Chapter-V

Socio-Economic & Political Impact of the

Refugee & Migration Problems in West
Bengal

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 Chapter-V

Socio-Economic & Political Impact of the Refugee & Migration

Problems in West Bengal

West Bengal got the status of a State on 1st May 1960 and among the 28 States in India it
occupies 13th position in terms of area1 having a total area of 88, 752 square kilometers
and shares the 2.7% of India‟s total geographical area. West Bengal has national boundary
with the States like Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Sikkim and Assam; and has international
boundary with three countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. As per the Census of
2001, in terms of population West Bengal occupies 4 th place in India having a population
of 8, 01, 76, 197 consisting of 4,14,65,985 males and 3,87,10,212 females. Among these
total population 5, 77, 48, 946 live in the rural areas and 2, 24, 27, 251 live in the urban
areas. West Bengal has the largest density of population in India as according to the
Census of 2001, 904 persons per square kilometer live in West Bengal.

It has already been noted that only 8 lakh or 25% „Old Migrants‟ took shelter in the
Government relief camps and they were considered eligible for Government‟s assistance.
And the „in-Between Migrants‟ did not find place in the camps ran by the Government of
West Bengal and thus were not considered competent for rehabilitation. Furthermore, the
„New-Migrants‟ were considered competent for rehabilitation if they were agreed to go
outside West Bengal for rehabilitation and accordingly they were left to their own fate. So,
the refugees who did not take or find shelter in the Government camps or were not
considered competent for rehabilitation or rehabilitation was conditional, tried to be
resettled either by capturing the vacant land or abandoned barracks or houses. Some of
them also took shelter in the rented house or built their new abodes along the railway
tracks or along sides of the highways. All these people influenced the society, economy
and polity of West Bengal to a great extent. Besides, the economic migrants from
Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan have also left a considerable impact on the society,
economy and polity of West Bengal. Furthermore, the impact of the inter-State migration
on West Bengal especially in the economic field cannot be overlooked any way. They also
took a considerable share of the State‟s employments by participating in the various fields
and thus shrunk the opportunity of getting job for both the hosts and refugees. And

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according to the Census of 1961 during the decade 1951-61, a total of 374,000 migrants
from other States came to West Bengal in search of jobs. As per the Census of 1951 out of
the total population of West Bengal, 84.20 % persons speak in Bengali, 5.42% persons
speak in Hindi, 3.21% persons speak in Santali, 0.61% persons speak in Oriya and
remaining 6.56 persons speak in other languages. 2 However, here the main emphasis will
be on the refugees and migrants who were compelled, though the degree of compulsion
varied, to take refuge into West Bengal and thus an attempt will be made to explore how
theses displaced persons influenced the society, economy and polity of West Bengal from
1947 to 2000.

Social Impact

While discussing about the impact of the refugees and migrants on the social set up of
West Bengal it is to be borne in mind that by the term „social impact‟ here an attempt has
been made to cover all the aspects related to society i.e. demography; sex ratio; family
system and changing role of the Bengali women; formation of the new villages; naming
the places; and even cultural issues and so on.

Partition brought about a great change in the demographic scenario thereby produced
many social changes in the age long society of West Bengal. The Census report of 1951,
expressed that the enormous scale of increase in population in West Bengal by adding the
influx of refugees from 1946 to 1951 amounted to fifty years normal population growth. 3
According to official figures, by 1973 out of a total 44 million people of West Bengal 6
million were refugees and thus, almost 15 percent of West Bengal‟s total population and
one in four of those who lived in towns were refugees. Due to the continuous arrival of the
refugees and migrants Calcutta was welded together into a single and gigantic metropolis
surrounded by extensive suburbs. As a consequence of the increase in the number of
population of the adjacent areas of Calcutta, these areas were subsequently added to the
jurisdiction of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. One account observed, „In 1951, the
southern part of Tollygunge was added to Calcutta. In 1984, the Municipalit y of Garden
Reach, the South Suburban Municipality of the Behala region, and many non- municipal
areas were added to the jurisdiction of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, bringing the
total area under the Corporation to 187.33 square kilometers from the e arlier 104 sq. km.‟4

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And the following table5 gives an idea about the way through which urban spread had
taken place in and around the City of Calcutta:

Comparative Growth of Population in the City of Calcutta and Six Municipal Towns,
1901-81

Urban Places Census Years

1901 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981

Calcutta (a) 934 2167 2698 2927 3149 3305

(b) 100 232 289 313 337 354

Haora (a) 176 430 497 634 738 744

(b) 100 244 282 360 419 422

(a) 26 63 104 186 273 378

South Suburban (b) 100 242 400 715 1050 1454

Garden Reach (a) 28 85 109 131 155 191

(b) 100 304 389 468 554 682

Baranagar (a) 25 54 77 108 137 170

(b) 100 216 308 432 548 680

South Dumdum (a) 11 26 61 111 174 230

(b) 100 236 555 1009 1582 2091

North Dumdum (a) 10 6 12 38 64 96

(b) 100 60 120 380 640 960

Notes: (a) Absolute populations in thousands adjusted for boundaries. (b) Index Number
of (a) with 1901 as base of 100.

227
As the refugees and migrants poured into the City of Calcutta in ever increasing number,
the number of bustees6 mushroomed here and there. Thus, an account rightly observed that
„There are at least 2,000 bustees so defined listed in the Calcutta Municipal Area; counting
Haora, the total exceeds 3, 500, with some 20 lakh occupants. In the Calcutta Urban
Agglomeration as a whole, the number of bustee-dwellers comes to more than 30 lakh.
Each square kilometer of Calcutta is occupied by 28, 571 people. 51 percent of them live
in kutcha dwellings (i.e. without a concrete roof). The bottom 25 percent of the city
dwellers occupy only 7 percent of the land.‟7 The following table8 shows how the density
of population of Calcutta went high from 1941 to 1961.

Density of Population per Square Mile in Calcutta

Year persons

1941 54, 527

1951 67,886

1961 73,642

The demographic atlas of Nadia also took a sudden turn whose population before the
Partition had been in decline. But by 1951 Nadia had experienced the most rapid growth
in population than any other District of West Bengal due to the continuous influx of t he
displaced persons in this District. Ranaghat, Chakdah and Nabadwip which were formerly
small and sleepy townships witnessed growth in population and hummed with the various
activities of the new comers. By 1961 the population density of Nabadwip had reached
16,000 people per square mile that was staggeringly high. The thanas of Basirhat,
Baruipur and Hasanabad that belonged to 24 Parganas had witnessed a phenomenal
growth. By 1961, there were over 6.2 million people in the 24 Parganas and had become
the most populous District in the whole of India. In short, with the coming of the refugees,
West Bengal witnessed a rapid growth of cities and towns and thus, by 1961 the number
of cities of West Bengal having population over 100,000 became four times in comparison
to 1941. At the same time, during these two decades, the number of towns with between

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50,000 and 1, 00,000 inhabitants virtually became double. The following table 9 gives an
idea about the rapid growth of urbanization in West Bengal from 1941-1961:

Class of towns (and population) 1961 1951 1941

i. (100,000 or above) 12 7 3

ii. ( 50,000 to 99,999) 19 14 10

iii. (20,000 to 49,999) 46 29 30

iv. (10,000 to 19,999) 45 41 27

v. ( 5,000 to 9,999) 50 18 25

vi. (Less than 5,000) 12 11 10

Total 184 120 105

Another important impact of the arrival of the migrants in West Bengal was that there
arose a huge number of pavement dwellers in Calcutta and „No other facet‟, as
Ambikaprasad Ghosh wrote, „of the city‟s demographic situation has received more
national and international exposure than the life of the pavement dwellers‟. 10 The Census
and the Calcutta Metropolitan District Area survey of 1971 recorded 48,802 pavement
dwellers while in 1987 another Calcutta Metropolitan District Area survey found their
number as 55,571.11 „They are not refugees, nor are they a respectable work-force. Their
arrival in the city initially benumbs them with a sense of helpless inferiority: „We don‟t
know any trade.‟ Their forefathers in the villages might have been weavers, smiths,
barbers or washer men.‟12

Partition became a blessing in disguise as it paved the way for increasing in the number of
females in Calcutta. The years between 1941 and 1951 witnessed a dramatic rise in the
number of the females reversing the decline of previous forty years. In 1901, there were
only 518 females for every 1,000 males in Calcutta, by 1941, this number again fell, and
the ratio became 456 for 1,000. But after the Partition, the ratio of females in Calcutta had
risen to 580 for 1,000 males and accordingly by 1961 the ratio went high indicating 612

229
women to every one thousand men. The following table 13 shows the number of males and
females in Calcutta Municipal Corporation Area 1951-81:

Years No of Area (in No. of No. of Total Ratio of 4 to 5

Wards males females Population
sq.km)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

1951 32 83.71 1,623,211 925,466 2,548,677 0.36

1961 80 95.62 1,805,383 1,109,029 2,914,412 0.38

1971 100 98.79 1,924,505 1,224, 241 3,148,746 0.39

1981 100 104.0 1,930,320 1,374,686 3,305,006 0.42

At the same time, the birth rate went up as the number of the women and adolescent girls
in urban West Bengal grew, particularly in such cases, where most women had a little
control over their reproductive capacities. In 1947 the population of West Bengal was
estimated to be just over 20 million but by 1961 it grown to almost 35 million. The
following table14 shows the growth rate of the density of the population per square
kilometer in West Bengal as a whole from 1941 to 2001;

Years 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001

Density of population 264 299 394 504 615 767 904

Increase _ +35 +95 +110 +111 +152 +134

II

The arrival of the refugees had strengthened the concept of nuclear family system. The
refugee families were forced „to break away from the age-old system of joint family

230
living.‟15 When the refugees came, they were first inoculated and then were told to present
themselves as a „family grouping‟ to an officer of the Relief and Rehabilitation
Department. The idea of family grouping must have puzzled many of the refugees who
were habituated to living in large joint families and thus were alien to the concept of
smaller and nuclear units that the officers sought for. On the basis of the appraisal of the
officers, joint families were split up into male headed groupings and after the issua nce of
the certificate they were directed to particular types of camps such as worksite-camps for
families which included an able bodied male bread earner and permanent liability camps
for the widows, children and physically disabled. 16 Thus, the big refugee families which
could somehow find asylum in the various refugee camps got minimized and since then
the concept of smaller families came into being in wider range.

Simultaneously, the traditional role of the Bengali women in the family also thoroughly
got changed. „Women‟s domain, sphere and place have traditionally been inside the home
and they have, across epochs and cultures, been associated with a private world juxtaposed
with a public world of men.‟17 In East Pakistan the houses were situated in more rural
areas with less density of population. Most of the houses were designed for huge joint
families having an andarmahal or separate women‟s quarter with its emphasis on kitchen
space and inner court yard. Sometimes, there were arrangements for separate kitchen for
preparing vegetarian and non- vegetarian food also. Sometimes, the andarmahal would be
an entirely separate building having its own pond for bathing and washing kitchen
utensils. Thus, the women‟s world was designed to be physically separate from the
kacharighar or office and from the bahir (outside men‟s living space).18 Although the
rigidity of the division between andar and bahir depended upon the individual family‟s
desires but it could reasonably be accepted that the women folk enjoyed lesser freedom.
But the Partition of Bengal has changed that scenario to a great extent. When they came to
West Bengal, particularly to Calcutta, they got their space shrunk as their families could
not build a separate andarmahal for them because of their poverty. In the darkness of the
empty field there stood a few huts surrounded by a darma (bamboo strips) fence. In reality
the huts were no more than four posts, joined with darma fence and topped with a few
clay tiles.19 Thus, the women had to share their space with men and sleep in the same
room and in this way one of the physical barriers between public and private disappeared.
It must have made them familiar with the new ideas, business and political matters the
men talked about. „The refugee women‟s emergence in the public domain, their pursuit of

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education, their search for employment, and their participation in the activities of the
colony life changed the social milieu of West Bengal.‟20

Most of the squatters‟ colonies were situated by the roads and were densely populated
where they had an opportunity to interact with each other or when the male refugees went
out of the home for earning livelihood the women refugees sometimes went to market for
purchasing required commodities. As one of the refugee women of Bijoygarh colony
disclosed that, „I had never been to the market before, but because my husband worked
very awkward hours, I went to Bijoygarh Bazar.‟21 Moreover, the refugee women who
hitherto kept themselves confined into the andarmahal played a great role in rebuilding
their new houses in the unauthorized occupied land. They played a crucial role in fending
off the raids, by the police or the hired men of the owners of the land, and in defending
their newly constructed thatched houses. They would provide shelter and food to those
who fled in fear of the attackers and spread the news of probable raid across the colony
beforehand. They formed a model resistance of strategy on the ancient form whereby
women refugees stood before the phalanx of the refugees adorned with their household
weapons and met the police and land lord‟s men face to face. It was felt that the attackers
would be flustered by the sight of the armed women that in practice, proved to be wrong,
as there were many instances of killing and injuring the women in course of the raid. 22 The
pace and fervor of the demonstrations got a new impetus in the wake of the passing of the
West Bengal Act XVI of 1951. The campaign against eviction of the squatters brought
women out onto the street.23

As the space of the women got shrunk thus, certain traditional rituals disappeared-„rituals
relating to purity and cleanliness, discriminations (chhuchibai) in the kitchen, and
innumerable restrictions imposed and mandatory rituals observed by widows…separate
kitchens (habishi ghar) for cooking vegetarian food for widows were impossible to
maintain; now, vegetarian food had to be cooked on the same chulla (earthen stove) as
non-vegetarian food‟.24 This adjustment helped in broadening the outlook and social
attitudes and thereby breaking orthodox customs.

The Partition of Bengal and thereby the huge influx of the refugees and the migrants from
the then East Pakistan changed the traditional stand point and image of the Bengali
women. In order to support their families the educated Bengali refugee women, looked for
jobs and took up ordinary profession what they earlier considered as inferior to their

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status. The earlier concept- education of women for marriage-partially disappeared.
Rather, many educated women could not think of getting married since there was no
proper place to live and sufficient money to buy food. The result was that West Bengal
had so many unmarried girls who in the struggle for survival forgot about the „families of
their own‟. Furthermore, there appeared a new breed of women who appeared to be a true
partner of man in the struggle for new existence thus challenged the patriarchal
domination that traditionally held high in the all spheres of lives. Thus, as Cakravarty
noted, „In the post-Partition turmoil, daughters started to be gradually looked upon as
sons- this was a new phenomenon‟.25

Changes also came into being in respect of food habits. The displaced persons of East
Bengal who sought refuge in West Bengal had different food habits than that of the people
of West Bengal. They were simply rice eaters and usually would take rice thrice a day and
thus, were often taunted as „Bheto Bangal’. However, after their arrival in West Bengal
they faced scarcity of food. Even the middle class families had to face starvation. „There
were times when our chulha was simply not lit. My sisters Bulu and Mithu drank plain
water before going for their exams…There were days when all went hungry.‟26 Thus
beside rice, luchi (fried flour bread) or roti made their rooms as early evening or morning
snacks. The styles of food preparation also went through many changes. The people of
East Bengal would prepare food in a way that was different fro m that of West Bengal.
However, by the time the two process got inter mingled.

