Blood Island

by Deep Halder

  Samanta did slip in a line about the ‘massacre’ – that only one person, an adivasi woman, was killed when the police opened fire on 31 January 1979 at Kumirmari, after a police camp was attacked by refugees. ‘Jene nin, matro ekjon mahila mara jan, tao misfiring-e, ei sotti ta likhben apni?’ (Know this, only one woman died, that too due to misfiring. Will you write this truth?)

  ‘Why did you choose Marichjhapi as the topic of your book?’ Ganguly’s eyes are now wide open, drilling into me.

  I tell him of my long association with the subject, the stories from childhood and my friendship with Mana.

  ‘So let me ask you, do you have the stomach to digest the truth?’

  I smile my yes.

  ‘The first question that you should ask, then, is that these people who came to the island of Marichjhapi – why did they come? The second question is: were all of them, even 80 per cent of them, homeless refugees who were staying in camps in Dandakaranya or locals from neighbouring areas like Hasnabad and Howrah?’

  ‘You were Sundarbans’ minister at that time, Mr Ganguly. Why don’t you tell me?’

  ‘Well, many people from neighbouring villages took on the identity of “refugees” and settled in Marichjhapi. They were not refugees, but squatters who wanted to occupy land illegally. See, I am a refugee, too, an “udbastu”. When we came to India from what is today Bangladesh, we settled in areas in and around Calcutta. The Government of India also decided to rehabilitate many of us mainly in the states of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and what is now Chhattisgarh.

  ‘Initially, there was some resistance to resettlement in the Andamans. I was there after the 2004 tsunami. Do you know those who did go there are now some of the richest persons on the islands? Do you know that?’

  I tell Ganguly that I have been to Mana Camp in Raipur. I have seen how Udbastu Unnayanshil Samiti’s leader Satish Mondal’s son has a thriving business there.

  Ganguly smiles. ‘What happened is that those refugees who were sent to Orissa were more or less okay with their lot in life. Coming from Bangladesh – with its fertile lands and abundant water bodies – where fishing and farming were two of their primary occupations, they found the landscape of Orissa – with the Bay of Bengal nearby – favourable for fishing as well as cultivation.

  ‘But in other areas, especially the huge, barren tracts of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the infrastructure, the primary support that was needed for these refugees to rebuild their lives, was largely inadequate.

  ‘What’s more, the central government showed a partisan attitude as far as the two partitions were concerned – one in Punjab and the other in Bengal. The proactive role they played in the former was largely missing in the resettlement of the Bengali refugees.

  ‘Refugee rehabilitation should have been carried out in a planned manner, but wasn’t at all. But that happens with most things, to be fair. That happened initially in the Andamans as well. Later, we realized that Nehru’s decision to send the refugees there was absolutely correct.’

  ‘Let us come back to Marichjhapi, Mr Ganguly,’ I butt in.

  Ganguly frowns at this sudden disruption of his history lesson, but acquiesces. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘What happened in Marichjhapi? Your government has been accused of killing thousands.’

  ‘Rubbish. Even if I put the death toll at eight or ten, it would be too high a number.’

  ‘Are you talking of police firing?’

  ‘No, I am talking of both refugees and the police; there were casualties on both sides. Stories of a blood bath taking place are bloody lies. Come with me to nearby villages and ask the people there. They will tell you the truth, bereft of any political colour or prejudice.’

  I prod again. ‘Ten people died in Marichjhapi?’

  ‘Not even ten; less.’

  I tell Ganguly I have spoken to survivors, not once, but many times over the years. I have spoken to journalists who had covered Marichjhapi. I have also been to nearby villages. They all had said thousands were killed on that island by the police on specific instructions from the West Bengal government; the same government of which he was a minister.

  Ganguly makes a clucking sound with his tongue. ‘Were you there, Halder, when it happened? Why did they zero in on Marichjhapi? That island is located in the reserved area of the Sundarbans. As it is, human settlement in various areas of the archipelago, initiated by the British, was a wrong move, endangering the fragile ecosystem of the place.

  ‘All the islands in the Sundarbans are immature – do you know why I am saying this? Nowhere in this world have such islands of human settlement been created with artificial mud embankments. The British rehabilitated the Santhals here, constructing artificial embankments that would keep away the water during tides, which rise to a height of ten to eighteen feet.

  ‘But after Independence, once British rule was over, it was legally decided that no further human settlements would be allowed in the Sundarbans.

  ‘So, such human encroachment on Marichjhapi was not only illegal, as it would destroy the mangroves, but we also had to consider the fact that if we allowed human habitation in Marichjhapi, other islands in the Sundarbans would get illegally occupied also. The situation would spiral out of control.’

  Does that justify what was done to the islanders?

  ‘No, Halder, it doesn’t. But we tried our best to make them understand that we couldn’t possibly let them stay on that island. They weren’t defenceless people as it is often claimed – they also created armed battalions of their own.

  ‘Man’s love for land is primal. Those people from East Pakistan were used to lush green fields and ponds filled with fishes. The topography of the Sundarbans was like that back home. So, they were adamant on settling there.

