The Forgotten Massacre of Settlers of Marichjhapi Island in West Bengal!

-Anurag Pathak/ 31.1.2020 

Acute immigration crisis and the reaction of nation-states to it, have opened the doors to political  debates on the subject, afresh. This particular phase, which started with the influx of refugees in European countries from war-torn nations of the middle east has shown the world what crisis Capitalism could bring. Running parallel to that is the extreme immigration crisis in south Asia. Rohingya Muslims, who are almost stateless now are facing death threats from the nations where they are settled anyhow. Joining them are the immigrants from Bangladesh who are facing the wrath of the Indian state, thanks to the CAA and NRC. The big left parties, CPI and CPIM, who were supposed to be with the immigrants have joined the chorus of the ruling class “India for Indians!” In doing this, they at one side, are also playing numb-game by remaining silent so as to secure the shrinking vote bank, which they believe has its major part constituted by these refugees only.

But can one put soil on the atrocities pioneered by these ‘left parties’ a few decades ago? 

One such horror story is the massacre of Bangladeshi immigrants by the left front government in West Bengal during the late 70s. Below is the timeline of the entire holocaust, from the CPIM of today, is turning face.

People, particularly Dalits and other lower-caste Hindus from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) started to flee the country owing to inflation, unbearable living conditions and frequent religious riots during the late 50s.

At first, they settled along the belts of Dandakaranya forests and the Government of India in 1956 also conceived their rehabilitation in more livable regions as the Dandakaranya forests apart from being remote, also has less arable/fertile land.

Incident of desertion from Dandakaranya became frequent in 1964. The left, at that time, was giving vocal support to these refugees and subsequently also promised their proper rehabilitation.

In 1977, the left front government came to power in West Bengal and with that, the refugees also became hopeful as the left front had always promised to give sufficient space to the refugees in West Bengal. The Left Front minister Ram Chatterjee visited the refugee camps at Dandakaranya and was reported to have encouraged the refugees to settle in the Sunderbans, which has also been a long-held Left demand.

However, the refugees, under the organisation of Udvastu Unnyanshil Samiti, refused to be a part of United Central Refugee Council, a Communist Party of India (Marxist) refugee organisation. This triggered the anger of the left front government as they started to see their dreams of gaining electoral advantages in Orissa and Madhya Pradesh shattering in no time. With all these, the left-front veered from its previous pro-refugee rhetorics and immediately started considering the refugees as a ‘burden on the state’.

A large number of refugees were also settled (emigrated from Dandakaranya) in the forests of Marichjhapi (in West Bengal), who actively voted left front in the elections. However, taking the gone electoral advantages into account, not only turned their backs to the refugees but also urged the deserters to go back to Dandakaranya and negating their demand for settling in West Bengal.

The government, with the help of Police and other armed forces, forced many refugees to go back to Dandakaranya. However, around 10,000 Namasudra refugee families under the leadership of Satish Mandal, president of the Udbastu Unnayanshil Samiti, went to relocate in Marichjhapi.

The left front government reacted in no time and declared Marichjhapi as a reserve forest, which wasn’t part of Mangroves previously. As one can expect, they started terming the refugees as ‘violators of the Forest Act’ and destroying “the existing and potential forest wealth and also creating ecological imbalance”.

On January 26, 1979, India’s Republic Day, then Left Front chief minister Jyoti Basu announced an economic blockade of Marichjhapi. It also clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC around the island of Marichjhapi. Thirty police launches started patrolling around the region, preventing anyone from providing food and even water to the settlers of the Marichjhapi island.

Survivors recall that on the morning of 31 January 1979, when some women tried to row boats to the next island to fetch drinking water, grains and medicine, the police rammed their launches into the boats and drowned all three. Some women were allegedly picked up by the policemen on the launches, taken to the nearest police station, gang-raped for days and then released. People who took boats into the river to save the drowning women were fired on by the police. Police continued attacking people who braved the action and took multiple boat trips back and forth to get the necessities.

All these resulted in refugees taking up arms to fight for their survival. The arms they used against the gunned policemen included crude implements like bows and arrows, lathis, bricks and stones. Not only the police but the CPIM cadres themselves also landed in the Marichjhapi same day and shamelessly beaten the residents, looted their belongings, killed and even raped them.

After 15 days Calcutta High Court ruled that "The supply of drinking water, essential food items and medicines as well as the passage of doctors must be allowed to Marichjhapi". However, the now champions of Indian justice system, were at that time refused to pay heed to the high court orders. The media was barred to enter the area and the police were ordered to dump the dead bodies in the water, while many drowned alive when fleeing the region. Someone from the police or the cadre poisoned a tube well, which resulted in the death of 13 people.

There is no official death count but sources say that it would not have been less than 10,000. The survivors were then forcibly sent back to Dandakaranya, while some settled themselves in Hingalganj, Canning and in the shanties near railway tracks in Sealdah.

The most notable fact is that the BJP too, who is a strong proponent of settling Hindu immigrants from other countries, hasn't criticised this massacre which involved no one but Hindu immigrants only. This makes it clear that whether it be the BJP, Congress or CPIM, all are united against the immigrants.