In the same way, the language spoken by the displaced persons of East Bengal was quite
different from that of West Bengal. „The spoken language in East Bengal, with its district
variations, had a rural, rustic sweetness, lacking the sophistication of the urban dialect.
However, the migrants gradually acquired the West Bengali terms for innumerable things
of everyday living.‟27

The sudden loss of the age long habitation made the displaced persons compelled to take
an uncertain journey towards West Bengal. They had to pass through a tough time as they
had to spend days together in the Sealdah Station and had to have meals with the people
belonged to various castes. Thus, the caste rigidity began to be affected. Simultaneously,
in the refugee colonies Durgapuja used to be arranged as a community effort. During and
after the Puja people belonging to various castes would have Prasad sitting together
irrespective of their castes and creeds. „Instances of Purohits sharing meals with non-

233
Brahmins became more prevalent…inter-caste marriages began to be accepted, as
economic hardship loosened the structure of religious orthodoxy.‟ 28

The refugees and migrants also influenced the prevailing education system of West
Bengal. In the first wave of the influx, refugees from the well to do families took shelter in
West Bengal. And they had a great passion for education. In a sense, these people
possessed the higher rungs of the society because of the educational, cultural and
economic prosperity. Even when they were about to cross the boundary for West Bengal
they carried books with them from East Bengal. Asoke Sen and his family carried three
trunks of books with them from their ancestral home in Dashora village, in Manikgunj in
the Dhaka District.29 The refugees themselves established many schools thereby
contributed a lot to the prevailing education facilities of West Bengal. In Jadavpur area
only, almost in the same time, a number of schools, spreading over different refugee
colonies, came into existence such as Adarsha Sikshayatan, Bagha Jatin Balak Balika
Vidyalaya, Santoshpur Rishi Arobindo Balika Vidyalaya and Bagha Jatin Sammilito
Udvastu Balika Vidyalaya.30 In all of the cases, the refugees raised funds themselves even
they went through the streets of Calcutta with boxes in hands to collect money. The
teachers worked for very nominal salaries. The Government provided aid in the later
period. In this way by 1960-61, 1,385 refugee schools came into existence.31

III

Besides the economic rehabilitation of the refugees; attempts were also made for their
psychological rehabilitation and Dr. Roy made a cordial attempt for it. Though at the
initial stage, a section of the refugees opposed it yet at the end they gave up opposition.
The Gananatya Sangha of the Communist Party made arrangements for entertainment
through various drama and songs related to electoral publicity in the refugee colonies.
Through the arrangement of such drama and singing programmes the Folk Entertainment
Section, the own Cultural Department of the Government of West Bengal came into
existence.32 At the same time, a considerable number of Bengali writings and cinemas
based on the tragic history of Partition of Bengal and struggle of the refugees for their
survival came into being; to name a few „Upanagar’ of Narendranath Mitra, „Sonar Cheye
Dami’ of Manik Bandyopadhyay, „Nilkantha Pakhir Khonje‟ of Atin Bandyopadhyay etc.
The first cinema based on the struggle of the refugees for their survival in West Bengal

234
was Nimai Ghosh‟s „Chhinnamul’. In this way, the refugees and displaced migrants had
also enriched the cultural world of the Bengalis.

Because of the coming of the displaced persons some English words made their room in
the colloquial language of the Bengalis such as „Refugee‟, „Refugee Camp‟, „Colony‟,
„Home‟, „Hawker‟ etc. Besides, from the refugee camps and colonies a new society came
into existence consisting of such people who were termed as ‘Mastan’ (hooligan). Mastan
culture was absent before the Partition. The word Mastan and a group named „Mastan
group‟ was largely the product of Partition and thereby of migration. 33

The Partition of Bengal and thereby the huge influx of the refugees and migrants from
East Bengal had deprived East Bengal from retaining a large number of noble souls who
in the wake of Partition sought refuge into West Bengal and in the subsequent period
made it enriched by their respective brilliance in various fields. Some of the notable
persons of this kind were: Amartya Sen (Dhaka, economics/academia), Bijon
Bhattacharya (Faridpur, cinema), Chuni Goswami (Kishoreganj; football), Comrade
Muzaffar Ahmed (Noakhali; politics), Jibananda Das (Barisal, poet), Jogendra Nath
Mandal (Barisal; politics, First Law Minister, Pakistan, 1947–1950), Jyoti Basu (Dhaka;
politics, Chief Minister, West Bengal 1977-2000), Humayun Kabir (Faridpur; literature
and academics), Ila Mitra (Rajshahi, human rights activist), Mahasweta Devi (Dhaka;
literature, human rights), Megh Nad Saha (Dhaka; science), Mrinal Sen (Faridpur;
cinema), Ritwik Ghatak (Dhaka; cinema), Suchitra Sen (Pabna, cinema), Sunil
Gangopadhyay (Faridpur; writer), Utpal Dutta (Barisal, theatre, Cinema), Bhanu Banerjee
(Dhaka, Cinema) etc. Excluding these, there were also many who once entered into West
Bengal as refugees or migrants but in the subsequent period held many important posts by
dint of their sheer merits.

Another important impact of the influx of the refugees into West Bengal was the growth
of the Bengali labour force. The refugees could overcome the Bengali aversion to manual
labour. They picked up jobs in the unorganized sectors also and there have been a
considerable labour force in this sector. They started working as rickshaw-pullers, driving
taxis, buses and trucks and the most astonishing factor is that the refugee hawkers
constitute of about 80 percent of the total hawkers of West Bengal. 34

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 IV

Partition, through these fifty three years, has generated a grotesque reality on the border
sides. On the both sides of the border, villages after villages have developed on the basis
of the exclusive Hindu or Muslim solidarities instead of being mixed villages and Mcalpin
would have called those villages as „broken villages‟. Caste solidarities have taken shape
afresh, for instance, Namasudra villages and settlements are coming into existence in 24
Parganas (N) and Nadia, similarly Chai- Mandal solidarities has taken place on the border
of Malda. A large number of Muslims who went to East Pakistan after 1947 have returned
or their next generations have come back to West Bengal and as a result new settlements
have come in to existence around the holy places and shrines in the places like Basirhat,
Ghutiari Shariff, Purnea-Islampur, Murshidabad, and even at the road side or rail way
side.35 The new settlements that came into existence because of the coming of the refugees
and migrants have appeared with old names. The Hindu refugees have kept the name of
their para, colony, shops even houses after the name of the places of their forefathers that
now belongs to Bangladesh. For instance, Chakmohan or Bilmashil of Pabna appears in
Siliguri as Bilmashilpara, the refugees of Balurghat that belongs to Dinajpur District have
kept the names of their colony as Pabna Colony, Bagura Colony and Dhaka Colony. At
Haldibari in Cooch Behar there are two colonies named Rajshahi Colony and Pabna
Colony respectively and in Jalpaiguri there are many such instances such as Maymansinha
Para at Jateshwar, Dhakeshwari Colony under Bhaktinagar Police Station, Dhaka Udbastu
Colony etc. In Kaliaganj of Uttar Dinajpur, Sahapur in Malda, Katoya in Burdwan,
Chakdah in Nadia has a place named Pabna colony. There are villages and colonies named
Barishal colony and Barishal Palli at Khagra in Midnapur and Murshidabad respectively.
In Bangladesh there is a place called Kalia that belongs to Jessore and the refugees of that
village after coming to West Bengal have formed Kalianiwas Janapad and Kalianiwas
Pathachakra.36 There are many examples to show that how the refugees and migrants
tried to recreate a same place of their own where they were living earlier by giving the
same name such as- Dhakapara at Shantipur in Nadia, Barendranagar at Ranaghat,
Dhakapatti at Debendra Dutta Lane; Calcutta -7, Dhaka Kali Bari More at Prince Anowar
Shah Road etc. Some people have also kept the name of their houses, especially those who
were the resident of the big cities, after the name of their respective villages as fa mous
historian Dr. Surendra Nath Sen gave the name of his residence as „Mahilara‟ as he was
born in the Mahilara Village of Barishal. 37 Many of them have kept the name of their

236
shops or enterprises under the name of their respective villages or even Districts where
they were earlier living in, for instance, Dhakeshwari Bastralaya (Hasanabad, North 24
Parganas), Kumilla Rajrajeshwari Stores (Sodepur), Dhaka Oushadhalay (Sreerampore,
Hooghly), Dhakeshwari Bastralay (Calcutta) etc.

Another important impact of the Partition of Bengal and thereby of the arrival of the
refugees and displaced migrants was that they have formed many Samitis and Sammilanis
(Associations) in the memory and in the name of the land of their forefathers such as
„Bikrampur Sammilani‟, „Chattal Kalyan Samsad‟, „Chattagram Parishad‟, „Masterda
Smriti Samsad‟, „Gabhar Sammilani‟ (famous village in Barishal), „Nator Sammilani‟,
„Kashipur Sammilani‟(Rajshahi), „Kotalipara Sammilani‟(Faridpur), „Chandpur
Sammilani‟ (Khulna), „Pheni Sammilani‟ (Noakhali) etc. It can be said that the main
objective of these Sammilanis were to bring the refugees and displaced migrants of their
own region onto a same platform at the end of the year and at the same time create an
opportunity for them to exchange views and greetings among them.38

The attitude of the host population towards the new comers has also undergone certain
changes. „The residents of the settlement are addressed less as refugees and more as
colony people.‟39 The„Ghoti‟ or „Bangal‟40 concept had also passed through the trial of
history. Earlier the new settlers, as Mandal observed by carrying on a survey in Malda
District refugee colonies, favoured to marry their children with persons of same origin but
that is not the case for the third generations, thus she wrote „Even in the late1960s and
early 1970s marital connections between the two communities were scarce…In the
1990s,… many residents were ready to approve a Bangal- Ghoti marriage...‟41 In many
cases, economy or profession, instead of Ghoti or Bangal stratum, has seemed to become
the deciding factor, so far the issue of marriage is concerned.

Besides the Hindus, a considerable number of the Muslims had also crossed over to West
Bengal throughout these fifty three years and influenced the demographic scenario of this
State. However, it should be borne in mind that due to Partition, 34 police stations having
majority of Muslim population and 54 police stations where the Hindus were in majority
fell in the share of West Bengal and East Pakistan respectively.42 But the most interesting
phenomenon is that even after the influx of a huge number of refugees and displaced

237
Hindus into West Bengal the proportion of the Muslim population in West Bengal has
remained more or less same as it was in 1947. And the following table 43 bears this
testimony:

% of Muslims & Non-Muslims in West Bengal from 1947-2001

1947 2001

Non-Muslims Muslims Non-Muslims Muslims

75.0 25.0 74.8 24.2

If it is accepted that the Muslims of West Bengal did not leave or opt for East Pakistan or
Bangladesh even then their proportion would have been far below than the present
proportion. Because, in 1951 the percentage of the non-Muslims in East Bengal was 23.1
% and it came down to 10.2%44 or 11.4 million45 in 2001. And it is not beyond the
understanding even of a lay man that most of those displaced Hindus entered into West
Bengal and thus their percentage in West Bengal would have gone up; but it was not the
case in reality. Thus, it can reasonably be assumed that the steady migration of the
Muslims from Bangladesh into West Bengal was the main reason that helped to maintain
the present numerical strength of the Muslim population more or less same as it was in
1947.46

The population growth rates of Bangladesh and its neighbouring states of India provide abundant evidence
of large scale infiltrat ion fro m that country to India. The Census report of Bangladesh of 1991 was not
compatible with its fertility rate of 4.5 percent. The said report placed the annual PGR of that country during
1981- 91 at 2.1 percent, whereas United Nations Population Fund estimates it at 2.7 percent. This disparity
was due to infiltration fro m Bangladesh to India.

The Census report of Bangladesh of 1991 talked of the unique phenomenon of missing population, estimated
initially at ten million, and subsequently at eight million, comp rising of 1.73 million Hindus and 6.27
million Muslims. There were two million missing voters whose names have been deleted from the Voters‟
list of Bangladesh during 1991-95. These obviously point towards large-scale immigrat ion fro m that
country.47

The following table shows the District-wise demographic change in West Bengal in terms
of the Hindu and Muslim population:48

238
Regions Religious Communities 1951 2001 % Change

West Bengal Hindu 78.45 72.47 -5.98

Muslim 19.85 25.25 +5.4

Darjeeling Hindu 81.71 76.92 -4.79

Muslim 1.14 5.31 +4.17

Jalpaiguri Hindu 84.18 83.3 -0.88

Muslim 9.74 10.85 +1.11

Koch Behar Hindu 70.90 75.50 +4.6

Muslim 28.94 24.24 -4.7

Uttar & Dakshin Hindu 69.30 60.22 -9.08

Dinajpur Muslim 29.94 38.47 +8.53

Malda Hindu 62.92 49.28 -13.64

Muslim 36.97 49.72 +12.75

Murshidabad Hindu 44.60 35.92 -8.68

Muslim 55.24 63.67 +8.43

Birbhum Hindu 72.60 64.69 -7.91

Muslim 26.86 35.08 +8.22

Bardhaman Hindu 83.73 78.89 -4.84

Muslim 15.60 19.78 +4.18

Nadia Hindu 77.03 73.75 -3.28

Muslim 22.36 25.41 +3.05

239
North 24 pgs* Hindu 77.26 75.23 -2.03
(1971)

Muslim 22.43 24.22 +1.79

(1971)

South24 pgs* Hindu 72.96 65.86 -7.1

(1971)

Muslim 26.05 33.24 +7.19

(1971)

Hugli Hindu 86.52 83.63 -2.89

Muslim 13.27 15.14 +1.87

Bankura Hindu 91.16 83.63 -6.81

Muslim 4.40 7.51 +3.11

Purulia* Hindu 93.13 83.42 -9.71

(1961)

Muslim 5.99 7.12 +1.13

(1961)

Medinipur Hindu 91.78 85.58 -6.2

Muslim 7.17 11.33 +4.16

Haora Hindu 83.45 74.98 -8.47

Muslim 16.22 24.44 +8.22

Kolkata Hindu 83.41 77.68 -5.73

Muslims 12.00 20.00 +8.27

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Alongside the following table49 shows the growth rate of Hindu and Muslim population in
West Bengal since 1951 to 2001:

Years Religions Total (%) of the Growth

population religions rate
1951
1951 All religions 24810308 - -

Hindus 19462706 78.45 -

to
Muslims 4925496 19.85 -

1961 All religions 34926279 - 32.80

1961
Hindus 27523358 78.80 41.42

Muslims 6985287 20.00 41.82

1971 All religions 44312011 26.87 1961

Hindus 34611864 78.11 25.75 to

Muslims 9064338 20.46 29.76 1971

1981 All religions 54580647 - 23.17 1971

Hindus 42007159 76.96 21.37 to

Muslims 11743259 21.51 29.55 1981

1991 All religions 68077965 24.73 1981

Hindus 50866624 74.72 21.09 to

Muslims 16075836 23.61 36.89 1991

2001 All religions 80176197 17.84 1991

Hindus 58104835 72.47 14.23 to

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 Muslims 20240543 25.25 25.91 2001

During 1951-2001 the growth rate of the Hindus was 198.54 percent while it was 310.13
percent for the Muslims in West Bengal.50 And the border Districts of Uttar & Dakshin
Dinajpur, Maldah and Murshidabad saw a high rate of growth of the Muslim population.