  ‘What’s more, some refugees had also started exploring other unoccupied islands, looking to build settlements there. The government had no option but to act decisively. We decided that the biosphere reserved area of the Sundarbans had to be protected at any cost, not only for the present but also for the safety of the future generations.

  ‘There was conflict within the Left Front on this. Ram Chatterjee, who was a minister and a refugee sympathizer, was against eviction of the refugees and the issue had also been debated in the state legislative assembly. All political parties, irrespective of ideologies, took a unified call that this couldn’t be allowed to go on.

  ‘So, there was no option but to forcefully evict refugees from Marichjhapi when our requests were ignored. Moreover, they were attacking the police. Some bullets had to be fired.’

  At this, I interrupt Ganguly. ‘Tell me something, Mr Ganguly. These people who crossed over from East Pakistan and were sent to camps in Dandakaranya, how did they identify Marichjhapi? People say leaders from your party—’

  Ganguly stops me mid-sentence. ‘It wasn’t difficult at all. I am sure you know that two-thirds of the Sundarbans archipelago lies in Bangladesh. A kind of leaf – golpata – was used by the people of Opar Bangla to build roofs for their homes. Even when we used to stay in Bangladesh, we used to cross over to this side in order to get leaves for our roofs. Hence, those people were pretty well-versed with the area.

  ‘And Marichjhapi is in such a place, located near the border – Hingalganj and the Ichamati river – that it was easy to locate. How far was it from their former homes?’

  ‘But is it true that some Left leaders such as Ram Chatterjee went to the Dandak camps, asking refugees to come back to West Bengal? This was when the Left parties were in opposition.’

  ‘There is some controversy, yes. Chatterjee did support them. But firstly, who will address the conspiracy on who incited and aided these refugees to come back here? Second, one also needs to take into consideration the central government’s highly inadequate role in refugee rehabilitation. Third, and most importantly, tell me this – if we had allowed human settlement in Marichjhapi, would a single island in the Sundarbans biosphere reserve have survived tod
ay?’

  It’s time for my third question. ‘I have read up on Marichjhapi. There’s an Oxford University research paper which says that since most of these refugees were low caste Namasudras, no mercy was shown to them. Doesn’t that go against the very grain of Left and their Marxist philosophy?’

  ‘No, no, no, no!’ Ganguly shakes his head vehemently. ‘The Namasudra angle wasn’t a factor at all in our decision to clear that island. The Namasudras did bear a lot of anger and hatred towards higher castes, towards Brahminism, but our government had no bias against the lower caste refugees.

  ‘Jyoti babu wasn’t such a person at all. Neither was the Left Front government a caste prejudiced one.

  ‘You can call us Leftists anything you want to, but you can’t call us communal or casteist.

  ‘Those Namasudras carried a deep-rooted anger towards Brahmins. I am a Brahmin, and have seen this for myself. But we had no such caste angle in mind when we denied them settlement in Marichjhapi.

  ‘They thought that the Left Front was unfairly denying them settlement on that island. But how can you overlook the ecology? Can you strike a compromise with nature – can you become its enemy and hope for the human race to survive?

  ‘Plus, this was a practically unsealed border area. At one point of time, pirates used to make our lives unbearable there.’

  ‘Kanti babu,’ I interrupt him again, ‘do you agree that when the Left was in Opposition, it had called these refugees to Bengal, only to turn back on its promise once it came to power?’

  This time, Ganguly doesn’t avoid the question.

  ‘Many have criticized the Left Front, and I myself feel it was wrong. It was not our proudest moment. We Leftists did not do the right thing. What we had promised – that all of them would be rehabilitated in West Bengal – was wrong. Could the fragile economy of the state bear such a huge burden? And when we were in the opposition – and this is strictly my personal opinion – we Leftists engaged in some cheap politics and promised them the moon.

  ‘Once upon a time, Leftists in the state opposed computer education. Does it make sense to resist technology? Even Jyoti Basu had participated in a dharna to stop computer education. I was against it. Similarly, I feel that the promise made to refugees to resettle them in Bengal was an absolutely wrong decision.’

  Ganguly looks at his watch. Generally, this is a sign for conversations to end.

  I push forth another question. ‘For a cadre-based party – and when you came to power – there was a lot in your control in the state. Couldn’t the collateral damage have been less? The carnage, where some say around 1,700 lives were lost, some say 4,000, some even say more than 10,000, could that not have been avoided?’

  ‘Again, those figures are fiction. You know what really happened? We surrounded the island from all sides and after a while, we left one side open, from where those willing to go back to Dandakaranya could leave. Practically within fifteen days or so, 50 to 60 per cent of the people had vacated the island. Locals from other islands, pretending to be refugees, had also run away.

  ‘I wasn’t present at the spot, so I can’t tell you how much more tolerant we could have been or how the loss of lives could have been lessened, but I can say this with certainty that Jyoti babu tried his best to reason with these people.

  ‘Basu had even told them that money from the state budget would be allocated for their favourable resettlement elsewhere, but they refused to listen.

  ‘And how can you blame Jyoti babu for not rehabilitating them in Bengal? Even Bidhan Roy couldn’t do so. Bengal is not a big state after all. How would it accommodate such a large mass?

