West Bengal there shall be set up a Provincial Minorities Board and under the Provincial Board, District Minorities Boards for the express object of protecting the interests of the minorities, removing fear from their minds and inspiring confidence in them. These Boards shall ensure that the grievances of the minorities are promptly brought to the notice of the authorities and that they are satisfactorily and promptly dealt with …13 The villain had thus been identified. It was the ‘fear’ in the minds of the minorities, and the need of the hour was ‘inspiring confidence in them’. However, what became increasingly clear was that the interests of the minorities could not be protected if the newfound voice of the majority was to be heard. These could specifically point to the class interests of the Hindus. This does not mean that all Hindus in East Bengal held land rights and all Muslims in East Bengal served them. However, that Pakistan had become the land of Islam and that forcible occupation of land and properties (which also included catching fish from ponds and taking away cattle) became major themes in the riots are noteworthy. The sense of security had been lost. A free run of the house, as Shaibal Gupta had mentioned, by people who had been kept outside the inner quarters for ages, became a major cause of concern. Towards the end of 1948, pamphlets were being circulated in the port town of Bhairab which talked of atrocities perpetrated on Muslims in India, of mosques being demolished and of Muslim women being dishonoured in places like Bihar, Punjab and Delhi. Retaliatory measures could be expected. The case of Kishan Shah and Magan Shah

28  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar could be mentioned here. They were affluent merchants who owned sprawling residences and warehouses. Their warehouses were set on fire. One of the three sons of Magan Shah was stabbed to death. The police, however, did not register the case as a communal one. It was registered as a case of dacoity, arson and murder. A local criminal, Chattar Ali, and his gang were blamed for the act, and as he was already absconding, nothing much was done.14 As the erstwhile protectors – the local landholders – were losing their grip, the state was also failing to provide a sense of ease. Both life and the means of living were becoming insecure. Throughout 1949, mob violence continued. The Chittagong-Calcutta mail arrived at Bhairab one morning in June 1949 a little later than usual. Two passenger bogies were almost empty except for about ‘twenty slain human bodies and a few naked female bodies. … Over ten female bodies, some clinging to their babies, were lying naked amidst pools of blood. Two severed heads rolled out on to the platform as a GRP constable forced open the compartment door’.15 In August, some villages under the Bianibazar and Barlekha police stations in the district of Sylhet were raided, houses were burnt and women were raped. In the memorandum mentioned earlier, the police, along with the Ansars,16 were made responsible for the incidents. Similar incidents occurred in Bhandaria in the district of Barisal. The memorandum mentioned again that such incidents occurred not just in the presence of but also ‘under the instruction of the district authorities’.17 On 10 December, a Muslim mob attacked the Putia Rajbari in the Rajshahi town and looted properties. The hunt for the communists was on. One must note that while these hunts made anti-Hindu actions on the part of the government viable, they could also perhaps, on the other hand, make the Hindus term all kinds of government action as communal. At Nachole in the district of Rajshahi, the police and the local Muslims started looting properties forcing the Santhal population to cross borders.18 However, the incident of Kalshira in the district of Khulna was different. On 20 December 1949, four constables raided the house of Joydev Brahma at night in search of some communists. It might be noted here, that, the village of Jhalardangan, three miles from Kalshira was known to be a centre of communist activities. Some of the men from Jhalardangan had taken shelter at Kalshira. About six of them, who might have been communists, fled. As the police entered the house and the wife of Joydev Brahma was assaulted, some of them came back. There were four constables in the house then, with only one gun. They killed one of the constables. ‘They became desperate, reentered the house, found 4 constables with one gun only. That perhaps might have encouraged the young men who struck a blow on an armed constable who died on the spot’.19 It hardly needs mentioning that the murder of the constable was a criminal offence and how ‘desperate’ these men had become and how they had been ‘encouraged’ to commit the crime are not our subject of scrutiny here. What followed this incident is worth our attention. These men had also attacked another constable while the other two fled and raised an alarm. The local villagers came in to help the constables. The men, however, fled with

Violence and Migration  29 the dead body. On the next day, the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Khulna came in with a military contingent. The miscreants had fled by then. The villagers, however, were beaten and harassed. At this point, the incident took a communal turn. The idols of household deities were broken. A general loot of Namasudra (belonging to a lower rung in the Hindu caste order and most of them being farmers) households took place. Only three of these houses, out of 350, had not been demolished. The country boats and the cattle were taken away.20 The incident of Kalshira became a clear example of how every incident would become communal in the following days. Life, in general, came to be ordered communally. The note of retaliation was struck high and stories of the Kalshira incident in its exaggerated forms reached Calcutta soon enough. It took a month’s time but did lead to disturbances in the end. The retaliation of these disturbances would lead to further disturbances in East Pakistan. It was almost as if the borders were simply acting as nodal points for the spread of news, rumours and stories of atrocities. The borders became the threads for hemming the story of the Partition on their two sides. The borders kept the Partition alive. It was around this time that tensions between the two states of India and Pakistan heightened over the issue of the supplies of jute and coal. News spread that Pakistan had barges full of jute waiting near Noakhali and Chandpur, that India wanted a speedier supply while Pakistan was going slow. India, in retaliation, was halting the supply of coal. Not considering the truth or falsity of the matter, it remains noteworthy that what caused great alarm was the fact that the trains might stop moving due to the scarcity of coal. There would be no way out. Besides, the fact remained that the communal issue worked well to divert the mind of the people from the other political issues. The talk of state-sponsored communal violence simply kept everyone preoccupied. Even though such rumours were not taken too seriously, the fear of a general eruption of violence remained ever-present. On 15 December 1949, a train from Dhaka to Comilla was stopped at Khalilabad, between Bhairab and Narsinghdi and all the Hindu passengers were ordered out. They were then lined up by a paddy field and the women were separated. The men and the children were killed, and the women were carried away ‘as if it was an integral part of the gains of war’.21 The status of women as spoils of war remained the same in the subsequent years. The memory of such incidents remained within the minds of a group of people who felt threatened as a minority. Their journey had begun even before their actual migration. A young boy caught in an incidence of violence could never hope to get back to a life preceding the incidence. He was trapped in a different reality of his memories and for him, the days in school and the lessons learnt would lose their meaning. I felt ashamed to admit that my mind was unable to accept anything new filled as it was with the horror clips that I witnessed for over two hours. I could imagine nothing but the human bodies dropping into the vast expanse of the Meghna as if they were red pomegranates. I was still travelling.22

30  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar

1950s The 1950s witnessed a change. Even those who had no place in West Bengal to fall back upon, the Namasudras, the small traders, the tillers of land, who had stayed on as long as they could, had to leave their homes (incidentally, many of them would return later, prompting talks about a restoration of a sense of security. The fact, however, was that they could not find suitable employment in West Bengal and were forced to come back to the lands that they tilled. Some of them also came back to take away movable properties that they had left behind at the time of migration). It must be remembered in this context that the economic interests of the lower caste Hindus were similar to those of the Muslim service classes. Identities structured by religion were gradually overpowering other identities as a result of the kind of state that East Pakistan was becoming. It was striving to become the homeland of the Urduized Muslims whose names were Arabic and most of whom claimed descent from Mughal or Afghan lineages. Malay Krishna Dhar notes a conversation in his memoir with a young girl, Rani: ‘Where are you going?’ Rani asked. ‘Baliarchar, to collect some vegetables,’ I replied. ‘Take care. A lot of Biharis have set up camps near Baliarchar. They keep on threatening us.’ ‘Why are they here?’ ‘They say it’s going to be Pakistan and we Bengalis have no place here. They speak in a tongue that we don’t understand.’23 The discomfort with the newly imposed language had already begun in the 1950s. It would gradually become politicized. The rural Bengali Muslim was much, if not equally, threatened by this category of upcountry ‘Bihari/Behari Muslims’. The Bengali Muslim, who had had to prove to be a good Muslim fighting for the nationalist cause in the pre-independence days, had now to prove how truly and completely Muslim they were by shunning nationalist songs, glorifying Pakistan as the land of the faithful, learning Urdu and distancing themselves generally from the social life of their native village, a big part of which were the Hindu festivities. The other option was to cling to the rural regional Bengali identity and act as protectors of the erstwhile Hindu landholders; since, after all, it was their tie of loyalty to a higher class of landholders that had made these landholders recall their pre-Partition days as days of communal harmony. It was when this protection became ineffectual, that the days of violence, so to speak, began. It was, however, not particular to the Hindus to look down upon the Muslim service classes. It was a matter of class identities. The Pathans from Bihar looked down upon the low caste Hindus as well. Maloy Krishna Dhar mentions an incident, where a Hindu low-caste peasant, Jagannath Jola had climbed up an areca nut tree to harvest ripe nuts. This tree overlooked the house of Sayeed Ashfaq Khan, who had

Violence and Migration  31 arrived as the new sub-registrar of the land revenue department. His wife raised an alarm and subsequently, Jagannath Jola was punished with shoe beatings. The problem that Jagannath Jola faced was different from what the author’s mother faced when she went to the sub-registrar’s office to sort out the matter. The men on the spot were not aware of the ‘family’s bygone glory’.24 The leadership roles that these families had enjoyed for generations so that they had become an almost natural privilege for them, were being threatened. What was becoming clearer every day was that to remain, to retain one’s home, one had to have a different life altogether. It must be mentioned at this point that as the state of Pakistan was coming to its own as an Islamic state, its Muslim citizens were feeling the need to distance themselves from their Hindu neighbours. This was true for all classes of Hindus. Even though the lives of the Hindu Namasudras were not very different from the Muslim tillers of the soil, their religious identities became noteworthy in the context of the times. It is perhaps no coincidence that J.N. Mandal, the leader of the scheduled castes in East Pakistan, had to resign. A look at his letter of resignation might be useful in noting this chord of similarity: the economic interests of the Muslims in Bengal generally were identical with those of the Scheduled Castes. Muslims were mostly cultivators and labourers, so were members of the Scheduled Castes. One section of Muslims was fishermen, so was a section of Scheduled Castes as well. … the Scheduled Castes and Muslims [were] both educationally and economically backward.25 However, the hope to gain a political foothold in the new Pakistan and to bring about communal harmony through cooperation between the Muslims and Hindu scheduled castes was impossible: I was persuaded that my cooperation with the League and its Ministry would lead to the undertaking in a wide scale of Legislative and Administrative measures which, while promoting the mutual welfare of the vast bulk of Bengal’s population and undermining the foundations of vested interest and privilege would further the cause of communal peace and harmony …26 While keeping in view the class identities and nuances in the narrative of the post-Partition violence, it also must be remembered that after a point of time religious identities did become more important than class identities. This is especially true of the decade of the 1950s. It was in the manner of refugee resettlement in West Bengal that the nuances of class identities became more pronounced. That would come later. The violence reached a high at Bagerhat in the Khulna district. News of attacks on Hindus in Bagerhat and Khulna by Muslims with the help of the Ansar Bahini was being published in the Calcutta newspapers, Amrita

32  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar Bazar Patrika and the Jugantar. These papers were smuggled into East Pakistan and the news of the attacks spread. On the other hand, newspapers like the Ittehad, published from Dhaka published news of Muslims being killed by Hindus in Calcutta and Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. At around the same time some Santhal villages under the Nachole and Gomastipur PSs in the Rajshahi district were affected. The local Roman Catholic missionary, Father Thomas Cattaneo, described in his report on the district of Rajshahi that entire Santhal villages were looted and burnt, villagers beaten and women raped by the police and the army. Besides, mass arrests were also made. 27 In fact, mass arrests were becoming a mode of harassment. On 4 January, such raids and arrests were made in the Kalaskatti region of Barisal. Such incidents were not confined to the villages alone. Towns were also affected. Mass arrests were made in the Habibganj town of Sylhet. This was in response to a fire in the criminal court buildings on 22 January. Even though the claim of the members of the opposition (the Hindu minority), that it was an accidental fire, should not be accepted at face value, it is beyond doubt that such arrests made retaliation possible rather than restoring the law-and-order situation. This incident led to meetings and processions and the Member of Legislative Assembly Suresh Chandra Biswas was beaten and later arrested. In the Comilla town, the town hall was attacked by a Muslim mob on 25 January. Next day, Hindu shops were raided, and pictures of Hindu leaders and deities were pulled down. The age-old methods of desecration continued. A week later, on 2 February, similar incidents of looting, stabbing and murders occurred at Feni in Noakhali. The Hindu opposition in the Assembly brought adjournment motions on 6 February to discuss the incidents of Nachole and Bagerhat. The motions, however, were not allowed. The Hindu opposition was declared as ‘fifth columnists’, and the next day, they walked out of the Assembly. There was, perhaps, the possibility of no other way of protest. The opposition had become a Hindu opposition in a state run by Islamic principles. Liaquat Ali had moved an ‘Objectives Resolution’ on 7 March 1949, to set down the principles on which the future constitution was to be based. Although it did put down that ‘adequate provision shall be made for the minorities freely to profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures’,28 the fact that the state was to be an Islamic one, made the non-Muslims primarily religious minorities. There was talk of a certain need of preparation to counter the atrocities against the Muslims in India. On the night of 6 February and the morning of 7 February, Radio Pakistan broadcast a message between programmes which went like this: Brother, you have heard about the inhuman atrocities being perpetrated on our brother Muslims in India and West Bengal. Will you not prepare yourselves? Will you not gather strength?29 Meanwhile, on 7 February, the Noakhali express train arrived with about fifty dead bodies.30 The group of people blamed for such attacks on passing

Violence and Migration  33 trains were the Bihari Muslims and the Kuttis – the South Indian Muslims who had settled themselves around Dhaka and had lived there for generations earning a living mainly by plying tongas or horse carts. They were also involved in other petty trades. That retaliation was becoming the principal theme in politics in official and non-official circles was made clear again on 10 February31 when four women with conch shell bangles and vermillion on their foreheads – typifying the appearance of Hindu married women – and bloodstains on their clothes were shown round the Secretariat offices at Dhaka as examples of Muslim women being converted to Hinduism in Calcutta. The staff of the Secretariat took out a procession and a public meeting was held at around noon at Victoria Park. As the meeting was dispersed, riots began. The same incident is mentioned in the resignation letter of J.N. Mandal, with minor differences. He mentions the case of one woman and alleges that she was painted red ‘to show that her breast had been cut off in Calcutta riot’.32 It is clear that a kind of attack on women became typical of the riots. However, no matter how much the official involvement in the riots, refugee centres were opened and by the evening of the 10th, about fifty thousand Hindus who were displaced within the city of Dhaka, found accommodation in them. However, what remains true is that their displacement had occurred. They had already become a migrant population in need of rehabilitation whose fear of violence was as real as their displacement. Riots continued through the next two days and on the afternoon of the 12th, air passengers gathered at the Kurmitola airport near the military headquarters at Dhaka were attacked. The nearness to the military base made the feeling of the ineffectiveness of laws even more noteworthy. It should be noted here that the attack on passengers was not restricted to trains and steamers. The air passengers were equally affected. The minority community was gradually emerging as a homogeneous category in terms of victimhood. It is this that would later help in their political mobilization on this side of the border. Apart from the city of Dhaka and its suburbs, other badly affected areas at around this time were parts of the Sadar and Narayanganj sub-divisions of the district, the Jamalpur and Kishoreganj sub-divisions of the Mymensingh district, the town of Chittagong and its suburbs, parts of Hathazari, Fatikchari and Sitakunda police stations of the district of Chittagong, the town of Feni and its suburbs, the town of Sylhet and parts of the Sadar and Sunamganj subdivisions of the district of Sylhet, the town of Barisal and the areas under the police stations Muladi Babuganj, Nalchiti, Jhakati and Rajapur of the Sadar subdivision of the Bakerganj district and the Talshar area of the Brahmanberia subdivision of the district of Tippera. In all these disturbances, attacks on women were common. Rumours, under such circumstances, for obvious reasons, made flare-ups almost inevitable. On 12 February, there was a rumour in the town of Sylhet that A.K. Fazlul Huq had been murdered in Calcutta. Riots broke out the next day. The same rumour fuelled riots in the district of Barisal on the same day. There were the good neighbours and friends who gave shelter and even risked their lives. However, there were the ‘betrayers’ so to speak.

34  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar Prafulla Dutta Roy, who was the president of the Kastul Union Board in the district of Mymensingh, had invited his Muslim friends to tea at his house to form a Peace Committee. He was killed by these men and his eighteenyear-old daughter was taken away and the following morning her dead body was found. She was, in all probability, raped before being killed. Such stories are rampant. A very significant change in this decade was probably that the feudal structure of East Pakistan, including mostly Hindu zamindars, taking care of the law-and-order system was breaking down. The sense of security against outside evils that these houses could provide was lost. The palaces of these lords of the land were no longer secure grounds. On 16 February, the Lakutia Rajbari of Bakerganj was looted and a mob set fire to heaps of straws and branches around the house.33 The house of the zamindar of Madhabpasha was mobbed.34 Those who had taken shelter there had to come out and were subsequently killed. As houses were looted, so were shops. The means of living were affected. What comes out through all these instances is that it became quite impossible to stay on. The statement of Naresh Chandra Dam (or Das) might be mentioned here to give an idea of how certain incidents were coupled with a general sense of fear and uncertainty in the oral accounts which had the primary purpose of justifying migration. He was sixty-one years of age and came from Kishoreganj in Mymensingh in 1950. Rioting, arson, looting and molestation of women were common occurrences. The climax was the train looting on Bhairab bridge when the train was forcibly stopped, Hindus killed and pushed into the river and their womenfolk ravished. There was general insecurity of life and property, loss of honour, lack of facilities for children’s education, and denial of justice by authorities who advised going to India on complaint being made.35 The incident of the Bhairab bridge, where a train carrying Hindu passengers was attacked, was mentioned in most of the accounts. It was a great shock. It was a climactic point. Adhar Sarkar, forty-five years of age, who came from Mymensingh in 1955 was travelling on this train. He mentions the incident of the mass attack on the train on Bhairab bridge in which many people were hacked to death and their bodies thrown into the river. He was in the train and he saved himself by jumping into the river and swimming across. Complaints at the thana [police station] were characterised as false complaints designed to embarrass the Muslims. Hirendra Saha, sixty years of age, came from Dhaka in 1950. His account is a detailed narrative of a number of things happening over a period which shaped what came to be termed as atrocities. Other accounts had mentioned specific incidents like the kidnapping of women. Haripada Das had talked of the abduction of the daughters of Bishnupada, Rupchand

Violence and Migration  35 and Jojneswar and how the authorities had failed to do anything about it. However, Hirendra Saha’s account is one of a sort. He had strung together various instances rather than talking about a general sense of fear. Even while listing all kinds of atrocities, he does not fail to list the help received from the ‘friendly’ Muslim neighbour. While trying to retrieve the voices of the partitioned people, the stories of mutual trust must surely not be lost, even though they failed to become the story of the Partition. In his own village the daughter of Hem Thakur was raped, and in his next village two grown up girls of two other men also raped and afterwards converted. His own daughter was sought to be enticed away and she was told that if she did not agree the house would be burnt and witness murdered. Anonymous letters received in any number. House raided one night and men assaulted and gold and silver stolen. On complaint at the thana [police station], 10 Hindus falsely arrested against one Muslim and three Hindus severely assaulted in the house of the witness who was complainant. One form of torture was to compel two of the arrested persons to urinate into the mouth of their father. None of the Muslims named in the F.I.R. [First Information Report] arrested nor action taken. His only gun, the sole means of defence, taken away on the pretext of training the Ansars. Had to leave Pakistan on account of all these things, and a conspiracy to detain them and loot their property was foiled only through the good offices of a friendly Muslim of a neighbouring village who provided a boat under cover of night. Whatever he had was taken away at Hili border by Pakistani customs or police officers. Suit filed for recovery was dismissed for alleged lack of evidence. His property was declared by Pakistan Court to be Pakistan Government’s property. Complains of shabby treatment in India.36 The talk of conspiracy against the minority community was in the air. The migrants felt that what was going on against them was not simply the work of the hooligans and murderers; the official circle was also involved in it. This was, perhaps, the only explanation of their sufferings. However, even though faith in the government authorities was lost, surprisingly, faith in private individuals remained even in times of the greatest crises. It was better to seek shelter from helpful Muslim neighbours than going to the police. The riots of the 1950s in East Pakistan led to retaliatory riots in Calcutta and its suburbs. It was around this time that half-burnt and half-demolished deserted Muslim homes in the Park Circus, Ripon Street and the Free School Street areas became available to some Hindu families who came from East Pakistan. There were instances of forcefully trying to evict Muslims to occupy their homes. Maloy Krishna Dhar mentions in his memoir the case of a young boy of about ten, who was chased by three people. When he was asked who he was and why he was being chased, he cried out, ‘I am an innocent Muslim. … They are Hindu refugees. They want to kill us and occupy our house’.37

36  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar

1960s By the 1960s, the case had become one of squeezing out a group of people to make room for those whose claim to the state was whole or complete in the sense that their religious affiliation had become a symbol/marker of legitimacy. This provided the pretext for creating space for themselves by ousting others. Therefore, the Partition had to be relived once more. It might be worth mentioning, at this point, that the decade of the 1960s had opened a new chapter in the rehabilitation policy of the Government of India. A press note was issued on 17 June 1960 by the Prime Minister’s Secretariat. The hope was expressed that ‘the major part of the work of the Ministry of Rehabilitation will be over within a period 12 to 15 months’.38 There were plans to redistribute the residual work of the Department of Rehabilitation to other ministries and departments of the centre and the state. The Ministry of Rehabilitation was to be closed. For example, work related to the financial assistance for displaced students was to be shifted to the Ministry of Education, work related to the reservation of beds for tuberculosis patients for displaced persons was to be shifted under the Ministry of Health, and so on. The deadlines were set between the months of April 1960 and 1961. It has been the case with the migration pattern in Bengal, that whenever there were talks of the final roll call, a fresh wave of migration would topple the plans. The Partition spilled over again. There were riots in 1963 in the Khulna and Jessore districts. These were the neighbouring districts of the Nadia district of West Bengal. The news of the riots was published on this side of the border and riots broke out in the border areas and in Calcutta. The news of this retaliation caused further riots in Khulna. It is perhaps impossible to trace the beginning of the riots. This brings us closer to an understanding of the partitioned times. There is possibly no single moment of violence. The Partition became over and over again the motif upon which the moments were relived. The riots of 1962 and 1964 affected not only the Hindus but Christians and Buddhists as well. The Christians of Calcutta also became the victims of the anti-Hindu sentiments. At Motijhil, an elderly man who was Christian was tied to a tree and burnt alive.39 Christian Garos started leaving East Pakistan in huge numbers and entered India, especially Assam. While the theft of the relic from the Hazratbal shrine in Kashmir and the agitations following the incident were fresh in public memory, 3 January 1964 was declared as Hazratbal Day in Pakistan by President Ayub Khan. However, no political party of East Pakistan came forward to observe this day. A minister of Khulna Mr. Sabur organized the observance at Daulatpur. This region was emerging as an industrial centre and had a number of mills. The riots of 1964 were organized by the mill hands of Daulatpur. As the disturbances began, the mob was joined by other mobs from the Noakhali and Chittagong cotton and jute mills. The mob could be easily identified, not just by numbers but also by appearances. The ‘non-Bengali mill- hands of Jute and Cotton Mill of

Violence and Migration  37 Narayanganj and Daulatpur took the lead and are all similarly dressed and armed – their employers having declared a paid holiday for the day on some pretext or other’.40 The symbolic and aggressive show of strength was, perhaps, akin to the ‘feasting’ in the villages. The Muslim houses in the villages were clearly marked out by hoisting Pakistani flags. Anti-Hindu slogans were raised, and the mob moved towards the district town of Khulna, which was about five miles from Daulatpur. Villages on the way like Maheswarpasa, Maniktala, Labou Chora, Kultia, Lokpurbazar, Rupsa and others were attacked. Riot also spread to the Chalna port area. In some of the Namasudra villages, the rioters were finally pushed back with help from local Bengali Muslims. The identity of the ‘bad Muslim’ in 1964 was the outsider, so to speak – the non-Bengali working-class Muslim. He was different from the ‘Bengali Muslim intelligentsia’. This group of Bihari Muslims was also different from the Muslims of UP and Bihar who settled in East Pakistan in the 1940s, who spoke Urdu and had Arabic names. The Bihari Muslims of the 1960s were labouring men. As the Hindu middle classes were leaving, it became increasingly difficult for the Bengali Muslim intellectual to find common threads of cultural exchange. He marked his distance from the Urduized culture of West Pakistan and would take part in the language movement in the coming years. He was closer in many respects to the Bengali Hindu intellectual. Meanwhile, the Bengali middle-class Hindu was finding it increasingly difficult to marry off daughters, ‘because eligible young men in East Bengal were fast dwindling in number’.41 Eligibility, in this sense, was marked by a cultural similarity, culture being marked by what was usually expected. Living conditions had changed beyond expectations. Ritualized class distinctions were being broken and structures of long-standing social authority were jeopardized. The theme of revenge and countermeasures fuelled riots. News of the Khulna riots had reached Calcutta, where disturbances had begun. Stories of the Calcutta riots also crossed borders in no time. Riots spread to Dhaka and Narayanganj between 14 and 18 January. The workers of the Adamji mills and of the Bhawani mill came together in the small hours of the night and raised slogans of revenge – ‘Kalkatta ka Badla Lao’ (take revenge of the happenings in Calcutta).42 This mob moved towards the Dhakeswari mill number two, whose owner was Hindu. Other Hindu-owned mills like the Lakshminarayan mill were also attacked. On the way, the Siddirganj power station was attacked. A Bengali Muslim sheltering Hindus in his house was killed. There was an attempt to enter the complex of Dhakeswari mill number one which was ultimately resisted. Problems spread to Dhaka town during the evening of 14 January. What clearly comes out from any account of atrocities is that for every instance of inhuman attacks, there are narratives of saviours giving up their lives to save others. The fact that they could not become the axis round which the story of the Partition would be told was perhaps because it was generally taken to be an exception and never a part of a pattern. Shaibal Gupta, while talking about this general pattern of attacks and counterattacks, mentions that ‘[t]here have been minor

38  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar variations of the theme particularly in 1964, when some Bengali Muslim heroically organised resistance to rioters and gave their life in the attempt’.43 However, this could hardly take away the fears from the minds of the minorities. This was not simply because ‘heroic’ acts are exceptions rather than pattern-setters. It was, perhaps, also because the retelling of Partition experiences before enquiry committees and government officials harped on the pattern of violence so clearly set out by the rioters. Asoka Gupta’s statement of 23 September 1965 to the same Commission of Inquiry on the exodus of minorities from East Pakistan clearly pointed out that what dominated the minds of the minorities and compelled them to leave was the fear of life: I was in Mana Camp from February to May, 1964, almost for the entire period. The families who came away during this period (1964) came for the sheer fear of their lives. The first group of people who I met in Mana Camps were from Bagerhat, Khulna and Dhaka. They said that in the mill areas of Bagerhat and also in Dhaka the mass killing of hindus had taken place. Many persons whom I saw actually bore injuries not excepting children. The refugees had come away with only their wearing cloths and nothing more. Some of the witness accounts of the incidents of 196444 might illustrate the actual shape of this fear. I have selected twenty-seven accounts here. It has been considered fit to select a few from each district (the records of which are available) so that the range is as broad as possible. Most of the witnesses came from middle- and lower-income groups, supplementing their regular income with other odd jobs. Unfortunately, a varied class background has not been available. However, some upper-middle-class witnesses with some land interests have been included along with lower-middle-class groups. The accounts did not mention whether some of them came from the same family. The greatest limitation is that the accounts mentioned deaths in single sentences. However, even then, particular silences can be traced and probed into. Milon Chandra Pal, twenty-eight years old, came away from a village under Rupganj PS, district Dhaka on 4 March 1964. He supplemented his income from agriculture by working as a part-time potter and by making idols. In the riot of January 1964, his father was murdered, his brother was stabbed several times (in fifteen to sixteen places, according to his account), and he himself had been injured with a sharp weapon. He talked of ‘horrible cruelties and molestation of women’. He mentioned that such insults on women preceded the riots. It was, therefore, almost as if the riots had been necessary to give a lease of life to a process already begun. He also mentioned that two thousand Biharis from Narayanganj Mills had devastated the whole village. Peary Mohan Das, aged seventy-five, came from the same area, PS Rupganj, district Dhaka. He might have come from the same village as that of Milon Chandra Pal. He was a skilled weaver. His account also mentioned that the situation was already bad. When his family was

Violence and Migration  39 attacked, his brother and niece were killed. He did not specify how they were killed. His niece should have been a young woman and we remain in the dark as to whether the kind of death that she met was deliberately not spoken of. However, that the use of religious symbols could actually dupe the attackers effectively is borne out by his account. He had gone to a local fair and when the disturbances began, he got hold of a ‘Muchi boy’ (a cobbler) and started beating him shouting, ‘I shall kill all Hindus’. He drove the boy some distance and saved both their lives. Most of the migrants talked of being looted at the Darshana border. Joynath Sarkar, aged twenty-six, who came from Keraniganj in Dhaka on 22 February 1964 managed his own business and was far better off than the earlier witnesses. He spoke of several villages – Baraisali, Sachar, Kayethpara, Chatbari, Darmapara, Roynagar and others – which were devastated by ‘arson, mass killing and looting’. He mentioned that the killing continued in the train. He talked of Sanatan who was killed along with Amulya and his two sisters while Sanatan’s wife was abducted. Sumitra Sarkar was fifty years old and came from the same area – Keraniganj in Dhaka. She migrated on 25 June 1964. Even though she came from the same area and shared her surname with Joynath Sarkar, we do not come to know whether she is related to him. The family occupation that she mentioned is being, ‘milk-man, plough-man’. She mentioned that on 30 Paus, 1370, according to the Bengali calendar, roughly corresponding with the winter of 1963, villages like Shyampur, Ali Bagchar, Sarail, Jaharabad, Bagbari and others were looted. Arson, killing, abduction, rape and loot of properties went on. She recalled the case of one Bhim Poddar, who was ‘exterminated’ along with his son, daughter and daughter-in-law. This single word – ‘exterminated’ – is what we get from this account that talked of an entire family being murdered. She also mentioned that the daughters of Sadhucharan and Amulya Pal were abducted. This was probably the same Amulya that Joynath Sarkar had also talked of. She also said that the migrants were looted at Mymensingh station and the border. Gan Chandra Sarkar of the same locality of Keraniganj came away on 11 April 1964. He was a carpenter and was in government service. He spoke of the general insecurity of the Hindus and attempts at forced marriages of Hindu women with Muslims. We do not come to know whether he had been a witness to such forced marriages or had this been hearsay since some of the accounts began with general statements. Specific cases came later. He spoke of the mass raid of ‘Muslim goondas’ (goons) on 30 Paus, 1370, according to the Bengali calendar (the winter of 1963). This account clearly delineated the category of ‘miscreants’ – ‘mostly Bihari workers of Adamji Jute Mills together with Muslims from Noakhali and Chittagong’. These were the enemies of the minority community in the 1960s, the mill and port workers, mostly non-Bengali. Gan Chandra Sarkar was the eyewitness of three murders and the abduction of the ‘grown up daughter’ of Akali Burman. He mentioned that the police with the Union Board president were patrolling the area, but it was not effective. This picture of lawlessness

40  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar comes out in every account. Like the other accounts, he also talked of the loss of valuables at the border. Reba Rani Dutta was nineteen years old and came from Munshiganj in Dhaka on 16 May 1964. Her account began, as usual, with general statements like indecent gestures and proposals of Muslim boys to Hindu girls and forced participation of Hindus in Muslim festivals. A statement in this account shows the contours of the cultural politics which was being shaped. She mentioned that textbooks were coming out with paragraphs ‘obnoxious to Hindu sentiments’. She went on to talk about the riots of the winter of 1963 and mentioned that while coming over to India, she was robbed by the police and in her presence a woman called Hashirani Pal was ‘ravished’. She was abused when she tried to protest. As lawlessness became the order of the day, it was no longer possible to stay on. Thakur Das Mondal, aged thirty-three, came from Dhaka, Serajganj (the writing is not very clear, though) on 20 June 1964. This witness mentioned that his brother ‘living in Langalbandh was murdered and his wife and two daughters carried away’. It is not clear from the account whether it was his wife and daughters or his brother’s who were abducted. The fact remains that he is one of the few witnesses who does talk about such an incident happening in his own family. He had sought police help in vain and as he along with others boarded the train for crossing borders, ‘Muslim goondas’ (goons) threw away the baggage and killed Beram (this seems to be the name, the writing is not very clear) Mondal and abducted his daughter. He also mentioned that when his village had been attacked, he had saved himself by hiding in a pond. Niranjan Ghosh, aged thirty-eight, came from Thakurgaon in East Dinajpur. He was a milk and sweet meat seller. He talked of the murder of his neighbour Manindra Saha in broad daylight. He also talked of a declaration by the Muslims that ‘their religion said that abduction of good-looking Hindu girls and their conversion to Islam was the door to heaven’. He had migrated to India but went back when the Nehru–Liaquat Pact was signed. However, he felt that the situation had not improved. His neighbour Ganga Prasad Chowdhury was beaten, and his house raided on the pretext that he was a black marketeer. His wife went to the court. Niranjan Ghosh went to the S.D.O with some Bengali Muslims to save the woman. Panna Lal Chowdury, aged thirty-three, came from Patia in Chittagong on 17 March 1964. He talked of the attack on Ramani Das of Kanungopara, whose unmarried daughter was raped. Four days later, Nalini Ghosh was murdered at Sholasahar station. He talked of the abduction of the daughter of Jamini Das at Bhatkai and the assault on Hindus in the Gowdundi station where they were robbed. Some of these Hindus were Union Board members. Chandra Deb Biswas, twenty-six years of age, came from Keraniganj in Dhaka in 1964. He mentioned that during the riots of 1964, the entire area from Narayanganj to Narsingh was burnt. He talked of the ‘massacre’ in the house of Rasaraj Mondal of Bagchar and of the officers of his motor

Violence and Migration  41 factory. This account also mentioned that in a village called Pagla, four to five families were taken in, in the pretext of giving them shelter. Later, the women were raped in the presence of their men while the latter were killed later. He mentioned that no redress could be expected after complaining to the authorities. He also mentioned that the conditions had already deteriorated earlier; that Muslims went about saying that if the Hindus were oppressed, their properties and their women would be available to the Muslims. Narayan Chandra Sarkar, aged twenty-five, came from the same locality as Chandra Deb Biswas, and his account corroborated the earlier one. He talked of the burning of the Bagchar motor factory, the murder of all male members and officers of the factory, including Rasaraj Mondal, and the abduction of women. He mentioned the incident of Pagla and went on to say that not only were the police not doing much to punish the miscreants, but they also were actually helping the latter in looting the properties. Purna Chandra Mridha, aged twenty-eight, came from Keraniganj in Dhaka, and he mentioned among other things an incident of Dharmikpara during which Hindus were taken in on the pretext of giving them shelter and then killed ‘one by one’ while the ‘fairly good looking’ women were molested. The special mention of killing people one by one is perhaps meant to heighten the sense of brutality involved. However, one cannot make a case of the kind and degree of brutality involved here. Out of twenty members of a family of his relatives, only three survived, by swimming across the river Buriganga. Bhairab Chandra Ghosh came from Darusha in Rajshahi. His account mentioned incidents of pregnant women being murdered, women’s breasts being cut off and babies being dashed against trees in the riots of 16 Baishakh (the middle of summer). Twenty-four of his relatives had been killed in the riots. I shall mention the next account in some detail here. The name, not written in a very legible hand, seemed to be Bhabarani Ghosh. A young girl of eighteen, she came from Mohanpur in Rajshahi. She came from a family of traders and agriculturists and was better off than most of the other witnesses, her husband earning Rs. 5000 a year approximately and her father earning Rs. 3000 a year approximately. Her account clearly showed the kind of threats the middle classes faced. This is what her statement mentioned: Father’s house looted on 12th Baisakh 1369 [summer of 1962] and on 16th both parents and brother and sister killed at Darusha Hat. Later false claim made on my father’s property by two influential Muslims (named) on forged documents with false signature. Husband opposing was threatened with murder. They left for India pursued by the Chairman’s henchmen and escaped through jungle. Husband’s parents continued to live in their house but their property and crops were looted including ornaments. They too then left and came and joined

42  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar them in India. Muslims used to wash beef in their tank despite protest and scattered bones of cows they had killed. Ornaments and cash snatched away en route and at the border. The account of Menaka Sundari Dasi, aged seventeen, who came from Rajshahi is unique. She came from a middle-class agriculturist family with an annual income of Rs. 3000. Her family was – ‘Not allowed to sell land even to perform mother’s sradh [the last rites]. Documents forged by a Muslim to get possession of her father’s property and reward declared for killing her. Left Pakistan for fear of life’. One can understand that these people were losing their land rights, the most important part of it being the right to sell their property. One can never be sure, however, as to who had declared a reward for killing a seventeen-year-old girl and why. It might be the person who was trying to get hold of her father’s property by forging documents. However, the important point was the sense of uncertainty that these people felt about their life, property and honour, none of which could be protected by the ‘authorities’. Umesh Chandra Kaviraj, aged fifty, who was, in fact, a kabiraj, or doctor, apart from being an agriculturist came from Darusha in Rajshahi. He mentioned the name of Sudharani who was abducted in 1959. The local Kali temple was demolished. ‘On 12th Baisakh 1369 [the summer of 1962] looting and arson began, and they fled. No protection given by Chairman. Mass massacre on 16th. Fled with wife and children despite obstacles created by Chairman’. Kshitish Chandra Pande was seventy-two years old. He was a zamindar of Boalia in Rajshahi. This account mentioned that [o]ne Miss Lila Roy was … raped within my knowledge. Himself fined Rs. 8000 and threatened with [to be put into] Jail. Government started to harass him by instituting suits and cases. Came to India with the help of friendly Muslims. Goods, utensils etc. worth Rs. 5000 or Rs. 6000 taken away at Darshana border. The ‘harassments’ that Kshitish Chandra Pande faced came from a different quarter; it came from the new government in the shape of lawsuits. Whether or not the cases against him were justified is another story. What remains true is that he was undoubtedly losing his voice of authority. This brings to mind the discriminatory legal structure that Shaibal Gupta had mentioned in his statement before a commission of inquiry which affected the Hindu middle classes.45 The assessment of the income tax increased arbitrarily, promotions were restricted, business permits became difficult to obtain, gun licences were cancelled and land sales were banned. Secret circulars were issued to instruct officials. Shaibal Gupta talked about a sub-registrar of a subdivisional town who had to refuse to accept the power of attorney on behalf of an absentee who was Hindu because of such a circular.

Violence and Migration  43 The feeling of being discriminated against was strong. It was, as if, one was not given one’s due as a citizen of the state. Bhagobot Chandra Basak came from Rajshahi on 8 November 1962. He had, therefore, left before the 1964 riots. That the migration of the decade of the 1960s was not just triggered by the riots of 1964 should be remembered. The migratory trend continued. 1964 provided a fresh spurt. Bhagobot Chandra Basak ran a stationery shop. He mentioned quite clearly that it was the life of a secondor third-class citizen that they were forced to live. A pervading sense of insecurity prevailed. No redress from thanas [police stations]. Lived a dog’s life as second or third class citizens. Muslims treated them with contempt and boycotted their shops. In April 1962 large-scale massacre of Hindus took place at Darusha, only a mile from Rajshahi town. 1500 killed. In other places too massacres took place. At the instance of the Deputy H.C. of India, stationed at Rajshahi, military had to be called… There was discrimination even in courts. After much effort sold his shop and came away. At Darsha [Darshana?] all beddings were taken away and all utensils seized. However, the feeling that ‘general insecurity’ might fail to impress the government on this side of the border as a sufficient cause for migration was always felt. One needed violent events to justify migration. Paresh Chandra Ghosh, forty-five years of age, came from Rajshahi two months after the riots at Darusha Hat, the marketplace. He mentioned, ‘It was not merely general insecurity but the riot of Baisakh 1369 [the summer of 1962] which decided them to leave Pakistan …’. Nibaran Chandra Sarkar, thirty-two years of age, came from Rajshahi. His house was burnt and property looted on the night of 1 Magh 1369 (the winter of 1962). His Muslim neighbours allowed them to leave by boat but only in return for the payment of Rs. 25 per head. Katyayani Dasi, thirty years of age, came from Darusha in Rajshahi on 2 Magh 1369 (winter of 1962). In the riot of 16 Baishakh (summer), her husband and mother-in-law were murdered ‘along with 2000 other Hindu men women and children. Other 22 relations were also killed’. Gopal K. Chakravortty, aged forty-three, came from Sadullapur in Dhaka on 19 July 1964. His account stated: On 1.1.64 his Kali temple was destroyed, the deity smashed and his wife was killed. (He had moved to Sadullapur after creation of Pakistan for safety where this took place). 29 people of his village killed. 5 women were abducted 3 of whom were permanently retained. Women molested and his wife killed before his eyes and all property looted. He does mention the ‘loss of honour’ of other women. The death of his own wife is not detailed.