The serious implication of the illegal immigration from Bangladesh to West Bengal is that
it has resulted into the growth of population to a high extent. The Population Growth Rate
(PGR) of West Bengal was as high as 24.55 percent during 1981-91, though it came down
to 17.84 percent during 1991-2001. However, the PGR in the border Districts of North 24
Parganas, Murshidabad and Malda was very high i.e. 22.64 percent, 23.7 percent and
24.77 percent respectively.51 The illegal migration from Bangladesh has become the
greatest irritant in the relationship of India with that country. „Unfortunately the
Bangladesh Government not only does not make any effort to stop it; it even denies their
presence in this country.‟52

In 1995, the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) brought out an
important study on smuggling across West Bengal‟s border with Bangladesh. Essential
articles of everyday use like cycles, livestock, parts of various machines, spices, vegetable
oil, etc., are regularly smuggled from West Bengal to Bangladesh in huge quantities…on
account of obvious socio-economic reasons, powerful syndicates, engaged in cross-border
smuggling of arms, gold and narcotics, find it relatively convenient to recruit infiltrators
for their deadly ventures.53

There are many who expressed their concern over the illegal migration from Bangladesh
and its impact on the social set up of West Bengal. Thus, Shankar Roy Cha udhury,
General (Retd.), a Rajya Sabha member from West Bengal, told the Rajya Sabha in April
2000, „on account of illegal migration, Bangladesh‟s demographic border intruded upon
India‟s political border over a 10-20 km deep area…‟54

The illegal migration from Bangladesh must have added some burden more to the already
over burdened social settings of West Bengal. The growing population places increasing
pressure on land as from it, almost all requirements such as food, fuel wood and timber are
met. Furthermore, land is also needed for making house to live in. And this development

242
may lead to break down the existing peace and prosperity, what West Bengal could
achieve throughout theses decades after independence.

Besides the displaced persons and migrants from Bangladesh, a sizeable number of
migrants from its neighboring country of Nepal also entered into West Bengal. The result
was that the number of the Bengali speaking population in the District of Darjeeling faced
a tremendous set back. However, as the Nepali migrants predominantly concentrated in
the hilly areas of Darjeeling where the Bengali speaking people were previously less in
number yet it led to the marginalization of the Lepcha community, the original inhabitant
of this area. As Debnath noted „…because of Christianization and more and more
intermarriages with the Nepalese; the Lepchas are loosing their own ground of separate
identity…In the midst of an overwhelming Nepali or Gorkhali majority, Lepcha identity,
if not protected, will get vanished in the turbulent years to come‟.55

Economic Impact

The Radcliff Award, which came shortly after the severe famine that ravaged Bengal only
four years earlier, brought the economy and indeed the entire social fabric of West Bengal
on the verge of a collapse. Simultaneously, during the Second World War this area had to
serve as the advance base for the allied war machine in South East Asia that no doubt
strained the economy of this region ruthlessly. It is in this historical backdrop the
economic impact of the refugee and migration problems in West Bengal will be discussed
between the lines at the best.

Due to the Partition, the most fertile and thus the principal food grains producing part of
the Gangetic delta fell in the share of East Pakistan. West Bengal could retain a narrow
strip of land to east of the Ganges. By now only 2.7% of the total land of India is in West
Bengal and of this 61.65 percent is agricultural land. And as per 1999-2000 statistical
account the total cultivable land in West Bengal is 54.72 lacs hectares.56 „This area is the
least fertile of the whole delta. It is criss-crossed by dead or dying channels that, except
during the rains, do not provide any navigable route connecting the numerous villages in
the tract.‟57

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The immediate consequence of the Partition was that the northern- most part of West
Bengal got cut off from the main body of the State that however was reconnected by a
narrow connecting corridor in 1956. But the water routes which established
communication between the port of Calcutta and its Assam hinterland was disrupted as the
river route between West Bengal and North-East India ran through East Pakistan. This line
of water communication, since the Indo-Pak war of 1965 has stayed totally suspended.
Thus, for a long time after independence the only means of communication between
Assam and West Bengal was a meter- gauge rail way line.

At the time of Partition, jute industry was the most important industry in West Bengal and
due to Partition the jute textiles were deprived of its raw material i.e. jute fibre which was
mostly grown in the places now fell in the share of East Pakistan. Though, over the years
the cultivation of jute in the various States of India has made tremendous progress
however, so far the quality is concerned it seems to be still inadequate.

As almost all the big rivers fell in the share of East Pakistan thus, it has resulted in the loss
of the richest and most extensive fisheries so far the case of West Bengal was concerned.
It has left both psychological and physical impact on the people of West Bengal. On the
one hand, fish which is the most favored item in the menu of a Bengali household went
out of the reach of the vast majority of population there by creating psychological impact
upon them, on the other hand, it reduced their intake of organic protein thus creating
physical impact. Simultaneously, it resulted for many in the loss of the age long profession
who survived by catching or selling fish.

„However, grave the impact of these factors on the life and economy of this state; it pales
into insignificance when compared to the social and economic dislocation created by the
continuous influx of refugees from across the border.‟58 The huge mass of uprooted
population a considerable number of whom has yet to be rehabilitated properly has
imposed a horrendous burden on already overstrained resources of the truncated State of
West Bengal.

It has earlier been noted that the refugees and the displaced migrants did not choose all the
Districts of West Bengal equally to live in rather their movement was determined by
beforehand calculations i.e. they sought shelter in those places in West Benga l where they
had relatives and probability of getting jobs. From that point of view, the educated middle

244
class- refugees poured into Calcutta and other large towns and industrial centers of
Hooghly, the 24 Prganas and Burdwan. Calcutta was the capital city, the administrative
and academic centre of Bengal and thus was the largest employer of literates in its various
universities, colleges and schools. At the same time, as a hub of business Calcutta housed
many large corporations and small companies and thus the educated persons could hope to
have some jobs there. And there were many who had already come from the other states of
India and managed jobs in the various service sectors of Calcutta. Thus, the refugees also
strived their best to manage jobs as per their physical and skill capacity in a bid to
reconstruct their shattered life anew. Accordingly, along with Calcutta the bigger towns of
West Bengal became powerful magnets of drawing middle class refugees on a large
scale.59 Almost for the same reasons, the artisans instead of going to the countryside
preferred the cities and large towns so that they could continue to ply their traditional
trades as before. A study on the Titagarh town that was dominated by the jute mills
expressed that many refugees „engaged in artisanal production, especially making bangles
from conch shells, their caste work … in East Bengal.‟60 Congress records express that
after the Partition of Bengal thousands of Nath weavers settled in the town of Nabadwip. 61
The peasant refugees who had worked on land in East Bengal ended to settle in the
agrarian or semi agrarian tracts along the borders between the two Bengals especially in
Nadia and 24 Parganas. A few of them also settled in the border Zones of West Dinajpur,
Coochbehar and Murshidabad.

As a third of the total influx that remained within West Bengal preferred to settle in the
region what now came to be known as Calcutta Metropolitan District enhanced the already
existing pressure in this region. Accordingly, the Calcutta Metropolitan Planning
Organization (CMPO) says:

Forced to flee their ho mes in the east following the partition of Bengal many came to live in the bustees of
the city and added to the competition for jobs, for places in school and hospital beds. Land prices and house
rents soared as people –old residents, migrants and refugees alike - hunted for places to live. Squalid, pathetic
refugee huts crowded Sealdah railway station and the pavement outside, and ramshackle makeshift markets
appeared on the footpaths as the refugee sought in petty trade a bare means of subsistence. Squatters‟
colonies sprang up through the CMD (Calcutta Metropolitan District), 149 of wh ich after a decade of
Govern ment effort at rehabilitat ion, are still in existence, containing more than 26,000 refugee households.
And despite deligent efforts on the part of some refugee colonies which have built schools and other
community facilities of their own, they are not yet a real part of the city.62

245
As soon as the refugees started coming into West Bengal, the price of land went high. And
thus the CMPO continues to say that:

The suburbs closest to Calcutta-North and South Dum Du m, Kamarhati, Panihati, Garden Reach and the
South Suburban area- have almost overnight become substantial commun ities. And within the city itself the
fastest growth has occurred in the low lying, unsewered, poorly drained areas in Tangra, Tapsia and Kasba,
along the eastern fringes of the city bordering its pestilent marshes of the Salt Lakes and in the wards of
Tollygunge in the extreme south. On the outskirts of both Calcutta and Howrah, even low land liable to
periodic floods, areas without sewerage or drainage facilities, with poor quality ground water supplies, and
served by inadequate transportation facilities to link them to the central city areas, are beginning to show
spectacular increases in market value as the search intensifies for living space..63

However, as the displaced migrants continue to pour onto Calcutta with no signal of halt,
the demand for urban services rose beyond the capacity of this city. „The resident
population, threatened with loss of their privileges and conveniences, felt aggrieved and
estranged from these political immigrants…Left largely to themselves, the refugees in and
around Calcutta slowly secured their placements in the urban economy and imparted new
attributes to the process of urbanization.‟64

As Partition deprived West Bengal of its most fertile paddy lands thus by July 1950 West
Bengal suffered an annual food gap of 200,000 tons of food grains.65 The border Districts
of 24 Parganas, Nadia, Malda, West Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri were no less flooded by the
refugees, which led to both the rapid decline in the land-to-man ratio and per capita
availability of food. Matters took worst shape as the agricultural production of these
relatively less fertile regions failed to match the growth of population. 66 As a result, the
price of rice and other necessary foods started spiraling out of control. This food gap grew
each year wider keeping pace with the continual population growth of West Bengal
causing food prices to shoot upwards. It had seriously undermined the little stability of
West Bengal that its society and polity had managed to retain with much effort. Not only
the food prices but also the prices of all sorts of essential commodities went high.
According to an estimate in a period of 5-7 years the price of land and other commodities
went up by five times.67 The record levels of inflation after 1947 added enormous hardship
to those who lived from hand to mouth. Household budgets of the people of all strata of
society came under acute pressure. By 1951 most of the urban middle classes in West
Bengal could feel the sheer pinch of poverty as the salaries had failed to keep up with the
„cost of living index since 1947-48.‟68

246
The refugees and displaced migrants, to whom survival became the primary motto,
struggled heart and soul for acquiring new educational qualifications and skills that would
pave the way for having paid work. And accordingly, the refugees became educated at a
much faster rate than did the members of the host community in West Bengal. At the time
of the 1951 census almost half of the refugee population could read and write and by 1956
the proportion of literates among the refugees had risen again by more than 25 percent and
the table69 furnished below proves that reality:

Literacy among refugees and the host population in West Bengal, 1950-55 (percentages)

--- Migrants only Persons excluding migrants Members of migrant

families
(1950 survey) (1951 census)
(1955 survey)

Male 68.6 36.3 78.3

Female 17.9 7.9 29.2

Total 41.8 22.7 52.9

The refugees made a serious attempt to acquire skills especially of reading and writing in
the hope that these skills would help them a lot in getting a job in the highly competitive
market place in West Bengal. The refugee women also took up the art of reading and
writing with a rapid pace. Already by 1950, four times as women refugees were educated
as women in the local population in West Bengal and in the following five years refugee
girls and women attained a surprising increase of 60 % in their literacy rates.70 Almost in
the same way the report of a Socio- Economic Survey of the city conducted by the Calcutta
University expresses that:

One thing that emerges from a close examination of the data relating to the displaced mig rants is that most
of them who are now found among the city‟s population belonged to the so -called middle class section of
population. One is the fact of the prevalence of higher education among the displaced population. In fact, the
percentage of illiteracy is the lowest among the displaced mig rants-only about 15 to 16 p.c. as compared to
32 to 36 p.c. among the ordinary migrants and to as high as 29 to 32 p.c. among the original residents. The
percentage of illiteracy among young persons belonging to the age group, 5-14, is as low as 7 p.c. among

247
displaced migrant males as against 35 p.c. among the two other sections of the population. 30 to 31 p.c. of
the displaced migrants have received school education below the Matriculation standard whereas the ratio is
only 18 to 22 p.c. among the residents and only about 13 to 18 p.c. among ordinary migrants. Some thirteen
percent of them are Matriculates or under graduates as against 9 to 10 p.c. of both the residents and original
migrants. Thus, the average educational standard of the displaced mig rants is definitely higher than that of
even residents of the city, to say nothing of other migrants.71

The refugees were in process of the reconstruction of their life in a new place with new
environment. So, it seemed to be tough to afford all the necessities of life by a single bread
winner. Even the well- off middle class refugee families considered it luxury to keep the
women unemployed at home and thus the refugee women had to go out to work.
Accordingly, the refugee girls were having education in ever increasing numbers who
were thrown into the job market where they vied for „respectable‟ jobs like clerks, school
teachers, etc. They also became tutors, tailors and small shop managers. „Like Khuki in
Ritwik Ghatak‟s Meghe Dhaka Tara, the working woman with broken chappals
(symbolizing the sacrifices women made for the family‟s survival) became a presence on
the crowded streets of central Calcutta and on various types of public transportation.‟72
They indeed got jobs in „respectable‟ service and service related sectors. Thus, the refugee
women „paved the way for future generations of Bengali working women and activists.‟73
Official figures showed that till 1952, out of the total registered women in employment
exchanges, 221 got jobs in government offices, and 2,633 got jobs in relief and
rehabilitation department, among whom three were upper division assistants and 110
lower division assistants. „The same data shows that the total number of displaced women
who got employment after training under urban training scheme till 1952 was 456. The
number of displaced women employed after their training in non-official and aided
institutions was 784.‟74 And the Government surveys in the 1950s and 1960s expressed
that the refugees who got themselves settled through their own efforts in West Bengal
facing towering adversity managed to attain impressively high rates of employment. The
table75 furnished below shows that twice as many refugee workers got jobs in these sought
after sectors as compared with the local population.