  ‘The number of Hindus – lower caste Namasudras as well as caste Hindus – who came to Bengal was way higher than the number of Muslims who went over to Bangladesh. The state was already bursting at the seams.

  ‘Was there any place in Bengal for further rehabilitation? Answer this question before blaming the erstwhile state government for refusing the refugees home here.’

  I get up to leave. ‘So ten people were killed on that island?’ I ask Ganguly one last time.

  ‘Less!’ he said and picked up a magazine lying in front of him, signalling the end of the interview.

  December 2017, Mukundapur, Kolkata

  9

  Manoranjan Byapari

  M

  anoranjan Byapari is mildly amused by the Bengali bhadraloks who watch world cinema, attend literary festivals, mourn the spread of communalism in the country’s polity and now swear by his books. These are the same people, Byapari tells me, who looked the other way when chotoloks (the classless and the casteless) were being butchered outside Calcutta in the island of Marichjhapi.

  These are the very people who kept quiet when the refugees who came back from Dandakaranya in search of home died by the wayside in Calcutta and its outskirts from hunger and illness.

  Byapari has seen a bit of life’s seamy side. He was a rickshaw puller who became a writer, a homeless refugee who was sodomised by a policeman and a Naxal who survived the bullet. As a self-confessed chotolok, he has also cleaned the bhadralok’s toilet and then written books that made him famous among the intelligentsia. Byapari’s autobiographical outpourings in the book Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit was the toast of the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2018.

  Byapari’s writings would have remained hidden below the backseat of the cycle rickshaw he pulled had it not been for a chance encounter with activist-writer Mahasweta Devi. She helped his books get published, opening the gates for protest literature in the genteel world of Kolkata’s culture keepers. In one of his poems, he writes:

  My pen is not that which bows before the Brahmins

  Or prays for respite from those whose hands are still bloody from Marichjhapi deaths

  My pen is mine

  Sharp like that arrow which knows no stopping till it finds its target.

  It is voices like Byapari’s that help stories of massacres like Marichjhapi stay alive in public memory. Voices that can be appropriated neither by the State nor talk-circuit sophistry. During my visit to Alabama in June later in the year, Howard Robinson, history professor at Alabama State University, would tell me how oral history has kept the African-American struggle alive down the ages when mainstream press and even literary fiction would whitewash crimes against the community.

  ‘Where were these people when the police broke the bones of my father’s chest in Marichjhapi with a rifle’s butt? My father was no leader of men; he was an honest man in search of an honest life who could never recover from his injuries in Marichjhapi and died from chest problems.’

  Byapari’s eyes glow in the dark. The evening crowd that has gathered at the tea stall next to the Shiv Mandir near Santoshpur lake in south Kolkata seems to have heard such statements before.

  This open space is Byapari’s den and the motley crew of students, researchers, government clerks and nameless faces that surround him is his regular audience. Fame has robbed Byapari neither of his agitprop credentials nor his earthiness. When I called him for an interview on Marichjhapi, he readily agreed and gave me directions to his haunt.

  Inhaling the exhaust fumes from minibuses and autorickshaws, and sipping on steaming lemon tea, Byapari lets loose his poison tongue.

  ‘Caste hatred led to Marichjhapi massacre.’

  ‘But,’ I feebly butt in, ‘the communists always advocated for a classless, casteless society.’

  ‘That is all gibberish. You know nothing! Even in the temporary refugee camps set up across Bengal for refugees crossing over from East Pakistan, there was caste discrimination. The upper castes didn’t want to stay at the same camps as the Namasudras. They demanded separate camps.

  ‘Later, there were colonies where refugees forcibly occupied land. The first such place is Bijoygarh in south Calcutta. Since it was with the military before, electricity and water lines were already there. That apart, there were banks, a post office, a university … N
o less than twenty refugee colonies were allowed to be developed in the Jadavpur area where you stay. Find me a shudra family there and then talk! All are upper castes.

  ‘The government of the day, with Bidhan Chandra Roy as chief minister, didn’t evict them. In fact, they tried to facilitate such settlements. Roy had clearly said he wouldn’t allow bastis, constituting lower class, lower caste refugees, to spring up in his Bengal. Upper castes were fine!

  ‘And what did the Communist government do? They didn’t question these illegal settlers either. So why did they adopt a separate set of rules for Marichjhapi settlers? Why were they beaten up, raped and killed for settling in a tract of land so far away from Calcutta, with no real estate value? If the settlers had been Brahmins, Kayasthas and Baidyas, there would have been no action.

  ‘Jyoti Basu couldn’t tolerate the fact that chotoloks could dare to dream without bending before him. Marichjhapi settlers had declared that they had no need of any government assistance. They were self-sufficient and had built their own township.

  ‘But this is not what the Communist government wanted. Their deal was: “We will give you rice, you join our rallies, vote for us.” If these people became independent, capable, which they were turning out to be, they wouldn’t depend on the government for food and clothes.

  ‘The very idea of communists – as friends of the poor, darlings of the downtrodden – would be tarnished. The world would see that the poor could very well take care of themselves and ensure their own welfare, if only they aren’t stopped from doing so.