44  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar Ganga Prasad Chowdhury, aged thirty-one, came from Thakurgaon in Dinajpur in 1964. Apart from the general sense of insecurity that he said existed before the riots, the Dhaka riots were cited as the immediate cause of migration. He mentioned that his house was attacked by five hundred Muslims and his wife was ‘attempted to be abducted and converted’. They were saved with the help of a Muslim woman, and they could escape ‘by liberal payment to Ansars and other Muslims’. Hari Gopal Mondal was a nineteen-year-old boy who came from Keraniganj in Dhaka on 31 Paus 1370 (the winter of 1963). He was a witness to the massacre at Bankshall in Dhaka. He had seen non-stop arson, looting and assaulting of Hindus by Muslims and heard even more stories of atrocities and rape of women before the eyes of parents and husbands from two kindly Bengali Muslims who saved his life and advised him to quit Pakistan … It is this that constituted the fear. Some incidents seen and some atrocities heard of. The rape of women was almost always related as having happened before the eyes of their parents and husbands. Like other witnesses, he marked out the general sense of insecurity and deteriorating conditions when Muslims thought they had the free run of Hindu houses, invaded their privacy and openly declared that Hindu girls were fair game for abduction, rape or forced marriage as it would lead to heaven; also that Hindu property was the result of exploitation of Muslims and it was not wrong to take it by force. That there was a sense of levelling where the lands of the erstwhile lords would be taken and redistributed comes out in this account. Incidentally, many of the lords were Hindu. The next account is another of many in which the names of a few victims like the women of Akali’s household and the daughter of Sanatan recur. Priyabala Sarkar, thirty years of age, came from Keraniganj in Dhaka in 1964. Her account mentioned, Conditions worsened with Pakistan and Hindus very badly treated by Muslims. League Government became anti-Hindu. Articles were taken from shops but price not paid; when demanded cries were raised to drive out the Hindus. Standing crops were cut and taken away. The climax were [was] the Dhaka riots of 31st Paus 1370 [winter of 1963] when hundreds of Muslims entered the village with sharp weapons and systematically murdered most Hindu males, burnt and looted Hindu houses and abducted and raped Hindu women. Names the villages (…, Bagchar, Sarail, Shyampur, Ati, Rayerbazar, Pagla, Keraniganj …) from which young and grown up girls and wives were abducted – a

Violence and Migration  45 chaukidar’s daughter, the wife, sister in law and sister of Akali, Sanatan’s wife etc. Amulya was murdered and his grown-up daughter abducted. The number of killed and abducted is legion. No redress on appeal to authorities who said Hindus should go to India. Lost Rs. 3200 worth of ornaments when coming. It should be noted that there were talks of a systematic or pre-planned attack. Benoda Mondal, wife of Fulchand Mondal was fifty years of age and came from Srinagar in Dhaka. She came from a well-to-do family of farmers. The problem of her class was still that of Muslim ‘uppishness’. Muslims became uppish immediately after Pakistan, claiming right of entry into Hindu kitchens, right of inter-communal marriage and right of compelling Hindus to eat infidel food or food cooked by Muslims. Else Hindus should leave Pakistan. Speaks of the riots from 30th Paus to 8th Magh 1370 [the winter of 1963] which affected …, Uttar Kayasthapara, Nagarpara, Deulpara and several other villages (he [she] mentions fifteen by name). Hindus were mercilessly killed, their womenfolk were abducted and raped, their houses burnt and their properties looted. Mentions 5 men killed before his [her] own eyes whose womenfolk were also abducted. Police help sought in vain. Investigating officers themselves removed many movables during their absence in camp. Robbed of movables worth Rs. 1200 at the border. The so-called ‘uppish’ness of the Muslims was not a matter of the decade of the 1960s. It had happened much earlier. Therefore, in this case, as in many other cases, the general sense of insecurity comprised the memory of events that had happened much earlier. Memory was an important propeller of fear when a few incidents of the present could be conjoined with the memory of earlier events to create a seamless account. The account of Jashoda Sarkar, aged forty-five, wife of Upendra Sarkar, who came from Keraniganj in Dhaka is another case in point where events of the present coupled with the memory of the police helping the rioters in the past created a narrative of unending violence: Describes the earlier state of insecurity and the depredation of the Muslim miscreants without … hindrance from Police in U.B. [Union Board]. In the mass riots of 30th Paus 1370 [winter of 1963], thousands of Muslim goondas [goons] came, burnt village after village, cut off thousands of Hindus, abducted many girls and young women and looted all they could lay their hands on. Police or military offered no help. In some places some Bengali Muslims saved a few Hindus. All utensils and movables which goondas [goons] could not carry away were attached by the police on the pretext of investigation so that

46  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar migrants had to leave even those when coming over to India. At the border he [she] was robbed of goods worth Rs.1500. The first thing that comes across from these accounts is the fact that they serve as a story of remembrance, rumours and events blended into one, and must be seen as such. Having said that, it strikes one that, in this wave of violence, in the mind of the Hindu in East Pakistan, the enemy was the Muslim from Bihar and not the Bengali Muslim. The latter could perfectly fit the straitjacket of the good neighbour and saviour. The former could never be expected to do so. They were migrants themselves and would fit into the milieu by turning the Bengali Hindus into migrants too. Niranjan Ghosh’s account mentions how help could be expected from ‘Bengali Muslims’ even when the administration itself was biased. Kshitish Chandra Pande talks about the help received from ‘friendly Muslims’, and Ganga Prasad Chowdhury mentions the help received from a Muslim woman. These good neighbours were different from the lot of rioters who had become ‘uppish’ (as Benoda Mondal had felt) with the creation of Pakistan or those who had destroyed the Kali temple of Gopal K. Chakravortty. At the other end of this scale of good neighbourliness came the worst of the lot, who killed on the pretext of giving shelter. Chandra Deb Biswas, Narayan Chandra Sarkar and Purna Chandra Mridha, who came from Keraniganj in Dhaka, mention incidents of families being given shelter and then men being killed and women raped in Pagla and Dharmikpara. The question remains whether or rather to what degree and how, in such times of crises, one’s identities other than communal came to the forefront. Between the good and the bad neighbours remained the ever-present category of profit seekers. It would be wrong to identify and brand them either as religious rioters or saviours. They were merely making the most of the situation. They demanded money for helping the Hindu migrants leave. Nibaran Chandra Sarkar had paid his co-villagers Rs. 25 per head as the price for his safe journey out of his country with the help of a boat. First-hand experiences and eyewitness accounts were woven with rumours and recollections to form the seamless narrative of Partition violence. In this narrative, one had to belong to either the community of victims or that of the perpetrators. Mihir Sengupta in his memoir, Bishadbriksha46 remembers Putul, a young Hindu widow who eloped with her Muslim lover, Kasem. This flight could only be interpreted as abduction. Both Kasem and Putul eventually become outcastes; their communities shun them, because they fail to become a part of the pattern. Putul lives with her ‘abductor’, and Kasem neither converts his bride nor enjoys the spoils of war (Reba Rani Dutta had used the word ‘ravished’ in her account). It is the construction of such neat boxes that made the overarching memory of the Partition one of communal hatred. It became the tool for understanding and explaining the chaos of riots. People coming from the same region talked of the same instances of violence. Joynath Sarkar talks of the murder of one Amulya and his two

Violence and Migration  47 sisters and the murder of one Sanatan, whose wife was abducted. Sumitra Sarkar talks of Amulya Pal, who might be the same Amulya, as does Priyabala Sarkar. All three of these witnesses came from the same region, Keraniganj in Dhaka. They came around the same time, although not on the same date. There might have been familial connections and the repetition of the same accounts by all. Two distinct events can be traced from the accounts: one in April 1962 at Darusha Hat, a place very near to Rajshahi town, and the second in the winter of next year – the Dhaka riots. It was in the latter case that the workers of the Adamji group of mills participated. They were joined by Muslims of Noakhali and Chittagong. In 1964, the mills owned by Hindus became a special target of attack. This signified the character of the unrest in this phase. The motivation was economic to a good extent.47 There were also problems in selling immovable property before leaving. Menaka Sundari Dasi failed to sell land to get money to perform her mother’s funeral rites. At a time when it was expected that the Hindus would eventually have to leave, it was likely for them to face such problems and the administration could not make amends. Shops owned by Hindus were being boycotted, making a living difficult, as Bhagobot Chandra Basak mentions. Bipad Bhanjan Pal, who was originally from Dhaka and then moved to Rangpur and finally left East Pakistan for India in December 1962, mentions48 that his son had been appointed by a Muslim officer. When the latter was transferred, his son was dismissed. He felt this was because of the fact that his son was Hindu. He further mentions that the Hindus were openly declared as fifth columnists. This was a problem on a different level created not by the mill hands. However, for all Hindus, living in their homes was becoming even less of a viable option, both economically and in terms of safety. In a state of general frenzy, the religious character became pronounced and a general feeling that the abduction of Hindu girls was a road to heaven became popular. Niranjan Ghosh coming from East Dinajpur and Hari Gopal Mondal who came from Dhaka talked of this kind of sentiment. Therefore, across regions, this feeling might have persisted justifying violence on women. Women were a valuable part of the property of the Hindus and along with every other piece of property they were made available in such times of unrest. It is evident that women had a special place in this history of partitioned times. They were not only members of the minority community; they were also the property of the minority community, and they were not only the containers of their own honour but also that of their men and their community. Their men talked of rape, abduction and molestation of women in a general sense. It might be noted that they were rarely talking of the women of their own family. They talked of the fate of women like Sudharani, Lila Roy, Sanatan’s wife, Amulya’s sisters, Bhim Poddar’s daughter and daughter-in-law, Akali Burman’s daughter, Hashirani Pal, Beram Mondal’s daughter, Ramani Das’s daughter and Jamini Das’s daughter. It was almost always someone else or someone else’s daughter or sister. Even when one talked of the loss of the women of one’s own family, it was done in a short

48  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar sentence, not really mentioning the actual cause of death. And it is difficult, impossible, in fact, to find a single account which mentioned a woman of one’s family being raped, abducted or molested who remained alive. Death made compensations of some sort when honour was lost. Ganga Prasad Chowdhury mentions that his wife was ‘attempted to be abducted and converted’, but it seems from his account that he was able to save her before any damage was actually done. Peary Mohan Das’s niece was killed. Gopal K. Chakravortty mentions that his wife was killed, and Thakur Das Mondal mentions that his brother’s wife (or maybe his own; it is not clear from the account) was killed and his (either his or his brother’s) two daughters were carried away. The witnesses do not mention how these women, their women, were killed. The question that invariably crops up is, why these people actually left their homes. The fact that there was a general feeling of insecurity cannot be overlooked. This fear was shaped in the minds of the upper- and middleclass Hindus by the fact that the Muslims had raised their heads as it were. The crops were being cut without permission; the ponds were not safe either; the shopkeepers could not always expect to be paid properly and the privacy of the household was at stake. East Pakistan was no longer the cultural homeland of the Bengali Hindus. Shorn of Calcutta and separated from India, it had to fight to become a part of Pakistan. It was a new cultural project for the success of which, the Bengali Hindu had to make room for the ‘Bihari’ Muslim. One wonders whether the narrative of communal violence was actually a story of racial and cultural realignment. One is compelled to argue that the two are the same. However, as Paresh Chandra Ghosh specifies, it was not merely this sense of insecurity that made them leave their homes. It was a question of life and death. The fear was well founded. This well-founded fear made them refugees in the legal sense of the term. The UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (as amended in 1967) defines the refugee as a person who owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.49 At the end of the journey from one country to another, even though, I would argue that the journey did not see an end, having lost whatever little could be carried after losing much at the border at Darshana, it is this status that the migrants gained. They became refugees. The journey was not just about ending homelessness; it was also that of becoming a refugee in many ways.

Violence and Migration  49

Notes 1 The phrase is borrowed from and is a translation of a line from Samar Sen’s poem in Bengali, Janmadine, published in Sabyasachi Deb and Somesh Chattopadhyay ed., Sankalita Samar Sen, Kolkata: Anushtup, 1990. 2 Suvir Kaul, eds., The Partitions of Memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India, Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001, p. 7. 3 Jagari Bandyopadhyay, Meyeli Jibon, Bhagabagir Porer Jug, in Semanti Ghosh, ed., Deshbhag: Smriti ar Stabdhata, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2008, p. 95. 4 Narendranath Mitra, ‘Jaiba’ in Narendranath Mitra, Galpamala 2, Kolkata: Ananda Publishers Limited, 1989. 5 Gyanendra Pandey has emphasised on the local vis-à-vis the national in – Remembering Partition Violence, Nationalism and History in India, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 6 As the Agreement No. VI, Inter Dominion Conference, April 1948, known as the Neogy–Ghulam Mohammad Agreement, the Agreement No. XIV, reached at the Inter Dominion Conference, December 1948 and the Jawaharlal Nehru- Liaquat Ali Khan Agreement of April 1950 repeatedly pointed out. 7 Memorandum Submitted before the Hon’ble Prime Minister of Pakistan by Members of the Opposition Party (Assembly), East Bengal, dated 20.03.1950, quoted in Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 106. 8 Oral evidence of riot victims from the Asoka Gupta files available at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 9 See Tista Das, ‘The Partition, the Refugees and the Narrative of Violence’, The Calcutta Historical Journal, Vol. XXIX, No. 1–2, January–December, 2009, pp. 121–132. 10 Shaibal Kumar Gupta’s statement before the Commission of Inquiry (Exodus of Minorities from East Pakistan), November 1965, New Delhi, p. 10. 11 Ibid., p. 11. 12 Ashoka Gupta’s statement dated 23 September 1965, available in the Ashoka Gupta Files, School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University, p. 4. 13 Neogy-Ghulam Mohammed Agreement No. VI Inter Dominion Conference held at Calcutta (15.4.48 to 18.4.48), quoted in Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 96. 14 Maloy Krishna Dhar, Train to India: Memories of another Bengal, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009, p. 161. 15 Ibid., p. 186. 16 Members of the Ansar Bahini, a force of voluntary guards, a paramilitary outfit originally formed in 1948, responsible for maintaining peace and seeing to it that nothing was smuggled out through the borders. This obviously made the migrants crossing borders easy targets of attack. Members of the force allegedly took part in the incidents of atrocities against the minorities. 17 Memorandum Submitted before the Hon’ble Prime Minister of Pakistan by Members of the Opposition Party(Assembly), East Bengal, dated 20.03.1950, quoted in Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 108. 18 J.N. Mandal’s letter of resignation, October 9, 1950, quoted in Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 138. 19 Ibid., p. 139. 20 Ibid., p. 140. 21 Maloy Krishna Dhar, Train to India: Memories of Another Bengal, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009, p. 200.

50  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar 2 Ibid., p. 249. 2 23 Maloy Krishna Dhar, Train to India: Memories of Another Bengal, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009, p. 109. 24 Maloy Krishna Dhar, Train to India: Memories of another Bengal, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009, pp. 110–1. 25 J.N. Mandal’s Letter of Resignation October 9, 1950, quoted in Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 132. 26 Ibid. 27 Memorandum Submitted before the Hon’ble Prime Minister of Pakistan by Members of the Opposition Party(Assembly), East Bengal, dated 20.03.1950, quoted in Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 109. 28 Kabir, Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 26. 29 Memorandum Submitted before the Hon’ble Prime Minister of Pakistan by Members of the Opposition Party (Assembly), East Bengal, dated 20.03.1950, quoted in Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 110. 30 Maloy Krishna Dhar, Train to India: Memories of another Bengal, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009, pp.214–5. 31 Memorandum Submitted before the Hon’ble Prime Minister of Pakistan by Members of the Opposition Party(Assembly), East Bengal, dated 20.03.1950, quoted in Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 110. The Memorandum mentions the date as 18 February. However, it seems to be a misprint in view of the later dates. J.N. Mandal mentions the date as 10 February. 32 J.N. Mandal’s letter of resignation, October 9, 1950, quoted in, Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 140. 33 Memorandum Submitted before the Hon’ble Prime Minister of Pakistan by Members of the Opposition Party (Assembly), East Bengal, dated 20.03.1950, quoted in Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 116. 34 J.N. Mandal’s letter of resignation, October 9, 1950, quoted in, Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980, p. 142. 35 Oral evidence of riot victims, from the Asoka Gupta files available at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 36 Oral evidence of riot victims from the Asoka Gupta files available at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 37 Maloy Krishna Dhar, Train to India: Memories of Another Bengal, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009, p. 294. 38 Satish Chandra Dasgupta, Problems of Refugee Rehabilitation in West Bengal, March 1964, available at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 39 Satish Chandra Dasgupta mentions this incident in his account – Problems of Refugee Rehabilitation in West Bengal, March 1964, available at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 40 Statement of Shaibal Kumar Gupta before the Commission of Inquiry (Exodus of Minorities from East Pakistan), New Delhi, 16 November 1965, p. 14. 41 Ibid., p. 12. 42 Samar Guha, Whither Minorities of East Pakistan? Kolkata: Samar Guha, undated, p. 5. 43 Statement of Shaibal Kumar Gupta before the Commission of Inquiry (Exodus of Minorities from East Pakistan), New Delhi, 16 November 1965, p. 14.

Violence and Migration  51 44 Oral evidences of riot victims from the Asoka Gupta files available at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 45 Shaibal Kumar Gupta’s statement before the Commission of Inquiry (Exodus of Minorities from East Pakistan), New Delhi: November 1965, pp. 7-8. 46 Mihir Sengupta, Bishadbriksha, Kolkata: Subarnarekha, 2005. 47 See Saibal Kumar Gupta’s statement to The Commission of Inquiry (Exodus of Minorities from East Pakistan) dated 9.11.1965. 48 Oral evidence of riot victims of 1963–1964 from the Asoka Gupta files available at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 49 http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10.html, accessed on 27.02.2022, 7:45 pm.

2 Crossing the Border

For the partitioned people in the partitioned times, border crossing would not mean leaving the borders behind. They would remain the people of the borders. Their bodies, exposed to the gaze of the state at every step, would carry a map inside. Their journey defined them. The narration of the hazards of the journey entitled them to state care. Therefore, it was not a journey that they were allowed to forget. In the case of Bengal, the movement from the east to the west was much greater.1 The movement happened in phases. The significance of the journey of the migrant cannot be missed. One was forced to leave behind one’s home, friends and relatives as well as the means of living. This was compounded with the hardships of the journey itself. The journey was perilous and one could never be sure that one would live through it. Most important, most of the migrants did not have a clear notion of what awaited them at the end of the journey. In fact, one could never know when the journey would come to an end; whether the crossing of borders was enough or not. Meanwhile, as the decade of the 1950s swelled the number of refugees, the Congress ministry at the centre clearly pointed out that the government could only provide relief. Since those who were pouring in were coming in fear of their lives, and not the much-haloed loss of ‘honour’, it was felt that they would be prepared to go back when the disturbances were over. One cannot miss the inevitable corollary that the government was letting the poor down; those who had clutched to their minimal resources till the last moment, those who were ‘wedded to their soil or to their trade’.2 The minister for relief and rehabilitation, Mohanlal Saxena clearly stated,3 In view of past experience, Government do not wish to set up large camps but will make arrangements for their accommodation and try to provide them with work. If necessary, they will be given subsidies; there will however, be no gratuitous relief except at the initial stage. This was all that the Government of India was prepared to do though the minorities of Pakistan were recognized as ‘blood of our blood and bone of our bones’4. The programme of relief was strictly based on the principle of charity and the days of charity were numbered. DOI: 10.4324/9781003321057-4

Crossing the Border  53 According to the statement of a government spokesman to the press, on 1 February 1950, by the end of January 1950, ten thousand refugees had already arrived at Bongaon. Official figures, even if they underestimate the numbers, do show that between 1946 and 1962, the rate of migration was highest during 1950. Table 2.1 might be useful here. It specifically shows how many people arrived each year in the first half of the decade of the 1950s. The steady inflow of migrants is well attested. Most of the migrants came via Banpur and Bongaon. They came by trains, steamers and some even walked to cross the border. For the migrants, India was still too far. The chaotic sea of humanity milled around haggling, begging and stuffing money into the hands of greedy transporters for a ride to the safety of the Indian border. Thousands of people haggled with rikshaw pullers, horse and bullock cart drivers and drivers of a few rickety buses and open trucks. They charged astronomical amounts from a wretched people whose only thought was of the not so distant border of Indian safety …5 This chaos and this noise remained with the migrants throughout their journey. Once the border was crossed, they were handed a transit slip. With this slip, they came to the Sealdah station. From here they were sent to camps within West Bengal or Bihar, or Orissa. But since the station remained overcrowded with refugees most of the time as there were delays in sending them to camps, a new kind of camp, called transit camps were opened which provided the intermediary step. This second wave of refugees came not only because their honour or prestige was at stake but also because their lives were at stake. While the earlier wave consisted of mostly the middle classes, this new wave included agriculturists and petty traders and shopkeepers. Since the policy of the central government regarding Bengal focused not on an exchange of population or property but on reversing the trend of migration, the Nehru–Liaquat Pact stressed on creating peaceful conditions on both sides of the border so that further exodus could be checked and the migrants could go back to their homes. Table 2.1  Figures of Arrival of Refugees per Year Up to 1952 the number of refugees was 1953 fresh arrival 1954 fresh arrival 1955 fresh arrival Up to July 31, 1956 Total

2,517,504 60,647 103,850 211,573 199,410 3,092,944

Source: Relief and Rehabilitation of Displaced Persons in West Bengal, published by the Home (Publicity) Department on behalf of the Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department, Government of West Bengal, August 1956.

54  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar This high phase of migration continued till September 1950. The rate of migration was declining from April of that year. By October, the movement of refugees had definitely slowed down. April 1951 was the target date to close down the camps after dispersing the refugees, who were eligible for rehabilitation. Accordingly, all camps, except the permanent liability camps and the Cooper’s camp at Ranaghat, were closed down. This camp, which was under the direct supervision of the Central Ministry of Rehabilitation, was brought under the Government of West Bengal to help in the dispersal schemes. Meanwhile, the refugees, who had been dispersed to Bihar and Orissa, started coming back. They started crowding the Howrah station from April, 1951. In the beginning of 1952, the total population accommodated in camps was 72,000, of which, 34,000 were permanent liabilities.6

The Wave Continues With news of the introduction of the passport system in East Pakistan in the air, a fresh influx of refugees began. The target date was 15 October 1952. And there was a hurry to cross the border before this date. The agitation of Muslim students on the language question led to shooting. This was followed by a large-scale arrest of Hindu leaders on grounds of suspicion.7 This was another cause of the migration in this phase. At the high point of this influx, the rate was as high as that of 1950. The ones who came on foot numbered 127,000, and those who came through the state interception centres and were admitted into camps numbered 66,000.8 Admission into camps was now restricted to those who could obtain migration certificates from the deputy high commissioner at Dhaka. Thus, one had to provide sufficient proof of one’s destitute condition. The status of a ‘refugee’ was becoming a bargaining counter. It was now, more than a social and economic category. It was a right to be fought for, an identity to be established. It was the new mode of interaction with the state. It was the basis of a dialogue with the state. It was this identity which would provide the nucleus for the political pushes and pulls in West Bengal in the following decades. Even in October 1952, the government was hoping to clear the Howrah and Sealdah stations of refugees. Renuka Ray, the minister of relief and rehabilitation in West Bengal, declared that there were no refugees on the two station premises. However, the United Central Refugee Council met on 30 October 1952 and decided to begin relief work at the stations and prove Renuka Ray wrong.9 Indeed, this wave of influx continued till 1956, so that by 1958, there was a certain reorientation of the earlier rehabilitation policy. The government was forced to talk of rehabilitation again.

The Journey to India The journey to India was fraught with innumerable problems and interruptions. Such problems were recognized in the official circles. The chief

Crossing the Border  55 minister of West Bengal, Bidhan Chandra Roy, clearly stated10 that passengers were being de-trained on their way to Calcutta at certain stations, such as Kamarkhali, Kushtia, Poradah, Issurdi and Darshana. With such incidents in the background, he declared that although movement from one state to another, which was actually movement from one country to another, was not desirable, those who had to migrate should be allowed to do so, in accordance with the ‘principle on which we [the government] are working’.11 The appeal to this ‘principle’ remained the focus of discussions around this time. Twenty-one women’s organizations including the All Bengal Women’s Union, the Calcutta branch of the AIWC and the Nari Seva Sangha, submitted a memorandum to the prime minister of India urging that the government should extend protection to the evacuees on their journey. This was, in fact, an appeal to this principle, the principle of being a sovereign, secular, democratic, all-embracing welfare State, which protects its own citizens. The border was, after all, fairly recent, and the people on the other side of the border had been a part of this nation till fairly recently, and had a role to play in formulating this principle. In February 1950, almost without a break between the 11th and 14th of the month, there were attacks on Hindu migrants in trains passing through Bhairab Bazar. These attacks were systematic. They were murdered and thrown out of trains and were also attacked at stations while waiting for trains. The greatest number of murders took place on the Chittagong Mail and the Surma Mail. Witness accounts revealed the method of these attacks. The trains were stopped when they were over the Meghna bridge, the passengers were attacked inside and then their bodies were thrown into the river. The Anderson Bridge over the Meghna and Bhairab provided the vital rail link. At Harikhola station, which was within the jurisdiction of the Kaliganj PS, Hindu passengers were gathered in the waiting room and murdered. According to witness accounts, forty persons were killed at Sarishabari railway station. Such incidents strike at the root of the myth that the Partition experience in the East was less violent. Disturbances took place in Sylhet and Dhaka. Rural areas were affected later. Even when these disturbances subsided, the attacks on the means of transport continued. The Amrita Bazar Patrika published daily accounts of such disturbances. A passenger from Narayanganj reported that over a thousand Hindu passengers, who were aboard the steamer Ostrich, were forced to get down at Rajkhara, a wayside station between Bhagyakul and Goalundo. His statement giving an account of the incident and the incidents in general might be mentioned:12 I give here an account of my own experiences and of the terrible things I personally saw during our steamer journey from Narayangunge to Goalundo. I alone of a party of nine including four ladies who left Narayangunge for Calcutta, have been able to escape from the hands of a Muslim mob. And that was possible because I was in the guise of a Muslim …

56  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar The first thing that usually happened to these passengers was that their belongings were taken away. What they feared more, was that their journey could be broken. As they were forced to get down from the steamer – ‘They dragged even some women passengers’ – they were ready to pay almost any price to get on board again. Arson and Looting On February 13 there were disturbances in our village during which seven houses were burnt out and several others looted. Threats were held out that there would be more trouble and we were panic-stricken. We were waiting for [an] opportunity to leave the village. We came to Narayangunge by train from Jinardi station and boarded “Ostrich” steamer bound for Goalundo on the night of the 26th. The steamer started at about 4 in the morning. Roughly, there were over one thousand passengers on board, very few among them Muslims. When we reached Bhagyakul station, about 25 Muslims including ‘Ansar Bahini’ members in uniform came to the steamer and asked Hindu passengers to get down. They were not so rough in the beginning but soon assumed a menacing attitude and started assaulting people. These men had knives and lathis with them. They dragged even some women passengers. They kept shouting and abusing and beating people. In these circumstances, passengers had to get down with their luggages [luggage]. Some looting was done. Eventually at the intervention of a gentleman the passengers were allowed to be on board again. All this caused a delay of two hours. When the steamer arrived at Rajkhara station at about five in the afternoon I overheard a conversation between the first driver of the steamer, the serang and some members of the Ansar Bahini (about 50 of whom had in the meantime got into the steamer). I was very near them, wearing lungi and beard. First driver, Ahmed Sobhan, was telling the Ansars that the Hindu passengers were allowed to travel from Bhagyakul, now they (Ansars) could do anything they liked with them. This was the signal for trouble. Numbers mattered in crystallizing disturbances. Hindu passengers initially felt safe since the number of Muslim passengers on board was low. Their fate changed as their journey progressed and more Muslim passengers came on board. As the Ansars started threatening the passengers, the driver and the workers joined hands with them and a plot started developing against the Hindu passengers. It was at this point that the local villagers would join the ruckus. A riot-like situation would develop in no time. Assault on Passengers First came the request and then veiled threats. ‘Please get down and come with us; why should you people go to Calcutta?’ some of these men said. In the absence of ‘favourable’ response from passengers the men grew

Crossing the Border  57 noisy and furious. One of the Ansar people went up the bank and gave a cry. In the meantime assault on passengers had started on the upper deck of the steamer. Soon a large member [number?] of villagers, many of them carrying daggers and lathis, trooped in and attacked the passengers. They abused, insulted, beat the passengers mercilessly. The ruffians looted the passengers’ belongings and let loose a veritable hell. … In this way passengers were taken out of the steamer and assaulted. The steamer started again after it had been detained there for three hours. So far as I was concerned, my Muslim dress and my manner of speaking did not rouse suspicion. After the Hindu passengers had been made to get down there were only about two dozen Muslim passengers on board who traveled to Goalundo. I was the only Hindu who thus managed to escape. But I do not know what happened to my ill-fated fellow passengers of the ‘Ostrich’ … What began with looting would lead to a very fundamental question – ‘why should you people go to Calcutta?’ The account outlines the nature of such attacks in general. That there was an element of planning cannot be overlooked. However, the gradual thickening of the plot, so to speak, would decide the fate of the migrants. There was no going back, though. Once begun, the journey had to be completed. The borders had to be crossed. The Ansar Bahini and the goons were not the only disturbing feature in this journey to India. The police were also actively involved in de-training passengers. For them, there was an official reason at bay – the demand for income tax clearance certificates. The Barisal Express arrived at Sealdah station on March 3, 1950, without about two thousand of its passengers who had been de-trained at Benapole on the East Pakistan border by the police and customs officials for failure to show their income tax clearance certificates and Pakistan dominion passports. Benapole was a small station without a waiting room or hotels or inns nearby. Facing the scorching sun shelter-less was part of the hardships of the journey. The Amrita Bazar Patrika reported that one pregnant woman was found lying dead in the train when the fully packed-up train reached Benapole. It was suspected that she died of suffocation. While waiting at the station, there were typical incidents of harassment, such as lifting valuables, and some were even forced to go back. The female passengers were separated from their men and subjected to body searches, sometimes by male officials. Such incidents of de-training poured in from various places like Kulaura Juri, Baralekha and Latu Road. The same kind of harassments followed. Cash and ornaments were also seized in some cases. The experience of women throughout the whole journey forms a separate chapter of the story. They suffered not only because they were refugees but also because they were women. They were the sisters, mothers and wives of refugees and they were refugees themselves. They were also would-be mothers, and there were instances of delivering babies in station platforms. On 9 April 1950, the relief workers at the Sealdah station were overwhelmed by

58  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar a problem of such nature. The woman came from Barisal and she was in labour while in the train. A local clinic run by the Calcutta Relief Society helped in the delivery of the refugee child. The history of this exodus is classifiable as that of men and women. The Amrita Bazar Patrika reported on 10 April 1950, that four Ansar men, two of them carrying rifles swooped inside Indian territory at Bongaon and took two girls away from Jessore road. The girls were subsequently rescued. Such attacks formed a part of the narrative of ‘conspiracy’ that the migrants harped on, but it needs to be remembered that the immediacy of the attacks also made women special targets. There was much talk about this conspiracy, of driving Hindus out of East Bengal. This explained acts like the looting of Hindu houses by Ansars. The refugees on their way to India concretized the rumours. They gave shape to the fear. A report of the disturbances and the subsequent journey of the refugees might be produced here.13 Traveling partly in bullock carts and partly on foot, the entire Hindu population of village Teghari in Jhinaidah subdivision of Jessore district (East Pakistan), arrived in Calcutta last weekend. The distance traveled by them until they crossed over to Indian territory was nearly 12 miles, and this they did in 78 hours, having been held up at almost every mile by Ansars and Muslim refugees from West Bengal. When they reached Indian territory they had only the clothing they put on at the start of the journey from the village, all other belongings including liquid cash having had to be paid to the Ansars and Muslim refugees for passage out of Pakistan territory. Sudhir Kumar Bose who was leader of the Hindu villagers evacuating to India said that villages in Jhinaidah subdivision were free from communal troubles until March 10 when Ansars supported by Muslim refugees from West Bengal terrorized the Hindus of the villages Bhomradanga and Masoodpur, their main objective being to squeeze the Hindus out of the villages in order to settle West Bengal Muslims in their vacant houses. The notion of this conspiracy was fed by the presence of the Muslims who had migrated from West Bengal. The fear was that the Hindus would be driven out to make room for them. These Muslims had already reached their safe territory while the Hindu minority was struggling to stay put. This was a struggle of Muslim refugees against Hindu minorities. The only option would be for the minorities to leave. The nature of this struggle is not substantiated by accounts. While references to the Bihari Muslims and the Muslim under-classes from East Bengal are common, not much is said about the Muslims from West Bengal. This might be a reason which fuelled the belief that such struggles were not common. However, to the migrant, as an experience of horror is recounted, threats from all quarters added up to create his account, which would leave no doubt as to the need to migrate.

Crossing the Border  59 On March 20 they extended their terroristic activities to Saraberia, Goborgarh and a few other adjoining villages. As a result of all these, the leading Hindu villagers of Teghari and a few other nearby villages asked for police protection from the district town … The Ansars were arrested and sent up for trial, but they were released on bail. Meanwhile, the police force went round the villages and threatened all the trouble makers with dire consequences if they continued to indulge in their terroristic activities. They Were Forewarned Soon after the police force left, the Ansars who had been released on bail returned to their own villages and decided to loot the houses of the Hindus of Teghari and other villages who had asked for police protection. Muslim villagers, however cautioned the Hindus of Teghari and informed them of the conspiracy that was being hatched by the Ansars. They advised the Hindus to leave for Indian Union, as they (the Muslims) were afraid they would not be able to give them protection against the Ansars the village police being inadequate for dealing with them. So, the Hindus of the villages decided to move out of the villages the next morning. Muslims of the villages gave them all possible help in this regard and actually they selected 28 Muslims to drive the 28 bullock carts in which the Hindus were to travel. Thus was added to the account of threats from the Muslims of West Bengal, the account of the good but helpless Muslim neighbours who tried their best to save the lives of their Hindu neighbours and helped them leave their villages. It is noteworthy that this help was not regarded as being a part of the conspiracy to oust the Hindus. The friendly Muslim neighbour was not suspected like the Muslim migrant from West Bengal, the state officials, the state-backed Ansars or the Bihari Muslim. The culture of difference needs to be understood even in such times of chaos. The Hazardous Journey Early next morning the entire Hindu population started out of the village. The bullock carts which were lured at Rs 14 per cart, Rs 5 being the normal fare, proceeded in a column. But the news of their migration spread and almost at every mile they stopped and had to pay something to the Ansars for further passage onwards. The Muslim cart drivers were doing all they could to save them from the clutches of the Ansars.

60  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar At about mid-day they reached the bank of Morgangi river, about five cart drivers were accosted by Muslims working on the nearby fields and were asked to step aside so that they could take reprisals for the killing of Muslims in West Bengal. The cart drivers resisted but ultimately had to agree that they would not escort the Hindus and [any] farther in their carts. So, they asked the Hindus to get down from their carts and advised them to cover the rest of the journey on foot. The threat, therefore, was felt from different quarters. Even farmers working on fields nearby could become aggressors. Moments were created when almost anyone could join the ruckus and break the journey. The migrants, however, continued to move. The journey became the only hope for survival. Everything Left Behind Having no alternative to choose the Hindus, who were not allowed to carry any luggage from the carts crossed the river and started the journey on foot. On looking back they found their goods left in the carts were being divided among the Muslims. As they continued the journey they were met on the way by groups of Muslim villagers who extorted something either in cash or in kind, sometimes even a punjabi or a shirt which some one of the Hindus might be wearing, before the Hindus could be allowed to proceed. In this way the villagers reached a village near Darshana when the evening set in. A well-to-do Muslim villager gave them shelter and demanded that the refugees be handed over to them. A Noble Example Their host told the crowd that they could set fire to his house, loot his properties or even kill him, but he would not agree to hand over the people who had taken shelter in his house. The whole night was spent in suspense, the raiders ultimately had to withdraw in the face of stiffest opposition from their Muslim host. Early next morning they resumed their journey. After encountering further troubles of the above nature they reached near the railway station of Darshana where a posse of police constables surrounded them and put them inside a godown. The constables said that firing was going on between Pakistan police and Indian police, and the situation was bad. So, the constables told them that they must go back to their villages from where they had come. The frontier would be closed down and nobody would be allowed to cross it. For one full day they lived in the godown.

Crossing the Border  61 When the situation had eased a little, a group of Muslims came from Joynagar as messengers from the Indian side and informed the Muslims at Darshana that there was a large accumulation of Muslim refugees at Joynagar and unless the firing stopped they could not come. So, the firing from Darshana ceased, and the refugees from both sides began to move out. The experience of the refugees clearly showed that for every story of betrayal, there was a story of a friendly neighbour who antagonized members of his own community and gave the migrants shelter. There was killing of passengers in trains at Bhairab, Bahadurabad, and also near Santahar. Steamer passengers were also attacked near Bhola. Incidents of harassment of passengers reached a high mark and the Pakistan government had to issue a directive to the customs officials in East Pakistan to ensure that no harassment was caused to the migrants. The directive was in compliance with the Indo-Pakistan Minorities Agreement. Free movement from Pakistan had been banned. Those who came sold off almost everything to buy the tickets for the journey. The typical journey began with a trek from one’s home in a village or town to the steamer ghat (the steamer station or port). Those who could afford it paid a huge sum to the Muslim hackney carriage wallas (the drivers) or taxi drivers. Some ‘facilitation companies’ started operating. These men earned some quick money by helping the migrants cross borders. Maloy Krishna Dhar mentions in his memoir that there was one such ‘company’ that a cousin named Dukhia had launched. Dukhia and his friends joined hands with some local ‘Muslim toughies’14 and helped the Hindus cross over to Assam and Tripura in lieu Rs. 1000 per head. People rushed to get the ‘Dukhia passport’. Dukhia earned some quick money and bought his BSA motorcycle. However, cheating was common and money paid did not always ensure a smooth cross-over. There were also gangs of bag lifters who snatched jewellery from the passengers. These were usually mixed gangs of Hindus and Muslims. There was nothing communal about their operations. The situation, however, could turn communal at any point of time. Most of the migrants came to the station on foot. The journey on foot continued for some, who walked along the railway track. Except the Chittagong Mail and the Assam Mail, all other through trains in the East Bengal–Assam line had been stopped for a while due to disturbances. This set off the precedence of a trek to India. The steamer stations were therefore overcrowded and the Government of West Bengal had to arrange for fifteen special steamers to evacuate refugees from Chandpur, Narayanganj, Barisal and Khulna. Transit camps were opened at Dhubulia and other places to accommodate this wave of refugees. The ferry at Mirganj between Murshidabad and Rajshahi was closed down. The refugees were stranded. A return journey would be meaningless since the houses left behind had been occupied by then. Thus, the journey, once begun, had to be completed. It was one-way traffic. In spite of all the hardships and attempts to restrict the exodus even at the official level, the

62  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar exodus continued at a growing pace. Peregrine, Penguin and Sikh, the last three of the fifteen special steamers chartered by the West Bengal government, arrived at Calcutta on 17 April 1950. Excepting those who had relatives in and around Calcutta, others were sent to the Ranaghat Cooper’s Camp. But a second trip of the fifteen steamers had to be arranged. These steamers carried the intending migrants from East Bengal, who had already registered themselves at the office of the High Commissioner for India in Pakistan for facilities to come over to India. Thus, by this time, the status of being a ‘migrant’ was already being formalized. On the other side of the border, the ‘migrants’ would become ‘refugees’, a status, which would become a counter for bargaining and the cornerstone of their interaction with the state. The three inter-Bengal trains – the Chittagong Express, the Assam Mail and the Barisal Express – were also an option. There was another route of migration. Migrants came to Bongaon and Ranaghat borders either by the Khulna-Goalundo passenger or on foot. The journey was interrupted, broken, and even if one reached West Bengal, it was not complete. The journey continued even after crossing the border from the station to the camps and from the camps to the colonies.

Railway Station The station was the first halt after crossing the border. It also became the first new home on this side of the border. In spite of all efforts, the Sealdah station could not be cleared of refugees. Food and medical aid were provided by a number of voluntary relief organizations. The Kashi Viswanath Seva Samiti, which was a resourceful organization, played an important role. They provided relief till their funds were exhausted. A number new of organizations also sprang up, which resulted in the presence of too many volunteers and independent efforts at providing relief. The need was felt for an association which would bring together the relief efforts. The governor, Dr. Kailashnath Katju, took efforts to call a meeting of representatives of all the relief associations working in the stations. As a consequence of such efforts, the United Council of Relief and Welfare, which tried to coordinate the activities of all relief-providing organizations, was born. The governor became its chairman.15 When the resources of these organizations were exhausted, the government had to coordinate with the Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math to provide cooked food to the refugees. However, such an arrangement did not last long. Dry dole in the form of chira and gur (parched rice and molasses) soon replaced cooked food. The entire non-official relief machinery at Sealdah, Ranaghat and Joynagar railway stations, ceased to function from 4 June 1950. Those who had some means prepared food on improvised ovens outside the station premises. Chira and gur, however, became the staple for most, and a clear marker of refugee lives in railway stations. Some milk coupons were distributed, but this was more of a show of providing relief rather than meeting actual needs. The attitude of the relief workers changed with the

Crossing the Border  63 exhaustion of resources. The basic fact was that there was competition among relief organizations. The refugees had already created the base on which competition between groups could thrive. The fabric was created. Bigger, influential organizations tried to control the smaller ones. Some attempt at centralization of relief activities was made, which pushed the smaller organizations out of the scene. The voluntary relief organizations had to obtain approval from the United Council of Relief and Welfare, without which rations could not be obtained. Shyamaprasad Mookerjee visited the Sealdah station. A newspaper report on his visit outlines the general picture of station life:16 The insanitary condition in which these refugees are living in Sealdah station, the stench and the oppressive heat which all together went to make the living condition in the station platforms difficult drew his [Shyamaprasad Mookerjee’s] sympathetic attention. As he moved round he saw a small pox patient in a corner, groaning and crying, a woman with high fever sobbing, groups of hungry children running after volunteers for meal tickets, male members of several families entreating officials for arrangements for reunion with some of their relations who have been separated and sent to other camps. … He saw persons afflicted with stomach troubles lying helplessly on the mattress with a bowl of cold water on his belly, a primitive method of cure to which he had resorted to having failed to obtain medical attention … Health problems were acute. Diarrhoea and tuberculosis were common. Child mortality rate increased alarmingly. The refugee presence was conspicuous. It could not be overlooked. It changed the look of the city. At the two big stations, Bongaon and Ranaghat, the incoming passengers were approached by the Relief Department and asked whether they wished to go to their relations living on this side of the border. If not, they were to move to the government relief camps. However, a large body of refugees preferred to crowd the Sealdah station instead. This kind of behaviour is a pointer to understanding how the refugees would respond to government relief and rehabilitation programmes from now on. Accepting life in relief camps meant giving in to the mercy of the government. Living on the platform, on the other hand, meant that the borders had been crossed, but the possibility of negotiation with the government was still open. The knots had still not been tied. The refugees could still lay claim on the government for a better deal. At the station premises, they were still on their way. The journey was still on and as long as it continued, they could hope for a better deal on this side of the border. The refugees at the Howrah station also refused to budge. Many of those who were sent to the Orissa and Bihar camps also came back. Government camps had been opened at the border areas so that refugees could go back to their homes in East Pakistan when the situation improved. The central

64  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar government decided to stop giving doles to those who had deserted the camps in Orissa and Bihar. It was declared that if the refugees agreed to leave the station, they would be entitled to Rs.7 per adult and Rs.5 per child per month. The rates were however less than what was paid to other refugees. The ‘deserters’ thus, formed a separate category and the government needed to maintain this separateness. The state government continued a subsistence allowance, although the central government was all for a more drastic measure. A West Bengal Government Press Note issued on 23 May 1951 stated,17 The Refugee Rehabilitation Department of the Government of West Bengal have been much concerned at the return from different camps in Orissa and Bihar, of refugees who had been sent there for rehabilitation by the Government of India. The Government of West Bengal have information that many of the families have returned because of an attempt on the part of some political interests to induce them to come back to West Bengal. Whatever may be the reasons, the fact remains that 315 families or roughly 1,600 persons had come and occupied Howrah Station premises during the last month. They have not only come in a very distressed condition but their presence in the station platform is causing great inconvenience to the traveling public and the Railway administration. Some arrangements had to be made to give them food and with the permission of the Central Government, the Refugee Rehabilitation Department of this Government have arranged to remove these families to different areas for rehabilitation purposes. While they were staying in the platform, the District Magistrate, Howrah and the Red Cross Society have looked after the refugees as far as possible. About 230 families or 1,100 persons have so far been rehabilitated in different parts of West Bengal. In Chandipur in Jhargram sub-division, in Bongaon sub-division and in Murshidabad district. There are only 80 Barujibi families left at the Howrah Station. Unfortunately, they have so far declined to accept the offer made to them to go to some places of rehabilitation… Meanwhile fresh batches of refugees started arriving, particularly from Barisal. About thirty such families, mostly agriculturists, were stranded at the Sealdah station since they failed to get the border slips classifying them as refugees at Bongaon. They were, therefore, not entitled to relief from the government. The attempt to centralize the whole structure of relief might be interpreted as the government’s move to weed out this category of migrants who were not ‘refugees’ in the official sense of the term. Out of the thirty-five relief organizations operating at the Sealdah station, only fifteen were permitted by the Superintendent of Railways, Sealdah Division to continue their work. The rest were asked to leave the station premises. The permission was given to the fifteen organizations based on the recommendation from the refugee rehabilitation commissioner. The refugees at the station premises

Crossing the Border  65 were transferred to camps, and there was an energetic move to clear the stations. Fresh batches were not allowed to crowd the stations. The relief camp of the Congress at Sealdah was closed down as a corollary to this. The West Bengal Provincial Congress Committee had opened relief camps at the reception centres like Bongaon, Jaynagar, Banpur, Ranaghat, Outram Ghat and Sealdah from the beginning of March 1950. All the camps except the one at Sealdah had been closed down already. It was now decided to shut down the Sealdah camp on 31 August 1950. The reason advanced was that [n]ow as the Government has made arrangements for speedy dispersal of refugees arriving at Sealdah, refugees are not allowed to crowd at Sealdah Station. Therefore, no further useful purpose will be served by continuing the Congress Relief Centre at Sealdah station …18 Apart from daily discomforts, women were subjected to special harassments at the station premises. Between the third week of February till the middle of June, about ninety persons had been arrested from the Sealdah station premises for ‘immoral purposes’, for attempting to ‘entice’ away refugee girls. The railway police started eight other cases against persons who had tried to ‘outrage the modesty’ of refugee girls. A typical case was of a thirteen-year-old girl who lived with her mother on the Beliaghata platform. She was approached by a person with the promise of help. She was to follow him, and if anyone asked her who the person was, she was to tell them that he was her maternal uncle. The girl refused, and when forced, the attention of some volunteers was attracted and the girl was spared.19 The human problem of ‘changing morals’ should be a subtheme in this context. Another incident which was remembered was that of a woman, who presented herself to a certain Mrs. Sen and sought permission to stay in her transit camp at the station for the night. Early next morning, she was found leaving the camp with another young girl. The woman was caught and the girl rescued. The girl had been promised better shelter, protection and security. There was another case of a young couple that had come from Barisal. The husband was deaf. While staying on the platform, the wife had met another group from Barisal. The two groups moved to the same camp. The young man from the second camp joined the couple and became what could be considered the actual head of the family, the husband to the woman, relegating the legal husband to the background. The most significant point was that this arrangement became acceptable to all three.20 The exodus caused the crossing of not only political borders but also borders of domesticity. With the crossing of the territorial space of home, the associated moral strings were loosened. What is remarkable is that very little of this journey sneaked into literary representations and references, even though, immediately after crossing borders, the migrants had to talk about the trials and tribulations during the journey in detail to government representatives and newspapermen in

66  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar order to weave a narrative of victimhood on which state charity would depend. It might be said that this journey full of hardships and incidents of violence was not something that the Bengali pen liked to narrate. The focus of Partition accounts remained, for a long time, the lands left behind, the days of harmony, peace and abundance, in other words accounts of normal times, as is evident in accounts like Chhere Asha Gram (The village left behind).21 However, these accounts do talk of changing times so that it becomes evident that migration was becoming a necessity. From there, there is a leap into times when lives changed on this side of the border: the story of resettlement. Such selective recollection of memories creates a gap. It is in this gap that the narrative of violence and the story of the journey of the refugee fit in. The exodus happened in a new state. It was the mode of interaction between a newborn state and its erstwhile citizens. It was the price of Partition. Partition created a pull of identities for the Hindus of East Pakistan. They had to abandon their homes and cross borders to validate their identity as Indians, their Indianness. It was a movement, at the same time away from and towards home. The home and the nation were geographically separated. Their homes in East Pakistan had been a part of their India. But ‘India’ had shifted, so that, when a young boy asked his father why he felt Calcutta was a new place for him, even though he had been a student there, his father pointed out, ‘Yes. [I was a student here]. But I don’t know the place and the people. That’s a new India for us. Our India was here’.22 The refugee was compelled to become a part of this new India. Their relocation was also a relocation of their historical understanding of the nation and the national. They had to brush up and prepare themselves to create a space of accommodation in the fabric of the new nation. They had to become Indian all over again. It was not their birthright. The trains became the vehicles that carried these men and women, and to a young boy, the local station and the trains became the monsters which were ‘devouring the people that I knew and disgorging them in an unknown land called India’.23 And much as this young boy imagined, the refugees had no time to get acclimatized to their new homes. It really was a process of being ‘devoured’ and ‘disgorged’. However, India did mean a certain sense of security. Little did I know that India too was not my home. They had rendered us homeless and robbed us of our identity. The mere word India however, offered some vague assurance of safety. I was not certain if that safety was enough to allow me to finally alight from the train.24 The moment one did get off from the train, one became a refuge-seeker. At least, most of the migrants did. However, even after the crossing of borders, the journey continued. ‘I felt I was still travelling on a train inside India that refused to stop.’25 It was also a movement towards gaining the status of being a part of a ‘majority’. But in the end, the migrants became ‘refugees’ on this side of the

Crossing the Border  67 border. This was a new status, and this became an identity that had to be validated and protected. It had to be fought for, because not all migrants would be regarded as those displaced by the Partition. It was the cornerstone of demands from the newborn state. And it was the basis on which the state was forced to bestow charity. The journey was from being a minority to a migrant to a refugee. The exodus shook the definiteness of the feeling that the nation had been made. It presented the spectre of a nation still in making.