Occupational distribution of refugee families, 1956

Occupation Thousand families

248
 urban rural Total

Nil 9.8 8.5 18.3

Agriculture 5.4 141.1 146.5

Small industry 19.1 20.1 39.2

Trade 53.9 32.2 86.1

Hereditary Profession 5.5 14.0 19.5

Learned Profession 16.0 11.9 27.9

Government Service 44.1 16.2 60.3

Other Services (Excluding domestic) 50.9 16.4 67.3

Domestic services 2.6 2.8 5.4

Skilled Labour 9.4 4.2 13.6

Unskilled labour 5.3 9.3 14.6

Other Occupations 9.5 6.4 15.9

Total 231.5 283.1 514.6

The most interesting thing was that those who entered the labour market for the first time
i.e. those who did not work when they were in East Pakistan, more than one in three found
employments in the Government or private sector. And it was surely an indication that the
educated refugees vied vehemently and effectively against the host population for having
jobs which were covetable to all bhadralok Bengalis.76 For instance, it may be noted here
that „in 1953, the State Statistical Bureau advertised vacancies for a few posts of
temporary assistant investigators; it had almost 7,000 applicants of whom just under half
were refugees, for a handful of jobs. Of these refugee applicants, eight in ten were
educated at least up to matriculation standard‟.77 The refugees also competed successfully

249
for jobs in all the better- paid sectors of the economy and accordingly about 45% of
refugees who approached the labor market for the first time attained jobs as skilled labour,
which were well-paid and on demand.

And more interestingly a considerable number of the refugees opted for trade and
commerce. Though, they started this venture as petty hawkers or stall keepers or finding a
role for themselves on the lower rungs of the wholesale or retail trades yet there were
instances to show that they quickly climbed these ladders and earned measurable
commercial success. By 1956, the refugees preferred to work in the Government or private
service, petty trade, commerce and small industries that offered descent returns but needed
small investment in the form of capital or assets. The Statistical Survey expressed that one
in three of all refugees was fully employed that indicated that the refugees had attained a
higher rate of employment in comparison to the local population and by 1956 out of the
730,000 refugees who had found jobs in West Bengal 170,000 were in work for the first
time.78 The Statistical Survey further expressed that, of the 514,000 refugee families in the
urban and rural areas only 3% did not have jobs. By1956, as many as 83% of all refugees
in the workforce could manage gainful employment.

Occupation of the refugees as compared to the general population and „economic

migrants‟, 1961:79

Total persons (10,000s) General Immigrants Refugees

population from other

parts of India

Cultivation 1,227 278 925

Agriculture labour 507 245 254

Mining, quarrying, livestock, 165 723 91

fishing, hunting

and plantations, orchards etc.

250
 Household industry 140 88 201

Manufacturing other than 378 1,859 613

household industry

Construction 43 187 63

Trade and commerce 250 927 565

Transport, storage and 112 562 223

communication

Other services 444 1,308 860

Non-workers 6,684 3,823 6,205

As soon as the refugees had become educated and entered skilled labour market or various
service sector; private, semi-private or Government the competition for every job become
fiercer. Nirmal Kumar Bose had made a survey in Calcutta in 1964 that expressed that
educated refugees had vied for jobs so successfully in Calcutta that the educated host
population found themselves being driven out of their traditional positions in the services
and thus they were forced to look for work in sectors they had rejected earlier.80 These
changes both in the life of the refugees and also in the life of the host people caused
serious tensions and anxieties. It led to the student unrest and militant action by young
men in 1950s in 1960s indicating the rapid transformations brought by a ballooning
population and an expanding working force to the shattered economy of West Bengal. 81
On the contrary as the supply of labour in West Bengal hugely outstripped demand in the
decaying industrial economy of the state, the informal sectors grew at an unprecedented
pace.82

However, despite these impressive statistics given above, it would be wrong to suggest
that the refugees who got themselves somehow settled at their own attempt were able to
reconstruct their lives in their new homeland rapidly and successfully. Sadly in reality, in
most of the cases this was far from being the case. Many of the „self-settled‟ refugees who

251
lived in the sprawling slums or in pavement shanties and could find some work failed to
escape grinding poverty as they were usually paid too little. Refugee men, women and
children alike had no option but to accept grossly under paid work which provided not
even the limited protection of the organized sectors. Thus, most of them had to move from
one casual to another poorly paid part-time job in the unregulated informal sectors of the
economy. Only a few fortunate refugee women were able to manage so-called respectable
jobs as teachers or clerks. Many of the refugee women had to find job as domestic
servants or jhis in the well- to-do households where they washed clothes, cleaned utensils
and cooked for a pitiful small wages. Others acted as „piece-workers‟ in the clothing
industry where they sewed cheap garments for a pittance and worked long hours in poorly
lit homes or crowded sweat-shops leaving their young ones at the care of slightly older girl
children who should by rights have been at school or at play by then. These girls helped
their mothers in doing the household works while their brothers labored throughout the
day in the tea shops or food stalls in the hope of few scraps of food.83 In the same vein,
Chakravarty noted, „Uneducated women worked as maidservants, washing utensils,
cooking in people‟s homes, supplying office tiffins, selling flowers, fruits, and ve getables,
and frying savories (bhaja bhuji) to sell along with puffed rice. Some would make paper
bags (thonga) and sell them for whatever little they could earn. Women of the colonies
worked as cooks, nurses, and attendants (ayahs) in the city areas. The maidservants from
East Bengal did more work for less pay, often leading to acrimonious confrontations with
those maidservants originally belonging to West Bengal. The young refugee men started
selling eggs and potatoes, creating further unhappiness among West Bengal
shopkeepers.‟84

And those who started their trading adventure as petty traders with the hawking of mainly
ready-made garments on the sidewalks of the busy thoroughfares were also not in good
condition. Long after the Partition of Bengal a considerable number of the refugees or
their descendants were found to be unable to purchase or attain license of the land on
which they hawked their wares. It may be noted that a sample survey pointed out that 68%
of the hawkers in Calcutta were people from East Pakistani origins85 and 46% of them
were neither the owners nor the licensees of the land on which they were hawking. Thus,
when in 1999 the Government of West Bengal took the decision to evict the hawkers from
places like Gariahat, Esplanade, Shyambazar, Maniktala, Moulali, etc, under an operation
code-named „Operation Sunshine‟ the refugees from East Pakistan experienced

252
displacement for second time and lost their means of livelihood.86 Under the 'Operation
Sunshine‟, 24,000 hawkers were evicted. 87

The middle class refugees who managed better-paid works in the service and the
professional sectors also could not keep themselves aloof from the long arm of misery.
The 1956 survey found that the refugee families that earned the modest sum of Rs. 100 or
more a month were also spending their days with much poverty. The reason was that the
refugee families tended to be significantly larger than the average and grew in size faster.
The refugees entered West Bengal as a whole family and contained many women of c hild-
bearing age that increased the number of Women in Calcutta at the same time the city
witnessed a population explosion, especially where the refugees tended to cluster, as more
women lived permanently in wedlock with their husbands. As a consequence, in the
quinquennium between 1951 and 1956, the birth rate among the refugees grew at a rate of
60 % faster than that of the local population. Thus, the size of the refugee families grew
larger that increased their distress and poverty.

Larger families placed greater burdens on already strained domestic budgets and pushed
most of the refugee families below the poverty line and thus, by 1956 two in three refugee
families were deemed to be living in distress conditions.88 Not only in the cities and
towns, but the 1956 survey found even more impoverishments among the refugees living
in the countryside than in the towns. It noticed that in the cities only six in ten refugees
were in distress conditions whereas in case of the rural areas seven in ten refugees were
found to be suffering similar level of hardships. 89 The reason might have been that the
refugees in the rural areas got, for the most part, little land and what they got was of such
low quality that it could not feed them and their families.

Thus, while a section of the self-settled refugees created really an impressive record while
another section seemingly majority in number led extremely hard lives. They started living
in the densely crowded slums haphazardly by raising provisional huts with flimsiest of
materials by the railway tracks or by the roads or in the rural shanties without having the
minimum necessities of the modern life. Furthermore, they posed a serious challenge to
the host populace as they started taking a share in each and every field o f life.
Unemployment, low wages, scarcity of food, ever rising prices of land and essential daily
commodities all became the hall marks of the urban life in the post-Partition West Bengal.
Towns in West Bengal and Calcutta in particular seemed to be on the brink of disastrous

253
social breakdown and had become a veritable powder keg ready to explode at any time.
And during the food movement of 1959 and 1966 led by the Left Political Parties this
discontent made its appearance in a more visible form.

However, as soon as the tottering of Partition was a little bit over the Government of West
Bengal under took various initiatives to bring more and more land under irrigation through
various projects and thus between the years1951 and 1965 the area under irrigation got
increased by more than 30 percent from 1, 129.33 thousand hectares to 1, 478.28 thousand
hectares.90 In the year 1965-66 about 26 percent of the total cropped area in the State was
irrigated, against 19.5 percent for the country as a whole. Besides the Damodar Valley
Corporation, sponsored jointly by the Centre and the States of West Bengal and Bihar,
West Bengal undertook two major irrigation projects- Mayurakshi Reservoir Project and
Kangsabati Reservoir Project.

Besides, two Acts relating to land system were passed in West Bengal. In 1953 The West
Bengal Estate Acquisition Act and in 1955 the West Bengal Land & Land Reforms Act
was enacted. The main aim of the West Bengal Estate Acquisition Act, 1953 was to put an
end to the Zamindary system and the eradication of the intermediaries. However, the West
Bengal Estate Acquisition Act, 1953 had many drawbacks and as a result even after the
passing of this Act a large amount of land was found to be still lying in the hands of the
big Jotdards, Zamindars and Raiyats. Thus, with a view to overcoming the shortcomings
of the West Bengal Estate Acquisition Act in 1955 the West Bengal Land & Land
Reforms Act was enacted and it was implemented in 1965 after the determination of its
implementation policy. The West Bengal Land & Land Reforms Act, 1955 had three
principles in the main i.e. (i) to settle on the ceiling of land holdings; (ii) to give out the
land and; (iii) to reduce the rent of a Raiyat etc.91 However, the workings of land records
over ceiling according to which lands in excess of 75 bighas (25 acres, fisheries, orchards
and plantation were however exempted from the purview of this provision) got vested and
giving out among the landless peasants in fact started from 1967 when a coalition
Government came to power in West Bengal. Because, „Though the Act provided that
cases of transfers made after the introduction of the bill could be entered into and transfers
declared to be malafide could be cancelled and the entire surplus land could be taken over,
there have been widespread reports of illegal transfers having been effected to evade the
provisions of ceiling.‟92 The study made by Dr. S. K. Basu and Dr. S. K. Bhattacharya of

254
the University of Calcutta largely confirmed the belief that a number of malafide transfers
were made in anticipation of the law.93 An official account says, „Up to 31 st May 1970,
8.50 lakh acres of agricultural land and roughly 5 lakh acres of non-agricultural land have
vested in the state… there is much more to be done regarding recovery of hidden land.’94
Thus, the Jotdars and the big land lords lost major portion of their lands.

The Left Front Government after coming to power in 1977 had identified the land above
ceiling and distributed that surplus or vested land to the landless people. As a result, „…in
most of the places the land less people whether refugees or early landless inhabitants got
vested lands….‟95 And a total of 25, 64,931 people were given a total of 10, 48,005 acres
of vested land. Thus, each of beneficiaries, in an average obtained a plot of 0.408 or 1.22
bigha of land.96 In the meantime the Left Front Government took the decision to empower
the share croppers with the right not to be evicted from the land that he was tilling. And
thus the peasants were allowed to get the land under share cropping recorded in their
names and the whole process through which it worked came to be code named as
Operation Barga.

The following table97 gives an idea about the number of Bargadars registered in West
Bengal.

Year Number of Brgadars registered

Up to 1978 0.25 million

1981 1.20 million

1984 1.31 million

1991 1.43 million

1995 1.47 million

The total number of Bargadars registered 5.66 million

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 All these gave a new fillip to the production of various crops in West Bengal. Though,
first 30 years after the independence, West Bengal witnessed a persistent growth in the
number of the people living below the poverty line.98 However, from 1983 there was a
continuous decline in the number of the persons living below the poverty line. 99 In 1983
the percentage of poverty in the rural areas was 61.56 that came down to 28.49 in the
subsequent period. During the same time the percentage of poverty in the cit ies was 14.8
percent that was far below than the National average of 25.7 percent. 100

Due to all these attempts on the part of the Government the economic condition of the
refugees and the displaced migrants must have gone upward a little bit but their woes still
exist. This hard reality is also evident from the countless homeless persons and street
children who roam on the crowded streets of Calcutta or when people are seen lying
wounded and asleep on the bare floor of the Sealdah Railway Station. Indeed, Calcutta is
still bearing the stigma and legacy of Partition with its unsettling conditions, countless
shanties and suffocating condition of livings. As per the study (2000-2001) of the Central
Ministry of Labor there were 7 lacs 12 thousand child laborers in West Bengal.101
However, this is not the whole picture of Calcutta, and of course of West Bengal, this is
rather a part. Nilanjana Chatterjee thus, observed:

Calcutta‟s tercentenary will be seen by people –locals, outsiders, those who love the city and those who are
repelled by it-as a time for taking stock. Its image of an overcrowded and economically depressed city must
be assessed in the light of its unique history as a city of migrants and refugees. The problems of the refugees
and non-refugee populations in the city have aggravated each other over the years. But there are abundant
indications that the creative energy which powered the rehabilitation efforts of refugees during every wave
have not been dissipated: among prosperous communities in th e middle class colonies of south Calcutta;
slums along the Eastern Bypass where livings are earned by unpicking threads from rubber tyres; East
Bengali traders doing business in „Tangail saris‟; refugee women fro m the rural areas of the Calcutta
Metropolitan District riding local trains to work as daily help in city households. It is also a credit to the
receptivity and adaptability of the host population. The lives of all these toilers, refugee and non -refugee, are
102
bound together in the quest to realize Ca lcutta‟s full potential as a city of opportunity.

