by Deep Halder
The region has been referenced in the Hindu epic Ramayana, when Rama, Lakshmana and Sita were exiled for fourteen long years. It was somewhere here, the ancient text tells us, that King Ravana’s sister Surpanakha met Rama’s brother Lakshmana and fell in love. When he snubbed her and cut off her nose, a long battle followed that ended with Rama killing Ravana.
The lakhs of Bengali refugees who were sent here fought their own battles with sweltering summers and freezing winters, uncultivable land and natives who spoke a different language.
Some adapted to the conditions over time and made this region home; like sixty-four year old Kalachand Das who was sent to Mana Camp in Raipur and never left. Marichjhapi was a misadventure, he maintains (Chapter 6).
Others pined to return to West Bengal where there were fellow Bengalis who shared the same language and culture. Some recount the hostility of camp officers and natives, as well as the unfavourable living condition in the camps (Chapter 6).
The Left Betrayal
When the refugees were being packed off to various camps in Dandakaranya, the Left parties who were in opposition in West Bengal demanded that they be absorbed within Bengal itself. In the course of my interviews with the survivors of Marichjhapi, many have told me that Jyoti Basu – who went on to become chief minister for twenty-three uninterrupted years (1977-2000) – himself had given speeches advocating the West Bengal government to do the same. Many Left leaders, most notably Ram Chatterjee, went to visit the refugees in Dandakaranya and assured them that they would be back in Bengal when the Left comes to power (Chapter 8). The refugees, naturally, thought the Left was their ally.
In June 1977, the Left Front came to power but, surprisingly, no one from the government seemed interested in following up on the promises made earlier to rehabilitate the refugees in West Bengal. Many desperate refugees, after waiting for some time, sent a memorandum to Radhika Banerjee, who was the relief and rehabilitation minister of the Left Front government at that time, on 12 July 1977. They said if the government didn’t do anything to bring them back from Dandakaranya, they would be compelled to return on their own.
Marichjhapi and murders most foul
Out of despair, sometime in March 1978, more than 1.5 lakh refugees from different parts of Dandakaranya left for Hasnabad railway station in Bengal. As soon as they reached Bengal, the police forced them down from trains and made arrangements for sending them back to Dandakaranya, though the attempt was not wholly successful.
Ignoring the hostility, thousands of men, women and children reached Marichjhapi island on 18 April 1978. More would join them in coming months.
So how did they come to know of an uninhabited island in the interiors of the Sundarbans? Some accounts say that Left leaders themselves had shown the island to the refugees when it was still in the opposition in Bengal and the refugees were in Dandakaranya. Others insist the refugee leaders discovered the island as they explored the Sundarbans for a place to make their own. A part of the Sundarbans lies in Bangladesh and this may have drawn the refugees to the place (Chapter 6).
Nestled in the Gangetic delta, the Sundarbans happen to be the largest mangrove forest in the world, straddling India and Bangladesh. It is, in fact, a UNESCO-declared world biosphere reserve. What makes this unique ecosystem even more special is the fact that the delta is formed by the confluence of four mighty rivers – Brahmaputra, Ganga, Meghna and Padma.
With no help from the government, the refugees transformed the nowhere land in the Sundarbans into a thriving village ecosystem (Chapter 6). But, by May 1979, they were driven out by the police who allegedly set fire to 6,000 huts on the island. Nobody knows how many survived the carnage. In between, most notably during an economic blockade in the latter part of January 1979, refugees alleged that the police attacked the islanders repeatedly on instructions of the Left Front government.
When I spoke to Kanti Ganguly (Chapter 8) and read accounts, in the Statesman, of Amiya Kumar Samanta, Sundarbans Superintendent of Police, who oversaw the operation of cleaning Marichjhapi, I got to know that ‘less than ten’ people died on that island. However, all survivors I spoke to put the number of deaths to anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000; some said even more. Why such a wide gap? One reason is though the Bengali press sporadically covered the Marichjhapi story, the island is so far away from mainstream Calcutta and so difficult to access that what happened in Marichjhapi can only be reconstructed as oral history.