Notes 1 There is no precise record of the number of Muslims who left India for East Bengal in these years. Joya Chatterji has used the census reports of India and Pakistan in 1951 (The Spoils of Partition Bengal and India, 1947–1967, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 105). According to these, around 7.5 million Hindus and Sikhs left West Pakistan for India. Over 7 million crossed over from India to West Pakistan. Chatterji also mentions (p. 166) that the Pakistan census counted, in 1951, 700,000 Muslim Muhajirs (refugees) in East Bengal, of whom two-thirds, or 486,000, were known to be refugees from West Bengal. This can be placed against the Government estimate mentioned in the Statement of the Central Rehabilitation Minister on March 11, 1948, published in the Amrita Bazar Patrika, March 12, 1948, that Prafulla Chakrabarti had used (The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, Kolkata: Lumiere Books, 1990). According to this statement, the number of migrants who came to India by March, 1948 had swelled to a million, Prafulla Chakrabarti clearly states in the very first paragraph of the first chapter of his seminal work, that ‘unlike what happened in Punjab, the uprooting [in Bengal] was not effected in one swift swipe through massive pogroms on both sides of the border, nor was it a two-way traffic which settled the problem of communal rioting in Punjab’. 2 Saibal Kumar Gupta’s statement to the Commission of Inquiry (Exodus of Minorities from East Pakistan), New Delhi: November 16, 1965, p. 12. 3 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Saturday, March 4, 1950. 4 Mohanlal Saxena, referred to some press comments regarding a statement in which he had mentioned that the refugees would be treated as Pakistani nationals. He justified his stand thus (Amrita Bazar Patrika, Saturday, 4 March 1950): ‘I am sorry to learn that certain statements have been misconstrued in a manner which was far from my mind. At the very outset I would like to make it clear once again that the Government of India recognise the minorities in Pakistan as blood of our blood and bone of our bones. Not only that, we also cannot ignore the fact that millions of our nationals have personal ties with them, nor can we forget the assurance given to them by our leaders at the time of partition that their welfare will be the concern of our Government. Therefore when I said that they will be treated as Pakistani nationals, I only wanted to emphasize that while we would do everything in our power to give relief and protection to those who come out of Pakistan, we would not like Pakistan to get away with the impression that Pakistan Government was absolved of all responsibilities towards their nationals the moment they come over to India …’. 5 Maloy Krishna Dhar, Train to India Memories of Another Bengal, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009, p. 268. 6 Millions Came from East Pakistan They Live Again, Published by the Director of Publicity, Government of West Bengal, 1954. 7 Shri Saibal Kumar Gupta’s statement to the Commission of Inquiry on the exodus of minorities from East Pakistan, New Delhi: dated 16 November 1965.

68  The Hindu from Noakhali and the Muslim from Bihar 8 Millions Came from East Pakistan They Live Again, Published by the Director of Publicity, Government of West Bengal, 1954. 9 S.B. Files. 31.10.52. 10 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Tuesday, 14 February 1950. 11 Ibid. 12 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Friday, 3 March 1950. 13 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Monday, 10 April 1950 14 Maloy Krishna Dhar, Train to India Memories of Another Bengal, New Delhi: Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2009, p. 189. 15 Hiranmay Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad, 1970, p. 86. 16 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Sunday, 23 April 1950. 17 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Thursday, 24 May 1951. 18 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Friday, 1 September 1950. 19 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Thursday, 15 June 1950. 20 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Monday, 26 June 1950. 21 Dakshinaranjan Basu eds., Chhere Asha Gram, Kolkata: Jugantar, 1975. Dipesh Chakrabarti has written extensively on the accounts. I shall mention here one of these articles- ‘Bastuharar Smriti O Samskar: Chhere Asha Gram’, in Semanti Ghosh ed. Deshbhag Smriti Ar Stabdhata, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2008, pp. 155–90. 22 Dhar, Maloy Krishna, Train to India Memories of Another Bengal, 2009, Penguin Books, New Delhi, p. 178. 23 Dhar, Maloy Krishna, Train to India Memories of Another Bengal, 2009, Penguin Books, New Delhi, p. 188. 24 Ibid., p. 245. 25 Ibid., p. 287.

Part II

Through Barbed Wires

3 Camp Refugees and the State

By the end of the 1940s, the Government of India was forced to recognize the refugee problem in the eastern half. It accepted in principle that the grant of relief in the form of dole or loans should be given by the centre. The state government was therefore asked to open camps to take in the refugees. This was already somewhat late, since even in 1948, Bidhan Chandra Roy, the premier of West Bengal, found it difficult to appraise the centre of the refugee problem.1 One wonders why, given the fact that by 1948, the refugee population was already nearing five lakhs. About forty camps were opened, initially. The military hutments, remnants of the war, were used for the purpose. Camps were usually temporary tents. The nature of relief was also temporary consisting of doles given out through organizations like the Ramakrishna Mission. The central government soon felt the need to stop doles. The government declared that it was necessary for the refugees to learn to earn their own living. The first step towards this goal seemed to be the stoppage of doles. Early in 1949, the target date for the stoppage of doles was declared to be 31 October of that year, which was later extended to 31 December. Within this date, the Government of West Bengal was asked to rehabilitate the fifty-five thousand people in the camps (except those belonging to the category of permanent liabilities). What rehabilitation meant was not only shelter, but some ‘gainful occupation’ to go with it so that ‘he [the refugee] can be above want’.2 This was in 1949, when the rate of migration was slowing down and the general feeling was that only those who had come in had to be rehabilitated and settled so that the sanctity of the nation’s borders would be restored once and for all. It was then that the Government of India asked the Government of West Bengal to take up the problem of rehabilitation ‘in a proper manner’.3 It would soon be learnt, however, that this sanctity would be challenged time and again so that the nation-building process and the journey of the migrants would go hand in hand and the loose ends would never really be tied. In this way, the refugees would remain the state’s special category of citizens who would shape the contours of the state. It needs to be remembered at the outset that not all migrants came to the government camps. Those who did, had no other alternative; no means of their own to fall back on. Some of them were also squatters who had been rounded off by the government officials and sent to camps. Setting camps DOI: 10.4324/9781003321057-6

72  Through Barbed Wires became the means of creating some kind of order in the midst of the picture of disorder that the refugees presented. It was the state’s way of tying the loose ends. Camps were primarily of two types. The first category consisted of transit or relief camps. This was the migrant’s first home as they crossed the border. In this category of camps, the purpose was to provide shelter and some temporary relief in the form of doles. These worked till the time when it was expected that the flow of migration from East Pakistan would end soon. When it was understood that migrants were still coming in and that they were here to stay, the second category of camps came up – the training or worksite camps. The purpose of opening these camps was to train refugees; to engage them in some kind of productive work. The first category was, therefore, in the nature of providing relief while the second category was meant to be a step towards rehabilitation. There was a third category of camps –those for the permanent liabilities of the government – the old and the infirm – which needs to be seen separately.

The Permanent Liabilities Towards the end of 1949, the pace of migration had temporarily slowed down. The government planned to categorize the refugees, take measures to rehabilitate them and shut down the camps. This process of categorization churned out those unfit for the rehabilitation measures. They came to be regarded as the permanent liabilities of the government. This meant that they would require no constructive form of rehabilitation, as it was, but rather a permanent mode of relief. The Government of India accepted the ‘complete permanent liability’ of this group of refugees in the report of the Chanda committee.4 At the end of 1949, out of 70,000 camp inmates, 7500 were termed as permanent liabilities.5 The later waves of migration would, of course, alter the figures to a great extent. Other than the PL camps, all other camps were officially shut down in January 1950. They would, however, have to be re-opened later when the pace of migration went up. The definition of the permanent liabilities would also be altered time and again to include partial permanent liabilities, complete but terminable liabilities and so on. It should be mentioned here, that, becoming a permanent liability was not always the result of losses during the Partition. The legacy of state charity could also be transferred. The case of a camp for unattached women in Dhaka should be mentioned in this context. This camp was run by Charusheela Devi. After the Partition, she decided to relocate with the camp inmates to West Bengal. They were initially given shelter at a garden house in North Kolkata. Later the camp was shifted to Banshdroni. This was the Ananda Ashram.6 An entire camp was uprooted and relocated in this case. To get admission into the women’s camps, the most important criterion was to be unattached. In the process of rehabilitation, the able-bodied male made a vital difference. Male children, after reaching a particular age, were considered to be fit for working and supporting their families. The unattached female body was the target of the state relief projects meant specifically for the permanent liabilities.

Camp Refugees and the State  73 Women who had some contacts in West Bengal could not claim to be unattached. However, they could be given doles if their relatives were not in a position to support them, but no accommodation was to be provided to them. Even in ‘deserving’ or hard cases due to the death of the head of the family, the government preferred not to move the family into the camps but to give out a dole at the place of residence. Admission into camps would mean the acceptance of their status as permanent liabilities. Marriage was always considered the best form of rehabilitation for a young girl. Attempts were made to send the old and the infirm to their relatives. They were to be provided with a pension so that they could be cared for with their own money. On the face of it, there was nothing wrong with the policy. However, the fact remained that the pension that was paid was as low as Rs. 15 per head per month.7 Actual rehabilitation was a difficult process. In most cases, the governmental notion of rehabilitation did not match with that of the refugees. There were women, who, along with their children, were sent to these camps, who were capable of work after training. These women, however, found it difficult to begin work, thus crystallizing the concept of the lazy, dole-dependent refugee. However, the reason why these women were apprehensive about beginning work was that once a woman started working, she was considered to be rehabilitated. This meant that she became responsible not only for her own living but also that of her children. Besides, women with infants found it hard to go outside as there was no crèche where they could keep their children. A committee formed for the re-organization of the PL camps and homes recommended that a scale should be drawn up which would fix the number of children the mother would be required to provide for in relation to her own income. Finding work, however, was not easy. This problem became acute in the case of the middle classes of refugees. The committee recommended that provisions should be made so that the sons and daughters of these refugees could be absorbed in the government-sponsored industries since in the existing factories in the industrial area, ‘most of the non-Indian employers’ were not in favour of appointing Bengali Hindu labourers but they recruit[ed] labourers from Behar, Madras and Orissa and prefer[ed] Bengali Muslims.8 It should be remembered that a labour market pinned on caste, class and ethnic identities and kinship ties had existed for long. The rehabilitation process triggered by the government was rather artificial. It was especially difficult for the camp refugees who had lived within barbed wires and who had received their training within barbed wires to make a space for themselves in the existing open market. They tried to strike a balance between the protective governmental regime and the open market. In the early days of migration and subsequent rehabilitation efforts, the Ministry of Rehabilitation of the Government of India had to set up a committee for rehabilitation which was named the Committee for the Resettlement of East Bengal Refugees. A similar committee was already functioning in the

74  Through Barbed Wires Punjab, headed by Mrs. John Mathai. The Committee in West Bengal was headed by the Union minister for refugees and rehabilitation, Mehr Chand Khanna. It included Purabi Mukherjee, deputy minister in the West Bengal Ministry of Refugees and Rehabilitation and Ashoka Gupta.9 A cell was created within this committee to deal with the permanent liabilities. Ashoka Gupta headed this cell. The committee meetings included representatives from West Bengal, Tripura and Bihar. It is apparent that the rehabilitation policy in the east would bank on the support of all these states, not just West Bengal. It needs to be noted, at this point that the world of rehabilitation was a strange mesh where the state and central governments functioned side by side. In this scheme of things, the Government of West Bengal tried to derive the maximum number of facilities from the centre and to include the other state governments in sharing the burden. The refugees of East Pakistan remained, primarily, the responsibility of the State of West Bengal. By this time, schemes of rehabilitation regarding the permanent liabilities had already been drawn up. The question that baffled those who took up the work of rehabilitation in the east was what it was that brought about the great difference in the rehabilitation efforts between the Punjab and Bengal. The main difference lay in the temporary nature of rehabilitation in Bengal compared to the West. The emphasis was on relief rather than rehabilitation. As Ashoka Gupta pointed out, The main difference was that on our side we were unable to provide homes. Everything remained at the level of camps … it was like living on a railway platform.10 One wonders whether these refugees, forced to live in these temporary sheds could ever leave their lives on station platforms behind. For them, lives on this side of the border remained a journey between stations. It is no wonder, therefore, that a group of elderly women considered themselves lucky when the government could take measures to send it to Benares, considered to be the holy city fit to spend one’s last days. This happened on 2 February 1952. The appeal had come from a group of women living in the Dhubulia camp. About five hundred of them were selected and sent by a special train. The Government of Uttar Pradesh made arrangements for providing them with shelter. The costs were to be borne by the central government. The day was celebrated by distributing clothes and some dry food was also provided for the journey. Such ceremonies point to the fact that this was not a regular affair. Such a movement could not become a regular part of the rehabilitation efforts. To these women, the ‘government’ was almost like a near relative, a son sending them to their ultimate destination when almost all was lost and one could hope for nothing more than the bare means of subsistence. Hiranmay Bandyopadhyay writes in his memoir11 that when the train was about to leave, one of the women gave him an orange that she had been given for the journey ahead and kissed his face. He writes that he found it difficult to hold back his tears. In the ultimate analysis, it needs to be remembered that the problems of migration and resettlement were human

Camp Refugees and the State  75 problems and the emotional turmoil of the men on the spot cannot be missed. The ‘government’ remained a confusing, multilayered, baffling entity for most refugees. To these women, the ‘care’ that the government provided was perhaps the care that one expects from one’s offspring. For a fleeting moment, the regime of care had been inverted. The woman, completely dependent on state aid, could regain the power to give something away. The government, represented through its officials, could become the dutiful child. The permanent liabilities were further divided into two categories – families with old or infirm men as their heads and those who would be sent to separate women’s camps. Women’s camps were opened at Titagarh and Kartikpur in the 24 Parganas; one adjacent to the Rupasree Palli, which, in itself, was a PL camp; in Ranaghat; in Bansberia; and in Bhadrakali in the district of Hooghly. One section of the Dhubulia Camp was also reserved for them. This category was the largest among the permanent liabilities. The total number of inmates of PL camps and institutions in West Bengal was 39,891 on 31.3.55 as detailed in Table 3.1. It should be noted, in this context, that already, by the beginning of 1955, Renuka Ray, minister for rehabilitation for West Bengal, had stated that the state government had divided the permanent liabilities into three sections: (1) the old and infirm, (2) employable middle-aged women and (3) young women.12 The Government of India set up a Central Advisory Committee in July 1955 as the PL problem became a problem to reckon with. On its advice, the government decided to implement a re-organization of homes and camps for unattached displaced women or/and old and infirm displaced persons from East Pakistan based on certain principles. The government decided that separate homes should be established for the following categories of persons: 1) Old and infirm or those permanently incapacitated and without dependents. 2) Old and infirm or those permanently incapacitated having dependent women and / or children. 3) (A) Middle aged women capable of doing light work with or without dependent girls and/or dependent boys under the age of 12 years (B) Young married women without children or unmarried young girls without any relatives in the camps. 4) Boys who have completed primary education or are over 12 years of age undergoing technical or vocational training or taking secondary or higher education. Table 3.1  Number of Inmates of PL Camps and Institutions in West Bengal Under Controller, PL Institutions Under Director, Women’s Rehabilitation Under Non-Official Organizations

27,294 11,828 769

Source: Extracts from the Report of the Committee Appointed by Government of West Bengal to Enquire into Technical and Vocational Training of Displaced Persons from East Pakistan Now Residing in West Bengal, undated.

76  Through Barbed Wires

Infirmaries The institutions for the first category were to be called infirmaries. There was to be no provision for any kind of education and training in the infirmaries. This perhaps meant reluctance on the part of the government to endure wasteful expenses on persons who were not in a position to contribute anything to the new nation. If, as a result, such persons were shorn of all identities apart from being ‘infirm’, it probably was the price of being receivers of the state’s charity. The strength of an infirmary run by the government was not to be more than five hundred. In the committee of management for each infirmary, social workers could also be included. In the case of homes for other categories, the numbers did not usually go beyond 1,500. The old, infirm and those permanently incapacitated and without dependents were to be induced to do some light work like making fishing nets, spinning and so on. Each infirmary was ideally to have adequate medical facilities, a small reading room and a place for worship. A few infirmaries were to be set up in religious places. Apart from the usual categories, it was advised that in case the head of a family suffered from tuberculosis which incapacitated him from earning his living, his dependents, as defined, would be entitled to admission into a home for maintenance and care. In cases of hardship (and in this case a lot of emphasis was put on its genuineness), the admission of women deserted by their husbands or whose husbands were in Pakistan could be considered. This provision, however, was not unconditional. If they were to be admitted, it had to be made clear to them that they would be admitted in homes outside the state in which they were residing. This was probably a move to encourage rehabilitation outside the state – to set precedence, as it were. The PL campers and especially the deserted women were probably the best group to begin this process with. They had the least options and were completely dependent upon the state’s help. Policymaking and execution would begin from them. The screening process was to be made before admission to the re-organized homes or infirmaries in order to weed out the ineligibles. The reorganization was itself a process which helped in this weeding out. It was mentioned in the guidelines that [a]dmissions to camps for unattached displaced women or/and old and displaced persons, pending reorganization of these camps, should be limited to exceptionally deserving cases, and each case should be thoroughly enquired into and the final selection should rest with the state government.13

Homes The Government of India directed the state governments in a circular dated 9 February 1956,14 that in the homes, a clear division of trades was to be

Camp Refugees and the State  77 made between men and women in imparting training so that some trades became specifically men’s trades. Middle-aged women incapable of receiving intensive training were to be trained in trades such as paddy husking, beekeeping, silk reeling, pickle making and the grinding of spices. Middleaged women capable of receiving intensive training and younger women were to be trained in trades such as weaving; tailoring; cane and bamboo work; the manufacture of stationery articles like pen holders, pencils and so on; conch shell work, spinning and handloom weaving; bleaching and dyeing; sericulture and silk weaving; toy and dollmaking; the manufacture of hand-made paper; laundry; and leatherwork. Men and boys could be involved in these trades in addition to having some specifically ‘male’ trades to themselves, such as carpentry, blacksmithy, sheet metal manufacture, shoemaking, job printing and tape casting. Being a refugee was not really one umbrella that incorporated all other identities. There were specific class and gender identities always at work. Work remained segregated in genderspecific categories, even though the distinctive markers of what constituted ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ work were getting blurred, the lines being crossed frequently. A three-to-five-year course was to be prescribed for imparting general education, roughly up to the eighth standard of high schools. This was to be followed by practical training for one year and where necessary, by further training in a production or work centre. In homes, there was to be provision for crèches for young children, primary school and secondary education for boys and girls of suitable age by arrangement with local institutions. The circular mentioned that moral and cultural education was to be imparted to children which would help to build their characters. For women up to the age of thirty-five who were capable of receiving technical education, a condensed course for the school final examination was to be adopted to give them general education prior to training in such technical professions which would require some basic knowledge. If, after the middle standard or school final examination, children of inmates of homes and infirmaries or of those receiving cash doles outside those institutions, desired to take up vocational or professional training, they were to be given facilities for such training or education at government expense including maintenance if they could secure admission into a recognized institution. The circular mentioned that higher general education could be given at government expense to children who were not selected for technical, vocational or professional training. For eligibility to higher education, the boy or the girl was to secure 50 per cent marks or more in the matriculation examination, or its equivalent, or intermediate examination. Suitable arrangements for accommodation were to be made where necessary. With regard to persons living in camps for unattached displaced women or/and old and infirm displaced persons who would be fully employable after a systematic course of training, the following scale of rehabilitation assistance was to be given at the time of training:

78  Through Barbed Wires (a) Cash doles at full rates for the first six months after discharge and at 75 per cent of the full rates thereafter till the end of the first year. They were to be granted doles at 50 per cent and 25 per cent of the full rates for the second and third year, respectively. The doles could be completely withdrawn at the end of the third year. With regard to those inmates who were employed for a year in a production centre, cash doles at 50 per cent and 25 per cent of the full rates may be paid during the first and second year, respectively, after their discharge from the production centre and thereafter completely withdrawn. (b) An outright non-recurring grant of a reasonable amount for the purchase of equipment and for procurement of raw materials. (c) Assistance in procurement of accommodation for residence and business either in the form of rent-free accommodation for two years or house-building grant of Rs. 500. Those who wished to settle in urban areas could, in addition to the house building grant, be given a house building loan up to Rs. 700. As noted earlier, marriage became an important option for rehabilitating women. Marriage would be a permanent solution to the problem of the absence of a male head. On the other hand, marriage would amount to a one-time cost for the government. Recurring costs would be saved. A conference of the social workers was held at Calcutta between 11 and 15 January 1955.15 In the discussions, the issue of marriage grants came up. It was felt that the marriage grants should be raised in the east from Rs. 60 to Rs. 200 – the rate that was fixed for the refugees of the Punjab region. A committee appointed by the Government of West Bengal to enquire into Technical and Vocational Training of Displaced Persons from East Pakistan Now Residing in West Bengal raised the bar of marriage grants further. It was suggested that ‘as a measure of encouragement girls who have received full course of training … may be given a marriage grant of Rs.300/- and those who have received no training a sum of Rs.500/-’.16 It was possibly to ensure that the girls could use the entire amount for their needs and that the money was not used for any other purpose, that the payment was to be made in instalments. The girls were to be allowed to draw Rs. 100 initially while the balance was to be given after the marriage was over. To see to it that marriage did not mean the end of all rehabilitation benefits, in other words, that marriage grants did not mean a one-time cost for the government restricting all other grants, the committee suggested that the girls, in addition to the marriage grants, should ‘be eligible for the usual rehabilitation benefits admissible. Where the bridegroom is a displaced person and has not received any rehabilitation benefits he should also be given the benefits where admissible and necessary’.17 The committee stressed the actual financial status of the refugee girls. It went against the mechanical modes of categorization. It was therefore suggested that marriage grant should also be paid to a girl who had left the camps or homes on usual cash doles. The benefit should also include those who had left their camps at the end of

Camp Refugees and the State  79 their training period and had started earning, provided their earnings were less than Rs. 60 per month. It must be noted in this context that the central government, on its behalf, clearly perceived marriage as a permanent solution to the problem of rehabilitation of young girls and it was actually urging the state governments to treat it as a one-time cost. The letter from the Under Secretary to the Government of India to the Secretaries to the Governments of West Bengal Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department, of Assam, of Tripura, of Bihar, of Orissa and of Uttar Pradesh regarding the ‘Re-organisation of Homes and Camps for Un-Attached Displaced Women or/and Old and Infirm Displaced Persons from East Pakistan’ dated 9 February 1956, clearly mentioned as much. It stated that rehabilitation benefits would apply to all post trainees. These would, however, not be admissible to girls/women who got married. In the case of those who had found employment, only housing benefits on the merits of each case were to be allowed. A marriage grant not exceeding Rs. 200 could be paid to girls or women living in homes or infirmaries or those living with friends or relatives and receiving cash doles outside homes or infirmaries subject to some conditions: (1) Consent of the legal guardian of the bride and/or the bride herself had to be obtained in writing for the proposed marriage; (2) Girls younger than sixteen years were not to be entitled to any marriage grant; (3) The state government had to satisfy themselves after making necessary enquiries about the character and financial position of the bridegroom and they were not to sponsor a marriage where the groom was not in a position to maintain the bride; (4) The state government had to make it clear that the bride would cease to be the liability of the government from the date she is married; and (5) The state government had to be satisfied that no part of the grant was used for dowry to the bridegroom’s family and nothing out of it was paid to marriage brokers. The whole of the grant was to be utilized for the marriage needs of the bride herself. The groom was, therefore, responsible for ‘maintaining’ his wife. The necessary enquiries were to be made regarding the ‘character’ of the groom. The government, in this scheme of things, was to be the patriarch giving the bride away. The Committee for the Reorganisation of Camps, PL Institutions and Homes for displaced persons raised the question as to whether and how far families were to be split up and whether the trainees should be separated from the other members of the family. The Committee recommended that [w]hen a family is composed of people amongst [whom] relationship is not so close, we should not hesitate to split it both for the purpose of training as well as for the purpose of accommodation and maintenance.18

80  Through Barbed Wires Thus, the prime motive of the government was to make the rehabilitation process orderly, divide people into groups suitable for carrying on this process and form neat classifications. In this process, however, what happened, in fact, was the recognition of only the immediate family as a family unit. Families which were uprooted and found their way into camps were destined to live as nuclear units. No other familial structure was recognized. As family units were broken and as refugees were put together in camps which had no means of creating separate familial spaces, the older communities were broken and new ones, solely dependent on the state, were created. The state became their be-all and end-all. It is government categorization that made them what they were. They lived the communitarian life that the state created for them. The Committee further stated: Before selecting a subject for training, the family background should be taken into consideration. It is true that a person staying in the Camp has in many cases destroyed the tradition and past background of a family but even then perhaps something of them still remains. Herein lay the dichotomy of the situation. ‘Something of them’, of past lives and traditions, of memories and landscapes remained with them. The Partition gave them a different life and it was in those terms of difference that they perceived the Partition. The Partition remained with them through the constant, permanent presence of the government. The Government of India fixed the monetary limit for the supply of clothes to displaced persons from East Pakistan living in homes, infirmaries and camps for unattached women and/or aged and infirm displaced persons. It was decided to fix a ceiling of Rs. 24 per head per annum for the supply of clothes to displaced persons. This would include expenditure on toiletries and washing soap. Each man was to be given three pieces of dhutis (a piece of unstitched cloth used as male attire), two pieces of shirts or punjabis (the Indian shirt) and one piece of gamcha (cotton towel). Each woman was to get three pieces of sarees (the female attire), two pieces of petticoat and blouse or chemise and one piece of gamcha. Each male child was to get four pieces of izars (underpants) and shirts, one piece of gamcha and one pair of shoe. Each girl child was to get four pieces of izars and frocks, one piece of gamcha and one pair of shoes. It was mentioned that the ordinary quality was to be given.19 The inmates of homes and infirmaries were to be given the option to live with friends or relatives where they would continue to receive doles from the government as they would get in homes. It was specified that in such cases, enquiries would have to be made as to the genuineness of the friends or relatives. Admission to homes and infirmaries from outside due to the destitute condition caused by the ‘death or serious incapacity’ of the head of the family was to be avoided as far as possible. The families were to be encouraged to remain where they were residing

Camp Refugees and the State  81 and only cash doles were to be given to them. Only in extreme cases where this arrangement failed, were they to be admitted into homes or infirmaries.

Vagrants’ Homes A special mention may be made here of the homes for vagrants. The need to clear the station premises was ever-present. In November 1956, a large number of squatters in and around the Sealdah station were rounded up by the police and procedures were taken against them under the Bengal Vagrancy Act of 1943. Under orders of a special magistrate, they were officially declared vagrants under Section 7(i) of the act. The special magistrate was especially empowered under this act to do so. Being declared as vagrants, they could now be ordered to be detained under Section 10(i) of the act till the magistrate concluded the final enquiries. The Vagrancy Directorate, which was concerned with the administration of the Bengal Vagrancy Act, took charge of the vagrants and the families were put up in camps like the Indralok Studio, Cossipore, Mankar, Ballichak and Sitarampur camps. What happened to these people after this is noteworthy. After the prolonged enquiries made by the magistrate, their status as vagrants was confirmed. They were then put under restrictive orders of a Magistrate under the Bengal Vagrancy Act for about nine long years. In September 1965, these orders were withdrawn under Section 18(i) (d) of the act and the Vagrancy Directorate was absolved of all responsibilities regarding them.20 This speaks for the utility of categorization on the part of the government. As a group of people were tagged as vagrants, they were, actually, being pushed outside the bounds of refugee rehabilitation. They would then be treated differently. The creation of this difference isolated the problem of their rehabilitation from the problem of refugee rehabilitation. The ‘vagrants’ moved the High Court. The High Court ordered the maintenance of the status quo, but the date set for it was 16 March 1966, much after these people had ceased to be the responsibility of the Vagrancy Directorate. Moreover, no order was given for the restoration of doles. It must be mentioned that this category of vagrants included 3903 persons in 1956–57. A camp-wise distribution shown in Table 3.2 might be useful in understanding the situation. The state government conducted another survey of these homes in April 1967, which showed that the population had come down to 3039 persons of 689 families.

Rehabilitation – Government Figures In a conference of social workers held in Calcutta between the 11 and 15 January 1955, Union Minister of Rehabilitation Mehr Chand Khanna gave an appraisal of the situation of the permanent liabilities of the Government

82  Through Barbed Wires Table 3.2  Camp-Wise Distribution of Vagrants Name of Vagrants’ Home

Number of Families

Number of Persons

1. Indralok Studio 2. Cossipore, Calcutta 3. Ballichak, Midnapore 4. Mankar, Burdwan 5. Sitarampur, Burdwan Total

338 337 94 154 69 992

1423 1294 359 555 272 3903

Source: Committee of Review of Rehabilitation Work in West Bengal, Ministry of Labour, Employment and Rehabilitation, Interim Report on Rehabilitation of Displaced Persons from East Pakistan Living at Asrafabad Ex-camp Site and in Vagrants’ Homes, 1967.

in the Eastern Zone.21 According to official records that Khanna cited, there were at around this time about 1,44,000 displaced persons from East Bengal in different camps in West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tripura. 42,000 among them were in homes and infirmaries. There were 80 relief camps in West Bengal which sheltered 102,000efugees. No other state in the Eastern Zone had any relief camp. The Government of India had spent till then about Rs. 9 crores in maintaining these camps and homes. The budget allocation for this purpose in the current year was Rs. 3 crores. In the worksite and colony camps, every worker with a family of three persons was paid wages at the rate of Rs. 1/6 per day. If the family comprised more than three persons, for each additional member of the family, a sum of Rs. 2/8 per week was paid as subsidy. He declared that in the case of the deserving workers who were not in a position to earn full wages, a subsidy was given to make up the balance. There were altogether nearly fifty-seven thousand displaced persons living in these camps. It was pointed out that there were about 38,444 displaced persons in the homes and infirmaries in West Bengal alone. Homes in Assam and Tripura accommodated 1,427 and 1,034 displaced persons, respectively. There were nearly 650 such refugees in Bihar, who were provided with shelter, medical aid and educational facilities, as well as cash doles or cooked food. In certain homes, training centres had been started. The average expenditure per head was about Rs. 25 per month. Rameshwari Nehru, Women’s Advisor, Ministry of Rehabilitation, laid great stress on the question of new admission to the PL camps and thought that the screening should be stricter than before. The weeding out of less deserving cases was mentioned. It was said that it should be done on a systematic basis and the old and infirm should be separated as they will continue to remain an indefinite liability of the government. It was felt that [t]he residue of middle aged and young women who are in fact a limited liability should be given general education and proper training according to their aptitude with a view to achieving their ultimate rehabilitation.22

Camp Refugees and the State  83 By this time, therefore, the liabilities of the government were more shaded and more complex and were to be perceived in different degrees. The category of permanent liability necessitated the birth of the category of limited liability and the concept of ‘ultimate rehabilitation’ distinguished these two categories. In other words, the dangling carrot of ‘ultimate rehabilitation’ in West Bengal, which had a certain sense of permanence about it, helped in ‘weeding out’ less-deserving cases in the eyes of the government so that the relief mechanism created a very stratified sense of government liabilities. On the question of relief, it was mentioned in this conference that in East Punjab, the average per capita expenditure in the homes and infirmaries was Rs. 23 per month. It was meant to show that the government liabilities in West Bengal were no less than those in East Punjab, since the average per capita expenditure in such institutions in West Bengal was said to be Rs. 25 per month. There is, however, need to review this statement and the circumstances of providing such relief and also the final goal – ‘ultimate rehabilitation’ in West Bengal.

Rehabilitation Measures in the East and the West Compared It was the Central Advisory Committee for Homes and Infirmaries in the Eastern Region that came up with a comprehensive comparison between the circumstances of East Punjab and West Bengal at around this time. A batch of social workers including Bina Das, Sudha Sen, of the AIWC and Sheila Davar, along with Suniti Pakrashi, deputy director of Women’s Rehabilitation in West Bengal, reached Dehra Dun on 21 March 1955 to inspect the camps in the West. A second batch including Ashoka Gupta and Amar Kumari Varma joined them at Jalandhar on the 22nd. They visited places like Panchkula, portions of Kashmir, Jalandhar, Dehra Dun and the areas around Delhi. This group of social workers found considerable differences between the camps in the east and the west.23 The first thing that struck them was the attitude of the government regarding the refugees. While in the Punjab, there was an immediate recognition of the size and gravity of the problem which led to the construction of new townships, like Faridabad, Rajapura and Tripuri, in the early days so that the refugees were permanently rehabilitated in concrete houses, and while provisions were made for their employment either in work centres or in industries attached to those townships provided with hospitals, schools, infirmaries and the like – all at government cost – in the East, no large township was built apart from Fulia, even though the rate of migration went up very high in 1950. Moreover, in the Punjab, the reception camps, homes, training cum work centres and infirmaries were in a much better state. These were permanent buildings with running water, separate kitchen, good sanitary arrangements and bathrooms. The grounds were spacious, like in the Gandhi Banita Asram at Jalandhar or the Widows’ Home at Hosierpur. In most cases, not more than three small families were accommodated in one room and there was no congestion since the allocation of space per-head

84  Through Barbed Wires seldom went below thirty square feet. The rooms were well lighted and ventilated and every one of them had a kitchen attached to it so that the living area did not have to be used for cooking. Moreover, there was ample courtyard space for camps and physical exercises even when there was no gymnasium. On the other hand, reception camps in West Bengal were actually decaying bamboo hutments left by the military authorities. As this report mentions, this was bad for the economy, since the recurring repair costs during the last seven years had gone up to lakhs. Even jute godowns and aluminium huts for storing grains were used as reception camps where many families had to stay on for more than three to four years awaiting final rehabilitation or transfer to a better site. No separate kitchen space was provided in most cases and the lack of privacy was acute. Scanty water supply with hand pumps and congested rooms with leaking roofs had led to a number of protests in PL camps. All the camps that this group of social workers visited in West Bengal, meant for the women of the PL category and children, had no workrooms, crèches, playgrounds, separate kitchen and a common prayer room even after seven years of functioning. In the Punjab, instead of providing cooked food, a cash allowance was paid. This gave the refugees at least some semblance of independence. In addition, each person was paid Rs. 2 per month for clothing, which the recipient was free to spend herself, although the purchase of garments and materials prepared in the home production centres was encouraged. In the homes managed by the Kasturba Trust, the inmates of the home concerned bought the khadi (handloom) produced at the home on cash payment. Each worker was allowed to receive and retain the wages earned by them in the work centre or elsewhere without reducing the maintenance dole. In West Bengal, cash doles for food were not paid at uniform rates for an adult and a child. The scale of doles here was Rs. 12 for an adult, Rs. 8 for a child younger than eight and up to a maximum of Rs. 60 per family, irrespective of its size. In East Punjab, the scale was higher. For a single-unit family, it was Rs. 18 per head; for a family of two, Rs. 16; for a family of three, Rs. 15; for a family of four, Rs.14; and for a family of five, Rs.13. Apart from that Rs.10 was provided for every additional member. In Bengal, in the PL camps and homes for the aged and the infirm, no regular work centre was sanctioned to enable them to learn and earn something. Even when some work centres or training centres were sanctioned, it was only for a short period and no wages were paid for the goods produced by them after the training was completed. The government here did not feel the need to open these work centres since the refugees were fed and clothed at government expense. Women, here, were therefore reluctant to come and work at the work centres or training centres. There was a proposal to start khadi production for which they were to be paid wages. The group of social workers was informed that the Government of India proposed to cut down the doles if the women started earning even a meagre amount this way. Consequently, the plan to provide work failed. An allowance for clothes at Rs. 2 per capita was never given to the camp inmates in cash. Sarees, dhutis (garments for men and women) and

Camp Refugees and the State  85 gamchhas (cotton towels) were supplied by the department twice during the year, but since these were purchased in bulk, the stitched clothes seldom fit the person to whom it was given. For bedding, the inmates were provided with one mat each, and a thin cotton blanket for a family of three supplied by the ministry from Delhi. No charpoys (beds) or razais (quilt) were provided as was done for the West Punjab refugees. As the social workers felt, in the damp Bengal climate, the bedding provided was very inadequate. In the Punjab, some work centres were only training centres without provision for residence, but, significantly, each home was a complete unit providing not only residence but also education at different stages, professional or practical training and employment for at least a short length of time. Hosierpur was a perfect example, being a small town in itself. Others like Jalandhar had, in addition to other facilities, their own hospital. All of them had crèches that helped mothers to leave their children and go out to work. The Kasturba Homes in Rajapura and New Delhi also had their own prebasic schools. Almost all homes had their middle schools or Bal Mandirs and when the needs of the inmates outgrew what was provided in terms of education within the Home, arrangements were made with outside institutions to continue the training till they became fit to take up a vocation. Such steps were taken by the Gandhi Banita Ashram at Jalandhar, the Widows’ Home at Hosierpur and the Kasturba Homes at Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU) and New Delhi. The trainees were entitled to their stipends even if they went out of homes for further training. The dependents of the trainee remained in the home and received maintenance grants in the homes even after the trainee secured jobs. The stipends were seldom below Rs. 30 per month and were sometimes raised in accordance with the professional training chosen. Some privately managed Homes for children like the Khalsa Orphanage at Amritsar, Lady Noyce Deaf and Dumb School, New Delhi and the Kasturba Sevasram received Rs. 25 per refugee admitted to their institutions. The Jainendra Gurukul at Panchkula received Rs. 30 per child. But each training institution for adults, in addition to the maintenance grants, received capital grants for equipment, building, raw materials, maintenance and so on. The social workers noted that in Rewari a revolving cost of raw materials of Rs. 5 lakhs had been recommended. The report mentions that in West Bengal, the rate of stipend was almost the same, but several categories were excluded from this. Refugee women taking a course of training in teaching or nursing in a recognized institution or hospital were not given any stipend but were only allowed to attend the vocational training centres specially set up for refugees. However, it also mentions later, that in non-residential training centres the rate of stipends given to women was Rs.15 only. It might be surmised that the actual rate of stipends received in West Bengal was lower. Another point that the report makes is that in the men’s work centres, like in Titagarh and Gariahat, the rate was higher. Women’s work remained underpaid compared to men’s work even within the domain of government grants and charity. In West Bengal, no home or PL camp for women, no matter how long it had been established, was

86  Through Barbed Wires provided with any facilities for education at the nursery or pre-basic stage. No crèches were established. There were no hospitals in many cases. There was no middle school in any of the PL camps. If there were schools nearby, the children were lucky since they were allowed to attend them. However, if not, they had to go without further education. When women were sent for training in vocational training centres, their children were looked after in the homes established for the children of the trainees, but the day they finished their training, their status changed, and their children were generally discharged and handed over to them even if they had not secured any job yet. It was difficult to work even after being trained. A sister getting trained or rehabilitated by getting a house building loan or grant technically deprived a brother from getting a similar loan or grant. No woman was allowed to go and work in the adjoining city or village even if she was willing. In the Punjab, in the work centres, there was usually one teacher per sixteen to twenty trainees. The superintendent here, held a gazetted rank with drawing and disbursing powers and powers to sanction leave and take disciplinary action. He could purchase at his discretion up to Rs. 300 in each transaction, could secure orders and sell. There was an assistant superintendent where the number of inmates exceeded fifty. The clerical staff was paid at the following rates – an ‘Accountant-cum-Cashier’ was to be paid Rs. 175; a ‘Clerk’, Rs. 115; and a ‘Typist’, Rs. 100. That the importance of the Camps and Homes in Bengal was somewhat less in the eyes of the central government is clearly borne out by the fact that the superintendent here did not have gazetted rank and had no power to sanction leave to the staff or take disciplinary action against the inmates. The general assistants were inexperienced. Even though the group of social workers felt that they would serve no useful purpose, the day-to-day running of the Homes was actually almost entirely dependent on these young girls. The pay of the clerk here was Rs. 47 and even though he had some additional allowances, it was too inadequate to attract good officers. In the Punjab, some homes like the Kusum Trivedi Sevasram claimed to have successfully achieved moral rehabilitation. Others claimed that almost all their trainees had been provided with jobs either within the workshop or outside. Even though such tall claims were subject to scrutiny, some occupational organizer centres which were opened within some of the Homes did find employment for trainees. No attempts were made to open such centres in West Bengal. The greatest lack was that of any social or cultural life to talk home about in these Homes. There was no prayer room or library or provision for indoor games, as the group of social workers noted. There was a big difference in the per capita costs incurred in the PL camps in the Punjab and Bengal. In the Punjab, the per capita expenditure of the homes for PL category was on an average Rs. 25, which roughly covered all the expenses. In Bengal, expenditure under this head was a meagre sum of Rs. 14. Admission to the camps in the Punjab was not as difficult as it was in West Bengal. This is a pointer to the fact that since the refugee influx here occurred in waves and phases, fresh migration remained a constant problem and the

Camp Refugees and the State  87 rules of admission became stricter. As the group of social workers noted during their visits, in the Punjab, hard cases were still admitted and the average number of such admissions of women and children was 100 per month. The cases, however, related to persons who migrated in 1947. In Bengal, new arrivals at the Sealdah station were admitted in the camps only after a thorough enquiry and scrutiny. But no old arrivals were admitted even in case of extreme hardship because there was no government order on the subject. The absence of crèches for children made the possibility of mothers working to earn their daily bread very difficult. If work was to be treated as the central focus of rehabilitation efforts, it seems strange that in households headed by women special efforts were not made to facilitate these women to go out of their homes. For these women, who had a regular work life before the Partition and most of whom had been used to a handto-mouth existence, work was central to their lives. Camp life required them to live apart from their extended families, not to talk of their men from whom they had been separated earlier. The responsibility of child care therefore rested solely on their shoulders. The fact that they now found it hard to go out to work, cannot be perceived as a hindrance to their road to a newfound triumph, their coming out, so to speak; it was, rather, a regressive step for them. They were not middle-class women whom the Partition brought out. They were women whom the Partition threatened to confine to roles within their homes. However, it should be remembered that there was no stopping these women. They did go out in search of work, or food, especially in the afternoons. The afternoon became the productive time of the day for these working women. For many of them, the kind of work that they did was new even though food gathering was not new to them. The women coped and lived. The women of the middle classes had their own problems. They tried to fit into the existing labour market that had no space for them, and even then, as mentioned earlier, they found it difficult to survive on their meagre earnings with their children as doles were discontinued. Rehabilitation remained a shady concept. It worked around official concepts of work and able-bodied providers. The PL campers, some untrainable and some eligible to be trained for work were all part of this project. They built their lives around these notions, never going too far from them, since they remained dependent on state relief. However, at the same time, as the prime need was to make ends meet, they became, at times, food gatherers, or, they could work in the informal sectors. Sewing for employers remained a common choice for many of these women. The government dole for them was not only a mode of relief. As long as one received the dole, one was officially dependent on the government and was, therefore, not yet rehabilitated. The doles kept their ties with the state’s realm of charity firm.