Political Impact

The refugees and migrants have unquestionably influenced the political landscape of West
Bengal to a considerable extent. Because of the arrival of these refugees and migrants, the
political course of West Bengal took a new turn. But it should be borne in mind that the
refugees and migrants did not influence the northern part and the southern part of West

256
Bengal alike. From the official records it appears that in comparison to North Bengal,
South Bengal witnessed a higher influx of refugees and displaced migrants from East
Pakistan.

Interestingly, the people of the northern part of Bengal and the southern part of Bengal did
not react to the refugees and displaced migrants alike. Considering the case of the Bengali
refugees and migrants, more clearly of the Bengali Hindu refugees and migrants, it can be
said that in south Bengal the local people, at the initial stage, were not ready to welcome
them with open arms rather the hosts were very much calculative in doing so. Thus, in
case of the southern part of West Bengal the news of commotion between the refugees and
the hosts was very much common on the air. The Zamindars or the owners of the land
whose land the refugees had captured under the cover of darkness, tried to overthrow them
with the help of the police or their hired goons. But with the passage of time, the
simmering wave became calm. As time rolled on, the gap between the refugees and the
hosts reduced noticeably. Tensions must have been there as the refugees made their
appearance in each and every field of life; they not only created extra pressure on the
limited resources of West Bengal but created an environment of tough competition in the
all walk of livelihood. However, the hosts did not acknowledge their defeat in the face of
the refugees and migrants rather they strived their best to adapt themselves to the new
situation in order to retain their previous status and position. Another important feature
was that the town- based middle class refugees have stepped into the southern part of
Bengal whose language, culture and religion were more or less common with the hosts.
Thus, they did not face much difficulty to merge themselves with the mainstream of the
society and culture of the southern part of Bengal and hence, the displaced Bengalis who
once migrated into West Bengal as refugees could not retain that identity for long. And
thus the „ghoti‟ „bangal’ concept has gradually kissed the dust.

In case of the northern part of Bengal, the scenario was quite different. Here, at the initial
stage, the hosts did not react against the refugees with negative gesture. Rather, there were
many instances to show that the local people have supported, co-operated and assisted the
Bengali refugees in many ways a lot in the mission of rebuilding their new homes. But as
time rolled on, the situation took new turn. The gap which was supposed to be decreased
between the refugees- and the hosts seemed to be gone up. The terms such as „locals‟ or
„deshio’ or „sthanio’ and „refugee‟ or „udbastu’ or ‘sharanarthi’ are still in vogue in this

257
part of Bengal. As a result, the post independent northern part of West Bengal had
witnessed a series of ethno-political movements mostly led by the „so-called‟ „locals‟ of
this part of West Bengal. And in the hill and foot hill regions of the northern part of West
Bengal, political situation have become more unstable. There the „Gorkhas‟ have made a
strong demand for the formation of a new state that they have termed as „Gorkhaland
State‟. Thus, the political impact of the refugee and migration problem on West Bengal
would be discussed in two parts: (a) In the first part focus would be on the southern part of
Bengal as political change in West Bengal came following the footsteps of south Bengal
where the concentration of the refugees and displaced migrants was high; (b) In the
second part, an attempt would be made to show whether the refugees and the migrants
have contributed in any way to the ongoing social and political movements both in the
plain and the hill region of the Northern part of West Bengal.

South Bengal

The Partition of Bengal in 1947 had greatly transformed its political landscape as it lost
two-thirds of its territory to Pakistan and thus only 89 of the 250 constituencies in the
Assembly of the undivided Bengal left with West Bengal. This changed the standpoint of
the every political party in West Bengal. Before the Partition of Bengal in 1947 the
provincial arms of the Muslim League and Congress dominated the politics of Bengal.
However, some other parties including the Communist Party of India and the Hindu
Mahasabha had its presence in the province. But except Congress and Muslim League,
neither the Communist Party of India nor the Hindu Mahasabha performed well in the
election of 1945-46. The following table103 shows the votes polled by parties in all
contested seats in undivided Bengal, 1945-46:

Parties Total seats contested Total Votes polled % of total votes cast
in the election

Congress 82 2,378,324 42.91

Muslim League 111 2,036,775 36.74

Communists 20 159,304 2.87

Krishak Praja 44 131,191 2.36

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 Scheduled Caste 8 97,204 1.75

Federation

Hindu Mahasabha 27 79,187 1.43

Kshatriya Samity 5 43,451 0.78

Jamait-ul-Ulema 12 27,756 0.50

Emarat Party 3 16,941 0.31

Muslim 10 15,816 0.28

Parliamentary
Board

Radical Democrats 16 10,747 0.19

Nationalist 5 4,426 0.08

Muslims

Independents 152 542,168 9.78

Total 495 5,543,290 100

The most obvious sufferer of Partition was the Muslim League; as it collapsed in West
Bengal following the Partition of Bengal. Another important phenomenon was that
according to the political scene prevailing in 1947 the Hindu Mahasabha was expected to
do best out of Partition however, the Mahasabha in West Bengal collapsed while the
Communists gained strength keeping pace with the passing days. In the Punjab and Delhi
the refugees more or less backed the Congress however, those refugees who got
disappointed with the Congress tended to move not to the parties of the Left but to the
Hindu right.104

After the Partition of Bengal, the Bengal Provincial Congress seemed to be divided into
two groups i.e. the Hooghly Group and the East Bengal Group. The leading members of

259
Hooghly Group were a handful of Gandhians and followed Mahatma Gandhi. They had
taken up spinning, weaving, good works and the village welfare in the mid 1920s and
were mainly situated at the Arambag Sub-division of the Hooghly District and in Bankura.
Prafulla Chandra Sen became the leader of the Hooghly faction and his protégé Atulya
Ghosh became the organizer and fixer of the faction that now had to dodge and weave in
its bid for power.105 However, even after the Partition, until the middle o f 1948, the
Bengal Congress was „dominated by the members from the eastern Bengal‟106 who made a
haste move towards West Bengal with the very first wave of the Hindu migrants. On 15 th
August 1947, Dr. Prafulla Chandra Ghosh with the Centre‟s blessings took the Charge of
the State Government of West Bengal. He was a disciple of Gandhi from Abhoy Ashram
in the Comilla in the east and a protégé of Acharya Kripalani (President, All India
Congress). And Surendra Mohan Ghosh, a central figure of Jugantar, erstwhile terrorist
organization of Mymensing (East Bengal) continued for time being as the President of the
Bengal Congress. But all these were not liked by the Hooghly faction that was determined
to break the dominance of the East Bengal Group.

Right from the time of Dr. Ghosh the refugee problems in west Bengal assumed a
complex shape. And the greatest weakness of his Cabinet was that including him, Speaker
Sir Iswardas Jalan, Deputy Speaker Asutosh Mallick and Kalipada Mukherjee, Bimal
Chandra Sinha, Dr. Suresh Banerjee, Nikunja Maity, Jadapbendranath Panja all these
Ministers were inexperienced.107 They did not have any previous experiences in the
administrative affairs and thus faced great difficulties to solve all those problems which
made their sudden appearance in the post-partitioned West Bengal. At that critical
juncture, he compiled the „West Bengal Security Act‟ to get relief from the communal
strife and political tug-of-war. As the Act created a huge hue and cry thus instead of
reducing; the Act increased his problems. The agitation of the opposition took a
simmering outline. Not only the opposition leaders but also the Congress leaders protested
against this Act. Ultimately, the Bill was passed in December 1947 and remained in vogue
till March, 1967. This Bill was one of the great reasons behind the downfall of Dr.
Ghosh.108 However, he remained in office till 15 th January 1948; in all he had been the
Chief Minister of West Bengal for five months only.

After becoming the Premier of West Bengal Prafulla Chandra Ghosh welcomed the public
servants and the officials from East Bengal and asked them to serve in his Government.

260
The Hooghly Group took his invitation as a pretext to raise the anti-refugee sentiments
among the local people of that District. Jadabendranath Panja from Burdwan who had
recently joined to Atulya Ghosh in leading the Jatiya Banga Sangathan Samiti, insisted
that „West Bengal People were not in a position to give shelter to all east Bengal
Hindus’.109 However, Mr. Ghosh had harmed the interest of the refugees from East Bengal
in other way. He was convinced that the refugees would go back as soon as the political
turmoil became calm a bit. Thus, he did not make any protest against the step motherly
attitude of the Central Government against the refugees from East Bengal. This also
definitely pushed the refugees into difficulties and increased their sufferings a lot.
Furthermore, it helped the Central Government to use as a pretext to deprive the East
Bengali Hindu refugees from proper relief and rehabilitation.

Alongside, the Hooghly group had been making a careful planning to wrest control over
the Congress Party Organization from the Jugantar faction of the Eastern Bengal. They, at
the outset, tactfully struck wedges into the fissures dividing their more numerous
opponents from East Bengal and joined hands with the Jugantar to drive Prafulla Chandra
Ghosh out of office; lent its hands of supports to Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy who being a
personal physician to both Gandhi and Nehru had connection in high places in Delhi that
the canny politicians of Hooghly Group needed very much. Very soon, they had a chance
when in April 1948 the All India Congress Committee at its Bombay session finally
decided that the Congress in East Bengal had to be disbanded and that West Bengal
required to be given a Provincial Congress Committee of its own. And the members from
East Bengal were permitted to get their names included into the new West Bengal
Congress only if they made a formal declaration that they had made West Bengal their
home before 30 April 1948 and could prove „they were not members of the legislature,
Constituent Assembly or any Political Organization in Pakistan.‟110 In addition to that, a
sub-committee was set up to scrutinize the applications from the would-be members from
East Bengal to join the West Bengal Congress. And Atulya Ghosh was among the two
people given the task of overseeing this scrutiny. The result was that the East Bengal
Contingent in the Provincial Congress Committee of West Bengal was slashed to 149
delegates from its earlier strength of 346. It gave a dead blow to the dominant role of the
easterners inside the Bengal Congress. Finally, when in September, 1950, elections for the
West Bengal Congress were held the verdict of the polls went in favor of the Hooghly

261
Group. Atulya Ghosh who was by now faction‟s unquestioned boss became the President
of the Provincial Congress Committee of West Bengal.

111
Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy took the charge of the Premier of West Bengal on 23rd
January 1948. After becoming the Premier of West Bengal Dr. Roy invited Kiran Shankar
Roy who was a Zamindar of Teota in East Bengal and the leader of the Congress
Assembly Party in Dhaka to join his Cabinet as Home Minister. The most controversial
and criticized step that Dr. Roy took after coming to power was the declaration of the
Communist Party as unlawful. Kiran Sankar Roy, „much to Nehru‟s irritation‟ duly
banned Communist Party in West Bengal.112 As Randive‟s call for insurrection, took most
wide-spread and violent shape in West Bengal and the result was that the Party was
banned in West Bengal on 25th March, 1948 and continued till January, 1950.

The infighting between the Congressmen of East Bengal and West Bengal had pushed the
refugees into great difficulty. As Atulya Ghosh and his allies with a view to destroying
East Bengal‟s influence in the Congress, deliberately unleashed potentially dangerous
„sons-of-the-soil‟ sentiments among „Ghotis’ of the West Bengal against the Bangaal
refugees from the east.113 The anti-Bangaal slogans raised by the West Bengal
Congressmen alienated the refugees who had already been infuriated by the State
Government‟s failure to give them required relief and rehabilitation. The attack of the
ruling group on the East Bengal Congress leaders steadily forced those politicians out
from the Congress who were best able to soothe their annoyed refugee voters and keep
them on side.

The hostile attitude of the West Bengal Congress men towards the refugees; the
unfulfilment of the promises made by the Government in respect of the relief and
rehabilitation and branding the refugees as foreigners by Nehru in the Jaipur Session of
Congress in 1948 made the refugees gradually anti-Congress and they turned towards the
Left Parties. Chatterji had given a reason why the refugees actually rushed towards the
Left Parties. She noted, „The distinctive factor in Bengal was that the refugee movements
developed a reciprocal dynamic of their own which made them receptive to overtures from
the left. The failure of the centre and of the state government to address the problems of
the refugees, and the stubborn indifference of Nehru to their woes, did not at a stroke drive
the refugees into the arms of the Communists. But government‟s failure served in time to
undermine refugee allegiance to the Congress‟.114

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Almost in the same way Chakrabarti noted: „The struggle against the threat of eviction and
participation in the election campaign of 1952 are two interrelated landmarks in the
radicalization process of the refugee masses. In the brief period of ten months-May 1951
to February 1952 –the refugee masses of the colonies, barracks and bustees within the
organizational frame of the UCRC had taken a sharp veer to the Left. The pronounced
pro-Congress orientation of the uprooted population had gradually turned into hatred and
at this particular point of time swung to the left.‟115

The gradual shift of the refugee allegiance from the Congress to the Left Parties came to
the notice with the victory of Sarat Chandra Bose, the founder of the Republican Socialist
Party, against the Congress Candidate Suresh Das in the by-election of 1949 that may be
regarded as another notable incident of the Bengal politics after Partition. Sarat Bose
formed the nucleus of a united Left Front and the Congress candidate lost the election by a
margin of 13,550 votes.116 The result of this by-election not only worried Dr. Bidhan
Chandra Roy about the future of his cabinet but also made Jawaharlal and Sradar Patel
equally worried.117 After seven days of that defeat it was published in the news papers that
Nehru told in a political conference that it could be understood from the poor result of the
south-Calcutta by-election that the constituents of that center had been dissatisfied with
the activities of the Government led by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy and the Provincial
Congress. The Cabinet that lost the confidence of the people should resign.118

But Dr. Roy was not ready to digest the humiliation and thus wrote a letter to Nehru
expressing his intention to resign from the Chief minister-ship. In a letter dated 20th June,
1949 Dr. Roy strongly opined that the opinion expressed by Prime Minister Nehru was not
correct. However, he would not move a step back to resign accepting all the moral
responsibility of south Calcutta by-election.119 And in response to Dr. Roy‟s protesting
letter Nehru wrote him a letter on 22nd June, 1949. In that letter Nehru mentioned about
the deep respect and confidence in Dr. Roy repeatedly. He further mentioned that not
whole the people of West Bengal rather the people of south Calcutta only lost confidence
in Roy‟s Government. So, there was no reason to resign the Cabinet at this moment.
However, the necessity of General Election in West Bengal could not be ignored
completely; that would help to measure the public opinion. Hence, it would be wrong to
undertake any prompt decision by now.120

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Though, the Hooghly group was very much hostile to the refugees perhaps because of
their unwillingness to be dominated by the East Bengali Congress leaders yet Dr. Bidhan
Chandra Roy, after coming to power, tried to maintain a balance between these two
groups. Thus, it was fixed that Atulya Ghosh would look after the Party Organization
while Dr. Roy would handle the administrative affairs.121 He drew the notice of the
Central Government regarding the insufficiency of the fund provided by the Centre to t he
Government of West Bengal for the relief and rehabilitation of the Bengali refugees. Dr.
Roy wrote a pair of letters to Nehru expressing his growing concern for the refugees from
East Bengal. But what the Central Government did at best on its part was to sign different
pacts to halt the influx of the refugees from East Pakistan and under pressure allotted some
funds miserly for them.