On 17 May 1979, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the then-minister of information, declared at Writer’s Building that Marichjhapi had been cleared of refugees.
Cause of carnage
Why did the Jyoti Basu government forcibly evict Marichjhapi settlers? The official reason is that Marichjhapi is a protected island and the refugees were destroying the ecology by cutting trees. There are, however, allegations against the government of caste bias as the refugees were mostly Dalits. Some say this is an example of how Bengal’s bhadralok Marxists, who talk about a classless, casteless society in seminar halls and political speeches, display their inner caste prejudices (Manoranjan Byapari, Chapter 9). Others say the Left Front government thought these settlers would vote against them as they had gone back on their word of bringing them back to West Bengal.
But nothing justifies the horrors unleashed on Marichjhapi’s settlers.
The real story of Marichjhapi is buried somewhere between manufactured lies and stifled cries. I revisited those I have known for years, met new people who still carry those old hurts in their hearts. Putting pen to my reporter’s notebook, I have written down fragmented memories of these women and men who got sucked into the Marichjhapi story.
1
Jyotirmoy Mondal
J
yotirmoy Mondal saves witches. That’s a funny calling card for this nondescript seventy-something who has retired as a government bank clerk and has an actress for a daughter. But some lives will always be hard to decipher.
At eighty-four Gouranga Sarani, in a part of Kolkata not many would call genteel, Mondal puffs on his bidi as I prod him to tell me a story he has told me many times before. In my early days of journalism, when saving the world used to be a ‘thing’, Mondal was a source for many ‘human interest stories’. He travels into remote districts of Bengal to help widows who are branded witches by families and neighbours with an eye on usurping property. He doesn’t help them because he wants to sit on a dais, or for awards or to be on TV shows, but because he had promised himself after Marichjhapi that he would fight for those who do not have the means to fight off the ferocity of men. In my quest to document the oral history of the people of Marichjhapi, Mondal’s is the first stop.
There is hardly a more engaging narration of the trials of the refugees in Mana and other camps in the Dandakaranya region than Mondal’s accounts. He takes me back to the beginning of things, when he was but a child and his father was fleeing from one country to another to save their family. It was 1956-57 and hundreds of thousands of masons and farmers, fisherfolk and potters, land owners and the landless, came to be referred to by a single word: ‘udbastu’, refugee. He tells me the story of a father and son, Sukhchand and Sachin, who lost everything in the process. He begins thus:
A stranger offers a chillum to Sukhchand. Sachin, eyes heavy from the day’s exertions, takes in one of life’s most profound lessons – respect the fellow traveller even when he looks as hopeless as you are – stranded behind the engine room of a steamer, going to a land he has never been to, to make a home that may never be.
It is an elaborate act, comical even, that Sachin watches as the small man holds out the earthen pipe with his right hand, with his left palm touching his right elbow and bending forward towards his father Sukhchand. In their part of Bengal, Kadambari village in Faridpur zilla, the part they are leaving behind and what is now another country, this is considered a gesture of respect, Sukhchand would tell Sachin later.
That night, in that dark, dank space where men snored and women s
ang lullabies to put babies to sleep, Sachin misses a man with a head full of unkempt white hair, an untrimmed snow white beard and dry skin on his arms and legs, like scales of a dead fish. His grandfather Gayali. He misses hearing Gayali call him ‘bhai’ in an attempt to wish away the two generations of gap between them and become friends. Sachin runs his eyes one last time from father to stranger and stranger to father as two men take solace in their deep drags. And then, in that borderland between sense and sleep, his mind traces the distance they have covered during the course of the day.
In his sleep, Sachin swims back to the shore, to their village that sits by the river Madhumati. There, under the shade of big trees, is Gayan’s house. And Koitha’s and Dhalis’ houses. And the village wise man’s, the one who had warned against such a long journey. The madman’s house, where not everyone is mad. The Dhalis next door make battle shields that stop spears thrown from afar and break swords into two.