Men on the Spot Each camp had one camp superintendent at the helm of affairs. There were a number of assistant camp superintendents, a cashier-treasurer cum

88  Through Barbed Wires accountant, a number of clerks, a storekeeper, and a block in-charge, usually known as a general assistant or GA. These were the people the refugees saw as representatives of the government in their everyday lives. They were to be found in all the camps. They were responsible for carrying out the schemes of the government. The Government of West Bengal began its programme of rehabilitation with the rural housing scheme. Those who lived in the government camps – 9,600 of the refugee families – were given between four and ten cottahs of land, a loan of Rs. 500 to build a house and a month’s maintenance grant, while the house was being built. Businessmen got an additional month’s maintenance grant. If an agriculturist was settled in an area where agricultural land was available, he got ten bighas of land, a maintenance grant for six months and a total loan of Rs. 2270 for purchasing bullocks and other implements for cultivation, including Rs.100 for land reclamation and Rs. 100 for water supply.24 This plan was applicable not only to West Bengal. It was also meant for refugees across the country. Therefore, if grants were to be expected from the centre, it was required to follow the plan. The land was to be acquired under two acts: (1) The West Bengal Land Development Act which allowed the state government to reduce the period for acquisition if the local magistrate was satisfied that the piece of land could be categorized as wasteland, that it was not homestead land or agricultural land. The price of the piece of land under this act was to be according to the rates of December 1946. (2) The Defence of India Act for lands or premises that had been requisitioned by the Defence Department any time during the war. In such cases, the Defence Department, could, on the application of the provincial or state government, acquire the piece of land at a value cheaper than the market rate. The problem was that the refugees, who were not farmers, seldom wanted to settle in the rural areas. It was difficult for them to acquire land in the cities through the government even though the rate was lowered. Therefore squatting and forcible occupation of land became the natural corollaries. But here came in the middlemen. The Government of West Bengal issued a notification in November 1949 mentioning that such attacks on private property could not be tolerated. The refugee, therefore, if he was to depend on the government for his rehabilitation, had to settle for ‘wasteland’. Bidhan Chandra Roy mentioned a case in which the refugees refused to settle on a piece of land that was the dumping ground of the municipality.25 The government, somehow, found this unreasonable, and P.C. Ghosh suggested that since Calcutta was overcrowded, there should be a law prohibiting anybody coming to Calcutta. It should be a forbidden city. The point was to hide the presence of refugees. Their conspicuousness was the fundamental problem. But, it was this conspicuousness, this visible presence that the refugees banked on in their dealings with the government.

Camp Refugees and the State  89 According to the chief minister’s account, by 1950, 199 families had been sent to the Andamans, of which 12 families came back. However, the government had the permission to send 122 more families.26 Government reports, predictably, did not really account for the return of the twelve families but rather wove a narrative of successful rehabilitation. The case of one person was mentioned who had come from Barisal and who was very happy with the arrangement. He declared that he used to grow eight maunds of paddy per bigha back home. But in his new settlement, he was growing double the amount. He had come back to take his relations with him. In this narrative, what assumed supreme importance was the vision of wastelands as lands of opportunities, where hard labour was supposed to bring profits as a general rule, where everything was fair. At the other end stood the refugees who were forcibly occupying land, where middlemen and political parties could be accommodated and the refugees who took shelter in the government camps, in other words the corrupt and the lazy, respectively. Such was the layering of refugees which was to become more pronounced with the arrival of fresh batches. In the new settlements, till the beginning of 1950, five hundred families were provided with fisheries, arrangements were made for two hundred weavers, and cultivable land – about five to ten bighas each – was given to two thousand families, mostly in Jalpaiguri or Nadia. Houses were being constructed in Habra, four hundred of which had been built by this time. Orders had been given for similar constructions of five hundred houses in Garia and 180 in Midnapore. Till then, Rs. 66,000 had been given as house building loans, and about Rs. 6 lakhs had been given as business loans. Other loans of Rs. 8.4 lakhs had also been advanced. A committee called the Business Rehabilitation Board had been created, which had disbursed about Rs. 21 lakhs for medical practitioners and about Rs. 2 lakhs to lawyers and to students and institutions about Rs. 23 lakhs. Students were also being trained under the Labour Department of the Government of India.27 Until the beginning of 1950, the government made arrangements for the rehabilitation of the agriculturists. As soon as an agriculturist family was allotted a piece of agricultural land, which varied in area from one district to another according to productivity, the following loans were granted. Rs. 930 for the purchase of bullocks, implements and utensils, seeds and manures; Rs. 100 per acre for reclamation, if necessary, of the area; and Rs. 100 per acre for the provision of irrigational facilities.28 For the maintenance of the family before the period of the next paddy season, an amount of Rs. 12 per adult and Rs. 6 per child per month, subject to a maximum of Rs. 90 per family per month for six months until the next harvesting season was granted. For businessmen, traders and shopkeepers, artisans, technicians or skilled labourers, after securing accommodation, a trade loan of Rs. 500 in rural areas and Rs. 750 in urban areas was given. A businessman of a higher category was eligible for a loan of Rs. 5000. Petty rural artisans, technicians or skilled labourers were also eligible for a maintenance loan for one month at the same rate as the agriculturist. For registered medical

90  Through Barbed Wires practitioners, as soon as accommodation was secured, they became eligible for the following loans for the purchase of books, equipment and so on – an allopath could be given Rs. 2000 in an area other than Calcutta and Rs. 1000 within Calcutta. A homeopath would be given Rs. 500 in rural areas and a little more in urban areas other than Calcutta. He would get Rs. 400 within Calcutta. The government had bought yarn worth Rs. 18 lakhs. There were 2500 looms purchased for settling 2500 weaver families. Paddy-husking schemes were adopted for about 4500 women. Vocational training for unattached women was being given by women workers. Some of the women were also to be trained as nurses. The employment of refugees through the Employment Exchange was being arranged. However, until 24 December 1949, 53,714 refugees had registered themselves, of whom only 4,614 had been placed. It should be remembered that the total budget grant for 1949–50 was much greater than the actual expenditure. This was because the central government had declared that it would give the state government more than Rs. 5 crores. But eventually, the amount was reduced to Rs. 2 crores and finally a little over Rs. 1 crore was paid for relief work since it was decided that relief operations would stop after 31 December 1949. On the other hand, Rs. 3 crores were given as loans. Rs. 83 lakhs were spent on colonization schemes, Rs. 44 lakhs for building programmes, Rs. 1.57 lakhs for loans and advances to the refugees, Rs. 25–26 lakhs for the handloom industry scheme and Rs.10 lakhs for paddy husking and other schemes.29 Therefore, the emphasis was on rehabilitation, placing people, categorizing and recording. The influx was expected to have subsided. All of this was in the beginning of February 1950. This was to change with the fresh influx of refugees. Bidhan Chandra Roy, the chief minister, mentioned in the Assembly30 that the refugees of 1950 would be given the same kind of relief as the earlier groups of refugees, and he recognized the fact that these refugees would need more relief before they could be rehabilitated. However, the ultimate decision rested with the central government which limited itself, in principle, to providing relief for these refugees. The refugees could no longer expect to become a part of the fabric of the nation. The modes of accommodation had changed. Their visible presence unsettled the nation’s sanctity but it became their strength. In his speech at the Legislative Assembly on 23 March 1950, Bidhan Chandra Roy mentioned that the Ranaghat Cooper’s Camp housed about forty thousand refugees. However, those among the new wave of refugees who did not have a place to stay in Calcutta and had remained at the Sealdah station premises were being sent to the camp and the size of the camp was being enlarged to accommodate ten thousand more refugees. A camp was also being set up at Dhubulia to accommodate one lakh refugees. He also mentioned that the central government was thinking of the Dhubulia camp as a temporary arrangement. The Government of West Bengal was in favour of keeping provisions to turn it into a permanent one, if the need arose. However, this does appear rather strange, since it was early in 1949,

Camp Refugees and the State  91 that the Government of India had already recognized that the problem of migration in eastern India was a long-term one and it was this realization that made the central government agree with the state government that measures had to be taken, not merely for providing relief but also rehabilitation on a permanent basis.31 This was, therefore, rehabilitation for a limited number of people who had already arrived. With the migration of a large number of refugees in the decade of the 1950s, the attitude of the Government of India was changing. At Ranaghat, forty-five tube wells had been installed, and the government was planning to install another twenty. Similarly, at Dhubulia, the Government of West Bengal was planning to make provisions for water supply. The government also ordered the building of 1500 huts along the Nadia border for rehabilitating refugees attached to the soil. It made arrangements for special trains from Ranaghat across Naihati to places in Burdwan, Bankura and Asansol for the transportation of the refugees to the camps. Meanwhile, the government was faced with the problem of the forcible occupation of vacant houses by the refugees, as the owners were coming back and claiming their property. These refugees had to be evicted, and about one thousand of them were put up in a dharamshala (a temporary guest house) opposite the Auckland House. Three anchored steamers were also used for the purpose of accommodating about three thousand of these refugees.32 Such floating houses of refugees could not, for obvious reasons, become a permanent state of things.

The Rehabilitation Puzzle One problem that the government faced in the process of rehabilitation was local resistance. It was expected that the Sonarpur–Bagjola schemes would resettle some nine to ten thousand agriculturist families. However, in reality, only about four hundred families could actually be rehabilitated33 since strife with the local cultivators seemed imminent. This was the crux of the problem of refugee presence. It primarily meant an invasion of space. The government had to deal with the refugee problem as if it was classifiable, as if the invasion was a temporary one. The refugees were not to be seen. The urban space had to be cleared. The story of the refugees had to end. Therefore, the government was keen on sending them outside the state of West Bengal. This was where refugee politics made its presence felt very strongly. The refugee leaders stuck to their demand of resettling the refugees within West Bengal. The government wished to make these schemes successful with plans of group rehabilitation so that the feeling of isolation could be reduced. In 1954, a committee of ministers examined the possibilities of rehabilitation of camp inmates within West Bengal. According to the government figures, around this time there were 10,000 agriculturist families and 8400 non-agriculturist families living in camps.34 There had already been large scale desertions from Bihar and Orissa. Rehabilitation schemes were formulated for Sonarpur-Arapanch and Bagjola. This committee observed that ‘while formulating proposals for the resettlement of refugees

92  Through Barbed Wires within West Bengal note should be taken of the fact that there was a very large number of land-hungry landless agricultural labourers belonging to the State, whose needs for land could not be ignored, if their “present economic condition” was to be improved’.35 A clear note of difference was struck while talking about refugees and the other citizens. The refugees were to be in a state of exception while the interests of the citizens were not to be overlooked. The refugee’s struggle was a peculiar one. They had to fight for the status of being a citizen. But at the same time, they were aware of their special position as a refugee and had to fight to become one or secure it. It was a complex struggle. The concept of accommodation of refugees within West Bengal became more open to rethinking when the influx of refugees went up. Meanwhile, the bargadars, or share-croppers of West Bengal were voicing their own demands. According to government estimates,36 until 1958, land which was vested in the state under the Estates Acquisition Act consisted of two categories – cultivated land and wasteland (which included unproductive waterlogged land). Most of the cultivated land was owned by tenants or cultivators or bargadars. Out of a total number of 19.73 lakhs of agriculturist families who owned land in the state, 5.12 lakhs had holdings of 2 acres or less. These were uneconomic holdings. There were 7 lakh bargadar families and 6.98 lakh families of landless agricultural labourers. The chief minister mentioned that the state could not afford to overlook their needs. There was a movement afoot for giving bargadars more land. An extra bigha of land for 5.42 lakh cultivators alone would have required nearly 2 lakh acres of land, without taking into consideration the requirements of bargadars or landless agricultural labourers. Therefore, the chief minister stated that compared to the needs of the camp dwellers, very little land was available for the further extension of cultivation of cereals and other food crops. The displaced cultivators were used to cultivable lands. But the land available for them was mostly of the barren type, called danga lands found in the western districts of the state. Such lands required intensive reclamation and irrigation facilities to become fit for growing food crops. The state government therefore encouraged the refugees to settle outside West Bengal. However, it is difficult to miss the point that the type of land available to them even outside West Bengal was mostly the same kind of land that required intensive reclamation and irrigation. One fails to see the rationale behind this. Under the Bainanama scheme, camp inmates, both agriculturists and non-agriculturists, were given facilities to secure land under a prescribed ceiling. Government figures collected from the districts in the earlier part of 1958 showed that the number of applications for rural Bainanama cases (which were mostly agricultural land purchase cases), which could be accepted constituted 30 per cent of the total number of applications considered. The rejections of many such applications from agriculturists, felt the government, were mostly due to the unsuitability of land, defective title or adverse possession by others.37 Therefore, land suitable for agriculture with good title was not available in adequate quantities. The largest number of

Camp Refugees and the State  93 applications for purchase of agricultural land was filed in the districts of Nadia, 24 Parganas and Burdwan (mostly Kalna).38 The agriculturists were not much interested in the lands in the western districts of the state. If this was the case, then it is strange that the government could not find it reasonable that the refugees sent to Orissa should turn into deserters. In fact, these refugees became almost traitors in the eyes of the state, simply because they did not fit into the pattern of rehabilitation chalked out for them. Their doles were threatened to be stopped. One wonders how Dandakaranya was better than the western districts of West Bengal for these groups of refugees in the eyes of the State. The reclamation of danga lands had two major problems – that of time and expenditure. A camp was already in existence at Salanpur. Here, the government took up an experimental project of reclamation. It was decided to make use of the manpower available here by engaging able-bodied men and paying them wages instead of doles. The government explained why this scheme had to be abandoned, which also speaks for the general problems of such measures of rehabilitation. In this scheme, the cost of reclamation and development came to Rs. 4.92 lakhs, which included the wages of Rs. 3.04 lakhs for a net area of 600 acres. The cost of reclamation and development had come to a little over Rs. 800 per acre. At the rate of 4 acres per family at Salanpur, the cost of reclamation and development, therefore, worked out at Rs. 3200 per family. Besides this, there was the cost of land, which, in this case worked out at Rs. 1625 per family. Agricultural loan and house building loan would amount to Rs. 1100 per family. The total expenditure per family, therefore, came to about Rs. 5925 excluding maintenance loan.39 In this work scheme, efforts were made to provide irrigation facilities which were not very successful. The scheme was continued for two years. However, two years were insufficient for such work. It required long term investment. It becomes evident that the process of rehabilitation of the camp inmates had to be quick and cheap. The problem of the conspicuousness of the refugee presence needed to be fixed. The government also mentioned the likes and dislikes of the displaced persons, since, earlier, there had been cases of heavy desertions from rehabilitation colonies in the districts of Bankura, Midnapore and Birbhum, both government-sponsored and private. The chief minister stated that the undeveloped and under-developed nature of land secured by the refugees only partly explained the desertions. The problem was that the displaced persons ‘did not find the climate, environment and the nature of the local soil congenial enough’.40 Even in Keleghai in Midnapore, where soil conservation work was going on over the last four years41 and where Aus paddy (the autumn rice crop) was grown in 1958, displaced persons were showing strong disinclination towards rehabilitation efforts. If such desertions could be explained, then, it is surprising why the deserters from other states were condemned. It is not clear as to why the state failed to recognize the problems involving a change of climate, environment and the nature of the local soil in cases of rehabilitation of refugees outside West Bengal.

94  Through Barbed Wires The future of the non-agriculturist camp dwellers seemed equally bleak according to the statement of the chief minister. He mentioned that the rehabilitation of non-agriculturists meant enlarging the scope for employment through the establishment of new industries, medium and small scale. However, the government did not sponsor any industry beyond running small production centres as a means of providing employment to a section of displaced persons. There was a government scheme for giving financial assistance to medium-scale private industries on the condition that they would provide employment to displaced persons. Under this scheme financial assistance of a little over Rs. 210 lakhs was sanctioned to seventeen industrial establishments of which eight were cotton mills. Some of these assisted industries went into production by the time the statement was made, and some mills and factories were in the process of erection. The process of setting up an industrial unit included the construction of buildings, installation of machinery and so on. A fair-sized establishment took two to three years to be set up and realization of its full employment potential would become a long-term project. Besides, as the chief minister mentioned, the employment potential of the seventeen assisted industrial establishments was limited compared to the needs of the camp non-agriculturists. The government understood the limitations and proposed to set up industries. However, this proposal had its own problems, since, as the chief minister mentioned, it was to be limited by the government’s financial resources and the foreign exchange position which was not in a very encouraging state then. The State Transport Department was given a loan of Rs.75 lakhs and it absorbed displaced persons. However, setting up a new industrial unit was not easy. Some points needed to be thought out. The cotton textile industry was going through a slump at the moment. The raw material for a new rolling mill was scarce, even for the existing mills. Some of the mills had, in fact, closed down while others were not running to their full capacity. The chief minister also pointed out that a new sugar mill would require the import of machinery for which foreign exchange was required. A mill for the manufacture of wood pulp and newsprint would be a major industry, but as such a case at Nepanagar in Madhya Pradesh had shown, it would require a long period of secure stability to be able to provide ‘substantial and steady employment’.42 The chief minister’s statement clearly pointed out that if substantial and steady employment is what rehabilitation really meant, then, there was no place for the camp refugees to be rehabilitated within West Bengal. He pointed out that even though there were agitations against rehabilitation outside West Bengal that became considerable in March 1957, there were people moving to camps outside West Bengal. Non-camp displaced persons had moved out recently to Rajasthan for rehabilitation. What he stressed was that the displaced people would not mind going out ‘under proper leadership and guidance’.43 The government was, at around this time, coping with the politics of the refugee movement. The emphasis was on two main points. First, in the case of industries, development and therefore employment generation would be a long-term process and mostly

Camp Refugees and the State  95 unsuccessful to deal with the refugee needs of the moment. Besides, market demands and foreign exchange positions needed to be considered. The second and the greatest problem was the paucity of suitable lands required. There was a third problem. It was the demand of the refugees not to move out of West Bengal. In this case, the government had to bring out the fact that this was not really the demand of the refugees themselves. It was the politicization of the problem that brought out this demand. Therefore, the government had to alienate the refugees from their leaders who highlighted this demand. What was emphasized was the reasonableness of the human mind, which would surely point out that it was better to move out and ‘settle down contentedly and happily with an adequate living wherever they are’.44 Displacement made the refugees technically open to newer displacements. They would have to accept moving out because they had moved out once. The chief minister clearly mentioned that ‘[t]he conclusion is inevitable that West Bengal cannot possibly absorb a large section of the agriculturists from camps’.45 The state could only support docile bodies. The Dandakaranya Development Authority was formed at around this time, and by 31 December 1959, 830 families, comprising 3550 persons reached Dandakaranya (comprising of Koraput and Kalahandi districts of Orissa and Bastar district of Madhya Pradesh) from different relief camps of West Bengal and Bihar.46 From 1958, there was a reorientation in the policy of rehabilitation.47 A Rehabilitation Ministers’ Conference was called in Calcutta in July 1958. In this conference, it was decided that (1) the Government of West Bengal would rehabilitate about ten thousand families within the state for which they would formulate schemes and submit them to the Government of India within a month. (2) the Government of India would make arrangements for the rehabilitation of thirty-five thousand families in States outside West Bengal including Dandakaranya. When the families are moved to other states, they would be provided with shelter and work during the initial period. No doles would be given to any family. (3) the camp families might also formulate schemes for rehabilitation and submit them to government for consideration and sanction. (4) the camp families which declined to move to states outside West Bengal would cease to be the responsibility of the government. The secretary to the Ministry of Rehabilitation stated that ‘unfortunately, the question of rehabilitation got mixed up with various things like sentiments, emotions and even some extraneous considerations’.48 The secretary was right, of course. However, no matter how unfortunate, it is not clear how the process of rehabilitation of displaced persons could be alienated from human problems like emotions, sentiments and even extraneous factors, which clearly referred to political pushes and pulls. The secretary also referred to the claims made by the refugees that there was enough land available in West Bengal for

96  Through Barbed Wires the rehabilitation of refugees within the state. Such claims were based on a report written before the Partition (what was referred to was H.M.S. Ishaque’s report in three volumes, 1944–45, according to which immediately before the Partition, West Bengal had 1,828,000 acres of cultivable wastelands, including crematoriums, pastures and water bodies49). He felt that enough time and resources had been wasted in the process. The chief minister’s statement of 13 October 1958, clearly, had also been a response along these lines. He had mentioned that the Ishaque Committee’s Report was misleading. In this report, 1.98 million acres for culturable waste had been mentioned, which included bhita or homestead, grazing ground, jungles, playground and others. Besides, old fallow lands had been included, that is lands lying fallow for more than three years belonging to individual cultivators which were brought under cultivation by them from time to time as and when possible. It had been pointed out that the position of land availability had also changed since the time of this report. In the Ishaque Committee’s Report, culturable waste in the Howrah district was shown to be 12,057.54 acres as against 4307 acres according to the latest survey quoted by the chief minister. Similarly, for Hooghly, as against Ishaque’s figure of 32,852 acres, the latest figure cited by the chief minister had been 22,639 acres, out of which old fallow lands had accounted for 20,538 acres. The Crop Survey Report of 1952–53 published by the State Statistical Bureau had shown that the area of uncultivable and cultivable waste lands put together was around 1 million acres. This figure was similar to the figure of the Agriculture Department of 1.6 million acres. This included dense and light forests other than state-owned ones, waterlogged, rocky and laterite land and grazing ground for 15 million cattle. The alternative rehabilitation plans put forward by the refugee leaders stressed on the ways and means to remain within the state of West Bengal. What was being sought was a middle ground between efforts at self-rehabilitation and government help. It is this which constituted what the refugee leaders brought forward as the notion of ‘actual rehabilitation’. In the rehabilitation mesh, as the labour-producing body of the refugee gained significance, a distinct world of women’s work made their ‘actual rehabilitation’ rather different from that of men. Their bodies came to be perceived differently. Being unattached to ‘male heads’ categorized them separately. It is this segregation that created the world of the refugee women.

Notes 1 West Bengal Legislative Assembly proceedings, 8 February 1950. 2 Bidhan Chandra Roy’s speech, West Bengal Legislative Assembly proceedings, 8 February 1950. 3 Ibid. 4 Mentioned in Recommendations of the Committee for Re-organization of Camps, P.L. Institutions and Homes for Displaced Persons Classed as Aged, Infirm unattached Women and Their Dependents, Ashoka Gupta Files, School of Women Studies, Jadavpur University.

Camp Refugees and the State  97 5 Hiranmay Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad, 1970, p. 46. 6 Ibid., p. 81. 7 Recommendations of the Committee for Re-organization of Camps, P.L. Institutions and Homes for Displaced Persons Classed as Aged, Infirm unattached Women and Their Dependents, Ashoka Gupta Files, School of Women Studies, Jadavpur University. 8 Recommendations of the Committee for Re-organization of Camps, P.L. Institutions and Homes for Displaced Persons Classed as Aged, Infirm unattached Women and Their Dependents, Ashoka Gupta Files, School of Women Studies, Jadavpur University. 9 Ashoka Gupta, In the Path of Service: Memories of a Changing Century, translated from the Bengali by Sipra Bhattacharya with Ranjana Dasgupta, Kolkata: Stree, 2005, p. 139–43. 10 Ashoka Gupta, In the Path of Service: Memories of a Changing Century, translated from the Bengali by Sipra Bhattacharya with Ranjana Dasgupta, Kolkata: Stree, 2005, p. 141. 11 Hiranmay Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad, 1970, p. 179–82. 12 Minutes of the Conference of Social Workers held at Calcutta on 11, 12, and 15 January 1955, the Ashoka Gupta Files, available at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 13 Extracts from letter dated 9 February, 1956, subject – Re-organisation of Homes and Camps for Un-Attached Women or/and Old and Infirm Displaced Persons from East Pakistan, from Shri S.L. Dang, Under Secretary to the Government of India to the Secretaries of the Governments of West Bengal, Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department, of Assam, of Tripura, of Bihar, of Orissa and of Uttar Pradesh, Ashoka Gupta Files, available at the School of Women’s Studies Jadavpur University. 14 Ibid. 15 Ashoka Gupta Files, School of Women’s Studies Jadavpur University. 16 Extracts from the Report of the Committee appointed by Government of West Bengal to Enquire into Technical and Vocational Training of Displaced Persons from East Pakistan Now Residing in West Bengal, Ashoka Gupta Files, available at the School of Women’s Studies Jadavpur University. Even though the document is undated, it was possibly a report of 1955 since it includes data till 31 March 1955 and is among other documents of that year. 17 Ibid. 18 Recommendations of the Committee for Re-organisation of Camps, P.L. Institutions and Homes for Displaced Persons Classed as the Aged, Infirm Unattached Women and Their Dependents, Ashoka Gupta Files, available at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University, undated. 19 Extracts from letter dated 10 February 1956, subject – Supply of Clothes to the Displaced Persons from East Pakistan Living in Homes/Infirmaries etc, from Shri S.L. Dang, Under Secretary to the Government of India to the Secretaries of the Governments of West Bengal, Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department, of Bihar, U.P., Shillong, Orissa, Tripura, the Ashoka Gupta files available at the School of Women’s Studies Jadavpur University. 20 Committee of Review of Rehabilitation Work in West Bengal, Ministry of Labour, Employment and Rehabilitation, Interim Report on Rehabilitation of Displaced Persons from East Pakistan Living at Asrafabad Ex-camp Site and in Vagrants’ Homes, 1967. 21 Minutes of the Conference of Social Workers held at Calcutta on 11, 12, and 15 January 1955, the Ashoka Gupta Files, available at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University.

98  Through Barbed Wires 22 Minutes of the Conference of Social Workers held at Calcutta on 11, 12, and 15 January 1955, from the Ashoka Gupta Files Available at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 23 Ashoka Gupta Files, School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. The exact date of the document is not mentioned but it can be assumed that it was part of the analysis provided by the Central Advisory Committee for Homes and Infirmaries in the Eastern Region, a group of social workers who went to western India to visit the camps in 1955 since it matches the following document: http://www.india-seminar.com/2002/510/510%20ashoka%20gupta.htm 24 Bidhan Chandra Roy’s speech, West Bengal Legislative Assembly proceedings, 8 February 1950. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 West Bengal Legislative Assembly Proceedings, 10 March 1950. 29 Bidhan Chandra Roy’s speech, West Bengal Legislative Assembly proceedings, 10 March 1950. 30 Ibid. 31 Relief and Rehabilitation of Displaced Persons in West Bengal, published by the Home (Publicity) Department on behalf of the Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department, Government of West Bengal, August 1956. 32 West Bengal Legislative Assembly Proceedings, 23 March 1950. 33 Rehabilitation of Camp Refugees: Statement Issued by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, Chief Minister, West Bengal, 13 October 1958. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Rehabilitation of Camp Refugees: Statement Issued by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, Chief Minister, West Bengal, 13 October 1958. 38 Ibid. 39 Rehabilitation of Camp Refugees: Statement Issued by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, Chief Minister, West Bengal, 13 October 1958. 40 Rehabilitation of Camp Refugees: Statement Issued by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, Chief Minister, West Bengal, 13 October 1958. 41 Ibid. The statement is dated 13 October 1958. Therefore, the last four years would mean from around 1954. 42 Rehabilitation of Camp Refugees: Statement Issued by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, Chief Minister, West Bengal, 13 October 1958. 43 Ibid. 44 Rehabilitation of Camp Refugees: Statement Issued by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, Chief Minister, West Bengal, 13 October 1958. 45 Ibid. 46 Ranabir Samaddar eds., Refugees and the State Practices of Asylum and Care in India: 1947–2000, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2003, p. 137. 47 India Estimates Committee 1959–1960, 96th Report (Second Lok Sabha), Ministry of Rehabilitation (Eastern Zone), Lok Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi, April 1960. 48 India Estimates Committee 1959–1960, 96th Report (Second Lok Sabha), Ministry of Rehabilitation (Eastern Zone), Lok Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi, April 1960. 49 Debabrata Dutta, Vijaygarh Ekti Udbastu Upanibesh, Kolkata: Progressive Publishers, 2001, p. 18.

4 The Inmates

Until the middle of the 1950s, the emphasis of the government rehabilitation plans was on the rehabilitation of non-camp refugees. In the latter half of the decade, the emphasis shifted to the rehabilitation of camp refugees, frequently referred to as camp inmates – a term difficult to pull apart from the sense of confinement attached to it. The central government was now trying to channelize the resources and the first step was to put the focus on the camp refugees. Until the end of 1958–59 out of Rs. 66.5 crores spent on rehabilitation, only 18 crores related to the expenditure on camp inmates and Rs. 48.5 crores to the expenditure on non-camp displaced persons. In the same period, out of 21 lakhs of displaced persons, who had received rehabilitation assistance, about 6 lakhs were in camps and 15 lakhs outside camps.1 Therefore, from the middle of 1950, emphasis was being placed on the need of the refugees to move out of West Bengal. The Ranaghat Cooper’s Camp was to be treated as a transit camp from where refugees were to move out continually. However, this was not to be. The refugees refused to budge and treated the camp more as a mode of rehabilitation and as a means of staying put in West Bengal. The Government of India took over the administration of the camp in March 1950. According to a report of the Amritabazar Patrika on 21 March 1950, when the Government of India took over the administration of the camp as a reception centre (to accommodate the fresh wave of refugees), the reception machinery was in a ‘fair rate of movement, with a small but zealous staff at ration and cash counters, medical aidposts, etc.’. But dispersal was ‘disappointingly slow’. It was very difficult to persuade a refugee to board a train for Bihar or Orissa. According to the report, while the influx remained unabated, with a daily minimum of 2000, the dispersal figure did not exceed 1200 a day, and a total of 6000 until 1 April. In other words, the Government of India remained as unsuccessful in persuading the refugees to move out as the Government of West Bengal had been. The accumulating difference led to overcrowding in the eighty-seven big nissen huts and fifty canvas tents in the camp, and many people had to live in the open. Nikhil Sen, director of relief for West Bengal, took charge of the camp on behalf of the Government of India. He made it a rule that no refugee would be allowed to remain in the camp for more than a fortnight. They would have to move out either on DOI: 10.4324/9781003321057-7

100  Through Barbed Wires their own initiative or with the assistance of the government, within this period. At this time, there were in the camp around twenty-five thousand refugees. About 8000 huts, 10 feet by 15 feet each, with corrugated tin shed on bamboo poles, were under construction to accommodate around ten thousand more. This was what housed the refugees, and it had its own problems, since there were difficulties in the transport of construction materials. These huts were intended to house forty thousand people. Therefore, each 10- by 15-feet hut was meant for five people on an average.2 But the refugees were unwilling to part with even this. It is important to find the cause of this reluctance. Various kinds of emotions, including fear might have played their part. However, one might wonder whether it is reasonable to suppose that those who had taken the greatest risk in leaving their home and everything behind, would refuse to let go of their camp huts even with the assurance of the government, merely on grounds of sentimentality. It is necessary, therefore, to see what leaving West Bengal meant, to see how those who did leave faired in the bargain. But, to begin at the beginning, it is necessary to check the arrangements at the Ranaghat Cooper’s Camp and other camps.

Ranaghat Cooper’s Camp and Rupasree Palli Ranaghat had been important as a border junction. It formed the link between the railway lines of Shantipur, Nabadwip, Krishnagar, Lalgolaghat, Banpur and Bongaon. Before 1947, the Dhaka Mail, Chittagong Mail, Khulna Express and the East Bengal Mail passed through Ranaghat. Calcutta was also nearby. From 1946, Ranaghat became the natural choice for many of the riot victims seeking refuge from both sides of the border. The relief organizations like the East Bengal Relief Society, the Bharat Sevasram Sangha, the Marwari Relief Society, the Ramakrishna Mission or the Peoples’ Relief Committee made Ranaghat their centre of operation. As the plan for Partition was announced, Pakistani flags were hoisted at Ranaghat. However, the final plans drew the borders with Ranaghat falling within Indian territory and the border stations became Bongaon and Gede on the western half and Banpur and Darshana on the eastern. Ranaghat, therefore, had a place in the lives of the refuge seekers even before the Partition. It had a history, as it were. As refugees started pouring in, the government opened reception and registration centres on platform numbers one and two. Refugees had to remain on the station platforms for two to three days to get their refugee registration certificates. The volunteer organizations had plenty of work to do here. By this time, Ranaghat was buzzing with refugee life. Like Dhubulia or Chandmari, Ranaghat also had an advantage. The vacant military barracks could become shelters for the refugees. There was also a runway and godowns for storing supplies. On the western side, ran the Berhampore National Highway which connected Calcutta with North Bengal. The military barracks became the Cooper’s Camp. There was also a Chinese mission camp from the war days to treat

The Inmates  101 the wounded soldiers. There were six godowns and some other temporary wooden structures here which became the Rupasree Palli. The entire camp area was surrounded by barbed wires. There was no proper road that connected this region with Ranaghat and the region was surrounded by wilderness. The geographical space, marked out thus, represented the life of the camp refugees; a barbed-wire existence in the midst of all odds and an absence of civic amenities. Ghettoization and isolation defined their lives. In the months of October and November 1947, twenty-two families of the Noakhali riot affected victims took shelter in an open field belonging to the local family of the Palchowdhurys. In the month of November, with the permission of the district office, these twenty-two families along with one other refugee family took shelter in the Chinese Mission Camp. The local Congress workers came forward to help them. Later, the Government of India took up the management of the Ranaghat Camp.3 The first step was to collect the families at the Ranaghat station. They were then sent out to the camp in special trains. For this a track built during the war was used. After registration at the camp, they were given dry doles consisting of flattened and puffed rice for adults and milk for children. Then, they were shown their places of accommodation and they were given their ration cards and cash doles. Every adult got 2 seers 10 chataks of rice, 7 chataks of lentils and Rs. 2 in cash per week, and every minor got 1 seer 5 chataks of rice, 3½ chataks of lentils and Re. 1 to 6 annas in cash. Every child under 5 years of age got 4 chataks of milk daily.4 Arrangements were being made for the mats, blankets, sarees and dhutis (pieces of clothing for men and women). A coal shop was opened to supply fuel to the refugees. However, this had to be purchased by the refugees. Even then, supply was limited and most of the refugees made their own arrangements. They collected dry leaves, branches of trees and shrubs from nearby areas and cooked their food on improvised fireplaces outside the huts. There was also an effort on the part of some refugees to earn something to substantiate their doles. They opened shops and sold necessities like rice, pulses, spices and vegetables. Some of them opened tea stalls. The sanitary conditions of the area were extremely poor. The camp had drains running twenty miles, half filled with dirty water and decomposing weeds. The supply of water was not sufficient. Forty-eight tube wells were sunk, and the refugees got some filtered water to drink from the taps of a nearby railway colony. More tube wells, about sixty of them, were to be sunk. The newspaper report mentions that coupled with all these problems was the problem of the ignorance of the refugees about hygiene. However, the record of diseases was comparatively low. The most common diseases were cholera, smallpox, chickenpox, malaria, dysentery and diarrhoea. Forty deaths had been recorded mostly from cholera and smallpox. Besides a number of mobile medical units which inoculated and vaccinated the population, the government had opened a fifty-bed general hospital and a hospital for infectious diseases capable of expansion according to need. The Campbell Hospital Relief Association was also conducting a medical base at the camp. The rate

102  Through Barbed Wires of child mortality was high. According to a newspaper report,5 in the month of July 1950, of the 516 deaths recorded, nearly 70 per cent were of children of the age group one to five. There were regular reports of children being taken away by jackals. The lighting arrangement of the camp consisted of a number of high-power kerosene pressure lamps for general use. Lanterns were intended to be supplied, but the supply was not sufficient at all. The life of the refugees was a life of wilderness and state control punched into one. However, even though the greatest hazard that they faced each day was one of simply preserving their lives, their everyday struggles signified more than that. Even inside the camp spaces, they were rebuilding their homes. By the end of 1949, as the rate of migration died down, it was discussed in official circles that there was no need to keep the camp running, because it was, after all, in the nature of a transit camp. There was talk of shutting it down. But the influx of 1950 changed the situation and Rupasree Palli was revived again. It was divided into male and female sections. Family units which had boys above the age of twelve years remained in the male section, and the rest were brought under the female section. Displacement gave boys above twelve years some kind of adulthood, which made them in some way responsible for their family’s upkeep. They were men, and therefore, they could be seen as bread earners. Efforts were made to include all inmates, especially the young ones, in different kinds of activities. There were about twenty-two different kinds of handicrafts that were organized. The young inmates marched and played bugles in the mornings for some time. The experience of a campus life remained with the refugees. The conditions of life and living deteriorated as the camp population increased. Initially camp inmates received cash doles at the rate of Rs. 15 per adult per week and Rs. 10 per child per week and 2 seers of foodgrains per adult per week and 1 seer of foodgrains per child per week and clothes three times a year.6 Besides, the new inmates received one plate, one mug and one mat to sleep on. As the camp population increased, these rates came down. In the 1950s, as the need to keep the Rupasree Palli going was felt, the need to expand its limits was also felt. The area spread roughly across twenty-two bighas of land. Expansion was not easy, and the local population was not happy with it. However, tracts of land were bought from the local landholders and jotedars, like Panchanan Ghosh, Gyan Ghosh, Kali Ghosh and Anil Ghosh. The Palli limits spread across seventy acres now. The land had to be made habitable. For administrative purposes, the colony had already been divided into three blocks – the Meghna, Jamuna and the Padma blocks. New blocks were opened now like the Ganga, Kaveri and the Narmada. The naming of the blocks was significant in a way, perhaps. East Bengal was a land of rivers, and the blocks derived their names from the names of rivers that fed it. The second instalment brought along names of Indian rivers. The journey was certainly as geographical and cultural as political. The mortality rate at Rupasree Palli was high like the rest of the camps. Diseases like the Asiatic cholera claimed many lives. The daily rate of deaths

The Inmates  103 was as high as twenty to twenty-five. The dispersal of dead bodies became a matter of concern. It was in 1950 that the Government of India took up the administration of Rupasree Palli. To control the spread of the infective diseases, it became necessary to replace the tents with hutments. A new step towards civilized living was achieved through many deaths. From 1951, huts with tin roofs were built. However, a number of families were to live in each of these huts without provisions for any kind of partition. It was in this phase that the refugees were screened afresh. Those who were seen to be fit for rehabilitation were sent to the Cooper’s Camp. The district hospital and the local missionary hospital did not accommodate the refugees. Therefore, the Cooper’s Camp transformed the military hospital into a hospital for the refugees. Towards the east of Cooper’s Camp was a banyan tree around which arrangements were made for the disposal of dead bodies since the death rate was too high for the regular arrangements. In the different phases of rehabilitation, the work consisted of organizing, time and again; of categorizing and weeding out. As if every count could eliminate a few. The refugees worked against this flow. They fought to belong. Those who remained in Rupasree Palli, were, therefore, those not fit for rehabilitation. Ultimately, it was transformed into a Permanent Liability camp. Life in camps was very closely regulated. Every morning, the camp-incharge went around checking the presence of the inmates. Absence would mean being deprived of all kinds of government assistance. If an inmate wished to go outside for two to three days, they had to apply for leave. The inmates were not allowed to meet relatives within the camp boundaries. They had to go outside to meet them. Life in the camps was life in isolation, lived separately, not in sync with the regular flow. Therefore, the primary and only thing to do was to maintain sustenance. The inmates did try to recreate for themselves some kind of regular living conditions, the basic thread of which were woven round notions of domesticity. Therefore, even though there were no partitions that separated one household unit from another until separate male and female quarters were created, the inmates used temporary partitions, sometimes made of cloth to provide some kind of private space, especially for the young men and women. The andarmahal (or inner quarters) was unthinkable, but the desire for privacy remained. One problem that the refugees faced every day was the scarcity of fuel. The women of the households played an important role in collecting remains of coal from ash heaps in between the rail lines in the afternoons. They travelled great distances to collect cow dung since it was not always affordable to buy dung cakes. Along with physical hardships, these women who went out had to face regular insults from the railway staff and the guards. Going out was not a choice, and it did not liberate the camp women. One way to re-create the picture of normalcy was to establish schools to give the young ones some education. To know that one could afford to educate the young meant that life was going on as usual. In 1952, some officials along with some refugees of the Rupasree Palli established a school

104  Through Barbed Wires in the Meghna block. The school was for students studying up to class four. It did not receive government help. Only a few mats were provided for the students to sit on, the supply of which stopped after a while. The students themselves brought pieces of cloth and canvas to sit on. They received one or two books and one piece of slate to write on, every year. Madhusudan Chakrabarti, himself a refugee, became the principal. Later, the school was shifted to Shyamnagar. Provisions for primary education, sketchy though they were, could be organized. Provision for secondary education was almost absent. As refugee units and refugee identity were being crystallized, what refugees were supposed to look like and what they were supposed to do were also being determined. A camp refugee was to be absolutely bankrupt. When the president and the prime minister of India visited the Cooper’s Camp, the prime minister was not particularly happy about the gold, though very meagre, that Labanya Prabha Devi, an inmate, was wearing.7 Government charity was to be very selectively bestowed. The selection brought about categories and sub-categories. Charity was to be organized in degrees. Taking part in community celebrations was, however, permissible for refugees. It was refugee-like to celebrate the arrival of the autumn goddess. In 1951, the officials and the refugees of Rupasree Palli organized the Durga Puja celebrations. From then on, the government sponsored priests to come to the camp. As the Rupasree Palli became a Permanent Liability camp, the feeling of being in transit ended (or did it?). The camp refugees brought utensils for daily needs. The need was to stay put and to settle down. However, the children were growing up, after all and they would become ‘able-bodied’ in government terminology, soon. Therefore, the days of charity were numbered. The impermanence remained. Besides, there was always the fear of a change in government policy. ‘Refugeeness’ was all about a journey. It was in opposition to the idea of domesticity, of home. The refugee fought against this. Re-creating the home or something near to it became the prime need. However, at the same time, they demanded the state’s charity on grounds of being a refugee, of being homeless.