In such a situation, on 5th April 1950 the Assam Provincial Organizing Council issued a
political letter (No. 4150) which excerpted extensively an article published in the
theoretical Soviet Journal called Bolshevik that argued that the Partition of India did not in
any way solve the communal situation of the country. On the contrary, it had accelerated
the problem and gave birth to thousands of refugees in both India and Pakistan. Therefore,
the political letter suggested that the initial task of the Communist Party would be to
expose the exploiting classes and their reactionary allies by relentless propaganda among
the refugees through meetings, leaflets and posters and to take part actively in the agitation
of the refugees through mass organizations for relief and rehabilitation. In order to carry
forward the refugee agitation for rehabilitation different refugee organizations should be
made and the Students‟ Federation, the Krishak Sabha and the Mahila Samiti should form
special organizations for the refugee students, peasants and women in different districts.
These organizations, if necessary, should take to direct action against the Government and
all these refugee organizations must be coordinated with the people‟s organization of the
province.122 Later on, same ideas were echoed in the printed Bengali Provincial Circular
under the title „Take the lead in relief work among Hindu and Muslim refugees‟. The
circular also criticized both the Nehru and Roy Government in the Centre and the State
respectively for their failure to provide relief to the refugees. It thus, advocated all the
members to organize the refugees through the peace movement and relief work and
expose the actual importance of the Government policy of disrupting the working class
movement with the help of the refugees.123 However, the call of both the circulars fell on
deaf ears of the party members.124

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However, sincere party workers like Anil Sinha, Gopal Banerjee and some others who
were themselves refugees and shared the sufferings of the refugee existence came forward
and took decision that their immediate task was to organize the refugees for stopping riots
in Calcutta and getting relief from the Government. As soon as the riot displayed its back,
Anil Sinha and his fellow workers started organizing meetings and processions of refugees
for systematic relief work by the Government. They also demanded relief and shelters for
the people living in the indescribable misery on the Sealdah Station platforms, in vacant
houses, barracks and on pavements. The NVBKP and DKSBS in the meantime had
organized the squatters‟ colonies in the northern and southern suburbs of Calcutta
respectively. Besides, numerous other small bodies also started working among the
refugees living in Calcutta and other suburbs. Thus, there appeared a need of the
emergence of a central organization that would coordinate, consolidate and direct t he work
of these refugee organizations towards a particular goal i.e. the economic rehabilitation of
these displaced persons. As a result, finally on 12 August 1950, the Central Committee of
the United Central Refugee Council was formed and in the Committee apart from the CPI,
the representatives of other Left Parties and the Hindu Mahasabha found their places. And
on 13 August 1950 the UCRC came into being that marked the beginning of an era of
refugee meetings, processions and demonstrations.125

In 1950 the Government of West Bengal under Bidhan Chandra Roy drafted the „Eviction
Bill‟ to protect the urban property owners against the refugee squatters. And in the
following year it passed the Calcutta Municipal Act, according to which the vote in
municipal elections was restricted to the richest 10 percent of the city. In this way, it
ensured that the property-owners, landlords and shopkeepers would uninterruptedly
dominate the Calcutta Corporation.126 In the „Third Chapter‟ of this thesis it has been
discussed elaborately how the UCRC had fought with the help of the refugees tooth and
nail against Act XVI of 1951 and the eviction notices issued by the competent authorit y.
In fact, the UCRC by the time became the sole representative of the refugees. And as the
majority of the leaders of the UCRC were from the left parties thus it has mainly become a
left party influenced organization.

After Partition a considerable number of voters in West Bengal came from the lower
castes and tribes and most of them engaged in the plantations, mines and factories where
the Communists were active since long. Most of the electorate now started living in the

265
overcrowded urban and semi - urban areas majority of whom were Bengali-speaking and
were without a job. The entering of refugees into West Bengal reinforced these trends, „all
of which were grist to the electoral mill of the parties of the left‟.127 By 1950 in West
Bengal one out of the every ten persons was a refugee. 128 And by 1967, one in five was
either a refugee or was born in a refugee family. By then there was hardly a refugee camp
and colony committee which the Left Parties had not been infiltrated into. As for their
part, from the early 1950s the comrades of the Left Wing engaged themselves actively into
the scheme to rally the refugees behind them. In fact; while the Mahasabha got collapsed,
on the contrary, the parties on the Left in Bengal after independence made large advances
in the forthcoming polls. Particularly the Communist Party of India, the Forward Bloc and
the Revolutionary Socialist Party gained ground with the new electorates in Bengal and
coalition became a durable and effective opposition to the Congress.129 And the following
table130 bears a testimony to that fact.

Percentage of Votes polled by the Left-wing opposition in West Bengal Legislative

Assembly Elections (1952-69)

Party 1952 1957 1962 1967 1969

Communist Party of India 10.60 17.82 24.96 6.53 6.78

Communist Party of India(Marxist) 18.11 19.55

(Founded in 1964)

Forward Bloc 5.29 3.84 4.61 3.87 5.40

Forward Bloc (Marxist) - 0.85 0.32 0.21 0.19

Forward Bloc Ruikar (merged with PSP 1.51 - - - -

after 1952 elections)

Revolutionary Socialist Party 0.86 1.24 2.56 2.14 2.75

Socialist Unity Centre - 0.75 0.73 0.72 1.48

Revolutionary Communist Party of 0.43 0.42 0.42 0.31 0.37

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 India

Worker‟s Party of India - - 0.28 0.34 0.35

Total 18.69 24.92 33.88 32.23 36.87

In the first Assembly Election the Communist Party fought 71seats and won 28 of them.
And in the Lok Sabha it got five out of nine seats. „It was a very significant success
considering the situation that was prevalent in those days. We emerged as the single
largest opposition in the Assembly‟.131 In fact, the election of 1952 seemed to have turned
into a battle of life and death both for the refugees and the Communists. The party was to
prove its popularity among the common masses. As „the Congress governme nt had taken
it for granted that the Communist Party would be finished by the onslaught of terrorism
and atrocities. That the people had not forsaken us despite some errors made by the party
during 1948-50 was established in these elections‟.132 On the other hand, the refugees
from East Bengal, in most of the cases worked whole heartedly in this election for their
own benefit i.e. (a) the refugees had to save their newly attained houses on the different
squatters against the continuous onslaught of the hired hooligans of the owner of the land;
(b) the competent authority was issuing notices for the eviction of the squatters from the
land they had occupied unlawfully. Furthermore, there was the question of having
adequate relief and their rehabilitation in West Bengal.

On 2nd December, 1951 the UCRC convened a convention of the squatters at

Deshbandhunagar where the UCRC‟s draft resolution was accepted with minor
amendments. After that the UCRC immediately sent a circular (No.11/51) to the different
colony committees with a series of instructions to implement the resolution agreed to by
the convention. The UCRC circular concluded with an important and vibrant appeal that
was as under-

„Friends the General Elections (1952) are drawing near. It has provided us with a unique opportunity for the
realization of our demands. We have to make proper use of this opportunity. It will be suicidal if we fail to
take full advantage of this opportunity.

A democratic Govern ment would have fulfilled our demands. But the prese nt Congress Govern ment has
paid no heed to our demands and will not do so in future. The coming Elections are an opportunity to install

267
a new coalit ion Govern ment of the democratic part ies of West Bengal. If the democratic part ies win the
elections, a coalition of these parties will replace the present Congress Govern ment. We can then hope for a
fair solution of our problem. Even in the event of a Congress victory, it will not be possible for any
Govern ment ignore our demands, for we shall acquire strength and p ower through our efforts during the
General Elect ions.

Thus, in view of the impo rtance of the present situation, the UCRC calls upon all the refugees and refugee
organizations to proceed in the following manner. They should approach each and every candida tes of their
locality for support, issue statements and voice them in all election meetings. They should participate in all
election meetings to popularize our policy of rehabilitation. They should also mobilize all their forces to
ensure the election of the candidates of democratic part ies.‟133

Almost the entire refugee population worked actively for the candidates of the Left
parties. They canvassed for the Left Candidates, organized meetings and processions,
raised campaign funds and did all clerical works related to electioneering. When the result
of the election was declared it became evident that the Left Parties became successful in
areas with concentration of the refugees in large number. The Provincial Committee (PC)
of the CPI recognized the key role of the refugee workers in the general elections and
admitted that the success of the party candidates was mainly due to the activities of the
refugee workers. It was therefore proposed at a meeting of the fraction of the refugee front
that as the ordinary refugee volunteers rendered greater services in the elections than the
party members, they should be immediately admitted into the party and activist group
should be formed with refugee volunteers in the colonies and camps.134

Tram Fare Enhance ment Resistance Movement and the Refugees: the General
Elections of 1952 gave a fresh confidence to the Leftist parties. Calcutta and its adjacent
areas were in turmoil. Before the turmoil was over Calcutta erupted in July 1953. The
Calcutta Tramways Company made an upward revision of the second class fare by a pice
1/
i.e. 64th part of a rupee. And it was to come into effect from 1 st July 1953. But this
minimal increase in the tram fare met with organized resistance in no time. The reason
was that, as Chakrabarti noted, „The Leftist parties were spoiling for a fight in order to
demonstrate their strength…It was an accident that the issue of the extra pice came up
around the time when the Leftist parties were seeking to measure their strength with the
Government. The explosion would have occurred…It would have then been other
issue‟.135 The Opposition made a Tram Fare Enhancement Resistance Committee
(TFERC) and Dr. Suresh C. Banerjee became the Chairman of the Committee. On 1 st July,

268
the volunteers of the TFERC boarded the second class compartments of tramcars and
discouraged the passengers to pay the hiked tram fares. The passengers denied paying the
enhanced fare and the result was that collections of fare from the second class
compartment fell precisely. The police took the volunteers into custody that provoked
fresh disturbances. Attempts were made to set the tramcars on fire and stones and crackers
were thrown at them. On 3rd July tram services were suspended and 710 demonstrator
including four Opposition MLAs namely Jyoti Basu, Ganesh Ghosh, Jyotish Joardar and
Subodh Banerjee and three women were arrested.136 It was followed by violent clashes
between the police and the city mob which practically led to the near paralysis of life in
Calcutta and its suburbs. The second round of the movement was played out between 5 th
and 15th July. The pattern of the activities during the second round of agitation was the
same. The only exception was that it was more intense than the earlier one. Another
important feature of the second round of the struggle was that the two rival refugee
organizations i.e. the UCRC and the RCRC were now fused within the TFERC. The
TFERC „may be regarded as the present-day Left Front in embryo. It was a front of all
Left and Left-of-Centre parties. The leadership of the TFERC as well as that of the
UCRC-RCRC combine remained the same. But this leadership now claimed to represent
the radical opinion of the whole of West Bengal… The lineaments of a Left Front
Government were clearly visible during this movement‟.137 The second round of the
movement reached its highest pitch with the successful general strike of 15 th July. In the
meantime, the Tramway Workers‟ Union (Communist) and the Tramway Mazdoor
Panchayat (Socialist) joined the fray and jointly called upon their members to go on a 5-
day strike from July 18 for the realization of their demands.138 On 25th July the TFERC
celebrated the success of the movement. There was a mammoth rally at the foot of the
Monument where all the parties of the Left and men from all walks of life joined. The
meeting resolved that the movement would continue till the six-point of demands139 were
met. Finally, Dr. Roy answered in a written form to the six-point demands saying that the
question of the enhancement of tram fare is already before the Tribunal and no increases
would be considered before the judgment of the Tribunal is given and representative
public opinion taken. The TFERC reacted to Dr. Roy‟s reply in such way:

„The TFERC‟s object was to resist the enhanceme nt of second class tram fare. The mighty
people‟s movement has compelled the Government for the time being to stay the
enhancement. This is a significant victory. The Chief Minister has now referred the matter

269
to the Tribunal and has agreed not to enhance the fare in any case without taking
representative public opinion.‟140

The TFERC celebrated what it called the second round of victory on 4 th August at a
Wellington Square rally where the Leftist leaders gave an explanation of the concessions
recently gained by the committee. They also greeted the people for their support to the
movement. In this way the TFERC movement came to an end.

But the most important thing that needs to be discussed in pros and coin is to assess the
role of the refugees in the movement launched by the TFERC. The Government record
gives an idea about the extent of the participation of the refugees in the movement. „The
entire male population of refugee colonies in the immediate suburbs of Calcutta appeared
to have joined the movement.‟141 During the month- long agitation of the TFERC the
colony leaders would take contingents from their colonies to the Calcutta streets where
they boarded the second class compartments and dissuaded the passengers to pay the
enhanced fare. „They shouted slogans, participated in street demonstrations threw crackers
and bombs at tramcars and policemen and rounded off the day with a tramcar in flames.
They were, of course, not the sole participants in the daily drama in Calcutta streets… But
the refugee participants were the most numerous, consistent and combustible.‟142 The total
refugee population in the suburbs of Calcutta got involved in the TFERC movement. The
police came down heavily on the colonies and the UCRC protested against the police
repression when it met on 25th July 1953.

