Partition and Dalits in West Bengal -Events

Sekhar Bandyopadhyay

The historiography of Partition now seems to have moved from a preoccupation with its causes to an overwhelming interest in recovering the experiences of its victims, as these had profound consequences for the subsequent nation-building processes and communal relations in the subcontinent. It is also widely recognised now that the Partition of India was not just an event that happened in August 1947 – it had a long afterlife. And in exploring that aftermath of Partition, many voices have been recovered, yet many still remain silent. While some of studies on the Bengali refugees mention the migration and the struggles of Scheduled Caste peasant refugees, we still have to relate these stories to the questions of their caste disability, self-perception and identity politics. So how do we situate Dalit in the history of Partition? In Bengal the Dalit did not represent a homogeneous community and there were more than one story of Dalit response to Partition. While one group of Dalit leaders were opposed to Partition and believed that a dalit-Muslim alliance was in the interest of the dalit, others got closer to Hindu nationalism and demanded partition of Bengal. And many Dalit peasants in Bengal were caught in this politics and became both victims and perpetrators of violence. But then what was the consequence of this Partition violence on Dalit identity and politics in post-Partition Bengal?

Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury

Large number of people, either being directly victimized, or due to the fear of violence, left their homes, hoping that they would find peace and security on the other side of the border. In case of Bengal, the Hindus displaced from the newly-created East Pakistan had to take shelter in West Bengal, Assam and Tripura on the other side of the freshly and arbitrarily drawn boundary. In such a situation, the upper caste, educated Hindus mostly belonging to the upper and middle class could grab fresh opportunities of livelihood in their adopted land within a comparatively shorter period of time that perhaps shortened their experiences of agony at least to some extent. But, this was not to be the case for most of the lower caste displaced people like the Namasudras, satgops, poundras and so on. In most cases, they did not have education, social status and other constituting elements of social capital. Therefore, they were rather destined to the makeshift refugee camps after crossing the border between newly created states of India and Pakistan. Very often the community network and support became important tools of sustenance as state assistance was inadequate. Against this backdrop the presentation deals with the politics of rehabilitation and the struggle of lower caste refugees in the camps in West Bengal. The whole presentation will be divided into two broad phases considering 1958 as the landmark year. The first phase focuses on the government policies of relief and rehabilitation up to 1958 for two primary reasons: first, the year 1958 marked the end of an era of the first popularly elected Congress government, and therefore, it signified the changes in the government policies towards the relief and rehabilitation of the displaced persons; and second, which is the offshoot of the first one, was the decision of the Government of West Bengal to wind up the work of relief and rehabilitation in the transit camps of West Bengal by March 31, 1958, and henceforth not to recognize any more ‘immigrant’ as a ‘displaced’ beyond that date who could be in the need of relief and rehabilitation. Thee second phase intends to explore how the lower caste Hindu refugees were doubly jeopardized through the Government policies of rehabilitation outside West Bengal – first as refugees and then belonging to the lower caste communities, in the post-1958 period. Keeping in mind that the question of rehabilitation of the refugees has always been a matter of political and economic controversies in the eastern state of India, our discussion will be confined within the camps set up in West Bengal.

Anwesha Sengupta

Her brief presentation primarily analyses the debates that were taking place in the floors of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly regarding the rehabilitation of the refugees from East Bengal. Though the caste identity of the refugees hardly ever featured in these debates, there was recognition among the leaders of the ruling party and that of the opposition that it was important to know the occupation pattern of the refugees to rehabilitate them properly. Keeping in mind that there is a correlation between the caste identity and the occupation pattern in Bengal, one may use these debates imaginatively in understanding the impact of partition on the Dalits of this region.