Dhubulia Camp The Dhubulia Camp was set up in the district of Nadia about fifty kilometres north of Ranaghat. It consisted of a colony of hutments and was in the nature of a transit camp. It accommodated nearly fifty-three thousand refugees.8 Another estimate takes the number to seventy thousand.9 This might be the estimate of a later date. These refugees came from the districts of Barisal, Faridpur, Noakhali, Mymensingh, Bogra, Kushtia, Tipperah, Jessore, Khulna, Pabna, Rajshahi and Chittagong. Among them, there were about twenty-one thousand women and ten thousand children. According to a newspaper report,10 the camp authorities conducted a survey in the last week of July 1950. The inhabitants were classified as family units according to their professions. This survey placed 3,338 families as cultivators, by far

The Inmates  105 the largest single group; petty tradesmen represented 1,665 families, there were 850 Barujibi (cultivators and betel traders) families, 826 fishermen families and 536 service-holder families. There were 85 families of priests, 100 of primary school teachers, 13 of English middle school teachers and 19 of deed writers. There were 159 families of landless labourers. In the medical profession, there were 7 qualified allopathic doctors, 15 homeopaths, 31 Kavirajs, and 108 quacks. Money lending was the profession of 64 families, and rent receiving of 10 families. There were families of goldsmiths numbering 294; blacksmiths, 136; and bell metalworkers, 10. There were 155 carpenter families, 160 potter families, 235 weaver families, 56 families of milk suppliers, 44 families of tailors, 7 families of cobblers, 11 families of motor drivers, 10 families of mechanics, 25 families of biri- makers, 6 families of washermen, 77 families of barbers, 20 families of confectioners and 16 families of conch-shell dwellers. The camp inmates were, therefore, far from being classifiable into one homogeneous category, even though the largest single group was formed by cultivators. However, the dwelling arrangements were almost the same for all. The hutments were almost of the same size, even though there were three patterns. Each hut was about forty feet in length and ten feet in width, with a four-feet veranda along the length. Each hut was shared by four families, or, on average, twenty members. The huts were of bamboo frames with tarpaulin roofs. The refugees, on arrival at the reception centre, were given inoculation for cholera and vaccination for smallpox before moving to the group camps. There was a hospital with fifty beds for non-infectious diseases and ten beds for infectious diseases. Besides these arrangements, twenty-three tents had been put up for temporary accommodation of smallpox cases. Medical arrangements were obviously grossly inadequate. The number of deaths was high. An estimate of eight wards out of the total twenty-five produced shocking results, as Tushar Singha of the CPI had indicated, shown in Table 4.1. Table 4.1  The Number of Deaths in Eight Wards of Dhubulia Camp, 6 June 1950–7 July 1950 Ward Number

Number of Families

Diseased

Death

3 5 6 9 14 15 16 17 Total

200 267 149 198 111 555 302 900 2682

532 159 316 293 93 312 299 669 2703

139 22 54 82 43 92 119 134 685

Source: Tushar Singha, Maranjoyee Sangrame Bastuhara, Kolkata: Dasgupta’s, 1999, p.28.

106  Through Barbed Wires Cash and dry doles were distributed through group camps every fortnight at the rate of Rs. 2 for each adult and Re. 1 to Rs. 6 for each minor per week and 2 seers, 7 chattaks rice and 7 chattaks pulses for each adult and 1 seer 3 chattaks and 3½ chattaks pulses for each minor per week. Milk was supplied at ¼ seer each day to children younger than five years and barley to patients. Able-bodied male members were not supplied with doles after two weeks’ stay in the camps. There were work schemes operating from the last week of May 1950, under which 1963 adults had been employed. Such work included manual labour, like digging, filling in ditches, clearing jungles and planting saplings which would grow fast. The refugees employed in the work schemes underwent training in elementary foot drills and physical exercise. One must, however, remember that all of it was done for Re. 1 per day. Besides the workers, there were thirty-two volunteers (until the date of the survey) engaged in the group camps for education, sanitation, disposal of dead bodies and security. The volunteers were given an honourarium of Rs. 4 to Rs. 5 per head per week. Since the Dhubulia Camp was in the nature of a transit camp, the inmates were sent to different places for rehabilitation – the Andamans, Peardoba in Midnapore, Karimpur and Tehatta in Nadia, Cooch Behar, Murshidabad and the 24 Parganas. There were twenty-four primary schools located in the different group camps. Until the second week of August 1950, 3,577 children were admitted to these schools. Primary school teachers from East Bengal started teaching in these schools. A busy market had sprung up in a central position which became important in the social lives of the inmates along with the autumnal festivities and other celebrations in the different group camps. In some of the group camps, there were arrangements for games and sports.

Chandmari Camp Refugees accepted camp life even though they were aware of its impermanence. The women of the household tried to give their dwellings the feel of some kind of a home. The floors were cleaned, the grass scrapped. They chatted ‘loudly and glibly with their fellow sisters in other tents in their usual countryside neighbourliness’.11 The roles assigned to camp women living as a community of women going through similar hardships were already fixed. The Chandmari camp, located near Kanchrapara consisted of refugees both rehabilitated and not rehabilitated. The refugees had the example of older batches before them, those who had migrated in 1948 and had opened tea shops, wayside grocery stores, tailoring shops and so on. Therefore, the enterprising refugees were expectant. Rehabilitation was more real to them. However, what they faced immediately were the problems that refugees elsewhere faced. There was an acute shortage of water supply, there being sixty tube wells for twenty-four thousand people. Sanitary conditions were poor and medical care was inadequate. Cholera and smallpox had taken their toll. There was only a one-hundred-bed hospital which remained occupied most of the time.

The Inmates  107 Minarani Chakravarty was a widow in her early twenties, who lived in this camp. She had come from the village Muladi in Barisal. Her thirty-sixyear-old brother and his wife had been killed and her seventy-year-old father had been missing.12 Minarani became a midwife at the hospital within two weeks of her arrival in the camp. She took care of her mother and her fiveyear-old son, Nirmal. She unexpectedly met her father in the same camp. Twenty-three-year-old Usharani Saha came from Gangapur, Noakhali. She felt that Government doles were inadequate for the ‘East Bengal people, who eat more’.13 The notion of the rustic Easterner, the bangal, was being shaped every day through interactions with the State. Usharani Saha had to make arrangements to feed four members. She bought paddy and used a manual rice husking device (dheki) to prepare rice. Sometimes, she managed to sell a surplus. Women remained responsible for preparing the meal for the family no matter where she was – the station, the camp or the colony. The case of twenty-year-old Raghubir Rajbhar was an unusual one. The camp authorities did not give him the recognition of a refugee since his great grandfather had come from Bihar. In clear Dacca dialect Raghubir reasoned he failed to understand, when his grandfather and father had their permanent home at Faridabad near Dacca city, how his connections with a village in Balia district three generations back could be more weighty [weightier] with the authorities. All the same, Raghubir said with a bold accent, he did not care. He was already earning Rs. 2-8 per day.14 He employed himself as a rikshaw-puller. From the 8 May 1950, the Government of West Bengal stopped giving dry and cash doles to able-bodied male refugees within the age group of eighteen to fifty years living in this camp. This deprived about four thousand of the twenty-four thousand refugees of the camp of state help. They were offered Rs. 1/8th per head per day for some specified manual work like clearing jungles, digging and cutting ground, among others. Not all able-bodied male refugees were happy with such job offers. The refugees organized meetings and protested the government step. However, they also adopted resolutions calling any gratuitous relief an insult to them and demanded that the government should provide able-bodied persons with suitable employment and till the time that such employment was provided doles should be continued. The question was, therefore about ‘suitable employment’ which was the basis of proper rehabilitation. The government’s decision to stop giving free doles was, however, changed by the end of the month, and the government decided to continue providing doles for another month.

Other Camps and Colonies within West Bengal Dr. Shyama Prosad Mookherjee visited camps around Berhampore in May 1950. The majority of these refugees came from Rajshahi, Pabna and Kushtia. They were peasants, weavers or fishermen. There had been

108  Through Barbed Wires allegations against refugees that some of them had cheated the government by migrating from camp to camp after receiving government help. There were also allegations that false stories were circulating about death and suicides in the camps. At Krishnamati camp, a written account was submitted by Santi Priya Bhattacharya, Secretary of the association there, which mentioned that as many as twenty-three men, women and children had died of starvation. On 20 May 1950, a woman was reported to have committed suicide. Dr. Mookherjee, and others checked up the facts. Cross-examination with the actual householder revealed that the incident was somewhat exaggerated. The woman was not starving, even though in want. She could not stand ‘the bantering and indecent hints from her distressed and helpless husband, and lost the balance and committed suicide’. The government could therefore become free from the responsibility of this death since it was not caused by starvation. The line between ‘want’ and ‘starvation’ was thin, but it made all the difference.15 A development committee had been constituted for doing a survey of all government-sponsored urban land and non-agricultural rural refugee colonies. Development work had started in thirty such colonies and four townships – Taherpur, Gayeshpur, Habra and Khosbasmohalla. If camps outside West Bengal failed to attract refugees, camps and colonies within West Bengal were not happy places either. The refugees had their own ways of dealing with the situations. They protested and bargained. Quite early in the day, in the early 1950s, the modes and patterns of protest were crystallizing. Hunger strikes and demonstrations before the chief minister’s residence became commonplace. The deserters were also protesting to win back the state’s charity. In November 1951, about two hundred refugees from the Taherpur colony at Nadia went on hunger strike. They demanded speedy housing loans and loans for small trade. The venues of protest were more or less common. The strikers went to Wellington Square and placed themselves in front of the residence of the chief minister. Another group of two hundred refugees came to join the demonstrators. However, many of them were arrested on a charge of travelling without a ticket. The hunger strike continued for three days from 21 to 24 November.16 There were similar demands made by a group of betel leaf growers who had been sent to Bihar but who came back. The government issued a press note on 26 November 1951 which said that a group of eighty-nine betel leaf growers were accommodated in a Bihar camp. They deserted their camp and squatted on the platform of the Howrah Station. They were asked by the government to go to the Peardoba and Gopalpur accommodation centres. However, they wanted to be accommodated in the Daspara camp at Ultadanga. Therefore, according to the Government of India’s orders, their doles were stopped. The press note mentions that ‘they negotiated for restoration of the doles through their Secretary’. Subsequently, they agreed to move to Peardoba provided they got their arrear doles and that they were settled in the districts of Nadia or 24 Parganas. By this time, therefore, the refugees were already negotiating with the government, and they had their

The Inmates  109 representatives to speak for them. These refugees also wanted rationed foodgrains to be given which had been stopped for three weeks. The government offered the value in cash, but the refugees demanded foodgrains. They then staged a hunger strike in the compound of the Rehabilitation Directorate Office. They wanted immediate rehabilitation. Ultimately, the hunger strike was called off on the understanding that they would move straight away to government-acquired lands at Mahalandi in the Murshidabad district. There was a complaint against the government that loans for urban schemes had been withheld due to an unresolved dispute between the state and the central governments regarding the mode of disbursement of the money. In the press note, the state government denied this and stated that for some time in October, the government had to discontinue the payment of urban loans due to the shortage of funds. There was another complaint against the government that several hundred families in the Bankura district who had erected huts had been given quit notice. This charge was also denied by the government. However, the issue of child mortality could not be denied. Child mortality in the Cossipore camp was mentioned along with the case of the Ranaghat Cooper’s Camp.

Refugee Organization: The Case of the Lake Barracks In September 1953, the Lake Barracks were being demolished by the government. A Special Branch report on the incident might be mentioned. Between 1.30 and 5.45 pm on 9.9.53, the CPWD employees with the help of the local police demolished block nos. 111 and 112 of the former Lake Hospital where nearly 200 refugees were living. At the outset, a young refugee boy tried in vain to instigate the inmates not to leave the place and to be prepared to face police bullets. Then again, about 4.30 pm a number of refugees tried to obstruct the demolition work. On the intervention of the local police, however, they left the place peacefully …17 Meetings condemning this move by the government were called frequently. The message was to form a ‘fighting committee’ which would appeal to all the Leftist organizations and refugee fronts. The general state of agitation was regarding the fact that no proper measures for rehabilitation were taken before the demolition. The fear, of course, was the general fear of the times that the refugees would be forced to move to the Andamans. Some of the refugees of the Lake Barracks had already taken up jobs. The idea was to combine self-help measures with government charity. The Andamans would take away this freedom. Besides the fear of the unknown and the fear of the loss of freedom, the fear of a barricaded existence with no hope of escape threatened these refugees. The person who played a crucial role in organizing the Lake Camp refugees was one who came to be known to all as ‘Mashima’ (Aunt), Anupama Ghosh, residing at the Lake Camp no. 2. Along with her, her brother Baidya Nath Kar and her two sons, Pradyut Ghosh and Bidyut

110  Through Barbed Wires Ghosh were running the refugee factions of the CPI.18 It was people like her – the men on the spot, the foot soldiers, as it were, an elderly woman who was everybody’s ‘Mashima’, who had access to each refugee household, whose politics was more in the nature of social work – who familiarized and brought the refugees closer to the Left. They acted as bridges, and the Left did need these bridges, between the refugees and the party. We had been introduced to another such figure, Monorama Mashima (Basu) from Barisal, who had played a significant role in taking the women’s movement forward, in Manikuntala Sen’s autobiography.19 She had been involved in Congress politics for long but later became a communist sympathizer. She was eighty-six when Sen wrote her autobiography and was still working for the uplift of women in general and the Muslim girls of East Pakistan in particular. She stayed back in East Pakistan even though her family had migrated to India. During the riots of 1971, she was given shelter by Muslim boys and girls and was later helped to cross the borders. The refugee leaders did try to negotiate with the authorities. The leaders claimed that they had received government assurance that the refugees shall not be evicted without notice. The government, however, was a complex machinery, and government assurance was not an easy matter. The ICS (Indian Civil Service) officer assured them that the refugees shall not be evicted (this was done after the police campaign of 1 September). The policemen on the spot asked the refugees to provide evidence of the officer’s assurance. The officer was telephoned but he was in the chief minister’s office, and therefore could not be spoken to. In fact, the whole issue was not his business. It was the chief minister’s business, and the latter could not be contacted before 3 p.m. Meanwhile, the barracks were being demolished. Later, however, the refugees of the Lake Camps were shifted to Sodepur for rehabilitation, and most of the refugees ultimately favoured this move.20 The Government of West Bengal published a press note regarding an alternative plan of accommodation for these refugees: In the Lake Barracks area, there are numerous military hutments occupied by trespassers for the last few years. Due to the lapse of time these structures have deteriorated considerably, and many of them are threatened with collapse. The Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department are aware of the imminent necessity of the removal of the occupants and have provided for alternative accommodation which was offered to the occupants as early as March, 1954. Applications were invited from all occupants, who are bonafide displaced persons from East Bengal and it was found after verification that 557 [families?] amongst them could prove their bonafides. They were offered alternative homestead plots at Sodepur after purchase of 600 plots from the H.B. Industrial Company there and also house-building loans according to prescribed rules.21 Initially, only twenty-eight families were willing to go. In the meantime, on 7 June 1954, some of the hutments collapsed, causing fatal injury to one of

The Inmates  111 the occupants. The Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department then made the offer of two bundles of CI (corrugated iron) sheets and Rs. 20 for ‘incidental expenditure for construction of temporary sheds for each family until their houses are ready’.22 The refugees did try to stay put with these grants. Leftist political organization provided the refugees with an umbrella that united refugees of all classes and across camps and colonies. It was probably this involvement in Left politics that made them talk about the fate of those refugees who had not been able to prove their refugee status. They refused to accept the statement that they were unwilling to go to Sodepur. They wanted recognition of all the refugees living in the camp and demanded that the sum allotted for incidental expenditure should be raised. The Leftist organizations were harping on the ‘attempt on the part of the Government to create a division between the real and the faked refugees’.23 It was this division that brought in the game of numbers. The government figure of the number of refugees was much lower than that provided by the Camp Committee. For the government, there were about 557 refugees, while the Camp Committee declared the existence of 1275 refugee families.24 The question about the identity of these non-refugees remained dangling. They were not citizens. They were not even refugees. They were a displaced category which did not fit into any of the pockets of security that the state provided. The Lake Camp remained a site for struggle even as late as 1955. At a meeting of the South Calcutta United Refugee Council on 4 July 1955, the leaders condemned the government for ‘surreptitiously disconnecting the electric line and stopping water supply to the refugees’.25 However, the Lake Camp refugees did manage without electricity. The scarcity of water baffled them more. The lorries of the Calcutta Corporation carrying water supplied their needs for the moment. The problem was eventually discussed with Renuka Ray, the minister of rehabilitation. She stated that the central government had stopped paying the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation Rs. 1200 per month. Therefore, the supply of electricity had been stopped. Even though assurances of discussions were given, what remained was the essential temporariness associated with refugee life.

Ballygunge Circular Road Camp The refugees were not a homogeneous, politically charged struggling group of people. They were as layered as the multiple tiers of the government. The need for organization was strong and as years went by and fresh batches of refugees settled, the shift towards the Left was visible. The Ballygunge Circular Road Camp had two committees. One was organized by the refugees themselves and consisted mostly of the older batch of refugees. There was another committee organized by the United Central Refugee Council (UCRC) which consisted mainly of a newer batch of refugees. Besides these two groups, there were some refugees who were not part of any of the committees and were supporters of the Congress. The older batch of refugees

112  Through Barbed Wires had about 200 families, consisting of about 1000 persons, and the newer batch had about 35 to 40 families consisting of about 150 to 200 persons. Incidentally, the older batch of refugees had arrived before March 1952 and had been recognized as bonafide refugees by the Refugee Rehabilitation Department of the Government of West Bengal.26 The newer batch was therefore, more in need of the Leftist organization, although the older batch also fought to secure their freedom of movement and the withdrawal of the military pickets placed around the camp. It might strike one that the refugees roped themselves into the Left movement just as the Leftist movement co-opted the refugee base of support. It was not a simple narrative of Left infiltration. The refugees, no matter how destitute, that is no matter what degree of destituteness they were in, did have an element of choice. The statement of a refugee inhabitant of the Ballygunge Circular Road Camp who had migrated in 1950,27 mentioned that among the new batch were also some upcountry labourers who claimed to be refugees from East Bengal and fought to be recognized as bonafide refugees. The UCRC was using this group to launch a large-scale agitation. The fight, therefore, was between the government’s move to stratify, classify and organize the disposal of charity accordingly in varying degrees and the Leftist move to unify the refugee demands. In the same camp, in fact, the government had not recognized twenty Nepalese refugee families as bonafide refugees from Pakistan. Raghubir Rajbhar had been similarly left out at Chandmari. The bestowal of charity would be organized along racial lines. It was not easy to unite the refugees even on issues that affected them directly. On 15 April 1954, a hunger strike was called by the refugees of the Daspara Camp.28 Out of 841 refugees, only three families consisting of nine members took their midday meals. They demanded the immediate removal of the officer in charge of the camp and other food-distributing staff, considered to be unsympathetic to the refugees. On the evening of the same day, about five families took their meals. On the next day, they squatted near the gate demanding free movement out of the camp. By the evening, two distinct groups had formed – one group willing to take the meals and the other opposing it. It was not easy to refuse food. The refugee movement might be studied against the backdrop of such difficulties. The success of the penetration of the Left would mean dealing with such difficulties so that the unification of all refugees could be achieved. The refugees, in their bid to reconstruct their lives, tried to make arrangements to provide education of some sort. Sudhir Kumar Chakravorty, a forty-two-year-old man, came to Salboni camp from Raghunathpur in the Bagerhat subdivision of Khulna. He was a man of some importance in his neighbourhood, which had made him the target of attack. He crossed the borders along with his co-villagers in April 1950 and in the Salboni camp, he tried to set up a primary school with the help of other educated camp inmates.29 Such examples were common. The camp refugees were closer to the government than other groups of refugees. Their interaction with the government was more direct. The immediate government figure to interact with was the commandant of the camp

The Inmates  113 and thus, he had a special place in the everyday running of the system. Quite understandably, conflict with the commandant was not rare. One incident at the Dhubulia camp became serious. The incident took place on 19 September 1950.30 There were multiple accounts of the incident, but the result was the death of Anukul Brahma, a camp dweller, a refugee from Barisal who resided in hut number 75, group camp number 18. According to the official version of the incident, there was an unauthorized meeting of the refugees that the commandant tried to disperse. The refugees, however, refused to budge. They attacked the authorities, and in the scuffle, Anukul Brahma was stabbed and died. Another version of the same incident mentioned that the commandant, Captain Mukherjee, went to the meeting and physically dragged three or four of the refugees to his office and beat them up. The refugees protested and demanded that they should be released. The commandant refused to release them. The refugees, on their part, refused to move. The commandant asked the police to fire, but they could not fire unless ordered by the appropriate police authorities. The commandant then snatched a kukri (sharp knife) and stabbed Anukul Brahma, who fell and tried to run away. The commandant snatched a revolver and fired. It hit Anukul on an arm and his brother Amulya Brahma on the shoulder. However, they did not die of the gunshot wounds immediately. The commandant called the doctor, who refused to come. He wanted the patient to be brought over. The man died within three hours of his being wounded. This was the report that the refugees submitted.

Dandakaranya and Mana In 1958, all the camps were closed down and in West Bengal, doles and subsidies were stopped in the camps and it was decided that all the camp dwellers – about forty-five thousand families – would be dispersed and rehabilitated. The Government of India decided that about ten thousand such families will be absorbed in West Bengal and the remaining thirty-five thousand families were to be sent to rehabilitation sites outside West Bengal.31 Since there was no large tract of land available anywhere in India which could accommodate such a large number of people, it was decided that the Dandakaranya forest area would be developed and the bulk of the refugees, who were mostly agriculturists, would be resettled there. The area of Dandakaranya was approximately 77,670 square kilometres. Out of this area, the Dandakaranya Development Authority, which was set up for the purposes of rehabilitation, was allotted, by the respective states (Orissa and Madhya Pradesh), only an area amounting to 155,236 acres of land which could accommodate only about 7000 families, that is around 32,000 people. Dandakaranya was not a stretch of empty, virgin land. It was sparsely populated. The population consisted of tribal people and local settlers who also had their agricultural lands between large tracts of forests and hills. Refugee rehabilitation involved the displacement of the local population. By the end of October 1963, Dandakaranya had already housed 6874 families in the zones specified in Table 4.2.

114  Through Barbed Wires Table 4.2  Zones of the Dankaranya Project Paralkote zone (Madhya Pradesh) Pharasgaon zone (Madhya Pradesh) Umerkote zone (Orissa) Malkangiri zone (Orissa) Work Centre Camps Working under various schemes

2253 families 250 families 2854 families 1023 families 349 families 145 families

Source: Welfare Services for Refugees from East Pakistan, an undated document from the Ashoka Gupta Files, File number 9, School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University.

Therefore, the point of saturation had almost been reached. However, for the fresh influx of 1964, the Union Ministry decided to depend once again on Dandakaranya. The plan was to send the refugees over to the Mana camp with the hope that Dandakaranya would ultimately accommodate all of them. It was difficult for this hope to materialize. The Mana camp was working as a transit centre. It was situated nine miles off Raipur, in the district of Raipur, Madhya Pradesh. It was about 100 to 150 miles away from the Dandakaranya region. Mana was not really part of Dandakaranya. It was the railhead from where refugees had to enter Dandakaranya if they came via Madhya Pradesh. The other entry point was Vizianagaram in Andhra Pradesh, ninety-two miles away from Koraput. Mana was once an Army camp, abandoned during the Second World War. It was a large treeless stretch of land of moorum (also spelt murrum) soil unfit for cultivation. It was extremely hot in summer, water was scarce and the possibility of subterranean water resources was yet to be explored. There were only two big halls at Mana belonging to the army, and these resources were meant to house over one lakh and ten thousand people, who kept pouring in. The Ministry of Rehabilitation, Government of India published a booklet which reiterated the scarcity of land suitable for rehabilitation within West Bengal and and projected Dandakaranya as a suitable site for rehabilitation. The reasons advanced for selecting this area were the following: (1) The area is rich in minerals and forest wealth. It is undeveloped. As such, it lends itself to planned development. (2) It is under-populated. Once developed, it can absorb more population, whether it comes from West Bengal camps or other parts of India. In fact, its development is not possible without a substantial addition to its population. And what is significant, this increase will, in no way, harm the interests of the local population but should, on the contrary, promote them. (3) No other area in India can offer the same scope for large scale reclamation and colonisation. (4) The integrated development of the area will guarantee to both local and migrant population a bright future. The development phase will also provide vast opportunities for the gainful

The Inmates  115 employment of displaced persons, who are at present idling away their time in camps and at the same time being demoralised.32 The purpose was therefore to rehabilitate refugees and reclaim the soil at one go. In this pamphlet, the tribal population was described as ‘simple, charming and friendly’. It is in such terms that the attractive prospects of an unknown destination were presented. The language of the booklet was akin to that of a travel brochure. The adivasis were to be featured in their ‘friendly’ avatar. The pamphlet had pictures of tribal dance and the annexure provided statistics on the temperature and humidity of the region along with similar charts for Calcutta. The purpose was to show the similarity between the two. A list of crop production was given which showed that rice was produced more than any other crop in the districts of Bastar and Kalahandi. A picture of Koraput was also given whose caption mentioned that rice was the principal crop of the region. Refugees from the eastern part of Bengal were surely to find the reference to rice reassuring. The concentration of a large number of families within a small area brought up a number of problems, ‘of sanitation, water supply, hospitals, schools, markets and shops’.33 Under the existing system, the families were received at the Raipur Railway Station, brought to Mana Transit Centre in Project buses and trucks, and to other transit centres which had been opened in the vicinity. First, the names and family details were registered, and a preliminary medical check-up was done. Then, the refugees were accommodated either in tents or under shamianas (an awning). They were given one cooked meal in the community kitchen on the day of arrival, and they were given dry rations or maintenance grants. With this, they had to make their own cooking arrangement. The purpose was to keep them busy immediately on their arrival and make them ‘forget the excruciating pang of the loss of their original homesteads and their recent tribulations’.34 There was only one hospital with sixteen beds at Mana. It goes without saying that diet for the sick was not appropriate. There were many women in advanced stages of pregnancy and there was one childbirth almost every day. There was an acute shortage of children’s clothing and sheets for babies. In this context, non-official agencies extended the much-needed support. Their intervention was timely, and they tried to keep the women and children busy in craft courses and schools. A number of social welfare organizations were involved in these relief operations:35 1. Bharat Sevashram Sangha 2. Madhya Pradesh Christian Council 3. Indian Red Cross 4. The Ramakrishna Mission 5. Missionaries of Charity 6. The Central Social Welfare Board 7. State Social Welfare Boards

116  Through Barbed Wires 8. The Marwari Relief Society 9. Raipur District Bharat Scouts and Guides and National Discipline Scheme 10. Madhya Pradesh Home Guards 11. Bisthapit Sahayata Samity, Raipur 12. Municipal Committee, Raipur 13. Bhilai Mahila Samaj 14. Bhilai Tridhara 15. Kalibari Association, Raipur These organizations served the refugees in a number of ways. Primary schools accommodating about 1200 children were started. The state of secondary schools was worse. Those that were set up could boast of about seventy-eight pupils. The Missionaries of Charity offered the services of their trained nuns as teachers. Three Balwadis (crèches cum playschools), with around 150 children were run by a Mukhya Sevika (chief nurse) of the West Bengal State Welfare Board. A hospital for convalescent children with sixty-five beds was run by the Indian Red Cross Society. They also deputed their doctor and senior nurse to train girls from displaced families in nursing. The Missionaries of Charity later provided a doctor, Miss Gertrude. The Mukhya Sevika of the West Bengal Welfare Board did night duties throughout this period and made arrangements for providing nutritious food for the under-nourished patients. The children who were being treated were mostly suffering from the after-effects of measles in the form of bronchopneumonia and they also suffered from the usual health hazards due to poor sanitary arrangements and overcrowding. Dysentery and diarrhoea were common. There were also cases of acute malnutrition and rickets. The social workers, nuns and the nurses visited the tents daily and picked up children who needed special care and diet. Refugee girls had an important role to play in this welfare network. They needed to be looked after as refugees. But they were also incorporated within the organization of relief. They were encouraged to work for the welfare of their fellow beings. They were women and they were refugees themselves. The gendered world of caregiving became their forte. As women, they were expected to play the roles of nurses with success, and as refugees, they were expected to do so with empathy. The traditional role of the caregiver coupled with first-hand knowledge of the needs of the refugees reserved this place for them. Dr. Soundaram Ramachandran, Union deputy minister for education, and Mrs. A. John Mathai, chairman of the Central Social Welfare Board, visited the Mana camp and talked to the displaced women. Dr. Ramachandran donated Rs. 150 to the refugee girls to continue their social work. Young women and girls of the Welfare Board drew buckets of water, washed clothes, cooked sick diet and kept the dormitory of the hospital clean. They were trained in home nursing under Miss Paull of the Indian Red Cross. They were also given certificates by the St. John’s Ambulance. Miss Paull also organized the maternity and child-welfare

The Inmates  117 centres with the help of the doctors and health visitors of the project. All equipment for these centres was supplied by the Bisthapit Sahayata Samity. The charitable societies contributed milk, bread, rice, pulses, soup, barley, health drink of the Horlicks company, flattened rice, hospital beds, bedsheets, children’s clothes and the like. A volunteer corps of thirty-two girls was organized which helped in the distribution of clothes and gifts, for taking patients to hospitals and in the mending, darning, sorting, washing and cleaning of gifts of clothes and bottles. Some of these girls were often trained as Girl Guides. Over fifty girls had joined craft classes. There were four sewing machines which were used for stitching uniforms for the children in the Balwadis, for the Girl Guides and the Volunteer Corps. Ragdolls and balls for the hospital children to play with were also made. The sewing machines were donated by the Bhilai Mahila Samaj, the Bisthapit Sahayata Samity, the Family Planning Association of Raipur and the Indian Red Cross Society. Refugee girls between the ages of twelve and sixteen took training as volunteers under the Girl Guide Units. They had joined needle work classes to stitch and mend old garments received as gifts. They helped in running the Balwadis along with the social workers. The Girl Guide Units distributed milk and helped with nursing the sick and securing medicines from the dispensaries. They were responsible for informing of any sickness in the women’s camps and for taking care of the sick at night in the dormitory. They worked under the guidance of a Sevika and a trainer. Camp life had its own peculiarity of mixing the official and non-official elements in the relief operations. The government and the non-governmental organizations found their working space on the same platform. Central to camp life were doles and hutments. However, camp life was more than that. It was the reconstruction of a life left behind. The impermanence of it could not take away the need for domesticity. Indeed, the need for domesticity overruled the problems of subsistence. Therefore, as one fought for state charity, one also participated in sports or cultural activities and established schools. Camp life was, of course, a great leveller but not entirely. Earlier identities were not forgotten, but a newer one, of being refugees, especially camp refugees, placed them on the same grounds. By the 1950s, refugee identity did not remain a homogeneous one. It became layered and more complex. It depended on the various degrees of right to state charity, which, in turn, depended on the degree of destitution one was in and the social capital that one had access to. Therefore, caste or class identities still defined the refugees. The state’s policies of rehabilitation while following the similar lines of the degrees of refugee needs also highlighted these social and economic markers. The state, as it bestowed its charity, also re-imposed and created the multiple layers of refugee identity. The State and the refugees were inextricably linked ideationally. On one hand, the refugee identities were shaped by the state. On the other hand, as long as the refugees remained refugees, the fixed notion of the state remained jeopardized.

118  Through Barbed Wires And in this pattern of identities, the state’s relationship with the camp refugees remained very close since they were directly and almost completely dependent on the state.

Notes 1 India Estimates Committee 1959-1960, 96th Report (Second Lok Sabha), Ministry of Rehabilitation (Eastern Zone), Lok Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi, April 1960. 2 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Sunday, 2 April 1950. 3 See Harinarayan Adhikary ed. Sangrami Rupasree Palli, Undated. 4 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Sunday, 2 April 1950. 1 Seer would correspond to 933.10 grams, 1 chatak is 1/16th of a seer, 1 anna is equal to 1/16th of a rupee. 5 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Sunday, 6 August 1950. 6 Harinarayan Adhikary eds. Sangrami Rupasree Palli, Undated. 7 Harinarayan Adhikary, eds., Sangrami Rupasree Palli, Undated, p. 23. 8 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Saturday, 26 August 1950. 9 Tushar Singha, Maranjoyee Sangrame Bastuhara, Kolkata: Dasgupta’s, 1999, p. 28. 10 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Saturday, 26 August 1950. 11 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Thursday, 4 May 1950. 12 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Thursday, 4 May 1950. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Sunday, 28 May 1950. 16 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Saturday, 24 November 1951 and Monday, 26 November 1951. 17 Special Branch (S.B.) Record dated 11.9.53. 18 S.B. Record dated 4.5.54. 19 Manikuntala Sen, Sediner Katha, Kolkata: Nabapatra Prakashan, 1982, pp. 81–4. 20 S.B. Record dated 28.9.54. 21 S.B. Record dated 17.7.54. 22 Ibid. 23 Secret meeting of the Regent Zonal Committee on 4.6.54, S.B. Files, 7.6.54. 24 Informal meeting of the Presidents and Secretaries of the Lake Refugee Camp on 18.7.54, S.B. Files, 21.7.54. 25 S.B. Files, 6.7.55. 26 S. B. Record dated 2.9.53. 27 Ibid. 28 S.B. Files, 19.4.54. 29 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Monday, 22 May 1950. 30 West Bengal Legislative Assembly Proceedings, 1950, Vol–II. 31 Welfare Services for Refugees from East Pakistan, an undated document from the Ashoka Gupta Files, File number 9, School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 32 The Dandakaranya Project and the Resettlement of Displaced Persons from East Pakistan, Government of India, Ministry of Rehabilitation, Undated. 33 Welfare Services for Refugees from East Pakistan, an undated document from the Ashoka Gupta Files, File number 9, School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 34 Welfare Services for Refugees from East Pakistan, an undated document from the Ashoka Gupta Files, File number 9, School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. 35 Ibid.

Part III

Creating Homes

5 Life in the Colonies

The colony was the ultimate site for rehabilitation. It was as close to the concept of home as it could be. If refugee life could be studied through different stages, (even though not all refugees passed through all the stages), then life in a colony could be seen as the final stage. If the journey was from being a migrant to a refugee to a citizen, then, the refugee in the colony was almost the citizen. With them, the fixity of the nation was born. Therefore, colony politics was not just about receiving the state’s aid; it was also about being as much a part of the state as were those who had been living on the right side of the border. Many of the refugees of the colonies had rebuilt their lives, rightfully or unlawfully. They wanted these lives to be recognized and sanctioned by the state. Their struggle was somewhat different. Yet, at the same time, they were ‘refugees’ as much as those in camps or elsewhere, and they fought for being citizens as much as those who lived in West Bengal. This was what made their position special. Their special needs ghettoized them and made the entry of party politics inevitable. Another factor that helped in this process was the freedom that they enjoyed compared to the camp refugees. The main thrust of the refugee movement in the colonies was towards unifying the demands of all groups of refugees. That the refugees were not a homogeneous category was clear enough. The challenge was to create threads of identification which would be stronger than the fulfilment of basic needs. Practically, this meant that if the government recognized the refugee status of one group of refugees, they would not accept it until all refugees were similarly recognized. Therefore, even if one’s own colony was recognized and given the certificate of recognition by the government, the ‘Arpanpatra’ (or the certificate of occupation), one would still fight for the ‘rights’ of one’s fellow refugees. The ties of fellowship had to be strengthened, and in the process, there was a crystallization of refugee identities. The inhabitants of the colonies were to be tied with the demands of the camp refugees or with those of the deserters or with the ones who remained on the station platforms. They would be reminded of the threads that bound all categories of refugees. The first move towards this unification was the coming together of colony committees. The meetings of the committees would include discussions about the state of affairs in other colonies. There was also the need to put up the committees as the sole negotiators between DOI: 10.4324/9781003321057-9

122  Creating Homes the refugees and the government. Individual negotiation had to be avoided. Another notable feature was the conjunction of other demands with specific refugee demands. Therefore, in the 1950s, the committee meetings identified the enemies as the government and the landlords. The question of landholding was considered. The bigger question that was raised, or rather implied, was that of land ceiling, which was to be an important feature of the communist movement in the later years. The refugees were demanding settlements with the landowners on whose lands they were squatting. This would set precedence and would go a long way towards achieving the goal of refugee rehabilitation within West Bengal or even within the city limits. On the government’s side, the main task gradually became the identification of communists from amongst the refugees and to break refugee unity through partial recognition. Some of the refugees were granted certain ‘rights’, a few of the colonies were given the ‘Arpan patra’. This was capable of isolating groups of refugees.

The Refugee and the Changing Cityscape The most serious threat that the government faced was that the presence of the refugees was too conspicuous. Wherever they settled with their bags, baggage and hordes of children, they changed the look of the place. It was as if they were changing the face of the earth. The garden houses of the rich became obvious targets for colony settlements. The notion of a life of leisure and luxury came to be challenged. It was as if the refugees had arrived with a social message. A vacant plot of land meant for occasional retreats acquired new meaning. In his memoir, Maloy Krishna Dhar describes in a passage the situation in Tripura which might be true for any other place: I went about renewing my contacts with the posh Gole Market and the palace of the Manikya Bahadur kings. The Gole Market was still round but its elegance was smeared by scores of thatch huts and huts on bamboo stilts. Bengali refugees had taken over the market area and they acted as intermediaries who purchased commodities brought in by the head-load by the tribals. They were everywhere – on the roadsides, besides the bank of the Gomti river, on the fringes of forests beyond Bishalgarh. They still kept pouring in by train and through the jungle.1 The basic problem was that the refugees were ‘everywhere’. And they made it impossible for any locality to remain ‘posh’, a word that the author uses to mean that these places had been sparsely populated, neat and ordered. It is this order of things that the refugee presence disturbed permanently. The situation was worse in Calcutta. The refugees, in their efforts to meet ends moved about the city in great numbers hawking their fares. They congested the streets and obstructed the flow of people and vehicles. The government had to take measures to allot specified hawkers’ corners to address the problem. A government press note said:

Life in the Colonies  123 Of late there has been a rapid increase in the number of hawkers on the roads and streets in the city of Calcutta, which seriously obstructs with the free flow of pedestrian traffic on the pavements and the movement of vehicles in the streets causing great inconvenience to the public in general.2 The chief minister met the corporation authorities on 12 May 1950 to deal with this. The fact that public life was much affected by the presence of refugees was not only true for the station platforms (the look of which had changed almost beyond recognition with a swarming population of refugees and improvised shelters), the garden resorts of the rich and the vacant military barracks, which now came to house colonies of men and women, but also the streets in general.

The Spokesmen The need for organization was felt from the very early stages of refugee settlements. The UCRC was born in 1950. However, even before this, the refugees were not without their spokesmen. The pro-Congress Nikhil Vanga Bastuhara Karma Parishad (NVBKP) was born in September 1948. It was born out of the All Bengal Refugee Conference at Naihati organized by refugee Congressmen. Amritalal Chatterjee of the Indian National Congress became its president.3 Mahadev Bhattacharya of the Hindu Mahasabha became its secretary. The refugee base was not really a clean slate for the communists to work on. In fact, since the CPI was banned from February 1948 to January 1951, it was not possible for the party members to operate openly. They had to disguise their communist identity and work within a Congress framework. The primary members of the NVBKP were ‘recruited’4 with an annual subscription of one anna (1/16th of a Rupee) per head. The presence of the refugees had created a situation in which any political party, to make its presence felt, had to recruit an army of insiders, so to speak. The intending member had to sign a pledge which stated that they were ready to fight for their place of living, bread, means of living and education under the banner of this organization. Therefore, they would be paying the annual subscription of an anna to become a member. There were ninety-six colonies in and around Calcutta. Each colony had its own committee, elected from amongst the primary members of the NVBKP. There were to be two regional committees for Calcutta – one for the south and one for the north. In the general meetings of each colony committee, five members were to be elected from each committee. They were to have the right to elect the members of the regional committee.5 By the middle of 1950, fifty-two colony committees had already elected their representatives. Indu Ganguly, a prominent member of the Communist Party of India, was the organizing secretary of the south Calcutta regional committee. Khudiram Banarji was the organizing secretary of a Sangram Parishad that was formed. The colony committees were to allot plots according to the necessity of the refugee on payment

124  Creating Homes of a fee which was to vary according to the area and importance of the plot. The committees were to maintain a ‘defence fund’ to meet expenses of litigation with the landlord or the government against forceful eviction. The committees were to construct tube wells, organize the establishment of primary schools, dispensaries, nursing squads and so on. The committees were also to make propaganda against the government. The basis of such propaganda was to be that the government had failed to meet its obligations to the refugees. The committees were to maintain close cooperation with other committees within the same region. The position of the CPI was strong in the Jadavpur colony, Gandhi colony, Nehru colony, Azadgarh colony, Asoke Nagar colony, Bagha Jatin colony, Santi colony, Netaji colony, Bijoygarh colony and Samajgarh colony, all these colonies being situated in south Calcutta and the Belghoria colony in the north. The CPI base was stronger in the south. It is noteworthy that while a Special Branch report dated 15 and 16 June 1950 clearly mentions that ‘[t]he CPI has little control over Jadavpur refugee camp. Santosh Babu, Secretary of the Jadavpur Refugee Camp, is a Congressman’; in another report of the Special Branch dated 10 July 1950, of all the refugee colonies mentioned in which the CPI position is mentioned as ‘very strong’, the name of the Jadavpur Colony comes first. It is difficult to believe that the CPI had improved its position to this extent in less than a month. It is more likely that the CPI had been able to work successfully undercover for a long time. An earlier report of 3 March 1950 had mentioned a CPI-controlled meeting held on 30 April 1950 at Jadavpur Colony. ‘Santosh Babu’, the secretary, had presided over the meeting. Clearly, the political identity of ‘Santosh Babu’ (Santosh Dutta, a veteran freedom fighter who took the initiative in the establishment of the Bijoygarh Colony) was not something that the Government was sure of. The Party was able to continue working clandestinely. The work that the CPI organized among the refugees was more in the nature of social work and poor relief rather than direct political mobilization. One must remember that, in this regard, the work of female activists went a long way towards the penetration of the CPI among the ranks of the refugees. It is the work of these women which addressed the everyday needs of the refugees and acted as a kind of bridge in taking the CPI cause forward. More of that would come later.

The NVBKP On 14 January 1949, representatives of the NVBKP (All India Refugee Council of Action) met Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in Calcutta to discuss the plight of refugees. It was on the same day that the police were evicting refugees from the Sealdah platform. It was this agitation that began a fresh chapter in the refugee movement. On the day before, 13 January, Section 144 Cr. PC. had been promulgated which made the assembly of more than four people illegal on the 14th. It was the day that Jawaharlal Nehru was to receive the relics of Sariputta and Moggalana at the Brigade Parade Ground. The refugees defied the government orders and confronted

Life in the Colonies  125 the police outside the Sealdah Station. The police had to open fire. Two refugee demonstrators were injured, and refugee leaders were arrested. This was also the time when students’ agitation came to be linked with the refugee movement. On 18 January, police firing killed thirteen-year-old Tapas Kumar. The Congress was gradually being dubbed as an elite organization catering to the needs of the landlords, and therefore incapable of solving the basic problem – that of landholding. The Leftist tilt of the refugee movement was becoming discernible. The NVBKP mentioned in its leaflet in 19506 that the wastelands and pleasure grounds (pramod kanan) of the Zamindars on which the refugees were squatting should be used for their rehabilitation. Therefore, what were to be perceived as wastelands and pleasure grounds remained flexible and open to newer interpretations and speculations. The legitimacy of pleasure (pramod) was being challenged. What was also challenged, in the process, was the sanctity of private property. The composition of the executive committee of the NVBKP was also changing with members with communist leanings finding a foothold. The question of women’s honour remained an important theme of the agitation. The leaflet of the NVBKP mentioned that the government camps were not safe for women. The camps were compared with the German concentration camps under Hitler and the government officials were termed as perpetrators of violence on women. The incident at Dhubulia camp, where a resident who had protested against such ‘corruption’ (durniti), had been killed by the camp commander’s knife and bullets was mentioned. Therefore, the era of violence was not over yet. It could not be relegated to the background – to the years immediate to the Partition, to the years of uncivilized riots. The violence was still on. The NVBKP demanded the following: (1) The refugees who had been sent to the Andamans or anywhere outside West Bengal should be brought back to Bengal. (2) The refugees should not be evicted or the doles stopped till they were rehabilitated. (3) The Zamindari system should be abolished without compensation and lands redistributed among the landless and the refugees. (4) All water bodies should be renovated for the fishermen and professional classes like the weavers and craftsmen should be provided with capital and equipment. (5) For every five thousand refugees, one high school and, for every thirty thousand refugees, one college should be established. In these colleges, refugee students should be given free studentship and proper livelihood for the refugee teachers should be ensured. (6) In every camp or colony, for every ten thousand people, there should be a free health care centre, and each camp or colony should have drains, latrines and electricity. In each health care centre, doctors and midwives should be appointed and they should be given a proper salary. (7) In the government camps, the refugees should be allowed complete freedom of movement and freedom to take part in processions and meetings.

