Massacre at Marichjhapi - Four Decades Later
By Zainab Amal
This article is the first part of a two-part series that traces the history that culminated in the systematic murder of thousands of Dalits in the Marichjhapi Massacre of 1979. This piece is published on January 31st, 2022, to mark the 43nd commemoration of the pogrom.
Of the many forgotten names of pogroms against marginalized people in post-colonial India is the name of Marichjhapi. Forty-three years after the carnage, the Marichjhapi massacre still remains one of the least known mass pogroms of Dalits. Here, we trace why and how it came to be that thousands of Dalits could be killed, raped, amputated, and displaced without accountability by a casteist state.
An Organized and Politically Powerful Namasudra community
In the first half of the 20th century, the Namasudra movement was one of the strongest, most well-organized Dalit movements of unpartitioned India. The demographics of the Muslim community there were largely comprised of converts from Dalit and other ‘lower’ caste communities. This was understood to be because many people sought emancipation from the slavery of the caste system through conversion to Islam. Such parallel ‘low’ caste origin, and common exploitation at the hand of janmis (Hindu landlords), created a sense of solidarity between Dalits and Muslims at that time who functioned as socio-political allies.
The result of the political strength derived from this allyship is that the Bengal Congress Party - dominated by janmis, and even known by some as ‘the tri-caste Congress’ (because its membership was dominated by Brahmins, Kayasthas, and Vaidyas), was outnumbered into opposition.(1) Using their ‘upper’ caste status, these castes formed themselves into the elite category of the Bengali Bhadralok or ‘the genteel folk’ - a claim to cultural supremacy and entitlement that is prevalent even today.
Since Dalit-Muslim alliances were putting a dent in their political ambitions, this Bhadralok section of Bengali society became the biggest supporters of the division of Bengal along religious lines during the Partition of British India. In fact, the partition of Bengal was thus strategically engineered to weaken existing Muslim-Dalit alliances and get the Bengali bhadralok into power in Indian West Bengal.
Soon after the Partition in 1947, those who immediately crossed the border from the then East Pakistan to India were largely ‘upper’ caste Hindus, and they settled with their relatives on this side. The Dalit population preferred to stay in East Pakistan where they already had organizations, protection, and influence.
What these events post-partition resulted in was the marginalisation of the oppressed caste population in both countries. Now divided along religious lines, an alliance that once owed to common caste and social locations had to be now forcibly redefined in Hindu-Muslim terms. Deep Halder, the author of Blood Island, says, “to the upper-caste Hindus, both Muslims and lower-caste Hindus were equally untouchable”.(2) With the common antagonist now out of the picture, there was a shift in how things unfolded for everybody back home. The socio-political scenario was fuelled up and the identities were now religious and previous solidarities faded away. Eventually, the oppressed caste population also began leaving for India owing to economic turmoil but also a breakdown of Dalit-Muslim solidarity and rise in atrocities against them.
Bengali Identity only for the Bhadralok?
When the Bengali bhadralok mass migrated from East Pakistan immediately after the 1947 partition, they resettled within West Bengal itself naturally owing to the Bengali roots. Those who did not have familial connections were rehabilitated in refugee camps within West Bengal. Even people who illegally mass occupied empty lands were accommodated in the same areas that were later turned legally into full-fledged residential colonies. The Bijoygarh Colony in West Bengal is one such example.(3)
But, when the lower caste people - largely Namasudras - left for India, they were forcibly migrated to different parts of India, including Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, and as far as the Andaman Islands. These places had no features of familiarity for Namasudras. They could not speak the local languages, climates were not the wet tropical climates they were used to, they were completely foreign in their resettlement locations. It would seem that accommodations for a Bengali identity were only made for the Bhadralok and the ‘lower’ castes were not to be bothered with a Bengali identity. As a result, the Namasudra identity - unity and political power - was successfully broken down and scattered outside of Bengal, ensuring uninterrupted dominance of the Bengali bhadralok.(4)
A vast majority of refugees were sent to camps in Dandakaranya that comprised today’s states of central-east India. It was an arid and rocky terrain with uneven rainfall.(5)
For a group of people for whom farming and fish breeding were the mainstay, the camps were a nightmare. Summers were scorching and winters were freezing. The camp was poorly maintained with regard to infrastructure and living conditions. Families were large but made to survive on insufficient ration. They often had to wait in line all night with the hope of getting a single bucket of water.(6)
Harassment and mistreatment of the Dalit refugees by ‘upper’ caste camp authorities became a norm. In the process of setting up these camps and resettling Bengali refugees, many Adivasis of the region were also displaced from their indigenous lands. Therefore, hostility from disenfranchised tribal people started to be a problem as they held the loss of their native land against the refugees.
There were so many instances of violence and rape, recount survivors (7), that there was even a need for there was even a segregated enclosure with barricades for widowed mothers, to ward off the unwanted male gaze.(8) Finally, due to the fact Namasudras were not native to any of those states, they weren’t recognized as belonging to one of the ‘Scheduled Castes’ (SC) in these states. As a result, they were also denied the various government affirmative action or reservation programs for which they would have been eligible in West Bengal.(9)
By now, it was increasingly becoming clear that the West Bengal government - the Indian National Congress at the time - would not take them back to Bengal. When it felt unbearable to continue in such inhumane living conditions, the Namasudra refugees began organizing to explore alternative options. Udbastu Unnayanshil Samiti (Refugee Welfare Committee) was one such effort founded and by Dalit refugee leaders Satish Mondal, Rangalal Goldar, and Raiharan Baroi. Their themes of organizing were focused on two fronts; one was trying to improve living conditions at their camps and the second was to determine a new area for their final resettlement. Of the things they organised was a twenty-eight days (10) long hunger strike to protest the poor quality of rice given to them.
