REVISITING THE LIFE STRUGGLE OF MARGINAL HINDU BENGALI REFUGEES IN WEST BENGAL IN POST-INDEPENDENT INDIA (original) (raw)
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REVISITING THE LIFE STRUGGLE OF MARGINAL HINDU BENGALI REFUGEES IN
SOUTH INDIA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES ISSN: 0972 – 8945, 2021
The partition of Greater India into India and Pakistan marked a painful chapter for Bengalis and Sikhs, driven primarily by religious identity. While the Sikhs had the opportunity to exchange property and citizenship, the marginalised Bengali Hindus faced greater odds. Many low-caste Hindu refugees still live in Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and the Andaman Islands, struggling with issues of citizenship, employment, food and shelter. Seventy-five years after independence, many Bengali refugees, especially around Sealdah station, live in unhygienic conditions. Although some educated middle-class refugees have established themselves, many others still lack basic necessities such as food, housing, education, and health care. This article focuses on the socio-economic struggles of marginalized Hindu Bengali refugees in West Burdwan, Bankura and Birbhum districts.
Revisited: Partition and the Bengali Muslims of India
The Geopolitics, 2022
It may come as a surprise to many people that Bengali-speaking Muslims form the second largest Muslim ethno-linguistic group in the world after Arab Muslims. The 1947 Partition is remembered largely by the massacres of more than a million people, which took place as Hindu and Muslim mobs clashed during the migration of between fifteen to twenty million people to newly created India and Pakistan. While the scholarship of the event is largely focused on the Punjab region where some of the worst massacres took place, there is a need to produce more scholarship on what other regions experienced. It is important to note that, despite the growth in scholarship about Bengal’s partition in recent years, there remains a particular need to document the Partition experiences of Bengali Muslims of India and conduct archival research in light of the increasing strength of the Indian right-wing, which continues to label this group as “outsiders”. Hence, in this article commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of India’s partition, it will be worthwhile to look at the colonial history concerning the Bengali Muslims in three of the states of India: West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura.
Partition of Bengal and Struggle for Existence of the Host Society
Routledge eBooks, 2023
in 1947 had initiated one of the most tragic episode of history of the Indian subcontinent i.e. migration of people from one state to another by crossing manmade political frontiers. Like the Sikhs and the Hindus of West Pakistan, the Hindus together with other minor religious communities of erstwhile East Pakistan (East Bengal or present Bangladesh) began to migrate to India either as forced migrants primarily as 'refugees' or as 'voluntary immigrants'. The Scheduled Castes of East Bengal being the follower of the Hinduism (although had lower social status in the caste hierarchy) were also compelled to leave their country of forefathers. Like the upper caste Hindus they also began to take shelter in West Bengal, Northeast India and other parts of India. It is a fact that both the refugee and immigrant upper caste East Bengalese had to fight for survival in India with all of their energy and wealth what they brought from East Bengal. Their struggle for existence or resettlement in new (alien) land made them an 'oppressed social category' which was no way better than the dalits of present day. But the Scheduled Castes of East Bengal after their migration to West Bengal or other states of India had faced more critical stage in their life than the non-Scheduled Caste (upper caste) East Bengalese. Even a significant number of non-immigrant (pre-settled) Scheduled Castes of West Bengal could not escape from the curse of partition of Bengal as it considerably changed the whole socioeconomic and political structure of West Bengal. At the same time huge migration from East Bengal had created an unhealthy competition on the agricultural lands, fisheries, natural resources and other sectors of economy. It is well known to us that the Scheduled Castes of Bengal in pre-partitioned days were mostly dependent on the primary sector of economy where beginning of fresh competition means further deterioration of their socioeconomic condition. Moreover, the Scheduled Castes of Bengal *Author is indebted to the Indian Council of Social Science Research (New Delhi) for its financial assistance to the Major Project titled Impact of Partition of India (1947) on the Sdzeduled Castes of Eastern India witlz special References to West Bengal (Vide ICSSR Letter No-F.No.RP 02/080/2008/RP dated 04.11.2008) ongoing under the supervision of the author.