126  Creating Homes (8) Refugee lawyers should be provided with chambers and alternative sources of income. (9) Foreign capital investment should be done away with and nationalization of large-scale industries should be done and the sources of livelihood for refugees and the others should be unified. (10) The government should provide the refugee salesmen and small traders with materials at mill rates and capital. (11) The government should recognize all camps and colonies established by the refugees without delay. (12) In the refugee inhabited localities, for every forty thousand people, one technical school should be established, where the refugees should be granted free studentship. (13) People willing to migrate from East Pakistan should be helped by the government. Their social rehabilitation should be looked into, and they must be granted the rights of citizenship. Those who had migrated to West Bengal earlier should also be given the rights of citizenship. (14) Those who had occupied the deserted houses of Muslims should not be evicted before they have been properly rehabilitated and the Muslims who return should be provided with food and shelter till the rehabilitation process is completed. (15) The agitators who had worked for the refugee cause and had been arrested and the political prisoners should be freed unconditionally. It is evident that the Muslim evacuees or deserters were expected to make room for the Hindu refugees who had taken shelter in their homes. The primary victim, here, was identified as the Hindu refugee. Silence about all other kinds of victimhood prevailed. I would make a quick detour here, to reflect on the words used to denote those who had been forced to vacate their homes or leave their designated places of rehabilitation. The words evacuee or deserter spoke about the action that these people were taking. It somehow left the circumstances which made this action unavoidable, unaccounted for. The ‘evacuee’ is the one who evacuates and is not necessarily the one who is forced to evacuate. The deserter is the agent of their act of desertion. Any such act taking place on this side of the border was shorn of the narrative of victimhood. The most important point to note in the list of demands is the quest for the inclusion of refugees in the economic and social milieu of West Bengal. They were not to be treated as foreigners seeking shelter. The NVBKP tried to unify the refugee organizations. The need for centralization was already felt. The leaflet of November 1950 declared the next agenda, the annual congress, which was to be held on 18 and 19 November 1950. All refugee organizations could send one representative for every one thousand members to participate in the congress. The representation fee was 8 annas. The representatives had to make arrangements for their own meals and bedding. However, arrangements for staying were to be provided by the NVBKP. Besides the representatives, people could join in as supporters and

Life in the Colonies  127 observers. They were to pay half the sum – 4 annas. Membership and representation were, therefore, formalized. Not all refugees who lacked the means to rehabilitate themselves depended completely on the government for rehabilitation. There was a way in between which was obviously illegal. The method was to find a suitable piece of land and squat on it. The squatters’ colonies created not merely a living space for the refugees; they also created the fabric of the refugee movement in the later years which was to become increasingly pro-communist. Prafulla K. Chakrabarti’s point needs to be noted here. The communist workers had to strike a certain balance between the party line, which was more aggressive now (since the party was favouring the Ranadive line replacing the Joshi line), and the immediate needs of the refugees.7 The establishment of squatters’ colonies solved this problem to some extent. The colonies solved the basic problem of a living space for the refugees and at the same time, the party could see it as some kind of a liberated zone. The colonies which came up in this way took names that were significant and spoke much of their history – Bijoygarh, Azadgarh, Kalyangarh and Sahidnagar – to name a few. A battle was obviously won. And the result was the establishment of a fortress of victory (the bijoy garh). Nor were the sacrifices of the martyrs (sahid) forgotten. However, the war was actually an ongoing process. One had to stay put and fight for the preservation of the fruits of victory. In the colonies, the struggle did not end with the establishment of one’s domestic set-up. Preserving one’s home was equally important. The threats were almost never-ending. This is how the colonies which were essentially domestic spaces also became sites of politics. Preservation of the colony was a political process.

The UCRC The need to unify all kinds of political activities among the refugees had been felt for a long time. However, since the CPI was banned until January 1951, it was not possible to work towards this goal openly, even though the Left leanings of the refugee movement were clear by this time. The logical next step was therefore the establishment of a truly Left-dominated association that would act as a body for coordination of all the Leftist organizations that worked among the refugees. Already, by the month of April 1950, talks were afloat about establishing a Co-ordination Committee which would control all the refugee colonies from Tollygunge to Dhakuria. The trend of bringing together all Left-minded relief workers and creating a proper hierarchy had already begun. The fresh wave of migration of the 1950s probably triggered the process, and the result was the formation of the UCRC on 13 August 1950. It was to be like a federation accommodating different refugee associations including the colony committees. Therefore, in its Central Committee, apart from representatives of the CPI, there were representatives of the Forward Bloc, Marxist Forward Bloc, Socialist Unity Centre, RCPI (the Revolutionary Communist Party of India;

128  Creating Homes the rebel faction of Saumendra Nath Tagore), Democratic Vanguard, Bolshevik Party, Socialist Republican Party and the Hindu Mahasabha.8 From the very beginning, the UCRC was designed to be a secular organization which would talk of the plight of Muslim evacuees as much as that of the Hindu refugees. The unifying factor was to be the refugee identity. This highlighted the kind of movement that the UCRC would launch, and this does explain, perhaps, to some extent, the fact that the refugee movement (which does not necessarily mean refugee mentalities) remained secular. Even though the UCRC did succeed in becoming an umbrella-like organization, it was not without its rivals. The Refugee Central Rehabilitation Council (RCRC) gathered under its banner colonies dominated by the RSP (the Revolutionary Socialist Party), the Krishak Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP), the Forward Bloc (Leela Roy group) the RCPI (Saumen Tagore group) and the SP. In the wake of the passing of Act XVI of 1951, the socalled eviction bill, the RCRC formed the Refugee Eviction Resistance Committee (RERC). What made the UCRC stand out was the fact that it made its presence felt continuously. It was not simply an issue-based organization which would lead occasional demonstrations. It had a more ordered, permanent structure of protests and movements in place. Besides, it could bring together representatives from the colonies at one call, and from around this time, a certain pattern of the UCRC movement emerged. As Prafulla Chakrabarti marks out, The pattern of UCRC agitation was now a stereotype. A new issue crops up, a police firing takes place, or a government scheme is in the air. The immediate response of the UCRC is a meeting of the colonies in Calcutta and suburbs, followed by processions parading the Calcutta streets with appropriate slogans. This in turn is followed by a meeting of the Executive Committee of the UCRC and a Maidan rally. Finally, the despatch of a UCRC circular calling for a convention of the representatives of the refugee colonies and camps. The deliberations of the convention, embodied in a printed leaflet, are then circulated to the Press and the refugee colonies and communicated to the Government through a deputation of the UCRC leaders or an adjournment motion.9 What clearly stands out is the fact that the UCRC remained a conspicuous presence in the streets. Besides, not a single moment of idling away could be allowed. The pattern set the stage for almost non-stop activity for each issue that was taken up. The hierarchical organizational structure was also becoming evident. What the UCRC was popularizing was an alternative plan of rehabilitation. The outlook of this plan was fundamentally different from the government plans. A memorandum of the UCRC sent to the Government of India in 1954 provided a critique of the essence of the government rehabilitation policies. It clearly stated that the success of rehabilitation programmes was not dependent solely on the amount of money spent (one gets the hang of the argument here as time and again, the government

Life in the Colonies  129 published the figures of the amount spent). It was felt, rather, that the assessment of the success of rehabilitation programmes should be made by asking ‘how far the uprooted workers, peasants, artisans and middle-class employees have been provided with land, instruments of labour and employment with a view to place them in gainful occupation along with other facilities like shelter, education, medical help etc. so that they can build up their lives in their own national way’.10 What was being questioned, therefore, was the principle of the rehabilitation projects that the government floated. The talk of ‘gainful occupation’ came to dominate the refugee vocabulary from this time. The UCRC was talking in terms of something like the ‘real’ or ‘actual’ rehabilitation of the refugees. The question was one of rehabilitation vis-avis the government schemes of relief. In almost all the cases the measure for rehabilitation have, in fact, provided the refugees with relief for a period but not rehabilitation.11 Moreover, the emphasis on the notion of ‘nationalism’ that the organization was harping on cannot be missed. At one level, this, of course, meant that the UCRC was trying to fit the refugees into the national fabric, while the leaders of the nation were treating them as outsiders seeking charity. At another, it meant that the focus of UCRC politics would be to push for rehabilitation within Bengal. The Bengalis, if their regional-national sentiments were to be respected and protected, needed to remain within Bengal. Even though the UCRC made it a point to mention that it was ‘not opposed in principle to sending refugees outside West Bengal for rehabilitation’,12 the conditions it laid down for the government to follow left enough room for bargain. The conditions laid down were as follow: (a) Government should satisfy themselves that rehabilitation within the State is not possible by reclaiming land … (b) Such rehabilitation should be in areas contiguous to this State as far as practicable. (c) The refugees should be sent in or to execute definite schemes… (d) Full scope should be provided to develop their life in their own national way.13 It was almost impossible to satisfy the UCRC leaders that the scope of rehabilitation within the State had been explored to its greatest limit. The UCRC pointed out that the land acquisition policies of the government were wrong. The UCRC believed that the stress that the government put on the paucity of lands was applicable only in case of ‘good and cultivated lands’. In fact, the government was only acquiring such lands. The Ishaque Committee’s Report of 1944–45 was being cited by the UCRC to prove its point. The UCRC emphasized the need to bring uncultivated lands under the plough and to reclaim wastelands to build homes with the help of the refugees themselves. This would provide the refugees with the much

130  Creating Homes talked of scope for gainful occupation. It was also hoped, perhaps, that this would bind the refugees to their soil so to speak and reduce the problem of desertions. The UCRC also stressed the need to use the cooperation of the local population. It was at this point that it talked of acquiring ‘surplus’ land of the big landowners rather than the land of the peasants. The UCRC programme was geared towards creating a space for the refugees within the existing space of the locality. It was opposed, therefore, to the government’s notion of creating separate, isolated, ghettoized spaces. The UCRC stressed on using the refugee-force in the schemes of development of the economy. In this process, the UCRC leadership tried to bring the refugees within the sphere of its socialist programme of acquiring ‘extra’ lands. The refugees were to become a permanent force that would be closely linked with the Leftist programmes. This, at another level, meant that the refugees would be able to co-opt Left politics to gain a foothold. The needs of the refugees matched with the programmes of the UCRC. The UCRC was opposed to the notion of what it called ‘indiscriminate land acquisition’.14 It was rather, in favour of creating a sphere of special privileges for the peasants to work for some kind of social justice. The UCRC also stressed on the need to provide work as being more important than providing just a shelter. The refugee movement under the umbrella of the UCRC defied the limits of the government-created spaces for the refugees. As it harped on the notion of ‘popular co-operation’,15 it tried to give recognition to the agency of the refugees themselves. The first step towards this goal was the demand for the recognition of the squatters’ colonies. Apart from stressing on the need to recognize all the colonies, the UCRC also talked of the need to acquire the lands of these colonies not at the current price but at a ‘reasonable … price’16 because, it argued, ‘the credit of the increased valuation belongs to squatters themselves’.17 Such argument clearly points to the fact that the UCRC movement was trying to harp on the symbiotic relationship of the refugee with their land. As the refugee had cleared the land and colonized it, as it was, their claim over this piece of land had been established. It is perhaps on a similar note that it demanded that the work-site camps should be selected at the actual site of rehabilitation. This would ensure that the refugees were working towards making virgin lands liveable. The body of the refugee would be intricately and permanently tied to the lands they lived in. Again, as emphasis was put on acquiring ‘surplus lands’, the policy went against the notion of the sanctity of private property (as mentioned earlier) as it had existed. The UCRC demanded that Article 31 of the Constitution be amended. The refugees were to be included within the national space and the changes that they would usher in would change the face of the nation permanently. It is through the refugee movement that the principles of land acquisition and rehabilitation would change forever. The UCRC charted out the way to secure popular cooperation. It suggested that local rehabilitation committees be formed. This was the way Left infiltration took place. The UCRC perhaps hoped to gain a foothold in these local bodies as part of its move at mobilization from below. They would be like the colony

Life in the Colonies  131 committees. It should be noted that the refugee movement under the UCRC remained within the bounds of the Left political movement. The demands made on behalf of the refugees were accommodated within the socialistic ideologies of Left politics. It is in such a strain that the demand to recognize the refugee peasants – who were in unauthorized occupation of lands and who were being evicted under the West Bengal Estate Acquisition Act – as bargadar (sharecropper) peasants, was made. In doing all this, the UCRC never forgot its secular agenda. It stressed on the need to give priority to the lands of the ‘displaced Muslims’ on which the Hindu refugees were squatting. The use of the term is noteworthy. It replaced words like evacuee or deserter which were in use in government circles which hinted at the voluntariness of the people in question. The UCRC recognized that ‘the solution of the problem of displaced muslims is closely linked with the problem of rehabilitation of West Bengal refugees’.18 The UCRC in presenting its alternative plan of rehabilitation put great emphasis on a proper census of the actual number of refugees. Time and again it pointed out that a correct assessment would require counting the migrants who had arrived to date as opposed to a particular date in the past. This would also include those who had failed to register themselves as refugees earlier but who now felt the need for government help as their conditions deteriorated. The problem of the ‘deserters’ had become acute and the UCRC did not fail to address their problem. As their memorandum pointed out, desertion was not something that happened overnight. As appeals to the different levels of government authority went unheeded, the deserters had little else to do other than squatting in front of the Auckland House. It is only when the situation went out of control that the government did something, and even then, all that was done was to huddle them in ‘some camp’: when the situation becomes so hot that the rehabilitation scandal comes out of the bag the Government yields and shift[s] the deserters to some camp …19 This was how the UCRC viewed the policies of the government. The rehabilitation measures were perceived as a ‘scandal’. In this narrative, therefore, the guilt of desertion was lifted from the shoulders of the deserters. It was seen to be the result of the wrong policies of the government. As the blame was shifted in the narrative of protest, the deserters no longer remained the truant children who deserved to be punished by the stopping of doles. They became, rather, a political force with an articulate voice. The UCRC urged for the creation of an All-Party Advisory Board at the state level and Rehabilitation Committees at lower levels, something that they hoped would help in the process of securing popular cooperation. One does realize, of course, that these would act as levers in making the presence of the communists felt heavily. At this point, the history of the establishment of some of the colonies might be narrated.

132  Creating Homes

Bijoygarh and the First Squatters’ Colonies The first colony which was established through private initiative but with government sanction was Bijoygarh. Bijoygarh, therefore, was not a squatters’ colony as such. It was established in and around the deserted military barracks built by the Government of India during the Second World War in the Jadavpur area. The Jadavpur Refugee Association under the leadership of Santosh Datta, a member of the Jugantar20 group and Dhirendranath Roychowdhury, popularly known as Kalabhai took the initiative. The work of building the colony had begun by 1948. It was initially called the Jadavpur Udbastu Palli (The Jadavpur Refugee Colony).21 By 1949, the colony had been built. Later it came to be known as the Bijoygarh colony. It literally became a bastion (Garh) of victory (Bijoy) as it earned the recognition of the government in its early days. The inhabitants braved the eviction operations of the landowner’s men. Bugles were played and drums were beaten to alert the inhabitants when the landowner Layelka’s men arrived.22 Bijoygarh became a kind of a model of self-reliance and of rebuilding life from scratch. It is no wonder, therefore, that in 1951, when Jawaharlal Nehru came to Calcutta, Bidhan Chandra Roy showed him around Bijoygarh. The Gandhi colony in Tollygunge was the first squatters’ colony. It was established in December 1948. This was followed by Deshbandhu Nagar in Tollygunge and the Nehru colony in the same area in the early part of 1949. In December 1949, the Naktala No. 1 government colony was established with the refugees living in these two colonies till then. In April 1950, the now-deserted area of Deshbandhu Nagar was used to establish the Tilaknagar colony. Meanwhile, the Sodepur Deshbandhu Nagar colony was established in around September–October 1949.23 The Gandhi colony was established under the initiative of the Tollygunge Refugee Association. This association was established in the middle of 1948.

Azadgarh The refugees occupied the lands belonging to late Charu Chatarji in Regent Park near Rani Kutir, under the Tollygunge police station, district 24 Parganas. Most of the refugees came from Barisal, Faridpur, Noakhali and the Chittagong districts. There were about 1400 refugees residing here. Indu Baran Ganguly, of the CPI, was the secretary of the camp. He organized the young people of the camp as volunteers. They were provided with bugles and clubs. There were around one hundred volunteers who guarded the camp at night. No unknown person was allowed to enter the camp premises. There was also a secret committee formed by Indu Ganguly with five other members – Paresh Tafader of the Jadavpur Colony, Debkumar Banarji of Gandhi Colony, Khudiram Bhattacharji of Jadavpur Camp, Sukumar Banarji of Gandhi Colony and Kartik Ghosh.24 This organizational structure had been put in place by 1950. Therefore, by this time, the

Life in the Colonies  133 camp and colony committees were not mere internal organizations. Organizers came from other camps and colonies. However, what was true of the organizers who had party affiliations was not always true of the residents. The volunteers of the Azadgarh25 camp were trained to resist any move to evict them from the camp. The secret committee, however, had not been able to gain active support from other colonies. On 27 January 1950,26 Subodh Ghosh of Nehru Colony had been assaulted by the Azadgarh volunteers because he was suspected of being an agent of the landlord. The landlord and the Congress government would become one in the eyes of the refugees over the years, and it was this that brought them nearer to the communist ideology. It became, conveniently, not a mere fight for one’s own needs but something beyond that. It could be dubbed in terms of a grand social ideal. The communist ideology provided the refugees with something almost similar to a religion that promised upward mobility. The question that was raised now was the age-old one of survival of the fittest. One had to prove one’s worth and earn their right of residence, as it were. On the evening of 6 February 1950,27 Indu Baran Ganguly presided over a meeting of the Azadgarh residents, and he stated that things other than brickbats could be hurled at the Police. He mentioned that only those who resolved to fight the police and helped the colony to exist were eligible to live here. Earlier, in the afternoon, Indu Ganguly’s supporters had thrown stones at the police lorries. Again, what remains noteworthy in this context is the fact that one had to earn one’s right to live in a colony. This transformed the middle-class conception of property rights which was inherited or bought or was gifted. Furthermore, it was not a one-time process. One had to earn one’s right to their living space every day. This clash between the landlords, their protectors, the government, the police and the refugees were not particular to any colony. Therefore, there was a move to bring the colony dwellers together. Even though the Congress government became a target of attack, it was not unusual for some Congressmen to join forces with the refugee leaders. Indu Ganguly was helped by the leaders of the Gandhi Colony, Sukumar Banarji, of the Indian National Congress, Deb Kumar Banarji of the RSP and Dakshina Ray.28 This was the fight of a tribe to keep outsiders at bay. It did not matter if the outsiders were the owners of the property in the first place, or the representatives of the government. They were not mere inhabitants, or ‘odhibashi’s, they were the first settlers, the ‘adibashi’s. They had cleared the lands, made it liveable and protected it with their lives. This entitled them in a way that no process of buying and selling could.

Chittaranjan Colony The city limits were expanding with the refugee settlements. The city was roping in regions north and south of its original limits and the refugees huddled to become a part of the city. The area beyond Jadavpur became an important target for refugee settlements. It was from November of the year of Partition that the refugees were moving in towards this region and the

134  Creating Homes Chittaranjan Colony became an important colony settlement. Early in 1950, some vacant plots of land belonging to Hiralal Sarkar, Qazi and Badshah Mondal of Molla Para were used to build up this colony. On 23 January 1950, seven people entered the snake-infested bamboo fields with nothing more than sticks, lamps and torches to defend themselves.29 It was here that the colony was established with its office. The news of the settlement spread, and refugees started pouring in overnight. Plots were distributed at the rate of Rs. 1530 and gradually different sections of the colony came up. It is noteworthy that from the money submitted by the plot holders, the office bearers in almost every colony bought and framed photographs of national leaders. The days of the nationalist struggle were the golden days and there was the need to cling onto that thread; to remain a part of that story even though freedom brought these people displacement and homelessness. They needed to be part of the same narrative of national glory as the inhabitants of this side of the border. The memory of a glorious national past was the same. Their nationalism was about India, generally, and Bengal, specifically. Therefore, the photographs framed were those of Subhash Chandra Bose, Chittaranjan Das and the iconic figure that every strand of nationalism co-opted – M.K. Gandhi. Sometimes, the office bearers – men who utilized the funds – were also those who became looters. Embezzlement of funds and fraudulent activities became usual and a part and parcel of the colony settlement process. In many cases, the victims were the Muslims of the locality. They would be pushed out by the Hindu settlers. The Partition story in Bengal ensured that they remained outside the pale of the narrative of victimhood. One might refer to an incident when the office bearers disguised themselves as police and entered a Muslim household of the locality and looted the property. The next morning, some local students of the Jadavpur Engineering College, with the help of some of the colony settlers ousted Mani Shankar Sengupta, the secretary of the colony committee. He was charged with theft and embezzlement of funds.31 To secure the funds and make the settlement process smooth, the need for electing a proper colony committee was being felt. A democratic election procedure was put in place where adult members voted, initially, by calling out preferences and eventually a ballot box was also introduced. The Chittaranjan Colony Committee set the example of such formal procedures for the first time. Since life in the colonies made everyday struggles inevitable, the settlers had to become a self-trained lot with a martial spirit. The Chittaranjan Colony made a special arrangement. A bell was attached to the office room. The sound of this bell was the signal for the refugees to come out immediately and gather around the office with their primitive weapons.32 It was a kind of training to react to an alarm. This was the system of self-defence which was established with care, and everybody was a part of it. In the colonies, the settlement pattern itself sometimes created differences among the settlers. The inhabitants of the Chittaranjan Colony opposed the move of the residents of the Baghajatin Colony to set up a local market. ‘Border conflicts’ remained a part of refugee life.

Life in the Colonies  135 The size of the colony could grow in many ways. New plots could be brought within its fold by the office bearers or sometimes other newly settled colonies could conjoin themselves with the adjacent older one. The need to unite and therefore stay secure remained. The Deshbandhu Colony joined itself with the Chittaranjan Colony and became the Deshbandhu block of the latter. The plot of land on which they squatted was a donation to the Nakhoda Mosque. Their negotiations with the mosque authorities failed, and they attached themselves with the Chittaranjan Colony. The area proposed for the disputed market became a colony settlement – the Shyamaprasad Colony.33 This colony also joined the Chittaranjan Colony, and the limits of the latter extended. Sometimes, the fight for land became bitter and particularly hard fought. One such dispute was over a garden belonging to Bhabani Banerjee. The struggle for this particular plot of land led to the arrest of a number of refugees and they remained imprisoned for a while. On 4 April 1950, the police came in with the owner.34 Negotiations failed, and the officeholders were arrested. The next day a larger police force arrived and twenty-seven refugees from the different blocks were arrested. The refugees therefore could not live simply as neighbours. Their identity was born with the birth of their colony. They fought together and were also imprisoned together. Their politicization was a natural corollary to their living conditions. The colony became the most important site for politicization because it became a symbol of the refugees’ achievement. The disputed land had to be given up. It was resolved, that, in future, holders of small plots of land would not be troubled. It was through these struggles that the patterns of the refugee movement and settlement were being charted out. The Jadavpur region had a number of factories, such as the Krishna Glass Factory, the Sulekha Factory, the Bengal Lamp, the Joy Engineering Works, Gopal Hosiery and others. It was easier for the settlers to find work here. It was in the afternoons, when men were out working and some of the women of the households remained at home, that it was felt that eviction operations could be carried out successfully. However, women became active in resisting the eviction operations of the landlords. Some of the lands of block number 6 of the Chittaranjan Colony belonged to Surendra Kumar Roy,35 the owner of the Bengal Lamp factory. He had sent his men to free the lands. Faced with stiff opposition from the refugee men and women, they had to retreat. The sense of unity that was born of such struggles did not remain restricted to the members of any one colony. As colony-refugees, they identified with one another across colonies. This was an important step in their politicization. When the Jadavgarh Colony was threatened with eviction operations by the police, the bell rang in the Chittaranjan Colony, the alarm was transmitted by the beating of utensils in the refugee households, and the resistance began. It was in this struggle, when police firing began that a pregnant woman, Binapani Mitra died of a bullet wound.36 What strikes one here is that she was within the confines of her room when the bullet hit her. Therefore, home had become the site of contestation, of struggle and of

136  Creating Homes politics. Politics was not ‘out there’ (as in the field or the colony office, where the bell was placed), it was everywhere. For a refugee of the colony, the home became the battleground and the household utensils along with one’s body, the weapons. Domesticity came to be associated with politics in the sense that one’s daily existence within one’s home came to have political implications. The case of Binapani Mitra was cited time and again. It represented the limits of refugee struggle. There was no sparing the fight. It was better, therefore, to be prepared and fight well. The need was felt of a formal organization. The prominent members of the Chittaranjan Colony along with the inhabitants of fifty-two other neighbouring colonies called a meeting.37 This meeting of the Netaji Nagar Colony gave birth to the Dakshin Kolikata Sahartali Bastuhara Sanhati (DKSBS). Central to the struggle was the fight to obtain unconditional proprietorship of the lands occupied. The Bastuhara Sanhati and later the UCRC followed the same path of struggle. Most of the refugees of the Chittaranjan Colony were successful in obtaining unconditional proprietorship. The colonies were gradually becoming more liveable. The refugees themselves started working towards it so that, at least, a shadow of civic life could be cast. The road leading to the Chittaranjan Colony from Raja Subodh Mullick road was in a very poor condition. It was a low stretch of land and extremely swampy. Building this road was part of the daily routine of the refugees. Every night from eight o’clock onwards, after returning from work, the colony dwellers worked on the reconstruction of the road. Another road leading from the extended block number 1 to block number 5 was also reconstructed. Sundays were the days for clearing the ponds. The members of the colony committees went on a door-to-door survey to ascertain the needs of the refugee households. The Jyoti Sangha, a local club, whose reference shall follow, conducted a number of programmes like the distribution of milk to the children, and when, in 1950, a number of refugees of the Chittaranjan Colony suffered from cholera, the young inhabitants took great pains to prevent the spread of the epidemic. Community work, regular fights with the landlords and the government representatives and imprisonment created a kind of environment in which the communist brand of politics could thrive well. By this time, the refugees had been disillusioned by the Congress leadership and the colony committees had a natural leaning towards the Left. Schools formed an important part of life that was ‘normal’. They were the link with the world left behind and they were the most important plank of the reconstruction of lives. The importance attached to sending the children to schools went a long way in re-establishing the middle-class identity. However, since every thread had to be woven anew, the schools had to be built from scratch. It was in this programme that women participated in great numbers. The women of the Chittaranjan Colony went round the city streets begging for contributions. In these efforts, eight other colonies worked with the Chittaranjan Colony – Bapuji Nagar, Shyama Palli, Ramakrishna Upanibesh, Ananda Palli, Naba Nagar, Shaktigarh, Ramgarh

Life in the Colonies  137 and Vidyasagar Colony.38 The school that was subsequently constructed (the Sammilito Udbastu Vidyalaya) was, therefore built on small contributions and not any large donation or sponsorship. Besides this school, another primary school, the Chittaranjan Bani Niketan was established. On 7 September 1954, this school was recognized by the government. Such efforts chalked out a kind of organization and created a kind of network which the Leftist parties would find useful. The question was one of time. One wonders when the refugee movement was co-opted within the Leftist movement. It should be noted here that, in the second general elections, the results for West Bengal showed that the Left parties were more successful in the urban areas than the Congress, which had a stronghold in the rural areas. Among the twenty-six seats within Calcutta, the Congress won only eight seats.39 The change, or the need for it, was being felt more in the urban areas where the problem of accommodation and rising prices remained high. By the time the UCRC was established, refugee politics was united with Leftist politics, and the ground was being set for long-term Leftist success. After the police had arrested a number of refugees from the colony (as mentioned earlier), the need was felt to bring the youth of the colony together. On 7 May 1950, the colony committee called a meeting in block number 3, and it was in this meeting that a club was formed which was named Jyoti Sangha.40 The naming of the club was an interesting chapter. Several names had come up like ‘Chittaranjan Sangha’ and ‘Sangram Sangha’. Sangram Sangha would represent the struggle that the refugees went through from the day of the Partition. However, these names were rejected, and the name ‘Jyoti Sangha’ (Jyoti meaning light) was agreed on. There was a need, perhaps, of looking beyond the dark days left behind. The youth brigade would look towards the future. Reconstruction promised light. The club had a number of sections – the sports section, women’s section, cultural section, children’s section, a section for developmental work, a section for charitable work and a library. It is not surprising that the cultural programmes of the Jyoti Sangha would get linked with the People’s Theatre movement, another plank of the Leftist movement. Amitava Ghosh facilitated the performance of the Gananatya Sangha ballets ‘Sonar Bangla’ and ‘Jwala’ on the grounds of the Chittaranjan Colony. The performances were preceded by songs. The participation of the refugee youth in these performances is noteworthy. Beds were brought out from individual homes to act as the stage. At one point of time when the stage was almost giving way, Parimal Roychowdhury and Haripada Das actually crawled under the beds and provided support. The first performance paved the way for later ones and plays like Rahumukta, Bhasan, Kimlis, Long March and Mrityuheen were performed on the Chittaranjan Colony grounds. The colony also witnessed the performance of songs of protest. The colony office had doubled as the clubhouse for a long time. The club needed separate space. Apart from individual contributions from the dwellers, the club organized film shows, and the funds thus collected were used for building the clubhouse. Till a separate metre box was applied for, electricity was provided by the

138  Creating Homes owner of the Annapurna Glass Works. The colony building process was communitarian and rather primitive. For the library, apart from individual contributions, grooms were coaxed to provide funds for books during weddings. As the colony extended its limits, clubs were established for every block. The Jyoti Sangha, however, remained the central club. Durga Puja, the autumnal festivities, was celebrated. In these festivities efforts were taken to bring to the colony Jogen Mondal, a renowned dhaki (drum player) from Faridpur. If the festivities had to be organized in a proper way, the best performers from the erstwhile native lands had to be included. By this time, around 1950–51, the picture gallery exhibited during the autumnal festivities included pictures collected from the Indo-China and the Indo-Soviet cultural societies.41 The refugees of the Chittaranjan colony, like the refugees of other colonies took an active interest in the tram fare hike movement, the food movement and other ongoing Left movements. Most of the dwellers of the Chittaranjan colony were Left sympathizers.

Netaji Colony in Baranagar Two adjacent colonies were set up in 1949 at Baranagar – the Netaji Colony and the Deshapriya Nagar Colony.42 The history of the two settlements and the pattern of the settlements were similar to other colonies. The land on which the Netaji colony came to be established originally belonged to a wealthy businessman, Motilal Seal. He had also built his garden house in this area. During the days of the Second World War, the government took over these properties and established military barracks. The colony had two distinct areas, one higher than the other and therefore called the highland and the lowland, respectively. The highland was suitable for cultivation. The lowland was marshy. The highland also had three big lakes used for fish cultivation. The area had become the property of the Government of India when it was acquired by the department of irrigation as part of a project of digging a canal from Calcutta to Khulna in 1920 (with the Partition, this project was discarded). However, even though this was government property, two brothers who came from Midnapore – Nitai and Gour Dinda – cultivated this land on a sharecropping basis. In the local lingo, the area came to be known as Rajar Bagan since this was government property after all. In 1941, the Dinda brothers were evicted. World War II had begun. The government needed these lands to erect barracks. The highland was used to build military camps for the American army. After the war was over, the area remained more or less vacant, and local boys played football. After the Partition, when all vacant plots came to be used up, local associations of the refugees came to be formed which took up the initiative to relocate themselves. The Bangali Bastutyagi Samiti of Baranagar was one such association. It was formed by men like Kaliratan Bhattacharya, Janardan Bhattacharya, Bisweswar Das, Satyendranath Saha, Beni Das, Jyoti Banik, Ramapada Roychowdhury and others. The meetings of the association were held at a godown for storing jute which belonged to a local

Life in the Colonies  139 businessman, Ranada Prasad Saha. The plan was to organize the utilization of all vacant lands, government and private, to house the refugees. It obviously went against the property rights of landowners. The actual work of settling the refugees, therefore, had to be done overnight. On the night of 22 October 1949, the plan was executed. A colony was created overnight, and it was named the Netaji Colony. Rows of bamboo huts with thatched roofs were erected. The highland was comparatively better suited for residence. The lowland area was frequently flooded, especially during the monsoons. Eventually, the inhabitants of the lowland dug two ponds and used the soil to raise the level of the lowland. In 1957, the colony gained recognition. However, it was much later, when the Left Front Government came to power, that the individual plot holders got their deeds. It was made into a ceremonial occasion with the chief minister, Jyoti Basu distributing the documents at the colony grounds. Apart from the houses, the two structures that came to be erected in almost every colony were also built here – a school (the Netaji Colony Bidyayatan) and a temple. The school was built with the money donated by Janardan Bhattacharya, who was a high-ranking officer at the Metal Box Company and a member of the Colony Committee. Every colony boasted of a local club. The emphasis on sports and cultural activities even under the direst of circumstances remained. In 1950, the club of the colony, the Nowjawan Sangha, was established. Purnendu Prasad Bhattacharya, who belonged to the family of the Gauripur zaminadars of Mymensingh and who had settled here, became the secretary of the club. It is perhaps noteworthy that the erstwhile social leaders, so to speak, were seen as natural leaders even under the new circumstances. Refugee life did not necessarily bring the kind of social mobility that could be expected. Incidentally, Purnendu Prasad Bhattacharya was the co-editor of a periodical called Loksevak and this helped him to bring together a number of non-governmental organizations to make arrangements for various relief programmes. In 1951, he joined the Indian Statistical Institute and eventually left the colony. Following the establishment of the Nowjawan Sangha, other clubs were established – the Seva Sangha on 22 January 1950, the Nirbhik Sangha in 1951, the Binapani Sporting Club in 1963, the Uttaranchal Club in 1967 and the Mahajati Kishore Sangha in 1968. The western block of the colony had remained vacant for a while. Twenty families were brought in there and settled. The need for a market had been felt for some time. Finally, towards the south of the west block, a market was settled in December 1950. Like the colony itself, the market was also not created over a considerable period. It happened very quickly. It was a planned settlement. The initiative was taken by the Central Committee of the Netaji Colony. The fish and meat stores were opened first and on an experimental basis. Later, when the market had started functioning, vegetable sellers from the nearby Noapara area were brought in. The settlement of the colonies was not an unorganized process. The men who settled the families after a suitable plot was selected were those who became members of colony committees. Usually, those who settled in a

140  Creating Homes particular colony knew each other. They were usually neighbours or relatives or friends of neighbours or relatives. Colony life did not necessarily mean a breakdown of kinship ties. Sometimes, previous ties could, in fact, be strengthened by the new overarching refugee, or more specifically, colony identity. It is along these lines that the political mobilization of the refugees was also happening. Refugee mobilization, in fact, was becoming more organized, centralized and more conspicuously political. By 1950, the CPI was increasingly becoming politically active in the colonies. A Special Branch report dated 25 March 1950 mentions that the C.P.I. is now concentrating in full strength in doing work amongst the refugees in the borders. Although they are doing some nominal humanitarian work, they are doing more anti-Government propaganda. One must remember, of course, that ‘humanitarian work’ among the refugees required ‘anti- Government propaganda’. The focus was still on social work, but it required a political stand. The CPI already had strong units at Azadgarh, Sahidnagar and the Chittaranjan Colony. Indu Ganguly was controlling the Azadgarh unit, Madhu Banerjee, the Sahidnagar unit, Prafulla Majumdar, Anil Chakrabartti and Hiren Ray, the Chittaranjan Colony unit. Besides, the party was trying to establish a coordination committee to control the refugee colonies from Tollygunge to Dhakuria. The city was expanding. The NVBKP leadership was helping in the process, but coordination was needed. As the squatters’ colonies came up, the CPI made a positive move towards roping in this group of refugees who faced a constant threat of eviction. The Dakshin Kalikata Sahartali Bastuhara Samhati (DKSBS) was formed (as mentioned earlier). Sukumar Banerjee of the Congress became the president, and Deb Banerjee of the Revolutionary Socialist Party became the secretary. The Purba Kalikata Bastuhara Samiti remained a CPI-controlled organization. The CPI policy regarding the refugees at around this time becomes clear from the proceedings of a meeting held at Kalyangarh Colony in Habra in the first half of 1950. It might be mentioned here that the party’s policy regarding refugees was discussed usually within the colony grounds. The leadership discussed the present policy of the Party regarding the refugees. According to a Special Branch report, it was decided to ‘infiltrate into all refugee organizations, and get in touch with all the good workers there and prevail upon them to agitate against the Government’.43 ‘Infiltration’ should not really be taken in the narrow sense of the term. It should not imply a gradual permeation into the hosts’ territory and going against the hosts’ interests. It was part of the CPI policy to penetrate at all levels and this process of penetration worked in conjunction with the refugees’ demands. By this time, there were about forty-three refugee colonies at Jadavpur, of which thirty colonies were represented in a CPI controlled meeting held at

Life in the Colonies  141 the Jadavpur colony on 30 April 1950. Therefore, the CPI hold over the colonies was substantial by this time. The process of crystallization of demands and politicization had come a long way and the CPI had assumed the place of the frontrunner. It was in this meeting that a temporary coordination committee was formed with fifteen members, and it was decided that a Central Co-ordination Committee of all the forty-three refugee colonies should be formed by a general body of representatives of all the colonies, the quota of representation of each being five. That such a meeting was held, and such decisions taken, were, however, later denied on enquiry. However, even if the CPI was gaining grounds, others were not far behind. The RSPI (Revolutionary Socialist Party of India)-controlled Purba Banga Bastuhara Milan Samity made its presence felt. In the southern half of the city, in all the colonies on the western side of the railway line except the Bijoygarh and Bagha Jatin colonies, the DKSBS had an overwhelming presence, while the colonies on the eastern side of the railway line were dominated mostly by the RSP and some by the RCPI.44 The mesh of political and social organizations that worked on the refugee front was much layered, multidimensional and rather confusing. The UCRC tried to bring together different organizations. The list of those who spoke at the meeting of the UCRC held on 23 May 1950 at Muraripukur Lane, with the names of their organizations might be mentioned here to make the scenario clearer – Tapen Ganguli of Bastuhara Milan Samity (RCPI-Tagore group), Monoranjan of the Uttar Kalikata Udbastu Punarbasati Samity, Biswanath Khan of the Bastuhara Sansad, Arun and Mantu of the Society for the Protection of Human Rights, Kali Ray of the Refugee Central Rehabilitation Council, one member of the Bastuhara Mangal Samity (Canal East Road), Kamala di (‘di’ meaning an elder sister) of the Pragati Mahila Sangha (the refugee women’s faction subsidiary to the Ganatantric Mahila Sangha) and Haripada Babu of the Arttatran Samity.45 Various committees and sub-committees, women’s wings and youth wings were formed. By this time, the refugees had become a proper base for politicization; they had become a ‘front’ so to speak. The colonies became the most important site for the process because the colony-refugees enjoyed more freedom from government control than any other group of refugees. Meanwhile, there was a trend towards uniting the organizations, obviously because that worked best to put pressure on the government. It was advisable, therefore, to keep at bay the internal differences for the time being. Six refugee-relief organizations of the Ultadanga area came together to form a resource pool. The Arttatran Samity, of which D.L. Roy was the secretary; the Purba Banga Bastuhara Milan Samity (RSPI-controlled); the Uttar Kalikata Udbastu Committee, of which Monoranjan Das was the secretary; the Society for the Protection of Human Rights; the Bastuhara Samsad, of which Kartick Chattarji was the secretary; and the People’s Medical Relief Committee formed a United Council of Action to safeguard refugee interests. What the UCRC, as also the CPI was trying to establish was the principle of becoming the sole negotiator between the government and the refugees. Therefore the UCRC insisted that

142  Creating Homes they [the refugees] should not accept ‘arpan patra’ from the Government as it is trying to create division against them and thus to crush the refugee movement. They should on the contrary insist on its being handed over through the local Colony Committees towards the final settlement of the plot holders …46 This was also the time when the refugee movement appropriated certain terms which were closely associated with the pre-independence nationalist struggle. The call for ‘Satyagraha’ dominated this lingo. There were ‘peaceful satyagrahas’ all around. On 19 June 1955, the secretary of the Ranaghat Cooper’s Camp, Bastuhara Samity, wrote a letter to the UCRC with information about a public meeting held there in support of the refugees of Habra.47 The DKSBS and the UCRC organized a mass meeting on 6 March 1955 threatening the launch of ‘peaceful satyagraha’.48 Such instances were common. The fact remains that as much as the Left charted out its own course of action and brought the refugees gradually into the folds of newer modes of protest, the legacy of tried and tested methods like satyagraha remained with them. The violation of laws and therefore courting arrest were common. The CPI issued a circular to all units to take advantage of the food crisis and observe 16 September 1950 as the All Bengal Refugee Unity Day. They would take out processions and organize demonstrations in cooperation with other Leftist groups. The day was observed on the 17th, when two meetings were held, one at the Kankurgachi Park and the other at Jatadhari Park at Salkia, Howrah. In these meetings, the presence of women and children was considerable. Women formed about one-fourth of the crowd. The theme of threat to women’s honour was still running. Only this time it was the threat from the government officials that was being talked about. At a meeting of the NVBKP at Sraddhananda Park on 24 December 1950, Manika Dasgupta talked about ‘police excesses’49 at the Dhubulia Camp and said that the prestige and honour of women were at stake under the present government regime. The politicization of the refugees needs to be seen in terms of their attitude towards their life, present and future; their trauma; the dislocation of the present; and their hope for the future. This was as true of the colony refugees as the camp refugees. On 23 February 1950, the police arrested some refugees of the Lake Barracks, and they were questioned about their involvement in politics.50 They were accused of hoisting a black flag and putting up a garland of shoes on the gate of the barrack on 26 January, Republic Day, of that year. The mode of protest required them to ridicule the sacredness and wholeness of the nation that was born in 1947. They questioned the very idea of freedom that the nation gained. The choice of the Republic Day was significant as was the choice of venue – the camp gate, the symbol of the new state’s regimen of relief and care. Their involvement with the Communist Party was investigated. Incidentally, an organization called the Monoharpukur Camp Bastuhara Committee had started functioning with a monthly subscription of Rs. 4 per family. Most of the arrested persons refused to state that

Life in the Colonies  143 they belonged to any political party. Tejamoy Nundy, twenty-three years of age, the secretary of the organization who did talk of visiting the house of Jyotish Chandra Joardar of the SRP (the Socialist Republican Party) even though denying his own involvement in any political party, made one interesting comment. He had received news that his home in a Mymensingh village had been completely burnt down. However, he declared in his statement, he had no intention to take revenge. This was, after all, a statement to the police and therefore one could only expect such a statement. Even then, it also does point to the fact that the task of rebuilding lives was so great, so difficult and so engaging that most of the refugees did not have revenge on their agenda. The concept of an enemy was becoming rather distant. Interaction with the state, its police and the landlords was more important than an engagement with the enemy. The enemy lines had been crossed after all. The Muslim perpetrators of violence remained a part of the memory of violence never to be forgotten. But the immediate need for rehabilitation and the government policies of the endowment of charity coupled with the intricacies of the legal system and the impersonal nature of the system of relief made the immediate struggle more real. The political parties were judged by their classist nature. The Congress was increasingly becoming the party of the landlords. Classism became more important than communalism. If violence was out there, the struggle to rebuild lives vis-à-vis state policies was here and now. The rebuilding process began as a permanent solution to safeguard against the times of violence (if a permanent foothold was not gained, one could be thrown back into the life left behind). But, in the end, the rebuilding process became more real. However, this did not let the memories of violence to be relegated to the background completely. State rehabilitation measures, especially in camps and colonies, with their isolationist approach, forced one to remain linked to the Partition as an ever-present, everyday occurrence. One other statement in this series of police interviews might be mentioned in passing. The President of the committee, Surendra Chandra Kar, twenty-eight years of age, mentioned that he was a loyal supporter of the Congress, that no member of the committee was a Communist and that he hardly knew the members of other refugee committees. The threat for the Government, therefore, seems to be (1) the crystallization of refugee identity and the communication of refugees across colonies and (2) such crystallization shaping up along the lines of Leftist politics making the CPI organization stronger. The nature of involvement of independent organizations not affiliated to any particular political party may be summed up in the statement of Anil Kumar Datta, twenty-four years of age, an executive member of the Manoharpukur Refugee Camp: We are connected with the Refugee Committee of Lake Refugees’ Camp whose Secretary is Binay Sinha. We often cooperate with this Committee to ventilate our grievance. But we [are] more particular about our own interest. When there is a question regarding the general interest of all refugees we cooperate with them.