The Food Movement and the involvement of the refugees: after the Partition of Bengal
there appeared an acute food crisis in West Bengal. The price of essential commodities
went high and thus the common people felt it difficult to afford. „A dhoti of Rs. 10 was
selling at treble the price.’143 The opposition tried to draw the attention of the people to the
refugee problems, unemployment, food and rehabilitation problems and so on. On the
contrary, the Congress argued that Partition and the increase in the number of the
population was the root of the problems and it had failed even after trying to solve it.144
Dr. Roy in his speech entitled „Problems of West Bengal‟ opined that „The
unemployment problem is not new, but on account of certain socio-economic changes, it
has become acute in the recent years. Owing to various causes, such as the rapid growth of
population, partition of Bengal, unemployment consequent on the mechanization of
industries in its transitory period, etc.‟145 But Nehru appeared to have viewed the food

270
problems in West Bengal in the same way as he viewed the crisis of refugees and the
allied problems of unemployment in West Bengal. In a confidential note dated 22 nd June
1949 which was sent for the consideration of the Congress Working Committee Dr. Roy
gave emphasis on the fact that deficiency of food was an integral part of even the
undivided Bengal and it had become more after Partition.146 Thus, he cabled from Paris to
Nalini Ranjan Sarkar, the acting Chief Minister and who was to deputize for him in the
Working Committee meeting of 23rd June 1949 to „press for improved food contribution
from the Centre.‟147 Dr. Roy even went to the extent of writing to Sardar Patel how „every
attempt we made to give relief to our people by increasing the quota of food has been
turned down by the Food Ministry‟.148

The food crisis affected the all walks of the people of West Bengal. And due to the
movement against the enhancement of the second class fare West Bengal was in a state of
extreme nervous tension. In such a situation, as a consequence of the acute food crisis,
hunger rallies were being organized in various places and the single most key cry was for
food. On 21st April 1951, a 5,000 strong hunger rally was brought in Cooch Behar town.
The police however, lathi-charged and opened fire at the rally that resulted in the death of
five people and at least 40 people left injured.149 However, the first movement was
launched by the Left Opposition in the summer of 1952. The RSP with Forward Bloc and
some other Left groups had set up Famine Resistance Committee. The CPI formed its own
committee. „These committees were formed to bring into focus the food situation in West
Bengal and to gather together the accumulated discontent for non-availability and high
prices of food grains every year during the lean season.‟150 The food- marchers made
demand for increase in the ration quota of rice and wheat in particular for the manual
workers. They shouted slogan for more food at cheaper rate. From 1952 to 1957 various
movements that came one after another rocked the whole West Bengal- the food
movement of 1952 was followed by All Bengal Teacher‟s Associations‟ movement and
the movement against the Bengal- Bihar merger issue. In all these movements the Left
Political leaders took the lead and formed public opinion. The result was that in the
elections of 1957 the representations of the Left Opposition in the Assembly went to 80
from its earlier strength of 57.

In 1959 the food movement was started with new enthusiasm. In that very year there
appeared an acute food crisis in West Bengal and the price of essential commodities

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touched its apex. However, by the end of September the Food Movement of 1959 slowly
died out. The important feature of the movement was that the students also supported the
movement and joined with it, the result was that one thousand students were arrested all
over the state.151 But in 1964-65 the food crisis again took an alarming form as by then an
acute food crisis gripped the entire country. The result was that the food movement again
got momentum obviously under the leadership of the Left Opposition. However, the
movement of 1966 as Chakrabarti noted was different from the earlier ones in two
respects. Firstly: „the impending general elections in early 1967‟ and secondly „Change in
the character of the movement due to the Massive mobilization of the people‟.152 On the
other hand, Shyamal Chakraborty wrote, „in the Food Movement of 1959 the rural
peasants came to Calcutta and faced bullets. This time the movement spread village-town
everywhere.‟153 In principal, all the Left parties supported the new food policy of Prafulla
Chandra Sen but they made objection to the certain points of his pro gramme. Thus, the
Left Parties had fixed March 1966 for launching a state-wide movement on different
policies of the Government- the issue of food, the D.I. Rules and the release of detainees.
But the movement erupted suddenly before the proposed time and took the Left Parties by
surprise. The movement was sudden and spontaneous in which the refugees also played
their part forming the violent crowds that took part in the movement. In such a situation,
the leaders of the political parties hurried to lead the leaderless mob to „direct the
movement along the accustomed channel‟154 According to an estimate, the casualty list of
the disturbances till 11th March 1966 consisted of 50 dead, seriously wounded 300 and
7,000 persons were arrested.155 From the study of Prafulla K. Chakrabarti it appears that in
the food movement of 1966, the refugees took part in swarms. He noted:

The places where the incidents occurred were refugee-concentrated areas. The Barackpore sub-division, the
Rishra- Konnagar-Hind Motor areas, Jadavpur, Behala, Barisa, Sarsuna, Sakherbazar and the other fringe
areas of Calcutta were crammed with refugee settlements. In Nadia district the refugee population
outnumbered the local population and the total number of refugees in Calcutta, 24 Parganas and Nadia
districts comprised one-third of the total refugee population in the State. The shanties which lined both sides
of the railway tracks fro m Sealdah to Krishnanagar, Diamond Harbour and Budge -Budge and from Howrah
to Bandel were almost all erected by the refugees whose life was as provisional as the shacks they lived in.
The army of children who invaded the railway tracks did not come fro m faraway places. On the morning of
the Bandh they simply emerged fro m these shacks and did their wo rk of destruction and disappeared into the
shacks when the hurly-burly was over…But the basic and most numerous component was the refugees.
Even in North Bengal this was the case. There the disturbances mainly took place at Falakata and Alipore
156
Duar which again were heavily refugee concentrated areas.

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The united Left, in spite of the turmoil in 1966, was not successful in effecting a breach in
the Congress vote bank in the rural areas. „It was dissidence within its own ranks and
Opposition unity that brought about the Congress debacle.‟157 Ajoy Mukherjee, the
president of the WBPCC supported the Left-sponsored Bangla Bandh on 10 March. The
result was that he was expelled from the Congress and thus formed the Bangla Congress
shortly after his expulsion from Congress. And thus what the Congress lost was achieved
by the Bangla Congress. The majority of the seats that the Congress lost in the elections of
1967 were won by the Bangla Congress. „The Congress gained only 127 seats. But the
Bangla Congress won 30 seats. The Communist Parties and the Marxist Left gained some
additional seats. But the Congress and the Bangla Congress nearly maintained the 1962
percentage of seats…‟158 However, it cannot be ignored that the numerical strength of the
supporters of the Left Political Parties in West Bengal gradually went up and in this
process the UCRC appeared to play a deciding factor. As Chakrabarti observed:

The UCRC directed the refugee struggle against the establishment and discreetly propelled the refugees
towards the Left and when in 1959 the UCRC was taken over by the CPI the refugee veer to the Left
particularly to the CPI was more or less complete.

The near comp lete allegiance of the refugees to the CPI provided for it a mobile, v iolence -prone and huge
following. In less than a decade the control of the CPI had been established over millions of refugees,
although the party did not make much of a dent among the peasants in the countryside. The allegiance of the
working class remained divided between the INTUC and the AITUC, CITU, UTUC etc. the refugees
became the striking arm of the CPI and subsequently of the CPI (M) during the period of 1951-1967.Of
necessity the party had to limit its activities to the refugee concentrated areas within a rad ius of 100 km fro m
Calcutta. It was in th is restricted political stage that the drama of Leftist movements was played out. ..The
vitality of Left ism during this period is demonstrated by the fact that the series of Leftist movement
succeeded in completely paraly zing the admin istrative machinery in the teeth of brutal repression through
political action of increasing intensity until it crescendoed to the convulsive orgasm of the food movement
of 1966 and the sequential debacle of the Congress in the general elections of 1967. The UCRC was the
159
catalyst of this change in the political scenario of West Bengal.

Thus, in the sixties and seventies the refugees extended their support to the Left parties in
the hope of getting permanent rehabilitation and means of livelihood. However, in the
latter years some sorts of discontents made its room in the mind of the refugees as the Left
Front Government appeared to be futile to meet all the demands of the refugees raised
under the leadership of the United Central Refugee Council. At the same time, a large
number of refugees who earned their living as Hawkers in the city and suburbs were

273
uprooted and thereby they became helpless and hapless for the second time. This was
coupled with the problems of unemployment, inadequate facilities for education and
health service etc. The result was that there appeared a shift in political support from the
Left Front to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or Trinamul Congress (TMC). Thus, the
CPI (M) at the end of 1991 parliamentary elections, in a report, mentioned some reasons
responsible for its poor performance in West Bengal. The report noted,

The review made by the West Bengal State Committee has noted that in the rural belt in villages and towns
dominated by middle class our influence has declined. Similarly, the youth belonging to the middle classes
have been turned away from us…sections of the refugees from Bangladesh have rallied to th e BJP-TMC
combine.160

The recent shift in their support to right wings political parties can be imagined from the
some of the electoral data. In the Lok Sabha election of 1989 BJP shared only 1.71 percent
vote. However, its share of vote got increased to 11.65 percent in 1991. In the subsequent
elections there was a further rise in BJP‟s vote share resulted in winning of the prestigious
Dum Dum parliamentary seat in 1998 and the Krishnanagar seat in Nadia district in
1999.161

North Bengal

North Bengal or the northern part of West Bengal constitutes six districts i.e. Cooch
Behar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur and Malda. Though the
flow of the refugees was by and large towards the districts of south Bengal especially
Calcutta and its adjoining districts yet a considerable number of them entered into North
Bengal. The table162 furnished below gives an idea about the number of the refugees in
North Bengal in 1958:

Districts No of Population No of Population Refugees Total

Camps in camps Govt. in Govt. outside refugee
and homes and homes colonies colonies camps and population
colonies

Malda _ _ 12 2,939 69,004 72,924

West 1 989 11 3,865 158,095 162,949

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 Dinajpur

Jalpaiguri _ _ 9 7,850 142,306 150,156

Darjeeling _ _ 2 3,375 26,668 30,043

Cooch 1 1,159 12 6,550 222,118 227,827

Behar

Total 2 2,1 48 46 24,579 6,18,191 6,43,899

As time rolled on, the influx of the refugees and displaced persons, keeping pace with the
other part of West Bengal, increased into North Bengal also. The Census Report of 1971
shows that 11, 59, 000 persons163 entered these regions as refugees:

Districts No. of refugees No. of refugees increase/decrease

(1958) (1971)

Cooch Behar 2,27,827 4,42,000 (+) 2,14,173

Jalpaiguri 1,50,156 2,49,000 (+) 98,844

Drjeeling 30,043 48,000 (+) 17,957

West Dinajpur (north & 1,62,949 2,92,500 (+) 1,29,551

south)

Malda 72,924 1,27,500 (+) 54,576

Total 6,43,899 11,59,000 (+) 5,15,101

Before the seventies the refugees of North Bengal did not come under the UCRC network.
And though the UCRC was doing a lot for the refugees of East Bengal in and around
Calcutta but it was practically absent in North Bengal.

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 I

On the eve of India‟s independence, the Scheduled Caste Federation of Bengal under the
leadership of Jogendranath Mandal opposed the division of Bengal on the basis of the
„Two-Nation Theory‟. And even if division of Bengal was inevitable then as an alternative,
it placed the demand for the creation of „Rajasthan State‟ for the scheduled caste people of
this region in May, 1947. The proposed areas which were to come under the periphery of
the Rajasthan State were Siliguri sub-division of Darjeeling District, some portion of the
Purnia District of Bihar, whole Jalpaiguri District, both the Dinajpur Districts, north-
western part of Rangpur District and whole Goalpara District of Assam. However,
Jogendra Nath Mandal did not include Cooch Behear into the Rajasthan proposal, and the
reason might be Cooch Behar was by then a Princely State. But there is no doubt that the
Hindu leaders especially the Rajbanshi Kshatriya leaders of the Hitasadhani Sabha were
supporters of Jogendranath Mandal on the issue of the Rajasthan State.164 But, the
Rajasthan State, demanded by the Scheduled Caste Federation, could not see the light at
last.

Due to the Partition of Bengal, Cooch Behar, the Princely state got merged with the Union
of India on 12th September, 1949 and in the subsequent period became a district of West
Bengal with effect from 1st January 1950. Though there was a long history behind the final
merger of Cooch Behar with West Bengal yet the present discussion has little to do with it.
But it must be mentioned here that the Deshi or the local people, particularly the Jotdars,
Zamindars and the intellectual class of the Rajbanshi community did not like and digest the
idea of making a so called independent state as a part or district of a newly formed State of
West Bengal. Thus, it was considered that by converting the independent State into a
district the dignity and honor of Cooch Behar and its people had been lowered. In this way,
a sense of discontent harbored in their psyche that found expression in the form of ill
feelings against the high caste Bengali gentry of North Bengal who were well advanced in
all walks of life. These ill feelings gradually got converted into antagonism against the
Bengalis in general and Bengali language in particular. The situation was further
deteriorated by the continuous influx of the refugees into this region.

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 II

Before independence the Rajbanshi community of this region started a moveme nt of their
own known as Rajbanshi Kshatriya Movement which has long history to speak. As the
Rasbanshis were placed quite low at the caste hierarchy of the Hindu society thus they
made an attempt to establish themselves as Kshatriyas under the leadership of Rai Saheb
Panchanan Barma in the first half of the 20 th century that assumed a form of a movement
came to be known as Rajbanshi Kshatriya Movement. This movement in the long run
acted as the base of the different ethno-political agitations in North Bengal.165 As the
Rajbanshi Community has mainly been at the forefront to lead all these movements in the
plain North Bengal for creating a separate state of their own thus it would be wise to have a
glance over the numerical strength of this community166 in the various districts of North
Bengal.

Districts Total All Scheduled Rajbanshi Percentage of

Population Caste population Rajbanshi
population

Koch Bihar 2479155 1242374 972803 39.24

Jalpaiguri 3401173 1248577 811567 23.86

Darjeeling 1609172 258881 129904 8.07

Uttar Dinajpur 2441794 676582 405140 16.59

Dakshin Dinajpur 1503178 432660 224988 14.97

Malda 3290468 554165 144158 4.38

Total 14724940 4413239 2688560 18.26

It appears from the above data that the numerical strength of the Rajbanshi community is
higher in Cooch Behar district. Alongside, some of the tribal people of the region such as
Rabha, Mech (Bodos) have also joined the Rajbanshis in their claim for a separate state as
they consider themselves to be the „son of the soil‟.167 „They put forward the justification
for separate state by citing the past glory of their illustrious history, namely the history of

277
Kamtapur in the 15th century. Even they go further back to the glorious days of
Vaskarvarman of Kamrup in the 7 th century and Bhagadatta of the Mahabharata days of
Kamrup.‟168

The local people of this region were mostly illiterate or semi- illiterate who practically
lacked any connection with the higher ups. They were mostly engaged in the agricultural
works. Though there were some Jotdars and Zamindars among the local people but most
of local people were economically poor. Besides, this area lacked health, education and
other required facilities which acted as hindrance on their way to material development. In
such a situation, the displaced persons, many of whom practically left East Bengal with
empty hands, entered into this region. After coming here they started their struggle for
existence afresh. As this region was basically agro based hence they made a peep into the
kindness of the local land owners and started cultivation in their lands as adhiars or share
croppers. The local people who were following the traditional methods of cultivation
failed to grow as much amount of crops as the new comers who had a better knowledge of
developed methods of cultivation. Furthermore, they must have worked harder as survival
became a challenge to them which also helped to grow more crops. As the new share
croppers were able to produce more crops thus paid a higher amounts as share to the land
owners. Thus, the land owners engaged the new comers as adhiars or share croppers even
in some cases they evicted the local adhiars in the hope of having more crops.169
Alongside, the price of land went high as the primary motto of the new comers was to
manage a homestead that they had to sacrifice as a price of independence. Thus, those who
could bring some money or some movable property with them or as refugees got some
assistance in the form of loans from the Government purchased bastu lands with it to
make their new homes. The local people sometimes in need or sometimes in the passion of
getting handsome amount sold the land where the new comers appeared to be the
purchaser.