Reconstructing the Bengal partition: The psyche under a different violence’, Kolkata: Samya. 2013
The partition left a huge impact in a generation of people; their disturbed psyche would haunt many generations down the family line. It was a chasm that was buried deep, something that would perhaps open years later to show the gnawing wounds within. book analyzes the complex feelings of hatred and longing for the homeland that have contributed to shaping the personalities of a generation of people who were forced to migrate from East Bengal post partition.
Journal of Migration Affairs, 2024
You are the son of a Muslim; why do you need so much education?" (p. 30) This one-liner in the book Identity of a Muslim Family in Colonial Bengal: Between Memories and History (New York: Peter Lang, 2021) by Mohammad Rashiduzzaman is enough to make one understand the enormity of the rift between Hindus and Muslims in colonial Bengal. As researchers of the Partition and refugee studies of South Asia, we often wonder how the masses began to accept the idea of making separate homelands for the two leading communities of Bengal. Indeed, they participated actively in communal politics at the grassroots level, initiated chiefly by the three major political parties of united Indian territory: the Congress, the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha, the latter two being actively against the centuries-long tradition of communal harmony in the pre-Partition East Bengal society. Interestingly, a study of the trends of Partition historiography reveals a shift, from the late 1970s onwards, in the focus of the research done by historians and social scientists: from the high politics of Partition to the more human side of it. However, the Partition narratives kept revolving only around the Hindu side of the stories. Hindu refugee narratives, therefore, became more prominent in Partition literature and films. The Muslim accounts of experiencing the division remained marginal for many reasons. The key reason was that the creation of Pakistan, a brand new nation-state on the map of South Asia, has always been seen in official accounts as an absolute achievement of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The Muslim Anindita Ghoshal
Partition in Bengal: Re-visiting the Caste Question, 1946-47
The essay introduces caste as a category for discussing the history of Partition of India, which until now has focused almost exclusively on the Hindus, Sikhs and the Muslims. The Dalit or the 'untouchables' of India are usually left out of this discussion, and whenever they are brought in, they are portrayed as either disinterested onlookers or accidental victims. On the contrary, as this essay will argue, the Dalit were deeply entangled in Partition politics, which threatened their natural habitat in eastern Bengal, where they had reclaimed land from marshes and forests, extended cultivation and set up human settlement. Their regional movement was gradually drawn into the broader subcontinental politics that led to Partition, and the movement as a result lost unity, autonomy and purpose. While one group of the Bengali Dalit leaders were opposed to Partition and believed that a Dalit–Muslim alliance was in the best interest of the Dalit, others got closer to Hindu nationalism and demanded Partition of Bengal. Many Dalit peasants were caught in this politics and became both victims and perpetrators of violence. The essay concludes that while the Dalit lacked power to influence the decision to partition, they nevertheless were forced to take positions within the political divide, which they did according to their own perceptions of caste interests and preferred political future of their physical space.
REVISITING PARTITION OF INDIA 1947 - THE VOICE OF DALIT REFUGEES
International Journal of Social Science and Economic research, 2019
Caste is an integral part of Indian society, this understanding cannot be overlooked when dealing with discourses on the oppressed, marginalised and excluded. Historians and scholars have engaged with the socio-political and economic impact of partition on the sub-continent ever since the sub-continent was divided. Refugees, especially those from the marginalised sections of society namely dalits, have recently been a topic of discussion and exploration when interrogating partition of India, 1947 and its aftermath. Menon, Bhasin, Butalia and Karuna Chanana have exactly done that on the gendered naratives of partiton refugees through personal interviews and so have traced the histories of woman refugees from Punjab. However, the present paper intends to tell a different story while archival records have been used in the paper to weave the story of how, when and if all Dalit refugees migrated to the East, post Partition, oral history has been used a tool to explore the experiences of the hitherto ignored history of the Dalit refugee with reference to the Partition of India, 1947 ( in this case Punjab and Delhi). The paper studies a Dalit refugee colony of Jalandhar Punjab where a large number dalit refugees belonging to Megh community, evacuated from Sialkot by the Indian government were resettled at this colony (Bhargava Camp Jalandhar). The paper will study the experiences of surviving dalit refugees of this colony, through oral history. Lastly, the paper is therefore an attempt to include the history of these refugees who have till now largely been outside the paradigm of the largest migration of history.