On the riverbank, on a relatively dry patch of land, is the local market. Large round tin pots with fishes wriggling inside, the fresh catch of the day, are found here, sometimes the famed hilsa of the Padma river. And sugarcanes, jackfruits, mangoes, tortoises, all put out for sale. A bustling bazaar.
It is in this bazaar that Sachin had cried for the ripe green guavas that Gayali had refused him, saying something about the monsoons and stomach problems and instead bought him Madan Kut Kutis, small jaggery lozenges that make ‘kut-kut’ sounds when bit into.
Sachin’s father Sukhchand, who travels often, gets him an anna’s worth of lozenges when he comes back from the village school where he teaches. He couldn’t get a university degree as all universities are far away at Madaripur, Faridpur or Dhaka, the last of which is three days by boat. Sukhchand married in the year of his matriculation examination. His neighbours had advised against it, saying that marriage could wait: ‘The boy needs an education first.’ But Gayali wouldn’t let go of the girl. Where would they find such a beauty for his long-faced son? So Sukhchand got married, took his exam and failed. The next year, however, he sailed through. ‘Our new bride Ranga-bou brings good luck,’ said Gayali. Sachin was born soon after. With two sons, two daughters-in-law and now a grandson, the widower Gayali could not have asked for more.
Sachin thus spends his days in the laps of loving parents and grandparents and the shade of the banyan tree that has outlived his forefathers and will live some more. But a shadow soon falls over Sachin’s idyllic world.
The riots are a rumour at first. But when the village headmaster, the man whose word is gospel across ten villages, falls to a traitor’s sword, Sukhchand wonders if this is the end of their peaceful days. The headmaster had gone to stop a riot in the next village and tell the Hindus and Muslims, many of whom had been his students, not to kill each other for the sake of religion. The killings stop but when the old man was on his way back, someone, who Sukhchand describes as a snake in the shape of a man, hacked him into two. As the headmaster and two of his young students fall, ‘Jai ma Kali’ and ‘Allahu Akbar’ war cries fill the night sky like venom spreading into arteries. Ram-dao, daggers, swords and tridents are out.
Sukhchand has been away for a long time. He comes back just before Durga puja, and Gayali asks him what had kept him away. His breathing gets heavy. This is a question Sukhchand would rather not be asked, as it would prompt an answer Gayali would rather not hear. Sukhchand has decided to leave Kadambari; leave East Pakistan and cross over to that new country they call India. Just the name itself is a cuss word here, but this country is no longer safe for Hindus, for his wife and Sachin.
It would be their last Durga puja in the village of their forefathers.
Dark clouds hover over the village. There is a shadow of despair in Ranga-bou’s eyes. Gayali tries in vain to keep the storm inside in check, but little Sachin will not listen to reason. He runs into his grandfather’s arms, crying and pleading him not to let them go. The old man looks away. Outside, it rains heavily.
Sachin watches as the boatman loosens the rope that ties the boat to the ferry and, with the precision of a village acrobat who has learnt how to walk on a rope without batting an eye, he jumps into the boat, steadies it and lets it sail.
The village has come to see them off. The two sisters-in-law wave goodbye to each other, eyes crimson with crying. Gayali, still fighting tears, cries out: ‘Sukhchand, it is a long journey, baba. Be safe, son. Take care of Ranga-bou. The little one has a bad stomach; take good care of his diet. Take care, my son.’
Kadambari fades into a blur, then Kochuchushi bill and Chitalmari khal. They reach the bank where steamers are lined, and it is in the crowded engine room of one such steamer ferrying passengers from one Bengal to the other that Sachin and his family find a place next to the small man smoking his chillum. As his father shares a smoke with the stranger, a blind man sings:
‘O Lord, why did you tear my land apart,
Why did you snatch my peace!’
Sachin sleeps.