144  Creating Homes In the same statement, he mentions that Re [regarding] our political affiliation, we sometime[s] call on Sri Jyotish Joardar … on his invitation to join the Socialist Party, but we have not yet decided which party we are to join. So far I know Binay Sinha was of that type. The type was, indeed, cast. The refugee settlements not only threatened the big landholders. The slum dwellers felt equally threatened. At a meeting of the Cossipore Bustee Committee at Basak Bagan Maidan on 24 August 1952, about thirty-five men, mostly Muslims, gathered to resolve that the refugee problem should not be ‘indulged’ in.51 It should not be seen as a problem more acute than that of the slum dwellers of Calcutta, who should not be made homeless due to the refugees. This, it must be remembered, was not a communal problem. It was a problem of space. The slum dwellers of Calcutta wanted to be treated as the state’s natural children. What the refugees demanded was a more circumstantial recognition, the circumstances being of duress. They, therefore, demanded special care, a little more, as it was. The ‘natural children’ would not take the pressure of accommodating them. Homelessness was becoming a contested space. Communal sentiments could also be aroused easily among the Hindu refugee workers and Muslim workers to create circumstances in which class identities could become less relevant. This would work well for the factory owners. Undeniably, Left involvement worked the other way round to keep the refugee movement more or less secular. After all, class identities were central to the Left movement. At a meeting of the refugees living in the slums of Muraripukur and Sethbagan with the workers of the Esavi Match Factory on 20 September 1953, the CPI leadership criticized the management of the factory for declaring a lock-out on a ‘false plea’52 of communal tension among the workers. Abid Hussain, the welfare officer was charged with fomenting the workers. Communal harmony or apathy had, in fact, become common storylines which could be used successfully under varied circumstances. They had become a significant part of management strategy. As the colonies were being set up, domestic spaces were becoming a part of one’s political life as well. The colonies acted as sites for the politicization/mobilization of the refugees. One’s identity as a refugee mostly overarched, even though it did not erase every other identity. No matter what one did or how settled one was, the fight with the authorities and the landlords’ men was on. On 2 November 1952, at the Poddarnagar Refugee Colony, Manmatha Nath Chanda, a tailor by profession, was killed in an altercation between the refugees of the colony and the upcountry security guards of Mr. T.R. Gupta, the manager of Joy Engineering Works.53 A lot of discontent was noted about this incident, especially in the neighbouring camps and colonies, including the Lake Refugee Camp, Jodhpur Camp and the Dasnagar Camp. Even the students of the Netajinagar H.E. School came

Life in the Colonies  145 out of their classes on 5 November to join the procession which carried the dead body of Manmatha Chanda from the Poddarnagar Colony to the burning ghat (the crematorium) at Keoratala.54 Clubs and schools also became a part of the process of indoctrination along party lines. A party meeting was held on 2 April 195255 at the Lake Refugee Camp no. 4. In this meeting, Charu Shila Debi emphasized the need to re-organize a club which was called the ‘Paribartan Club’. Besides, she talked about the necessity of starting a school for the refugee children of the locality. She proposed to hold study classes to initiate them to Marxism. One important venue of political meetings and discussions was the local tea stall. Anil Poddar’s tea stall at Lake Barrack number 1 served as a formal meeting place. No institution, no organization and not even one’s domestic space in the colony were outside the realm of politics. Colonization meant politicization. Another such centre was the Barua Cabin, located on Netaji Subhas Road, a few minutes’ walk from Moore Avenue.56 It was here that news came in that those who were at the helm of affairs regarding the setting up of the Gandhi colony – the members of the committee – had earmarked the best plots of land for themselves. The organization of every meeting was detailed and needed elaborate planning. The refugee movement had become quite structured. A letter written to the editor of Swadhinata by Anil Chakraborty, who served as the general secretary of the South Calcutta Sahartali Bastuhara Sanhati (the DKSBS) in April 1952,57 elaborated on the preparations set afoot for the Special Conference of 19–20 April 1952. First of all, a committee for preparations was formed. The members of this committee had split themselves up in line with the different localities. The colony committees were urged to cooperate with the preparations committee. They were to spread the word in every colony, organize meetings and prepare ‘squad posters’. The members were to visit the Sanghati offices at Tilaknagar and Bapujinagar. Volunteer bodies were to be formed in each colony, and in the general meetings of the colony committees, the present conditions of the colonies were to be discussed with the elected delegates of the conference from the colonies. Funds were to be collected for the conference. Such was the modus operandi of the refugee organizations. Such an organization meant that resistance was not the matter of a particular colony involved in a specific context. Resistance was more general and therefore all refugees, just by being so became a part of it. On 11 September 1953, four families of Azadgarh were to be evicted. The Dakshin Kalikata Sahartali Bastuhara Sanhati (DKSBS) decided on its line of action.58 On that particular date, two representatives from each colony under the wings of the DKSBS were to assemble at the Azadgarh school at 6 a.m. They would bring in more people as and when required. The DKSBS and the UCRC would provide leadership and the Azadgarh Colony Committee would make arrangements for the mid-day meal of the representatives. I mention these two instances of the organization of resistance since they are part of a general pattern. There are many such instances of a similar process

146  Creating Homes of refugee mobilization. The CPI was providing the refugees with an agenda, an organization and a mode of protest – a pattern, so to speak. Refugee resistance, or rather, the organization of it was getting its shape. The railway authorities discovered a novel way of evicting the refugees of the Railway Colony. Debris and ash were dumped over the refugee huts. A goods train loaded with debris had come near the Tollygunge Railway Bridge on Russa Road at about noon on 28 November 195459 to unload the debris near the refugee huts. The agitation of the refugees forced the authorities to retreat. These protests included women. Even in processions and gheraos (squatting), women accompanied their men with babies in arms. One such gherao was organized on 18 November 195460 before the office of the Ministry of Rehabilitation at Middleton Row. According to a newspaper report, two babies were lost from their mothers’ embrace in the confusion following the police scuffle. As is usual in such protests of a community which fights to gain the very basic benefits of life, no one belonging to that community is immune from the pressures of politics. The fight is communitarian, and one in which politics becomes the be-all and end-all. If one’s home became a part of it, so did one’s children. One must remember, in this context that life in the colony necessitated a kind of communitarian living, an egalitarian struggle and an anti-government sentiment which was ripe for the introduction of Left politics. One must repeat time and again that the story was not simply of Left ‘infiltration’, but it was also of refugee lives roping in Left political ideologies in their daily struggles for survival.

Notes 1 Maloy Krishna Dhar, Train to India Memories of Another Bengal, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009, pp. 279–80. 2 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Friday, 26 May 1950. 3 Prafulla K Chakrabarti, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, Kolkata: Lumiere Books, 1990, pp. 50–1. 4 A Special Branch (S.B.) Intelligence record dated 10.7.50 uses this word. It is almost as if an army was being formed. 5 S.B. record dated 10.7.50. 6 Desher Gareeb Janasadharan O Bastuhara Bhai Bonder Prati Nikhil Vanga Bastuhara Karma Parishader Aobhan (A Call of the All India Refugee Council of Action to the Country’s Poor and the Refugee Brothers and Sisters), SB record dated 12.11.50. 7 See Prafulla K Chakrabarti, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, Kolkata: Lumiere Books, 1990, p. 56. 8 Chakrabarti, Prafulla K Chakrabarti, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, Kolkata: Lumiere Books, 1990, p. 76. 9 Prafulla K Chakrabarti, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, Kolkata: Lumiere Books, 1990, p. 146. 10 Our Own Plan of Rehabilitation. Memorandum to The Government of India by The United Central Refugee Council, S.B. Record dated 6.8.54., p. 2. 11 Ibid., p. 7. 12 Ibid., p. 13.

Life in the Colonies  147 3 Ibid., p. 14. 1 14 Ibid., p. 8. 15 Ibid., p. 5. 16 Ibid., p. 17. 17 Ibid., p. 17. 18 Ibid., p. 21. 19 Ibid., p. 16. 20 The Jugantar was a leading revolutionary group in colonial Bengal. The name of Santosh Dutta has been mentioned earlier. 21 Debabrata Dutta the son of Santosh Dutta wrote in detail about the establishment and the functioning of the Bijoygarh Colony. See Debabrata Dutta, Vijaygarh Ekti Udbastu Upanibesh, Kolkata: Progressive Publishers, 2001, p. 23. 22 Ibid., p. 24. 23 The dates of the establishment of these colonies are mentioned by Indu Baran Ganguly in his memoir, Colonysmriti Vol.-1Udbastu Colony Pratishthar Gorar Katha (1948–1954), Kolkata: Indu Baran Ganguly, 1997, pp. 30-1. 24 S.B. record dated 14.3.50. 25 A general history of the establishment of Azadgarh can be reconstructed from B.S. Guha, Studies in Social Tensions Among the Refugees from Eastern Pakistan, Department of Anthropology, Government of India, Memoir Number I, 1954 and Indu Baran Ganguly’s memoir,1997, referred to earlier. 26 Ibid. 27 S.B Record dated 9.2.50. 28 Ibid. 29 Tamal Kanti De, Chittaranjan Colonyr Itihas, Kolkata: Chittaranjan Colony Committee, 1999, p. 9. 30 Ibid., p. 10. 31 Ibid., p. 11. 32 Ibid., p. 12. 33 Ibid., p. 13. 34 Ibid., pp. 14–5. 35 Tamal Kanti De, Chittaranjan Colonyr Itihas, Kolkata: Chittaranjan Colony Committee, 1999, p. 16. 36 Ibid., p. 18. 37 Tamal Kanti De, Chittaranjan Colonyr Itihas, Kolkata: Chittaranjan Colony Committee, 1999, p. 19. 38 Tamal Kanti De, Chittaranjan Colonyr Itihas, Kolkata: Chittaranjan Colony Committee, 1999, p. 24. 39 Ghare Baire, 5th Year, Volume: 12, 1363(1957). 40 Tamal Kanti De, Chittaranjan Colonyr Itihas, Kolkata: Chittaranjan Colony Committee, 1999, p. 32. 41 Tamal Kanti De, Chittaranjan Colonyr Itihas, Kolkata: Chittaranjan Colony Committee, 1999, pp. 44–5. 42 Sajal Chowdhury, Netaji Colony Theke Bolchi, Part II, published in the periodical, Dishari, May 2009. 43 Copy of Report of an Agent of CIS, S.B. Files, April 1950. 44 Prafulla K Chakrabarti, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, Kolkata: Lumiere Books, 1990, pp. 65–6. 45 S.B. report dated 29.5.50. 46 UCRC meeting on 17.7.55, S.B. Files, 22.7.55. 47 S.B. Files. 48 S.B. Files, 3.3.55. 49 S.B. Files. 50 S.B. Files.

148  Creating Homes 1 S.B. Files, 24.8.52. 5 52 S.B. Files, 22.9.55. 53 S.B. Record dated 3.11.52. 54 S.B. Record dated 5.11.52. 55 S.B. Files, 3.4.52. 56 Indu Baran Ganguly, Colonysmriti: Udbastu Colony Pratishtar Gorar Katha (1948-1954), Kolkata: Indu Baran Ganguly, 1997, pp. 34–5. 57 S.B. Files, 3.4.52. 58 S.B. Record dated 8.9.53. 59 S.B. Record dated 30.11.54. 60 Swadhinata dated 19.11.54, from S.B. Record dated 20.11.54.

6 The Women of the 1950s

Women, as they settled in, in camps and colonies, aware that the arrangements might change any day, went on with their lives in transit as if this had been the final call. The decade of the 1950s found these women – refugees, social workers and political activists creating spaces for themselves where none existed. In camps, they worked following government orders to secure their doles and they also worked for private employers defying government orders to supplement their income. In the colonies, they went out to study and to work, they built schools for their children and they fought against eviction from their homes. Their bodies were either attached or unattached, in government parlance, and accordingly, they could gauge what they were entitled to. These female bodies became the sites of dialogues with the government; they were the pegs and skewers in the great machinery of the rehabilitation programmes.

Living with the Government One could begin the narrative with women of the PL camps, completely dependent on government aid; the ‘unattached’ women with ‘no male head’. Abha Singha’s autobiographical novel,1 which is, in her words, a tale woven round the real-life experiences of the storms and struggles of life and living in PL camps (‘Bastab abhigyatar bhitti te ekti P.L. Camp er jeeboncharcha ebong nana matrar jhar-jhanjha kshobh-bikshob niye bune tola … ekti galpa’)2 begins with the protagonist Nirmala’s first day at work. On a hot summer afternoon, Nirmala crosses a long empty pathway from the camp gate to the insides of the campus. It is my purpose to join Nirmala in this journey to get a peek inside the camp premises. The camp in question is the Chamta PL camp which had been set up along the Krishnagar–Nabadwipghat light railway line in a deserted military barrack which had been built during the war. The path that Nirmala crosses is therefore a concrete one. Nirmala finally reaches the office of the camp superintendent, and we find the living quarters of other office-bearers on this part of the campus. As the tired Nirmala is given a glass of lemon water and a bowl of parched rice and molasses (chire gur), we realize that this chire gur would become the staple for both the refugee inmates and the workers of the camp. Nirmala has DOI: 10.4324/9781003321057-10

150  Creating Homes joined as a GA. The GAs were young girls who were responsible for the day-to-day running of the camp. Their duties were flexible and there could be no fixed hours of work. The camp settlement had begun as usual involving a huge machinery of work (Karmajogya).3 The first batch of trucks arrived with tents and awnings; then came ropes, tools, medicines, bleaching powder and foodgrains – the essential commodities to set up a camp. Then came truckloads of refugees – women who could no longer be recognized as humans. The tents were to be used by them. The office-bearers were put inside the barracks. As the tents were erected, the women started settling into their new homes. Singha uses the term sansar (household),4 perhaps not in a loose sense. This was, indeed, the resettling of homes. As one entered the camp premises, the room on the left was the office, and that on the right was the dispensary – both of these rooms being parts of the barracks. On both sides of the barracks were long balconies. This was the space which remained full of refugees. One must remember that these women, from the moment they had crossed borders, had become used to waiting in queues. Waiting for the state’s charity, coming in the form of weekly doles, became a part of their everyday routine. A part of each day was therefore spent on these balconies. Meanwhile, a training centre for women was set up for sewing, spinning and weaving. This was a bamboo structure with a tin roof, and as it was erected, along came a trainer. However, the enthusiasm of women gradually subsided as the completion of training did not promise much monetary gain. In the end, these women started collecting orders from employers outside the camp. This was, of course, done clandestinely as it was against the camp rules. Not everyone could tailor clothes. Those who could not did menial work like sewing buttons, hemming clothes and so on. Some of the women were also involved in bidi making. Their skills varied as did their earnings. The women, therefore, negotiated miles outside the camp premises in search of employment. The GAs were responsible for keeping a tab on their movements. They usually chose to ignore such defiance of government regulations. One reason, of course, was their numerical weakness in comparison with the huge number of refugee women. For about 1500 refugees, there were not more than 35 GAs. However, Abha Singha reminds us that the GAs found it difficult to deprive the refugees of their meagre earnings. Among this sea of women, struggling to keep their lives going, the number of men in this camp and in all other such camps was usually not more than three – the peon who doubled as a guard and who had nothing other than a stick to go about his business of providing security to the camp inmates, the camp doctor and the clerk. The camp space was what Singha calls ‘pramila rajya’5 (a land of women). The camp was run by women. The camp superintendent was everybody’s bordi (elder sister). The go-to person in all cases was the assistant superintendent, and the storekeeper had to be responsible for the supplies. These women were helped by the GAs. They were residential workers working for a salary of Rs. 77. They would help in

The Women of the 1950s  151 the distribution of doles among the refugees, go to the tents and identify the problems that the women were facing, see if anyone had fallen ill, summon the doctor if needed, put up the tents in case they had been damaged during storms and resolve conflicts among the women. Most of these girls as also the teachers for the refugee children belonged to refugee families themselves. The difference lay in the fact that they were placed in a better position in the great rehabilitation jungle compared to the camp women. The women – refugees and workers – were not far removed from each other in the world of relief and rehabilitation. However, witnessing the lives of women in these camps remained shocking in many ways. Singha observes that not a single complete family (‘asta paribar’)6 was visible anywhere. These women of broken families were the mothers, sisters, aunts and grandmothers (‘ma, bon, mashi, pishi, thakurma, didima’)7 who had lost their men and were left with the responsibility of bringing up their children on their own. These women, even as they lost their relations, would be referred to in terms of their relations with others. The shadow of their lost lives would remain ever-present. This was true for all such camps. Nirmala, therefore, finds it difficult to distinguish the Chamta camp from the Basudebpur camp where she had been, earlier. The women in the camps shared the same memory of violence and displacement. And every woman had tales of helpful neighbours to share. A woman at Basudebpur had narrated the tale of taking shelter in the house of the local Muslim zamindar, Abdul Mirza. Although he had been reluctant at first to give shelter, his son Iyasin had brought the Hindu family in. The house was attacked by a Muslim mob, and ultimately, Iyasin was killed. The perpetrators claimed that he is not a proper Muslim, meaning he is not Muslim enough. It is the price that he has to pay to be a good neighbour. In the recollection of these women, the Partition becomes the business of the sacrifice of Muslim lives in saving Hindus (‘Hindu ke bnachate Mochholmaner ei jaan dewa newa karbar’).8 In spite of all the hardships and insecurities, working together and sharing the same hurdles instilled some kind of camaraderie among the workers. Besides, even a small collection of music could lift the morale of these girls and make their lives in this dull horizon (‘dhushar prantar’)9 liveable. The evening tea-time could become a moment of fun. Tagore’s birth anniversary would become the day to showcase the arrangements in the camp before the government officials. Their presence in the camp premises would be the rare occasion on which the tablecloth would be brought out. The presence of the government in the lives of these women is noteworthy. Life in camps was a life lived in isolation. Singha writes that these women did not belong to any nation. They were uprooted from society. Their lives were primitive. Their centre of existence was the tent that they received from the government. And this was the basic right that these women were conscious of. During their fights, they would clearly spell out that whatever happened inside the tents was not anyone else’s lookout because the tent belonged to the government. These women identified themselves as the rightful receptacles of state charity and the tents legitimized their right. They lived with the government,

152  Creating Homes so to speak. And the government made the rules, restricting their mobility and intermingling. However, defying orders became unavoidable. Apart from work, women were also looking out for a better life. The camp doctor mentioned that women would frequently venture out to go to the nearby town of Nabadwip in search of male company. The workers were always apprehensive about pregnant women coming back to the camps. The camp guard mentioned that nightly visits by men from outside the camp was common and that it was impossible for him to stop this practice. The unattached women were not meant to add to the number of inmates. They were to remain in their assigned stations. The station that they were struggling to be in was the state of West Bengal. The soils of Bengal (‘Banglar mati’)10 is where they fought to remain. Nirmala realizes that the camp women were aware that they were vulnerable and exposed to the government’s will, or rather to its whims (‘marji’).11 The gaze of the government rested most heavily on them. Every day, news poured in about the government plans of sending refugees to Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and the Andamans. Rumours spread like wildfire. At the slightest hint of news of such plans, the camp women would gather around the camp office and voice their protest. The balconies became full, this time, with protesting women. In their protests, the women talked of the promises that Jawaharlal Nehru, or the Congress government at the centre, had made of giving them shelter. They wanted the delivery of promises from the lower rungs of government officials. The government, for these women, was almost a superhuman being with great powers and a rather whimsical temperament. It came to be represented through a complex machinery and various tiers of officials. A rumour did the rounds that the government had sacrificed 201 children for the construction of a dam. It was not unthinkable for these women to perceive the bodies of their children as constructing the necessary foundation for building a new India. The language that these women employed while speaking of the government was primitive and personal. It was their personal space which the government had penetrated. The government’s presence in their everyday lives had been normalized. The bodies of these women were also employed in physically protecting the camp in the face of natural calamities like storms. The workers and the camp women struggled together simply to stay put and bring in the next day when the tents would be erected again. The lives in transit would continue. Controlling and restricting camp women was always on the cards. If tents and doles signified the presence of the government in the lives of these women, so did the police. News about torture and atrocities by camp authorities on the inmates of the women’s camp at Bhadrakali in Hooghly had been pouring out for quite some time. On 19 and 20 October 1954, stories about attacks on women by outsiders were heard. In fact, some of the women had been injured and had to be hospitalized. The police, however, came to the camp and arrested some members of the families of these women. While talking about the plight of these women, CPI activist Tushar Singha writes in his memoir that a group of men along with the police had

The Women of the 1950s  153 been pushing these women towards moral degradation (‘naitik adhopatan’).12 These women, having no other resources, swelled the ranks of the sex workers and these men, the employers and middlemen found ways to gain access to the camps. The government authorities, while restricting the movement of these women, ensured that the fences and wires did not come in the way of admitting the outsiders. On 10 February 1956, a group of ten women were attacked again. On the 19th, the UCRC took up this issue at a meeting called by Subarna Sengupta. As a punitive measure, the camp authorities discontinued the doles of seventeen families. Besides, charges were brought against Sarajubala Bal, who was leading the camp women. In protest against this move, a meeting was summoned on 25 May at Uttarpara. However, a number of female leaders were arrested, and the attacks continued. Even after release from prison, the women were broken up into two groups and some of them were sent out to the Peardoba camp at Bankura without prior intimation. They were separated from their children who had been left behind at Bhadrakali. The protesting women began fasting and on 9 September, they were arrested again. This incident had brought in the UCRC leaders, and the protests continued. It is difficult not to read this incident at Bhadrakali as a pointer to how in the absence of men, these women were bound to live with what came to them as the government. The tussle continued over their bodies. While they were controlled and punished when the controls failed, the women held on to their bodies as the means of protest. They subjected themselves to fasting or hunger strikes. The protest against the violence took the form of violence on their bodies. They fought for the right over their bodies.

Colony Women What remains noteworthy is the fact that women whose presence had been significant in their struggles in rebuilding lives on station platforms, women who had crossed barbed wires and went out in the afternoons to gather food or fuel, or to earn their daily bread in the government camps, somehow remained almost unseen and difficult to identify now, in the records relating to the colonies. One becomes curious as to what happened to these women. Did the change that they had brought about in the social fabric die out? It would, perhaps, be more correct to say that in the colonies, women were performing certain fixed roles assigned to them. They would form the first line of resistance, with babies in arms, while defending their homes from the eviction operations of the landlords. Women were also active in opening schools and teaching. The patriarchal notions of ‘women’s work’ (even though these notions of both work and domesticity had been modified by homelessness) made them fit for certain roles in the colonies. More important, as life became more settled, these notions tended to revert back to their earlier modes. Nothing brought women out more aggressively than the defence of the colony homes. As the threat of eviction gradually became weaker, the reliance on everything that was deemed as ‘traditional’ became

154  Creating Homes more important. At a broader level, this could mean the establishment of a Kali temple in almost every colony, the celebration of Tagore’s birth anniversary and perhaps, an emphasis on certain fixed tasks for women. This was especially true of middle-class households which had been upper-middle-class homes in East Pakistan. This might explain to a certain extent why the leaders of the CPI not only did not feel the need of, but in fact rebuked the proposal to establish a separate women’s organization under its wing for a long time. The CPI was not interested in mass organizations other than trade unions and peasants’ organizations. Only a few members actually supported such a move. E.M.S. Namboodiripad was one amongst them. He drew up a proposal for discussion within the party for the need to establish such an organization. This document talked of the need to open public baths and public lavatories for women in rural areas. This document was decried within the party. It came to be sarcastically referred to as the ‘latrine document’.13 Nothing more than a welfare organization for women found its place within the folds of the CPI. Even the concept of welfare was limited. Organized political activity (which was different from welfare activities) under the women’s wing within the parametres of the CPI was absent. Women were forming a different strand of mobilization. Refugee women were being organized under women’s units, sometimes represented by one particular woman. Refugees of the Muraripukur area were brought together by one Kamala di, mentioned earlier. She belonged to the Pragati Mahila Sangha, which was a refugee women’s faction subsidiary to the Ganatantrik Mahila Sangha. The CPI-controlled women’s organization that functioned from Azadgarh was headed by Dolonchapa Dutt. She functioned as the secretary. Ila Bose was active in ward number II of Azadgarh and Hashi Guha in ward number III. The women’s wing of the party had clearly spelt out its own agenda and mode of operation in opposing the government. The role of the female workers of the party would not be confined to presenting demands. They would have to lead the refugees in all kinds of movements – in processions, meetings, demonstrations, gheraos, picketing of government stores and squatting on government property.14 It was around this time – the early 1950s – that the Mahila Atma Raksha Samiti started emphasizing on the relevance of women’s organizations in independent India.

The Mahila Atma Raksha Samiti and the CPI Women’s Wing One must acknowledge that the work of women and women’s organizations played an important role in strengthening the position of the communists in the colonies. The work that they did was in the nature of providing relief and the appeal was to the ‘mothers and sisters’ and the ‘wives and daughters’ in the colonies. Women, in this narrative, were commonly referred to in terms of their relations with others. They were the ‘ma-bon’s (mothers-sisters) and the ‘bou-jhi’s15 (wives-daughters) of their men. Women workers had better access into the refugee households than

The Women of the 1950s  155 their male colleagues and these women were also becoming a conspicuous presence in the streets. The Mahila Atmaraksha Samiti (MARS), a CPIdominated women’s association, assumed special significance in these trying times. It had been established during the famine of 1942, for ‘safeguarding the interests, prestige and rights of the women’.16 The vagueness of the stated purpose had the advantage of being able to fit in different kinds of activities among women. The MARS was an organization for social work and the issue of prestige or honour of women had been relevant in the context of its history. The loss of this ‘honour’ in the hands of the American soldiers had been an imminent threat as an after-effect of the Second World War. A number of organizations, mostly for the defence of women had sprung up but such scattered efforts did not amount to much. Even the AIWC had failed to address a number of issues. In April 1942, a host of female activists like Kamala Chatterjee, Manikuntala Sen, Ela Reid and Renu Chakravartty met and decided to form an organizing committee of the Mahila Atmaraksha Samiti (the Women’s Self Defence League). The MARS was to cut across all kinds of class identities. It would be a platform as much for working-class women as for the middle, upper-middle and upper classes of women. The purpose of the Samiti was set out in its first meeting held at the house of Ela Reid. It was clearly stated that – ‘The men are doing “people’s protection”, our samiti will be for women’s atma raksha or self respect’.17 That the theme of self-respect would dominate the activities of the MARS in the coming days was demonstrated time and again. It is by popularizing this theme that the activists raised political issues. Women’s emancipation and the wrongs committed by the government would find their places in the same list. The fact that ‘people’s protection’ did not always fulfil the special needs of women was acknowledged. The MARS women moved around. They travelled to the far-flung villages and talked to women about the possibilities and meanings of a fascist attack. The MARS started uniting women’s self-help efforts, and a cooperative was formed. Women’s work was organized which included noting orders, providing centres with raw materials and supplying the finished products to the showrooms of the Bengal Home Industries and the Good Companions. Aparna Banerjee and Geeta Mallick became actively involved in this work. Every locality had centres, amongst which the Shyambazar centre became prominent.18 The CPI had been banned for almost three years, from 1948 till early 1951. By this time, the activities of the MARS had become widespread. The women were working tirelessly in the villages. Women came to the meetings and discussed their everyday problems, how they were beaten by their husbands and his family, how they disapproved of their husbands’ consumption of liquor and so on.19 As the party was going underground, it was also the responsibility of the female workers to carry the work forward in disguise. As talks began of banning the MARS, the members tried to carry on their work through the establishment of new organizations like the Women’s Cultural Association.20 There were many underground centres, like one on 132/1B, Cornwallis Street, where the communist women gathered. This

156  Creating Homes centre worked as a sewing school but was, in fact, a centre for the party girls. Women were deputed from this centre for box collections for the People’s Relief Committee. These women also collected old clothes from the local residents. It was easier for these women to come closer to the people, as it were, than their male colleagues. The relentless party work that they got involved in did bring in the dimension of social work to the politics of the CPI. It was more the organization of relief than political ideology that brought the CPI closer to the refugee households. There were also female students’ organizers like Anupama Chakrabertty who helped to bring women closer to the party.21 She was in charge of mobilizing the students from the South Calcutta Girls College. Her presence in almost every CPI demonstration and meeting was noted. She lived in the girls’ hostel which made her work easier. The women’s movement under the banner of the CPI had a more multi-pronged, if not flexible way of working and this was how the party’s high command wanted it to remain. A circular of the Politburo of the CPI in 1952 mentioned that the women’s movement has to be [a] multi-class movement and organization and cannot be a one-class organization. … General[ly] speaking, calls for strikes and struggles on economic issues should be the task of T.U.s [Trade Unions] and Kisan Sabhas and working women as members of the T.Us, Kisan Sabhas can, and should participate in these struggles. … But generally the class demands should be voiced by the class organizations. These may be taken up by the women’s organizations when such demands have become the common consciousness of the people.22 It was this multi-class approach – more social than political and more inclusive – that made the women’s movement different from the general stream of CPI politics. An eight-point agenda was drawn up by the CPI Women’s Section which clearly shows how this principle was executed.23 The Women’s Section was to organize democratic mass movements for equal status with men. It was to press the government for the introduction of compulsory primary education. It was to establish educational centres for the ‘healthy growth of body and mind of the women of this country’.24 It was to establish study circles for ‘the requisite mental equipment of the women’.25 It was to introduce permanent relief measures for ‘distressed and molested women’.26 It was to take an active part in all democratic movements of the country. It was to stand for the introduction of ‘co-education and constructive measures’27 in the education system, and it was to work for ‘saving education from the influence of religious dogmas’.28 Much emphasis was placed, therefore on training the minds of women. Women were to be taught the correct path that a communist woman was to tread. And such training would be regular. Through the study circles, and the permanent structures of conducting relief work, these women were never to venture too far away from the party line.

The Women of the 1950s  157 It was from around this time that the MARS started participating in the refugee meetings. What the MARS demanded was the introduction of basic civic amenities in the colonies and one of their pamphlets mentioned that they demanded that the needs of a mofussil (sahartali)29 be fulfilled. This was, in fact, what the refugees fought for. Not the best, but something close to the average. With the refugee settlements, the city limits were expanding. The expansion of the city meant development along such lines – creating mofussil pockets around the city which would be closely knit with the fabric of city life. The circumstances gave opportunities for the birth of heroes. There were protesters who gave up their lives to resist the power of landholders, of the police and the government in general. The four women – Latika, Pratibha, Amiya and Geeta – who had been killed by police firing on 27 April 1949, represented the hazards of the new life on this side of the border. We shall come back to them later. It is in the midst of all this that the MARS activists raised issues like the need to release political prisoners or the plight of the refugees. In the decade of the 1950s, the MARS movement assumed greater relevance since, ‘the food, cloth and various problems which confronted the Bengali women about 9 years ago’ were ‘taking serious proportion. … The apprehension of a third global war’ had ‘enveloped the minds of all mothers and women. Every poor and middle class family’ was ‘engrossed with the acute food and cloth problems. The children’ were ‘becoming weaker for want of nutritious food. The refugee camps in West Bengal’ were ‘places where millions of women refugees’ had ‘to lead abominable lives’.30 This is how the MARS movement unified issues. The refugee problem became a part and parcel of their social work programmes. Careful planning and detailed organizational work ensured the success of the movement. It penetrated the inner domains of the colony homes. Zonal centres were opened which worked in the colonies. The colonies provided the ideal landscape, so to speak, for various kinds of organizations or samitis. Even though many of these did not formally align themselves with the MARS, a sort of a training ground for women, who would later work for the CPI, was finding shape. As Manikuntala Sen31 mentions in her memoir, Many new samitis and working centres sprang up in these colonies, and women such as Renu Ganguly, Kabita, Kamala and Basanti came forward as organizers. Gradually all of them matured and developed into seasoned activists. Later they also became party workers.32 Apart from the general issues that MARS endorsed, there were specific issues for which working committees were formed. These units were small in size with an immediate agenda to solve a particular issue. On 27 June 1954, one such MARS unit was opened at the Baranagar Refugee Colony at Jiagunj in Murshidabad,33 and a working committee was formed with thirteen members of the Jiagunj-Azimgunj MARS unit to look into the

158  Creating Homes problems that women in this colony spoke of. The MARS held meetings in the colonies and subsequently, the participation of refugee women increased. About two hundred women attended a meeting held at the Dum Dum Laha Colony,34 and this was the usual strength of most of the meetings. Refugee issues were therefore easily accommodated with other issues. In 1948–49, women came out into the streets to protest against the detention of political prisoners without trial. One particular protest gathering became a significant marker of the refugee movement under the banner of MARS. On 27 April 1949, after a meeting, a procession was fired at in the College Street–Bowbazar area and four women – Latika, Pratibha, Geeta and Amiya were killed. These women of diverse backgrounds were brought together, and their martyrdom fuelled the public imagination in Calcutta of the heights that the women’s movement could reach. Latika and Pratibha were political activists; Geeta was a nurse and Amiya, a middle-class homemaker.35 The MARS movement opened a new world of political activism for women, and they became a regular presence in the streets of a busy city. Women with no political background could now become a part of this world. As the appeal to the ‘mothers and sisters’ came to be heard loud and clear, the MARS could successfully form a ‘Mothers’ Committee’ for older women. The language of this movement remained familiar. It was in this same language and almost in the same breath that the problems of Fascist aggression, American imperialism and Russian socialism came to be discussed. As the MARS had to go underground for two years, the members worked through a number of colony committees. The importance of regular study classes was always felt. The need to open primary schools in the colonies was also felt. These schools would not only educate the children (the MARS was, after all, primarily an organization for social work), but also bring in their mothers. The school committees could become the recruiting ground for party members. At a meeting of the Jadavpur and Tollygunge Zonal Committee of the MARS on 25 December 1955, which was held at the house of Indu Prova Ray Choudhury,36 in which Renu Ganguli presided, Shila De talked specifically about the need to form a committee for each of these schools for bringing in new members for the party. It was not possible to have fixed assigned spaces for schools. Therefore, many of these schools were opened in private homes. Nirmala Ray held classes at her own home at Azadgarh. It should be remembered that Nirmala Ray was the mother of Satya Ray of the CPI, who had been the secretary of the Azadgarh Colony unit. Kalpana Basu took classes at the house of Sushil Aich at Surya Nagar and at her own home at Lakshminarayan Colony. Juthika Roy of the Netajinagar Colony held some classes at the house of Jagabandhu Banarji at Aswininagar Colony. Pratima Ray Chaudhury of Poddarnagar Colony held classes at the house of Nripen Acharji of Bapujinagar Colony and Sushila Debi took classes at the house of Sishu Ranjan De at Rajendra Prasad Colony.37 In this tangled web of social work and party interests, the MARS women believed that they were working for the greater common good.

The Women of the 1950s  159 In the study classes, issues like the unemployment problem of middle-class women, the need to protect children and the need to end the recovery process of abducted women, a programme that the Government of India had taken up with great zeal, and let the women settle down, came up. What also came to be discussed was the need to look beyond specific refugee problems. The first study class of the Tollygunge and Jadavpur Zonal MARS unit was held at Ward No. 3 of Milangarh in Tollygunge on 13 July 1955 at the residence of Kabita Sen.38 This class was formally inaugurated by Manika Rai. She appealed to those who attended the class to enlist their names at the Provincial Committee office of the CPI as volunteers for participating in the Goa liberation movement. This was the movement for freeing Goa from Portuguese control, which was to be launched on 1 August 1955. In a similar strain, at the weekly study class of the same Zonal unit held at the residence of Renu Ganguly at the Nehru Colony on 3 August 1955, Pankaj Acharji directed the zonal branches of the MARS to send delegates to Serampore to join the third annual conference of the UCRC, the CPI-dominated organization, which was scheduled to be held at the end of the month.39 The refugees had to become a part of a larger Left political culture that was gradually engulfing the regular activities of the women’s movement. Manika Rai, therefore, spoke of the need to prove ‘the refugees’ eagerness to fight for the interest of the democratic forces besides their own interest’.40 The notion of raising women’s consciousness got inextricably linked with Leftist political agenda. The mobilization of women across colonies helped in the penetration of the CPI. The bodies through which the MARS women worked let them function even when the party was banned. The sewing schools, the primary schools and the committees which organized cultural programmes in the colonies worked to continue party work. The colony women helped create a communist base. It is no wonder that Manikuntala Sen, in her memoir would look back and think of the colonies as bastions of struggle (‘sangramer durga’).41 By the middle of the decade of the 1950s, it was increasingly being felt that a welfare organization was not enough. The need for organized political activity was highlighted. The MARS proposed that the AIWC should restructure its constitution and membership fees. Instead of an annual individual membership fee of Rs. 3/- and a state-wide branch structure, the constitution could be changed to accommodate different organizations which would affiliate themselves with the AIWC while retaining their independent organizational structures and paying a membership fee of 4 annas.42 The AIWC refused to accept this proposal. Therefore a new political organization was needed. The establishment of the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) could not be postponed for long, no matter how reluctant the communist leadership was. However, in spite of all the efforts, women’s movement under the wings of the CPI retained its subsidiary character. It remained more in the nature of a body for relief work. The nature of demands of these bodies marks this point. The early programmes of the NFIW included demands like ‘trained midwife for every village’, ‘a health care centre for every ten thousand people’43 and so on. They ran mass literacy programmes

160  Creating Homes and programmes for familiarizing women with the history of International Children’s Day and International Women’s Day. However, it was the communist women who had started leading a new kind of public life so to speak and who were making women’s emancipation part and parcel of their political agenda. In fact, the activities of these bodies were aimed at raising awareness amongst women about their conditions so that ‘they themselves could take part in organized activities and mass actions for winning those demands’.44 The communist women’s movement was primarily aimed at creating a political-minded woman who would join her male colleagues from time to time in making political demands. Thus, the NFIW organized joint action with other organized sections like the Kisan Sabha or the trade unions to make demands on behalf of the beedi workers, the unorganized building workers, female agricultural labourers and so on. Political activity remained a part-time, occasional activity. The hold of the party brothers over their lives as activists remained strong. However, political activity brought women out like never before. Communist women came to be perceived as a different stock altogether. They were different from those who were forced by circumstances to become bread earners. There was no story of victimhood to justify their presence in the streets. It was a conscious choice. They were women who threatened the domesticity of middle-class households which even those women who had been forced to come out into the streets to work could not. Much before the formation of the NFIW, in October 1942, two months after the CPI was legalized (after being banned for the first time), a Provincial Women’s Front of the CPI had been formed in Bengal. Renu Chakravartty writes in her memoir that communist women came to be seen as ‘peculiar type of women, going all over the area from house to house, shamelessly talking to everybody’.45 They would be asked by women whether they were married and whether they had children. The men would ask their wives to stay away from them. The threat that was felt needs to be noted. First of all, these women could not be pitied. They were not victims of circumstances. They were not out into the streets to feed their family. It was much more than that. Second, their aim was political rather than simply nurturing and caring. However, there was a need to address the question of choice between the home and the world, as it were. Women were subject to the pushes and pulls between the two worlds, still far removed, in the decade of the 1950s. The contradiction between what the communist women’s movement was supposed to be and what it amounted to had to be resolved. The communist women did find a way out of these conflicting worlds. They spoke, first of all, about the intrinsic desire of women to take care of their homes and families. To this was added the belief that to secure this, one needed to be Left-minded. Even though the contours of their movement were shaped by programmes of social reform and relief, that the women’s movement should not limit itself to social problems, was mentioned time and again. A passage from Renu Chakravartty’s memoir attempts at a resolution:

The Women of the 1950s  161 It is obvious that the deepest aspirations of a woman for ensuring happiness for her children, food and shelter for herself and her family, for a life of dignity and equality, would meet immediate opposition of the feudals and of the capitalists. That is why communist women have always looked upon the struggle of kisans for land, for wages, for their freedom from serfdom and bonded labour, as being close to the women’s fight for liberation from barbaric feudal customs such as purdah, child marriage, dowry, wife beating, torture and atrocities on women as inferior beings of society, as well as the unequal customs in marriage, inheritance, etc. There can be no rigid line of demarcation between the struggle of the workers for wages, jobs, against retrenchment and lay-off and the demands specific to women like maternity benefit, unequal wages, dismissal or discrimination against employment of women etc.46 The communist women’s movement clearly aimed at bridging the distance between the world of women, centred on the hearth and that of the world outside, between the home and the nation. There was no denial of the fact that there was a gap between the two worlds. However, what was reiterated was that to secure the home, one had to secure one’s place in the world. It was felt that ‘National political issues which affect the lives of their children and families have a direct bearing on women, and there can be no bar to women’s organisations taking up such issues’.47 The analogy of women as creators of life and therefore, the natural defenders of it, logically brought in the argument of the need to live according to communist ideals, principles and values. Women who create life, defend that life with their last breath. What is dearer to them than the security of their children from the devastation of an atomic war?48 There was no doubt about what primarily constituted the world of women. That their life was peopled by their children, whom they had brought to life and that the welfare of these children was the most important concern of women, that childrearing was their business was never questioned. Women, even as political actors, had to re-create the world of their homes and replicate the regime of care that signified and qualified what constituted the homely. Having set the stage right, what remained to be done, now, was to unite this mental world with the concerns of the world outside, like ‘national political issues’ or ‘Peace and solidarity with national-liberation movements the world over’.49 It is this bridge that the regular study classes sought to form. Women had to be trained in this school of thought to carry the movement forward. Perhaps the greatest success of these communist women lay in the fact that they created the image of the political woman whose mobility and presence in the public space defined her.

162  Creating Homes

Going Out to Work It is towards the other women – those who had come out to work but adhered to and even created for themselves that space of domesticity that seamlessly fitted into patriarchal structures – that I turn in the end. These women, one must remember, never forgot their victimhood. Their sacrifice defined them. This sacrifice for the family, in fact, ranked high in the list of virtues. Martyrdom, of course, is seldom a choice. However, there was a ball that had been set rolling; an intricate machinery had been set to work. As these women stepped out to commit their virtuous tasks, they gained a certain mobility in public spheres. It was no longer possible for these women to restrict themselves to their homes. As they kept moving, bearing the responsibility of the roles assigned to them, they invariably changed the public space, which altered to fit her in. It is about these women that Manikuntala Sen wrote in her memoir that she had noticed a great change; she mentioned a remarkable new awakening (‘ak adbhut nabajagaran’) in women after Partition. She felt that had they remained on the other side of the border, this change might not have happened as quickly. On her way to and fro, she met these women in the trains. They would crowd the general and ladies’ compartments in their daily journey to their schools, colleges or places of work. They had not only taken up the reins of their own lives but also that of their families. They had forgotten their own needs. Sen reflects that these women could no longer be simply defined as uprooted women. They had become a part of the sea of people (‘janasamudra’) on this side of the border.50 This new woman was on the go and therefore her presence in the work scene was accompanied by a distinct dress pattern. She would wear a matching blouse; she could check time on her wristwatch and have food out of a lunchbox. The defining sound of her sandals was heard loud and clear. Meera Mukhopadhyay recalled life after Partition in the busy city of Calcutta.51 She was a westerner, a Ghoti, and remembered her Ghoti neighbour Jotu’s mother warning her against the ever-quarrelsome easterner, the Bangal. Mukhopadhyay’s daughter was reprimanded for her wish to go to college for higher studies, from where, it was feared, she would take up the Bangal habits of wearing wristwatches (‘hatey ghari’)52 and make defying sounds with her sandals (‘choti phyatang phyatang’).53 It was evident that if once these women came out into the streets, it would be difficult to confine them within the bounds of domesticity. Their bodies would lose their docility. Even as women worked to keep their families going in times of need, even though she bought things for the family from the money that she earned, she had, indeed earned the right to buy and to bestow gifts. She had earned the right to purchase and had come closer to the market. One would recall the presence in the streets of women like Arati in Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (adapted from Narendra Nath Mitra’s short story), and Neeta in Ritwik Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara (adapted from Shaktipada Rajguru’s short

The Women of the 1950s  163 story). Even though they still remained the containers of the honour and the holders of respectability of their middle-class families and communities, their bodies had become a part of the new toiling masses and a space had been created in the handbag for a lipstick (as in the case of Arati) which she would associate with her work life. That the threshold of the hearth had been crossed, was beyond doubt. They would come to terms with their dual roles and negotiate with both through the lens of a certain unease in the world of men. These women in the decade of the 1950s would be defined by their awkwardness, their unease and their discomfort. Their lives and every waking hour were not dictated by the presence of the state. They were different from the refugee women on station platforms or in government camps. They moved between the worlds of middle-class domesticity and a new work culture. Their clock had changed. Their lives had become one of enacting roles and outdated ones at that.