Under their leadership and relentless efforts of other refugees who went on searches for a habitable region, they were familiar with in terms of landscape, language and culture. During these expeditions to the regions of West Bengal, they discovered the island of Marichjhapi in Sunderbans. “The air, the water, and the alluvial land would make us miss home in East Pakistan a little less. Some of us had made trips in between and discovered Marichjhapi, a place that could sustain us. Also, a part of the Sundarbans is on the other side of the border, now Bangladesh, so we knew the (Sundarban) islands quite well,” says Mana Goldar, daughter of Rangalal Goldar.
The Left’s Great Betrayal
When the Congress party was in power up to 1977 in West Bengal, a coalition of communist parties, led by CPIM, then called the Left Front, were in opposition. Leaders of the Left Front like Ram Chatterjee, made frequent visits to Dandakaranya to promise Namasudras that they would definitely be brought back to West Bengal when they came to power. In the mid-1970s, CPIM’s Jyoti Basu, who later on became the Chief Minister and oversaw the massacre visited the camp where he said, “You are the people of Bengal, (and so) we will give you homes in Bengal”.(11) On January 25, 1975, Basu also invited Dandakaranya refugee leaders to have a meeting with him where he also promised government assistance to resettle in West Bengal if he comes to power.(12) Two years later, the Left Front did come into power. Jyoti Basu became the Chief Minister of West Bengal and Ram Chatterjee was appointed the Minister of State, Home (Civil Defense) Department.
However, the Left Front went back on all the promises made to the refugees. No government representatives visited them anymore. And instead, they decided that resettlement of such a large population to West Bengal would not be an option. Unaware of this shift in the resettlement policy and trusting Ram Chatterjee who had bombastically stated that “the 5 crore Bengalis by raising their 10 crore hands are welcoming you back" (13), they were determined to get to Marichjhapi. In March 1978, around 150,000 refugees started leaving Dandakaranya to Marichjhapi in various groups one after the other over some days.(14)
Not only did the state go back on their word but they also started various methods of crackdown on the refugees. In a few days, Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure - legally prohibiting the assembly of five or more people - was imposed on Dandakaranya, and arrest warrants were issued against around a dozen refugees including Satish Mondal and Rangalal Goldar. The police were tasked with patrolling the roads leading into West BengalThose who had already left for Marichjhapi were picked up at Hasnabad railway station, which was their last railway station from where a boat had to be taken to Marichjhapi, by police and sent back to Dandakaranya or forced away.
Nonetheless, many refugees managed to reach Marichjhapi They took different routes to the island, even getting off before Hasnabad where the police were waiting for them.(15)
Those who did not make it to Marichjhapi either went back to the camps or spread out in different directions in Bengal over the next few months. On July 22, when a group of the refugees reached Kashipur camp in Barddhaman, in West Bengal, 8 of them were killed in a police firing and a policeman was killed by a refugee.(16)
Source: Google Earth, “Marichjhanpi”, 22°06’27”N 88°56’35”E, Jan 21 2022
Despite all this, a determined Namasudra community did reach and raise a whole town and life in Marichjhapi. In the next part, we explore the development of a self-sufficient community in Marichjhapi, and how they were ultimately struck down by state forces.
Zainab Amal is an independent researcher whose interest lies in historical and sociological studies.
References:
Mallick, R. (1999). Refugee Resettlement in Forest Reserves: West Bengal Policy Reversal and the Marichjhapi Massacre. The Journal of Asian Studies, 58, 105. https://doi.org/10.2307/2658391
Halder, D. (2019). Blood Island An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre. HarperCollins Publishers India.
https://www.inuth.com/india/marichjhapi-forgotten-massacre-that-claimed-lives-of-thousands-of-refugees/
Halder, D. (2019). Blood Island An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre. HarperCollins Publishers India.
Ibid.
Byapari, M. (2019). Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit (S. Mukherjee, Trans.). SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd.
Mallick, R. (2018, March). AN UNTOUCHABLE MASSACRE. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323969180_AN_UNTOUCHABLE_MASSACRE
Halder, D. (2019). Blood Island An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre. HarperCollins Publishers India.
https://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5447:marichjhapi-and-the-revenge-of-bengali-bhadralok&catid=119:feature&Itemid=132
Byapari, M. (2019). Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit (S. Mukherjee, Trans.). SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd.
Ibid.
Halder, D. (2019). Blood Island An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre. HarperCollins Publishers India.
Byapari, M. (2019). Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit (S. Mukherjee, Trans.). SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Wound-still-raw-for-Marichjhapi-survivors/articleshow/18281775.cms
Halder, D. (2019). Blood Island An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre. HarperCollins Publishers India.
Chhinna Desh Chinna Itihas, Editor: Madhumay Pal (2000), Digital Library of India Item 2015.267016