The year is 1957. In front of Sachin is a sea of heads and hands carrying broken lives in bundles, getting off rusty steamers. Khulna jetty is a busy thoroughfare. Men from makeshift hotels come looking for customers. Sellers sell knick-knacks. But Sukhchand has no time to waste; he tells his wife and son to hurry. It is a long journey from that point to their destination. Under the glare of a merciless sun, they walk to Khulna station. On the way, Sachin sees a city for the first time. Giant tortoises without mouths, moving on paved roads. They call them cars here. Women in footwear look at men in the eye and share a laugh. Ranga-bou, not used to seeing women in fancy chappals, blushes and looks away.
Green-coloured trains are taking people to Calcutta. Barishal Express is transporting hilsa, hope, people and memories to stations unknown. The Madhumati hilsa is a big hit on the other side, someone says. They ride the train to Benapole, where they find policemen in droves, checking migration papers and keeping an eye on who is taking away more than they have declared. Many are without papers, praying they won’t be found out, but no one can escape these policemen. Men are being forced out of compartments. Some are allowed to remain inside after offering bribes but they are pushed around, their belongings rummaged, their gold and silver taken away, and their women eyed with greed. The law takes its course!
Cops in blue caps and khaki overalls approach Sachin’s father. Sachin has never seen cops before. ‘Why are grown men wearing school uniforms?’ he wonders.
‘How much luggage are you carrying?’
Mild-mannered Sukhchand fumbles for a reply to this as one of them dips his hand into the pitcher to check if there is money or jewellery hidden inside the rice. ‘Only grains, it seems.’ They laugh. ‘But you are carrying more luggage than you are entitled to,’ says one, eyeing Ranga-bou. These are not human eyes. Sachin has seen such eyes before; these are the eyes of an animal on prowl. Fear grips his child heart.
Sukhchand quickly fishes out thirty crumpled rupee notes which the men pocket, stamping their border slips and deboarding. The train leaves Benapole.
Lush green fields; lazy, grazing cattle; trees, named and unnamed; ponds, filled and dried up; sweaty farmers; and busy bazaars pass by. Memories muddle up in Sachin’s mind. Gayali must be in the field now; it’s the season of harvest. Has he taken the day off, grieving their departure? Sachin never saw his grandmother, but his grandfather showered him with all the love in the world. His big arms were Sachin’s nest during infancy. There is a lump in Sachin’s throat as the train reaches Haridaspur. It is a long haul. An hour later, they cross an overbridge and a signboard next to it says ‘No Man’s Land’. The day gets hotter, and the men inside the compartment grow restless, as another sign flashes by, ‘Welcome to India!’
They are almost there. Sealdah station is now a wish away. They are in India.
Sukhchand comes out of his tent to face the fading sun. He has not been keeping well for some time. The vaccination injection at the Bongaon rail station has left him nauseated. He st
ays up coughing at night as the small bulb flickers over his head, hearing couples grunt and babies cry from other tents. Privacy is a foreign concept.
They have been here for a few days. Their names have been registered in fat files and temporary arrangements have been made outside Sealdah station for refugees waiting to be transported to relief camps near and elsewhere. Ranga-bou cooks their meals on the footpath, laying out bricks to make an oven and using twigs to start a fire. The pitcher of rice they have carried with them is emptying fast.
There is a two-rupee cash dole for every refugee daily. Sukhchand gets five rupees for the family. ‘It’s a beggar’s life here,’ he spits out. Who knew India would be such a depressing tract of fatigue and failure! He sees only despair and death all around him. Sukhchand looks at his wife – so full of life despite the travails – then looks out into the distance at the hope that is Calcutta. Is it a city or a mirage?
A week later, they are told to move again. The Jogeshwar Dihi transit camp is to be their new address. They board a train crowded with their kind; Hindu refugees in hundreds, trying to find a footing in a new land. There is not a single vacant seat inside. Ranga-bou and Sachin sit on the steel suitcase they are carrying, while Sukhchand stands guard. A baby wails from the seat in front of them. The mother looks around helplessly at the vacuous eyes of men around her and then, in a move practised to perfection from years of travelling amongst strangers, she uncovers a breast to feed the child.
‘Where are you from, sister?’ someone asks her.