Notes 1 Abha Singha, Prasanga: P.L. Camp, Kolkata: Sumudran, 2002. 2 Ibid., p. 6. 3 Ibid., p. 9. 4 Ibid., p. 10. 5 Ibid., p. 12. 6 Ibid., p. 13. 7 Ibid., p. 13. 8 Ibid., p. 18. 9 Ibid., p. 20. 10 Ibid., p. 43. 11 Ibid., p. 43. 12 Tushar Singha, Maranjoyee Sangrame Bastuhara, Kolkata: Dasgupta’s, 1999, p.29. 13 Vidya Munsi, National Federation of Indian Women: A Brief History, Delhi: NFIW Publication, 2008, p. 3. 14 Letter of an Assam unit to all Party members and units dated 8.4.1950, S.B. Files. 15 A MARS call to women to join a provincial conference on 3–4 May 1952 in Calcutta was addressed to the mothers and sisters- ‘Ma bon der proti’. An article in Ghare-Baire, the MARS organ begins with the question, ‘If the wives and daughters of the household have to go out into the streets to beg, what remains of their lives?’ (translation, mine), 3rd Year, Vol. 10, Agrahayan, 1361 (Autumn, 1954). 16 Joint Statement of Lila Majumdar, Manjusri Devi, Gita Mallik, Aparna Banerjee, Shobha Hui, Aryabala Devi, Ila Bose, Gita Mukharji and Asru Das, published in the Satyayug dated 23.5.51; S.B Files. 17 Manikuntala Sen, In Search of Freedom an Unfinished Journey, translated from the Bengali by Stree, Calcutta: Stree, 2001, p. 74. 18 Manikuntala Sen, Sediner Katha, Kolkata: Nabapatra Prakashan, 1982, p. 122. 19 Ibid., p. 127. 20 S.B. Files. 6.5.49. 21 S.B. Files, 10.2.49. 22 A circular issued by the Polit Bureau of the C.P.I. Madras, 1952. S.B. Files. 23 S.B. Files, 1949. 24 Ibid.

164  Creating Homes 5 Ibid. 2 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Ma Bon der Proti Pashchimbanga Mahila Atma Raksha Samitir Abedan! Agami 3 o 4 May, Kalikatay Pradeshik Sammelan ke Jayjukto Korun!, S.B. Files, 1952. 30 Joint Statement of Lila Majumdar, Manjusri Devi, Gita Mallik, Aparna Banerjee, Shobha Hui, Aryabala Devi, Ila Bose, Gita Mukharji and Asru Das, published in the Satyayug dated 23.5.51; S.B Files. 31 Sen (1911–1987) was an active member of the Communist Party of India and one of the frontline leaders of the women’s movement under the wings of the party. She later became the deputy leader of the opposition in the Legislative Assembly (from 1952–1962). 32 Manikuntala Sen, In Search of Freedom an Unfinished Journey, translated from the Bengali by Stree, Calcutta: Stree, 2001, p. 182. 33 Swadhinata Patrika dated 01.07.1954. 34 Swadhinata Patrika dated 31.03.1954. 35 Renu Chakravartty, Communists in Indian Women’s Movement 1940–1950, New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1980, p. 112. 36 S.B. Files, report dated 27.12.55. 37 SB files, report dated 6.6.56. 38 SB files, report dated 14.7.55. 39 SB files, report dated 17.11.55. 40 SB files, report dated 14.7.55. 41 Manikuntala Sen, Sediner Katha, Kolkata: Nabapatra Prakashan, 1982, p. 184. 42 Ibid, p. 3. 43 Ibid, p. 6. 44 Vidya Munsi, National Federation of Indian Women: A Brief History, Delhi: NFIW Publication, p. 6. 45 Renu Chakravartty, Communists in Indian Women’s Movement 1940–1950, New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1980, p. 18. 46 Renu Chakravartty, Communists in Indian Women’s Movement 1940–1950, New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1980, p. 220. 47 Ibid., p. 222. 48 Ibid., p. 222. 49 Ibid., p. 222. 50 Manikuntala Sen, Sediner Katha, Kolkata: Nabapatra Prakashan, 1982, p. 183. 51 Meera Mukhopadhyay’s account in Semanti Ghosh, ed., Desh Bhag: Smriti ar Stabdhata, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2008. 52 Ibid., p. 109. 53 Ibid., p. 109.

End Words

Hiranmay Bandyopadhyay, while visiting a colony in Alipurduar, notes a typical morning scene. The women had made arrangements for cooking in the open balcony. A row of ovens with smoke bellowing is the first thing that would draw the attention of any visitor. The few tube wells in the street corners were surrounded by women. They would collect water to cook and wash clothes. While the humdrum of so much activity greets the visitor, he would find the men sitting in one corner of the balcony, chin on palm and with a blank look.1 While women’s work produced the sounds and fury of an everyday existence, the men were steeped in silence. It is the silence of men, about their own fate and of that of their women that memorialized the Partition. The women remained busy. In the altered circumstances after the Partition, they took up the roles of carers who kept the house running while at the same time expanding their interactions with the market as they tried to supplement government doles with work outside. They also became food gatherers to feed their families. The afternoons became a productive part of the day in the lives of these women. Their politicization began when they identified themselves as tools in the refugees’ struggle to stay put. The pictures of women defending their new homes with household implements as weapons against the eviction operations of landlords, and their presence on the front lines of resistance with babies in arms have been etched deep in the memory of the Partition. In the gendered narrative of the Partition, the case of women in the permanent liability camps would draw special attention since they could be seen as the nation’s most dependent children. They lived with the state like no one else did. As the state restricted their moves and made the rules, it re-imposed the notions of patriarchy in a new setting. Their interactions with the officials in these ‘prison homes’ demonstrates how the post-Partition nation was being defined in terms of the bestowal of charity. This book has tried to move along with the refugees from eastern Bengal by way of tracing their violent journey to an unknown land. This painful history of migration also enables us to understand the circumstances in which the two nation-states were born. The story that unfolds makes the cardinal point that the refugee question in the long run made it impossible for the state to relegate the Partition to its past. As the Partition could not be contained so easily, it spilled over into the space of the modern state. In DOI: 10.4324/9781003321057-11

166  End Words a way the journey undertaken by the refugees not only defined their identity, but it also defined the nation-state which, at the time of the Partition, remained in the making. As one undertakes this journey with the refugee, one comes face to face with the fear that made the refugee homeless. In the early years after independence and Partition, the fear that defined the state of things was largely a fear of the loss of honour. This again, does not mean that the fear of the loss of life was absent. The pre-independence years had already prepared the minds of men/women for bloody riots. However, the fear of the loss of social position and prestige and economic well-being threatened the landowners and the professional classes. The greatest fear was perhaps the abuse of the prestige of their women. In these years, therefore, the fear of the ‘mob’ meant the fear of men who had remained in the outer quarters of the Hindu middle-class homes till recently and who now threatened to enter the inner quarters as a mark of a social change that ‘Pakistan’ had brought about. The experience of the Partition was therefore marked by class, caste and gender differences. In this sense, it was less of a communal fear per se. Ashoka Gupta reminds us: The truth is that domestic violence was as rampant in both the communities then as it is today. For example, in Hindu homes, women were beaten up, brides were tortured, men married many times, very young girls were prey to molestation in large families. What happened after Partition was something different. It was as if the basis of society was changing, the class structure itself was being shaken up.2 However, as the years went by, the constitution of this fear somewhat changed. It became more communal. As the nature of the state of Pakistan was surely and consciously spelt out, the fear that the minorities felt now was due mainly to their religious identities. Therefore, the Hindu low-caste peasants felt the push this time, even though their class identities matched with those of their Muslim neighbours. As always, the politics of culture (especially of language) was felt strongly. The mob, this time, was composed of men one had lived with and with whom one had shared the same lifestyle. This cultural identity that the state of Pakistan imposed was not new. During the reform years of the nineteenth century, the Wahabis had presented such a cultural model when the Muslims of Bengal were forced to decide whether they were Bengali or Muslim. This ‘anti-local cultural stance’3 became heightened once more during the Partition years when an “Urdu-based culture … [was projected as] the ‘correct’ Islamic way”.4 The identity of the mob that caused all the trouble varied under different circumstances. In the 1946 riots, Marwari businessmen had been alleged to have used arms and ammunitions that had been bought from American soldiers against the Muslims.5 Days before the Partition, communal riots broke out in the business centres of Calcutta like the Burrabazar and Chitpur areas. These riots did not get as much attention as did the riots of

End Words  167 the previous year. Again, Hindu businessmen of this area, mostly the Marwaris, participated in these riots. They became the ‘miscreants’. The victims, in this case, were the Muslims. That trade interests played a vital role in these riots is noteworthy. In these riots, upcountry Hindu goons were brought in and paid to create trouble. The perpetrators of violence this time were, therefore, identified as the Marwaris of Burrabazar and the ‘outsiders’ – the upcountry goons.6 This might have been simply because in the 1946 riots the Marwaris had a lot to lose; their houses had been attacked; their lives and property had become insecure. However, the need to secure business interests could also be a reason. Keeping all this aside, the point to remember here is that the notion of the ‘mob’ is not singular, and the identity of the victim is perpetually shifting. Fear was always the cause and effect of rumours. If the role of rumour is recognized, the archive of the Partition historian changes considerably. During and after the Calcutta riots of 1946–47, there was a rumour doing the rounds that Muslims, with the help of the British government, were planning to blow up the city with dynamite. On the other hand, word had spread that the Muslim students of the Islamia College (present-day Maulana Azad College) were being killed by Hindus.7 Such rumours did two things. They justified the fear, and they justified the actions (which could then be termed as either retaliatory or precautionary) which were taken; the incidents of (counter?) violence. As the fear of the mob coming nearer every moment engulfed the minorities, the stories of atrocities spread like fire so that the mob became an ever-present danger. The migrants were the most important tools in spreading the panic. They were the living receptacles of rumours and hearsay. The fact that they were leaving made their narration of violent events a necessity. That they were not leaving without a cause was something that had to be explained. Therefore, the immediate witness accounts are full of such atrocities. However, as one wrote about the years of the Partition later, the need to revisit the lands left behind and the need to write about the new lives on this side of the border became greater. As one identifies the high points of trouble – the riots of 1946, 1947, 1950, 1952 and 1964 – it does not seem possible to see the years in between simply as years in between. As the incidents of the fatal attacks were repeated over the years, the memory of Partition violence was retold, recreated and reconstructed as the days of the Partition were revisited. Further attacks could always be anticipated, and therefore, the fear remained. It is perhaps true that fear had made these men/women homeless, that it had initiated a journey that would never end. The question that kept doing the rounds in government circles and in the minds of the men/women of the times is whether this fear justified the migration. It is perhaps time to say yes to that in clear terms. The presence of the refugees changed the political milieu of West Bengal. The refugees became the motif for a new kind of politics that came to be associated with Leftism. It is also important to recognize that the refugees were not a homogeneous category, no matter how hard their political

168  End Words leaders tried to level them all. There were different classes of refugees who lived their different lives so that some low-caste camp dwellers would always refer to the inhabitants of colonies as colony babus. The latter’s proximity with the educated high-caste government servants would not be forgotten. It was these babus, the ‘bhadralok´s’ for whom, as Indu Baran Ganguly mentions in his memoir,8 the Jadavpur Association had decided to hold plots so that the ‘abhadra’ (uncivilized)9 could be kept out from the deal. An ‘Actioners’ Bahini’ (Army)10 was formed for the purpose. Ganguly writes that those plot- holders, who were considered to be ‘abhadra’ or ‘chotolok’ (the lower orders), were given some money to build their own huts elsewhere so that their plots could be redistributed amongst the rich (‘poisawala’).11 The state, on its behalf was forced to deal with the refugee problem in more ways than one. It had to arrange the migrants in terms of their needs. In order to see who were eligible for state aid, it had to categorize them. One has to take a closer look at the new sites of contestation in the space that the modern state created for organizing their life in a new land – the camps and the colonies. It must be noted, in this context, that the refugees should not be seen merely in terms of their victimhood or simply as tools of politicization. They opted for a kind a politics that became relevant to their needs. It was not a simple matter of being appropriated by a particular political party. They were politically charged elements who would take an active part in the nation-building process. This book has tried to reopen the case of the Partition by emphasizing the everyday experience of the Partition, instead of trying to reach definitive conclusions about the hows and whys of these defining events. Focusing attention on Bengal during the period between 1947 and 1964, it has tried to make sense of the times of Partition and of the lives which were partitioned. While documenting refugee lives, it is impossible not to turn to Carl Shmitt’s contention12 that the ‘[s]overeign is he who decides on the exception’.13 This state of exception, born of necessity and perpetuated by the state mechanism, makes the alien a permanent entity. Born under circumstances of duress and emergency, the institutional structures of the state work in making this state of affairs a peace-time measure. It no longer remains a measure for extraordinary circumstances. It seeps into ordinary, everyday lives. It becomes normal. The refugees remained within the bounds of a permanent state of exception. These lives were, indeed, suspended on the borderline between politics and law. It also needs to be understood that in this state of exception, the body of the refugee is constantly exposed to the gaze, stare and even glare of the state. The female refugee possessed the body of the pure victim. There was no break, no fissure in her victimhood. In imposing this identity on her, she was robbed of her agency, her voice. This was especially true of families in which women were left with ‘no male heads’. The men, on the other hand, became an important tool in the development projects of the state if they were ‘able-bodied’. They were the most productive contributors. Boys

End Words  169 reaching a certain age, therefore, became earning members and could make a crucial difference in the status of their families in terms of eligibility to get state help. In fact, the very notion of rehabilitation came to be clubbed with notions of development. It is no wonder, therefore, that in the rehabilitation measures, the refugees who had been cultivators were usually assigned what came to be termed as danga lands – the barren lands which were to be brought under the plough. The refugee would toil when required and sit idle when told to do so. The state owned their limbs, muscles, sinews. In order to get the state’s favours, they had to be the good refugee. The good refugee was the one who had a docile/tame14 body. The refugee in the camp, not allowed to work and engage with the market, would fit the image of the lazy, dole-dependent figure in no time. He could be pitted against the everenterprising Punjab refugee, ready to take the government plans forward. One would recall that at the Sonarpur Arapanch scheme II and the Bagjola scheme, as the Government of India had declared its intention to loan the funds needed for digging a canal to the irrigation department,15 and as the Department of Refugee Rehabilitation had agreed to conduct the work of digging, it was the camp refugees who were employed in the project. On one hand, it was felt that the refugees, in taking part in this work, would develop a sense of belonging to the nation, and on the other hand, they would be able to come out of their jobless state. They would be able to employ their labour in earning their right to residence. The grounds that would be cleared in the process would be used for the rehabilitation of the refugees. Therefore, it was felt that since the refugees had a stake in this work, the work itself would be done faster and better. The man at the helm of such planning was Sardar Datar Singh, who was the chief advisor at the Ministry of Agriculture of the Government of India. It was decided that work should begin without much delay and on 21 February 1954, the work began.16 The refugee families who had been living in this area were removed and temporarily settled in tents. The tents remained a constant in refugee lives. The refugees were to dig the canal, make the region cultivable and liveable for themselves. Rather than finding a foothold in the economy outside the reaches of the camp, they would form the militia that would be employed by the government as and when it was thought fit. The figure of the male camp refugee, who was forced to remain idle, matched the straitjacket of the effeminate person, quite useless in the face of hardship. As Haimanti Roy17 points out, this became characteristic of typecasting the Bengali refugee. The minister of rehabilitation, A.P. Jain, spoke, in 1951, about the refugees from West Pakistan being full of ‘energy and determination’.18 The refugees from East Pakistan could never hope to fit into this perception. Roy compares this with the nineteenth-century colonial perception of the Bengali male as the effeminate person who lacked vigour and strength. I would argue that the Bengali Babu remained ever present even in the post-colonial times because of the nature of migration in Bengal. The Punjab story was one of success. The heady pace of violence and migration followed by government schemes of rehabilitation could be wrapped up,

170  End Words more or less, within three years since the formal date of Partition. The refugees from Bengal could not be put into neat boxes even in the decade of the 1960s. Fresh disturbances broke out in East Pakistan in 1964, and fresh batches of refugees began pouring in again. As the Bengali refugees were sent outside West Bengal – to Orissa, Madhya Pradesh or Bihar – and as they failed to secure a life for themselves there and joined the ranks of deserters, the government felt that the cause of this was the mentality peculiar to the refugee from East Pakistan. They had a longing for the lands left behind, for the paddy fields and the homestead. As families had been broken due to the Partition, it became difficult for the refugee to accept the new settlements. However, as Roy mentions,19 the fact that the particular region of Orissa, where the refugees were being sent, had suffered famine conditions for the past few years, was left out of the speeches of ministers. It must be remembered, though, that in the eyes of the original inhabitants of these regions, the army of refugees were hardworking settlers who worked to push them out. Ashoka Gupta wrote of them in her memoir: They [the refugees] came in so many ways, using such ingenious methods! Some went into the camps. Other[s] went into Tripura and Assam. There was enough empty land available in those areas and settlements came up there. It would have tremendous political repercussions later when the original inhabitants reacted violently against the hardworking and enterprising newcomers who seemed to have taken over their states.20 The state was creating the ideal refugee. They would be clearly identified. The clothes would never fit the person. They would be easily recognizable. This body would be the site for the state’s policies to be practised. It was invested with the state’s will. The refugee, however, remained the truant child. One needs to identify and come to terms with the differences in the language employed by the refugees and the state against the backdrop of the Partition in their dealings with each other; to see the ways in which the state, in dealing with the disaster of hastily drawn borders, employed the language of paternalism of sorts to forge for its weakest children a regime of charity which could throw out those who made their voices heard. If the language that the government spoke in shaped the contours of how the state was to treat the refugees, in their dealings with the state, the refugee spoke in a language of protest. However, protest was also not the singular strand that informed this language. It also steeped in the language of appeal. Refugee status was something to be bargained for. Not every migrant was a refugee. As the government was perpetually trying to set the final date for the event of the Partition to close (meaning that the migrants who had reached till a certain date would be recognized as bonafide refugees, leaving out the rest), the refugee was perpetually trying to extend this date. The refugee needed to prove that the cause of migration was not economic, that they did not cross borders simply in search of livelihood. The Government

End Words  171 of India, on the other hand, speaking through its policies, made it amply clear that the continuation of migration towards the end of the 1950s was not caused by the Partition. From 1956, the Government of India began to shut down its relief camps. In this tussle, the refuge seekers interacted with the government at various levels. The government remained, for them, the proverbial elephant, too big to fully grasp and only seen and appreciated in parts. For the refugees on station platforms, the officials who came for inoculation and those who demanded papers meant the government. For the camp refugees, the camp commander meant the government. For the squatters, the police who came to evict them meant the government. The nation, in order to stand on its own feet, had to deal with the large army of migrants. The interaction of the refugees with the state has received particular focus because after all, the dependence of the refugees on the state brought them closer to the state than the other citizens. It is they who lived with the state every day. This study has tried to trace the threads of interaction of the refugee with the state, to see what the state meant to them. The refugees opposed the state in its most crucial aspect – the notion of its borders. Therefore, they challenged the fixity of the state. The limits were constantly being stretched. In trying to make a niche for themselves as they bargained with the state, what the refugees actually did was to shape the topography of the state, culturally, socially, economically, geographically and, one might say, morally. If the refugee presence changed the face of the city of Calcutta and its suburbs, the impact of their presence became perceivable not only in the trainloads of people or the crowded station platforms but everywhere else as well. It has been my purpose to see the refugees not merely as victims of violence or agents of their own rehabilitation and the development projects of the state, even though both these identities hold true. As the refugees commenced on their journey, as they dealt with the state from the platform to the camps, as they built their colonies and fought for their ‘rights’, they were, in fact, setting the character of the state (of the new India). Their citizenship was the result of contest and dialogue. In defying the borders, the notion of the state’s charity (which they termed their rights), the sanctity of property rights (as many of the jabardakhal colonies were set up in the private properties of the landed classes), and the state’s plan of rehabilitation, the refugees worked and lived with the state, day in and day out. The pushes and pulls between the state and the refugees kept the negotiations open and made the mobilization of the refugees possible. The charitable government, in its dealings with the disaster of the Partition failed to settle the refugees. The refugees remained homeless.

Notes 1 Hiranmay Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, Kolkata: Sahitya Sansad, 1970, p. 12. 2 Ashoka Gupta, In the Path of Service: Memories of a Changing Century, translated from the Bengali by Sipra Bhattacharya with Ranjan Dasgupta, Kolkata: Stree, 2005, p. 125.

172  End Words 3 Rafiuddin Ahmed, The Bengal Muslims 1871–1906: A Quest for Identity, Delhi: OUP, 1981, p. 109. 4 Ibid. 5 Suranjan Das, Communal Riots in Bengal 1905–1947, Delhi, OUP, 1991, p. 180. 6 Sandeep Bandyopadhyay, Itihaser Dike Phire: Chechallisher Danga, Kolkata: Utsa Manush, 1992, p. 97. 7 Ibid., p. 110. 8 Indu Baran Ganguly, Colonismriti: Udbastu Colony Pratishtar Gorar Katha (1948–1954), Kolkata: Indu Baran Ganguly, 1997, p. 35. 9 Ibid., p. 35. 10 Ibid., p. 35. 11 Ibid., p. 35. 12 Carl Shmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Conception of Sovereignty, translated with an introduction by George Schwab, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1985 (originally published in 1922). 13 Ibid., p. 5. 14 It would be stretching it a bit too far if one were to put the body of the refugee against that of the soldier in Michel Foucault’s understanding of the docile body. However, a clearly identifiable figure of the refugee does emerge through the process of governmental rehabilitation. See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, translated from the French by Alan Sheridan, New York: Vintage Books, 1995 (originally published in 1975). 15 Hiranmay Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad, 1970, p. 243. 16 Ibid., p. 244. 17 See Haimanti Roy, Partitioned Lives: Migrants, Refugees, Citizens in India and Pakistan, 1947–1965, New Delhi: OUP, 2012. 18 Ibid., p. 199. 19 Ibid., pp. 199. 20 Ashoka Gupta, In the Path of Service: Memories of a Changing Century, translated from the Bengali by Sipra Bhattacharya with Ranjan Dasgupta, Kolkata: Stree, 2005, p. 135.

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174 Bibliography Special Branch Records. The Dandakaranya Project and the Resettlement of Displaced Persons from East Pakistan, Government of India, Ministry of Rehabilitation, Undated. West Bengal Legislative Assembly proceedings. Hindu Mahasabha Papers, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.

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Newspapers Amritabazar Patrika The Statesman Ghare Baire Swadhinata

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Bibliography  175 Gupta, Ashoka, In the Path of Service Memories of a Changing Century, Translated from the Bengali by Sipra Bhattacharya with Ranjana Dasgupta, Kolkata: Stree, 2005. Moon, Penderel, Divide and Quit, London: University of California Press of Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, Chatto and Windus Ltd., Great Britain, 1961. Sen, Manikuntala, In Search of Freedom an Unfinished Journey, translated from the Bengali by Stree, Kolkata: Stree, 2001. Tuker, Sir Francis Ivan Simms, While Memory Serves, London: Cassell, 1950. Voice of New India, A Tale of Woes of East Pakistan Minorities, Calcutta: published by Dinesh Ranjan Sen, 1966.

Bengali Adhikary, Harinarayan eds., Sangrami Rupasree Palli, Undated. Bandyopadhyay, Hiranmay, Udbastu, Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad, 1970. Basu, Dakshinaranjan eds., Chhere Asha Gram, Kolkata: Jugantar, 1975. Biswas, Adhir, Deshbhager Smriti, Vol. I, Amra To Ekhon Indiaai, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2005. Biswas, Adhir, Deshbhager Smriti, Vol. II, Punya-Gangar Kachhakachhi, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2008. Biswas, Adhir, Deshbhager Smriti, Vol. III, Ilish Macher Nouko, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2010a. Biswas, Adhir, Deshbhager Smriti, Vol. IV, Bhese Jay Kharkuto, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2010b, first published in 2002 by Pratikshan Publication Private Limited. Ganguly, Indu Baran, Colonysmriti, Pratham Khanda, Udbastu Colony Pratishthar Gorar Katha (1948–1954), Kolkata: Indu Baran Ganguly, 1997. Gupta, Ashoka, Noakhalir Durjoger Dine, Kolkata: Naya Udyog, 1999. Lahiri, Abani, (interviewed and edited by Dasgupta, Ranajit), Tirish Challisher Bangla Rajniti o Andolaner Abhignata Prasange, Kolkata: Seriban, 1999. Moulik, Gopalchandra, Deshbhag o Nanipisimar Katha, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2011. Mukhopadhyay, Kali Prasad, Desh Bivajaner Antarale, Kolkata: Archana Mukhopadhyay, 2003. Pal, Madhumay eds., Deshbhag: Binash O Binirman, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2011. Sen Sharma, Pranab Kumar, Sammilita Udbastu Bidyalayer Gorar Katha, Kolkata: Prasanna Kumar Jain, 2004. Sen, Manikuntala, Sediner Katha, Kolkata: Nabapatra Prakashan, 1982. Sengupta, Mihir, Bishadbriksha, Kolkata: Subarnarekha, 2005. Sikdar, Sunanda, Dayamayeer Katha, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2008. Singha, Abha, Darpane Barisal, Kolkata: Sree Anil Singha, 1998. Singha, Abha, Prasanga: P.L. Camp, Kolkata: Samudran, 2002. Singha, Anil, Jabar Dakhal Colony O Sthayee Sattva Dalil, Kolkata: Book Club, 2001. Singha, Anil, Pashchim Bange Udbaastu Upanibesh, Kolkata: Sri Sunil Singha Book Club, 1995. Singha, Tushar, Maranjoyee Sangrame Bastuhara, Kolkata: Dasguptas, 1999.

Secondary Sources English Agamben, Giorgio, translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, California: Stanford University Press, 1998 (originally published in 1995).

176 Bibliography Ahmad, Kamruddin, A Socio Political History of Bengal and the Birth of Bangladesh, Dacca: Zahiruddin Mahmud Inside Library, 1967. Ahmed, Rafiuddin, The Bengal Muslims 1871–1906 A Quest for Identity, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981. Allana, Gulam eds., Pakistan Movement: Historic Documents Compiled and Edited, 4th Edition, Lahore: Islamic Book Service, 1998. Anonymous, A Lady’s Diary of the Siege of Lucknow, New Delhi: Rupa and Company, 2002, first published in 1858. Atwell, Donald Lockhart, East Pakistan: A Study in Political Geography, Ann Arbor: Michigan University Microfilms International, 1987. Bagchi, Jasodhara and Dasgupta, Shubhoranjan ed., The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in Eastern India, Kolkata: Stree, 2003. Baldev, India, Pakistan and Muslim Politics, New Delhi: International Reporter Publications, 1975. Bhatnagar, Yatindra, Bangladesh Birth of a Nation, Delhi: Indian School Supply Depot, 1971. Bianchini, Stefano, Chaturvedi, Sanjay, Ivekovic, Rada and Samaddar, Ranabir ed., Partitions: Reshaping States and Minds, (Routledge Studies in Geopolitics), USA, Canada: Frank Cass, 2005. Bose, Pradip Kumar eds., Refugees in West Bengal Institutional Practices and Contested Identities, Kolkata: Calcutta Research Group, 2000. Bose, Sugata and Jalal, Ayesha, Modern South Asia History, Culture, Political Economy, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998. Chakrabarti, Prafulla K, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, Kolkata: Lumiere Books, 1990. Chakravartty, Gargi, Coming out of Partition: Refugee Women of Bengal, New Delhi: Bluejay Books, 2005. Chatterjee, Nilanjana, “The East Bengal Refugees A Lesson in Survival”, in Chaudhury, Sukanta ed., Calcutta: The Living City. V-II: The Present and Future, Kolkata: OUP, 1990. Chatterjee, Sisir, Bangladesh: the Birth of a Nation, Kolkata: Book Exchange, 1972. Chatterji, Joya, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition 1932–1947, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Chatterji, Joya, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Das, Suranjan, Communal Riots in Bengal 1905–1947, Delhi: OUP, 1991. Deschaumes, Ghislaine Glasson and Ivecovic, Rada ed., Divided Countries, Separated Cities: The Modern Legacy of Partition, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003. Dhar, Maloy Krishna, Train to India: Memories of Another Bengal, New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2009. Fraser, Bashabi, eds., Bengal Partition Stories: An Unclosed Chapter, London, New York, Delhi: Anthem South Asian Studies, Anthem Press, 2006. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, translated from the French by Alan Sheridan, New York: Vintage Books, 1995 (originally published in 1975). Hasan, Mushirul, eds., India’s Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization, Delhi: OUP, 1994. Hasan, Mushirul, eds., Inventing Boundaries: Gender, Politics and the Partition of India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Bibliography  177 Hasan, Mushirul, Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims Since Independence, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. Jalal, Ayesha, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Kabir, Muhammad Ghulam, Minority Politics in Bangladesh, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1980. Kaul, Suvir eds., The Partitions of Memory: the After Life of the Division of India, Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001. Kulkarni, V.B., Pakistan: Its Origin and Relations with India, Bangalore: Sterling, 1988. Lefebvre, Georges, The Great Fear of 1789: Rural Panic in Revolutionary France, (published in 1932), translated from the French by Joan White, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973, first published in 1932. Lohia, Rammanohar, Guilty Men of India’s Partition, 4th edition, New Delhi: B.R. Publications, 2000. Low, D.A. and Brasted, Howard ed., Freedom, Trauma, Continuities: Northern India and Independence, New Delhi: Sage, 1998. Manto, Sadat Hasan, translated from the Urdu by Hasan, Khalid, Mottled Dawn: Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition, New Delhi: Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., 1997. Memon, Muhammad Umar eds., An Unwritten Epic: The Penguin Book of Partition Stories from Urdu, New Delhi: Penguin Books India Private Limited, 1998. Menon, Ritu and Bhasin, Kamla, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition, New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998. Merriam, Allen Hayes, A Rhetorical Analysis of the Gandhi-Jinnah Debate over the Partition of India, Ann Arbor: Michigan University Microfilms International, 1986. Pandey, Gyanendra and Samad, Yunas, Fault Lines of Nationhood, New Delhi: The Lotus Collection, Roli Books Private Limited, 2007. Pandey, Gyanendra, Remembering Partition, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press India Pvt. Ltd., 2001. Pandey, Gyanendra, S.G. Deuskar Lectures on Indian History and Culture, Kolkata: K.P. Bagchi, 1999. Pandey, Gyanendra, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990. Ray, Jayanta Kumar, Democracy and Nationalism on Trial: A Study of East Pakistan, Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1968. Raychaudhuri, Tapan, Perceptions, Emotions, Sensibilities: Essays on India’s Colonial Post-colonial Experiences, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999. Rizvi, Syed Sifarish Hussain, Partition: End Product of the Trend, Patna: Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, 1998. Robinson, Francis, Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces’ Muslims 1860–1923, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Roy, Haimanti, Partitioned Lives: Migrants, Refugees, Citizens in India and Pakistan, 1947–1965, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012. Roy, Maitreyee Bardhan, Calcutta Slums: Public Policy in Retrospect, Kolkata: Minerva Associates (Publications) Pvt. Ltd., 1994. Samaddar, Ranabir eds., Refugees and the State Practices of Asylum and Care in India, 1947–2000, New Delhi: 2003, Sage Publications, 2003. Samaddar, Ranabir, A Biography of the Indian Nation 1947–1997, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2001.

178 Bibliography Samaddar, Ranabir, eds., Reflections on Partition in the East, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1997. Samaddar, Ranabir, The Materiality of Politics, Volume 1: The Technologies of Rule, London, New York: Anthem Press, 2007a. Samaddar, Ranabir, The Materiality of Politics, Volume II: Subject Positions in Politics, London, New York: Anthem Press, 2007b. Sarkar, Sumit, A Critique of Colonial India, Kolkata: Papyrus, 1985. Sarkar, Sumit, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal 1903–1908, New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1973. Sen, Uditi, Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Sengupta, Debjani, The Partition of Bengal Fragile Borders and New Identities, Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Singh, Amrik, eds., The Partition in Retrospect, New Delhi: Anamika Publishers, 2000. Singh, Anita Inder, The Origins of the Partition of India 1936–1947, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987. Singh, Anita Inder, The Partition of India, New Delhi: National Book Trust, India, 2006. Singh, Khushwant, Train to Pakistan, New Delhi: Times Book International, 1989. Shmitt, Carl, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Conception of Sovereignty, translated with an introduction by George Schwab, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1985 (originally published in 1922). Symonds, Richard, The Making of Pakistan, 2nd edition, London: Faber and Faber, 1950. Talbot, Ian, Pakistan: A Modern History, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998. Talbot, Ian, Provincial Politics and the Pakistan Movement the Growth of the Muslim League in North-West and North-East India 1937–47, 1988, Oxford University Press. Tinker, Hugh, Experiment with Freedom: India and Pakistan, 1947, London, Karachi, Oxford, New York, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1967. Williams, Colin H and Kofman, Eleonore ed., Community Conflict: Partition and Nationalism, London: Routledge, 1989. Zakaria, Rafiq, Price of Partition: Recollections and Reflections, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1998. Zakaria, Rafiq, The Man Who Divided India: an Insight into Jinnah’s Leadership and its Aftermath, Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 2001. Zamindar, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia Refugees, Boundaries, Histories, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Ziring, Lawrence, Braibanti, Ralph and Wriggins, W. Howard ed., Pakistan: The Long View, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1977. Ziring, Lawrence, The Failure of Democracy in Pakistan: East Pakistan and the Central Government 1947–1958, Ann Arbor: Michigan University Microfilms International, 1987.

Bengali Bandyopadhyay, Manabendra eds., Ved Bived: An Anthology of Short Fiction about Communal Conflicts and the Partition of India, Vols. I and II, Kolkata: Dey’s Publishing, 1992a.

Bibliography  179 Bandyopadhyay, Sandip, Deshbhag: Smriti ar Sattvaa, Kolkata: Progressive Publishers, 1999. Bandyopadhyay, Sandip, Itihasher Dike Phire – Chechallisher Danga, Kolkata: Utsa Manush, 1992b. Chakrabarti, Tridib, Ray Mondal, Nirupama and Ghoshal, Paulami ed., Dhvangsao-Nirman: Bangiya Udvastu Samajer Svakathita Bibaran, Kolkata: Seriban, School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, 2007. Chattapadhyay, Sudin and Das, Sachin ed., Danga-O-Deshbhager Galpa: A Short Story Collection on Riot and Partition, Kolkata: Deep Prakashan, 2000. Dutta, Debabrata, Vijaygarh: Ekti Udbastu Upanibesh, Kolkata: Progressive Publishers, 2001. Elias, Akhtaruzzaman, Galpasamagra, Kolkata: Naya Udyog, 2000. Ghosh, Semanti eds., Desh Bhag: Smriti ar Stabdhata, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2008. Milan, Imdadul Haq, Deshbhager Por, Kolkata: Ananda Publishers Private Limited, 1998. Mitra, Narendranath, Galpamala, Vol. II, Kolkata: Ananda Publishers Limited, 1989. Pakrashi, Satish, Agnijuger Katha, 4th edition, Kolkata: Nabajatak Prakashan, 1993. Ray, Jayanta Kumar, Ganatantra Ebong Jatiyatar Agnipariksha Bangladesh: 1947– 1971, translated by Sidhhanta, Jeebendra Nath and Salek, Sabiha, Kolkata: Published for the International Centre for Bengal Studies, Calcutta by Allied Publishers Limited, 1996. Roy, Rahul, eds., Pashchimbanga: Phire Dakha, Chuchura, Hooghly: Pratiti, 2003. Sen, Santa, Pitamohee, Kolkata: Gangchil, 2009.

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Index

abduction, abducted 11, 23, 26, 34, 39–8, 159 abhadra 168 able-bodied 72, 87, 93, 104, 106–7, 168 actual rehabilitation 73, 96, 129 Act XVI of 1951 128 All Bengal Refugee Unity Day 142 All Bengal Women’s Union 55 All India Women’s Conference (AIWC) 55, 83, 155, 159 alternative plan of rehabilitation 128, 131 andarmahal 103 Ansar, Ansar Bahini 2, 28, 31, 35, 44, 56–9 Arpanpatra 121–2, 142 arson 28, 34, 39, 42, 44, 56 atrocities 3, 21–2, 26–7, 29, 32, 34–5, 37, 44, 152, 161, 167 Azad, Maulana Abul Kalam 6 bad Muslim 3, 37 Bagerhat 31–2, 38, 112 Bainanama 92 Banarji, Khudiram 123, 132 Bandyopadhyay, Hiranmay 9, 74, 165 bargadar 92, 131 Basu, Jyoti 139 Behari, Behari Muslim 3, 11 Bengal Vagrancy Act 81 Bhairab 27–9, 34, 55, 61 Bhattacharya, Mahadev 123 bonafide 110, 112, 170 Bongaon 5, 53, 58, 62, 63–4, 100 The Boundary Commission for Bengal 4 bureaucratic violence 7 Calcutta Relief Society 58 Camp Commandant, Commandant 112–3

Central Advisory Committee for Homes and Infirmaries in the Eastern Region 83 Chakrabertty, Anupama 156 Chakravartty, Renu 155, 160 Chanda committee 72 Chatterjee, Amritalal 123 chotolok 168 colony committee/s 13, 15, 121, 123, 127, 133–4, 136–7, 139, 142, 145, 158 coming out 13, 15, 87 Commission of Inquiry (Exodus of Minorities from East Pakistan) 26, 38, 42 Committee for the Resettlement of East Bengal Refugees 73 Communist Party of India (CPI) 4, 105, 110, 123–4, 127, 132, 140–4, 146, 152, 154–60 Cossipore Bustee Committee 144 CPI (Marxist) 4 Dakshin Kalikata Sahartali Bastuhara Sanhati (DKSBS) 136, 140–2, 145 Dandakaranya Development Authority (DDA) 95, 113 danga 92–3, 169 Darling, Sir Malcolm Lyall 6 Darshana, Darshana border 39, 42–3, 48, 55, 60 Darusha, Darusha Hat 41–3, 47 deserter/s 11, 64, 93, 108, 121, 126, 131, 170 dispersal (of refugees) 54, 65, 99 displaced Muslims 131 dole/doles 12, 27, 62–3, 71–3, 77–82, 84, 87, 93, 95, 101–2, 106–8, 113, 117, 125, 131, 149–53, 165, 169 Dutta, Santosh 124

Index  181 Esavi Match Factory 144 Estates Acquisition Act 92 evacuee/s 11, 55, 126, 128, 131 fifth columnists 32, 47 gainful occupation 71, 129–30 Gandhi, M.K. 6, 25, 134 Ganguly, Indu Baran 132–3, 168 General Assistant/s (GA) 86, 88, 150 gherao/s 146, 154 ghetto, ghettoized 101, 122, 130 Ghosh, Prafulla/P.C. 88 good Muslim 30 goondas 39–40, 45 Great Calcutta Killing 3 Gupta, Ashoka 25, 74, 83, 166, 170 Gupta, Shaibal 26–7, 37, 42 Hazratbal incident, Hazratbal shrine, Hazratbal Day 3, 36 Hindu separatism 7 Huq, A.K. Fazlul 33 Indo-Pakistan Minorities Agreement 61 ineligible/s 13, 76 infiltration 13, 112, 130, 140, 146 infirm, infirmary/ies 13, 72–3, 75–7, 79–84 influx 54, 86, 90, 92, 99, 102, 114 inmate/s 72, 75, 77–8, 80, 84–6, 91, 92–3, 99, 102–3, 105–6, 109, 112, 149–50, 152 Inter-Dominion Conference 27 Ishaque, H.M.S., Ishaque Committee 96, 129 jabardakhal 171 Jain, A.P. 169 Jinnah, Mohammad Ali 6 kafer 24 Kalshira, Kalshira incident 28–9 K.C. Neogy-Ghulam Mohammed Agreement 27 Khanna, Mehr Chand 74, 81 Khulna riots 11, 37 Krishak Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP) 128 land ceiling 13, 122 loot, looting, looted 28–9, 32, 34–5, 39, 41–5, 56–60, 134

Mahila Atma Raksha Samiti (MARS) 154–5, 157, 158–9 male head/s 78, 96, 149, 168 Mana, Mana Camp 38, 113–6 Mashima 109–10 mass arrests 32 mass attack 34 Meghna, bridge 55 mill workers/mill-hands 11, 36, 47 mini Hindustans or Pakistans 23 Minorities Board/s 27 miscreant/s 2, 29, 39, 41, 45, 167 mob 28, 32, 34, 36–7, 55, 151, 166–7 Monoharpukur Camp Bastuhara Committee 142 Mookerjee, Shyamaprasad 63 Moon, Penderel 6 Mothers’ Committee 158 Muslim neighbour/s 11, 26, 35, 43, 59, 166 Namasudra 29, 30–1, 37 Namboodiripad, E.M.S. 154 Nari Seva Sangha 55 Nath Jugis 25 National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) 159–60 Nehru, Jawaharlal 6, 124, 132, 152 Nehru-Liaquat pact 40, 53 Nehru, Rameshwari 82 Nikhil Vanga Bastuhara Karma Parishad (NVBKP), All India Refugee Council of Action 123–6, 140, 142 Noakhali riots 3, 23 old and infirm 75, 77, 79, 82 passport scare 11 Patel, Vallabhbhai 6 Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU) 85 People’s Relief Committee 156 Permanent Liability/ies (PL) 12–5, 54, 71–6, 79, 81–7, 103–4, 149, 165 perpetrator/s 8, 21, 25, 46, 125, 143, 151, 167 pleasure grounds 125 Prasad, Rajendra 6 prison homes 165 Radcliffe, Sir Cyril 4, 5 ravished 34, 46 Ray, Renuka 54, 75, 111 Red Cross, Red Cross Society, Indian Red Cross Society 27, 64, 115–7

182 Index Refugee Central Rehabilitation Council (RCRC) 128, 141 Refugee Eviction Resistance Committee (RERC) 128 The Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department 110 rehabilitation scandal 131 Reid, Ela 155 relief camp/s 12, 63–4, 72, 82, 95, 171 Revolutionary Communist Party of India (RCPI) 127–8, 141 Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) 128, 133, 140–1 riot-scapes 21 Roy, Bidhan Chandra 55, 71, 88, 90, 132 satyagraha 142 Saxena, Mohanlal 52 secret committee 132–3 Sen, Manikuntala 110, 155, 157, 159, 162 Sen, Nikhil 99 shahid, shaheed, shahidi 21 Singha, Abha 149–50 Singha, Tushar 105, 152 Socialist Party (SP) 29, 144 squatter/s, squatters’ colony/ies, squatting 12, 71, 81, 88, 122, 125, 127, 130–1, 132, 140, 146, 154, 171 surplus land/s 130

transit camp/s 12, 53, 61, 65, 99, 102, 104, 106 Tuker, General Francis 6 ultimate rehabilitation 82–3 unattached 13, 72–3, 75–7, 80, 90, 96, 149, 152 unauthorized occupation 131 The U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees 48 underground centres 155 Union Board/s 25, 27, 34, 39–40, 45 United Central Refugee Council (UCRC) 54, 111–2, 123, 127–31, 136–7, 141–2, 145, 153, 159 United Council of Relief and Welfare 62 uppish 24, 45, 46 The Vagrancy Directorate 81 vagrant/s 81–2 weeding out 13, 76, 82–3, 103 West Bengal Ministry of Refugees and Rehabilitation 74 Women’s Cultural Association 156 women’s honour 3, 125, 142 women’s organization/s 55, 154, 156 Women’s Section 156 women’s wing 154 worksite camp/s 12, 72, 82 wrongful occupation 24