The ceiling laws according to which lands in excess of 75 bighas got vested gave a new
twist to the situation. As a result, the Jotdars and the big land lords lost major portion of
their lands. They were now to sell the lands under their control for their livelihood. And
the lands were incidentally purchased by the new comers who were desperately in need of
land for eking out a livelihood. The Left Front Government after coming to power in 1977
strengthened the three-tier Panchayeti system and started land reform with new spirit. It

278
identified the land above ceiling and distributed that surplus or vested land to the people
without land and thus the land less people whether refugees or early landless inhabitants
got vested lands. Alongside, the Left Front Government empowered the share cropper
with the right not to be evicted from the land that he was tilling that was known as
Operation Barga.

Operation Barga had brought about a new lease of hope in the mind of the toiling masses
of the countryside of West Bengal and thereby of North Bengal. Henceforth, the share-
croppers paid more attention to cultivate the land in a better way. The result was that the
amount of yield noticeably got increased. It on its turn, to some extent, helped to alleviate
poverty in the villages thereby paved the way for the economic betterment for the
bargadars.170

However, Operation Barga was not all flawless. It invited further complications into the
traditional agro-based infrastructure of the rural society. It struck at the very root of the
age- long mutual trust between the bargadars and the land owners. The bargadars
exploited every opportunity of the situation created by the Operation Barga and got the
lands under their plough recorded in their names. This led to the creation of a chaotic
situation in the agro-based country-sides. „Although the measures for tenurial security to
sharecroppers met with a greater success, the distribution of land to the landless could not
meet the demand for land of the entire landless population in the rural areas‟171

Due to the reformatory measures undertaken by the Left Front Government such as Land
reforms, Operation Barga and strengthening of the three-tier Panchayet system the
Rajbanshi landless peasants and the bargadars were benefitted. It led to the switch over of
the political allegiance of the Rajbanshi peasants to the Left political parties. A
considerable number of candidates from the Rajbanshi community were elected in the
seats of Panchayets, Anchal Pradhans, Panchayet Samity and Zilla Parishad. However,
the Jotdars, Zamindars and the big land lords, who predominantly belonged to the
Rajbanshi community and local Muslims; and were supporters of the Hitasadhini Sabha
and afterwards the Congress, were in wait to find out means that would help to re-
strengthen their position. As after losing the land to the landless peasants and the
bargadars due to khas land distribution and recording of lands under share cropping in the
name of share croppers they practically became penniless, powerless and disappointed.
Furthermore, whatever land they could retain even after the application of the ceiling laws

279
got reduced as in the meantime the erstwhile joint families got broken and lands passed
into the hands of their heirs. Thus, the income of the erstwhile Jotdars and land lords got
shrunk. As the Jotdars and land lords did not have other profession other than the landed
property thus, they were compelled to sell lands whenever they fell into difficulties. As a
result, the descendants of the erstwhile Jotdars and land lords who once possessed 200-
500-1000 acres of land now became practically landless. Without having any means many
of them became agricultural labourer and took up other such professions. The pangs of
want and poverty haunt them. Whenever, they think of their past, the nostalgia eats into
them, they are burnt in the memory of losing everything. As a result, anger enters into
them which very often take the form of violence.172

Besides, though the Operation Barga temporarily helped the share croppers to elevate
their economic condition but in the long run it failed miserably. Because the lands which
they got were mostly un-irrigated thus the amount of yield per acre was not up to the
expectation. „Devoid of much yield in the land and without governmental help the
bargadars failed to reap the benefit of Barga Operation.’173 On the contrary, Operation
Barga spoiled the age long relation of the share croppers and the land owners. Earlier the
share croppers used to borrow paddy from their land lords during the off season as loan
and used to give it back when they reaped the new paddy. But after Operation Barga the
share croppers were deprived from that opportunity as by now onwards their relation was
not good with the land lords.

In the academic and service sectors also the local people of this region met with a tough
competition offered by the new comers. With the first wave of the influx the educated
people who used to dominate the higher rungs of the socio-economic and the political
ladder in East Bengal made a hasty rush towards West Bengal and got settled in the urban
and semi- urban belt of this region. There were many service holders also, who taking the
advantage of the Government‟s rule of „Option‟ opted for their job in West Bengal174 and
got settled in the urban region where all necessities of modern life were easily available.
This group of people within a short span of time got resettled and their children became
well educated and, in most of the cases, got the desired jobs. Even the Namasudra
peasants who made their journey towards West Bengal in the wake of the deadly
communal riot of 1950 and had been a better pursuer of education by then as their leader
Harichand Thakur and Guruchand Thakur inspired them to be educated at any cost.175

280
Thus, though the Rajbanshi community was entitled to enjoy the special facilities as
schedule caste however, because of the arrival of the Namasudra peasants and other such
groups, who were also entitled to enjoy the same, threw a tough competition at the
educated locals.176

However, at the initial stage when the refugees were pouring into these regions in ever
increasing numbers the local populace of these regions had strived their best to stand by
them. As time rolled on they could not help the incoming displaced persons any more as it
went beyond their capacity. Furthermore, there was no sign of stopping that influx of
refugees from East Pakistan and later on Bangladesh. Lack of agro-based or any other
industry and employment opportunity complicated the situation further. Thus, there arose
a sense of deprivation in the minds of the „son of the soil‟ of North Bengal that gave birth
to a misconception that the new comers or the Bhatias were mainly responsible for the
impoverishment of the locals.177 And the best way, that they considered, through which
they could come out of their present deplorable condition was to form a separate state of
their own. This notion gave birth to a series of organizations i.e. the Uttarkand Dal (UKD),
Uttarbanga Tapasili Jati O Adivasi Sangathan (UTJAS), Kamtapur People‟s Party (KPP)
etc. which unleashed a series of movements such as Uttar Khand Movements, Movement
of the Uttarbanga Tapashili Jati O Adivasi Sangathan, Kamtapur Movement, Greater
Cooch Behar Movement, Uttar Banga Sanskriti Movement etc. and highlighted the socio-
economic and political issues.

The Uttarkhanda Movement: the „Uttarkhand‟ as an organization for a separate state

was first used in a conference held in Darjeeling in 1949. However, on 5 th July 1969 a new
Uttarkhand Dal (henceforth UKD) came into being in the complex of the historic Jalpesh
Temple situated in the Maynaguri Police Station of Jalpaiguri district. Though, in the
subsequent period Jateswar, situated in the district of Cooch Behar, became the centre of
its vigorous activities. The Uttarkhanda Movement, a movement of the section of the
Rajbanshis, led and mobilized by Panchanan Mallick, started a peaceful movement
through public meeting covering almost all the villages of North Bengal with a view to
saving the people, especially the people of local origin of North Bengal against the
unequal treatments and exploitations by the Calcutta based leaders.178 The UKD fought
the elections of 1971, 1972, 1977 and 1982 without desired success. The UKD expressed
its concern over the refugees through its election manifesto in 1972 and suggested for

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„vesting of surplus houses or homestead plots of the city owners to solve the refugee
problems‟.179 And over the citizenship issue in a charter of demands in 1989 the UKD
demanded, „Following the Indira-Mujib agreement, 1971 should be the base year for
citizenship.‟180 At the initial stage the UKD did not raise the demand for the creation of a
separate state. Its main agitation was against the unequal distribution of the per capita
expenditures.181 However, as time rolled on the UKD for fulfilling its demands gave a call
for the creation of a separate state out of the five districts of North Bengal. But the most
interesting thing was that it made an appeal to the all sections of people irrespective of
caste, creed and religion in support of their claim for the creation of a separate Kamtapur
State in North Bengal.182 Perhaps the leadership of the UKD could comprehend that if a
separate Kamtapur State would have to be created then the support of the all section of
people irrespective of caste, creed and religion was very much needed. Though the UKD
failed to attain its desired goal yet it paved the way for the birth and growth of the
subsequent movements on the soil of North Bengal.

The Movement of Uttarbanga Tapashili Jati O Adivasi Sangathan: the Uttarbanga

Tapashili Jati O Adivasi Sangathan (UTJAS) was established with a view to opposing the
socio-economic, political and cultural discrimination in this area of North Bengal.
Dhirendra Nath Das noted; „The problem of influx of migrants, cultural differences
between the migrants and local Scheduled Castes and Tribes and other Backward Classes,
restricted job opportunities for indigenous middle class, immobility of the people of
Scheduled Castes and Tribes…language domination or sense of insecurity of language-
culture-religion etc. badly impacted on the minds of North Bengal people compelled to
unite under the umbrella of UTJAS, as an alternative political platform.‟183

The foundation conference of the UTJAS took place on the first part of 1981 at
Narasingha Vidyapith at Kadamtala in Darjeeling District.184 Like the UKD the UTJAS
also expressed its concern over the influx of the refugees and migrants in North Bengal
and thus, it along with other issues included in its objective discontinuation of the
„foreigners‟ infiltration that has threatened the existence of indigenous people in respect of
their social, economical, cultural and political life and that has also threatened communal
harmony.‟185 Thus, in the beginning of 1981, the UTJAS gave a call for a three-day long
Second Convention which finalized 27 demands taking into account the interest of the all
groups of dalits. And the demands which were related to the refugees and migrants of

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North Bengal were „immediate stoppage of foreigners‟ infiltration‟ and „e xclusion of the
names of foreign nationals from the voter list‟.186 And in the third Convention of the
UTJAS which was held at Raiganj, in Uttar Dinajpur District, it added three more
demands to its agenda out of which the first one dealt with the refugees and migrants as it
demanded that refugees to be distributed throughout the nation and if the Bangladesh
Government failed to protect its Hindu/indigenous people then a homeland within
Bangladesh should be created for them.187

In October, 1986 the members of the organization held a rally at the Esplanade East,
Calcutta which was attended by the members of the listed castes and tribes from all the
districts of North Bengal. The organization submitted two memorandums addressing to
the Chief Minister and the Governor of West Bengal respectively that contained a 15 point
charter of demands including the issue of the refugees and migrants in North Bengal.
Though the main demand was 60% seat reservation for the students of North Bengal in its
various higher educational institutions however, it demanded that steps to be taken for
stopping the infiltration of foreigners into North Bengal and it further demanded that „the
names of all foreigners who came into North Bengal after 1971, be struck from the
electoral rolls…‟188

Towards the end of 1990, the Sangathan lost its ground when its leaders started nourishing
the dream of being the national leaders coming out the nucleus of the local leadership
thereby began to be associated with some o ther organizations whose approach was not in
favor of the policy of reservation. And the relation of the UTJAS with Kishan
Organization of Mr. Mahendra Sing Tikayat gave the finishing blow to it.189

The Government however, in the face of agitation formed the Uttarbanga Unnayan
Parshad (UUP) for dealing with the problems of the people of North Bengal in an especial
way. However, the UUP failed to fulfill the needs of the people of this region as it was not
given the sufficient amount thus failed to deal with the problems of the people of this
region properly. In such a situation, there arose another organization under the name of
Kamtapur People‟s Party (KPP).

The Movement of Kamtapur People’s Party : the Kamtapur People‟s Party (KPP) was
formed on 7th January, 1996 in a meeting in Daukimari in Dhupguri, in the district of
Jalpaiguri under the leadership of Atul Roy. The indigenous people of North Bengal under

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the banner of this organization organized public meetings and processions in a democratic
way for making the people aware to fight against the vested interests. And public contact
was made irrespective of caste, creed and political opinion. The movement was needed;
they tried to convince the people, as the Government had proved to be a failure to look
after the interest of the common people of North Bengal.190 The main motto however,
behind the formation of the KPP was to create a separate state of Kamtapur, at a point of
time comprised the area from Rangpur-Ghoraghat of Bangladesh to the Koshi River,
Jhapa Morung area of Nepal and the entire North-east, within Indian Union and the
recognition of the Kamtapuri language. They believed in „Do or die, Kamtapur chai‟ (we
want Kamtapur at any cost) justifying the demand of separate state with the history of the
king who ruled in Kamrup during the 13 th century. They also included in their charter of
demands that „North Bengal has become a den of refugees from all directions and this has
to be stopped‟.191 Jitendra Nath Barman wrote:

„The influ x of East Bengal refugees, people of South Bengal and outside Bengal has converted the sons of
the soil into landless people and 90% of agriculturist indigenous people are landless labour today. Devoid of
self respect, social position, cultural tradition, they are now labo ur only. The descendants of the landowners
of Siliguri and adjacent areas are now rickshaw pullers, maid servants or supply -labours to the masons in
Siliguri.

The same conditions prevail in Jalpaiguri, Coochbehar, Malda and both Dinajpur districts. Everybo dy knows
there is limitless deprivation these people are subjected to. Only 3% o f West Bengal‟s industry is in North
Bengal; only 2% of total electricity of West Bengal is consumed in North Bengal. North Bengal has huge
natural wealth which has been exp loited by South Bengal people. Only 1.5% of West Bengal‟s capital has
been invested in North Bengal. The agricultural lands of Duars have been converted into tea gardens, from
which South Bengal people have earned crores of rupees. Agricultural lands near Siliguri, Jalpaiguri and
Dinajpur and even some areas of Coochbehar are being converted into tea gardens…Such is the reaction of
Atul Roy and other members of KPP, if you ask for the justificat ion of a separate state.‟192

Thus, besides the issue of migration into North Bengal the step motherly attitude of the
Government of West Bengal is held accountable for the deplorable condition of the sons
of the soil of Kamtapur. And they found a way out from this condition through the
creation of a separate state i.e. Kamtapur. On 6th November, 2000, there was huge mass
rally of the Kamtapuri activists in Cooch Behar followed by a massive meeting on the
Airport ground. In this meeting the demand for a separate state was explained and got
approved.193 The Party also attained recognition of the Election Commission as a political

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party under the name of Kamtapur Progressive Party instead of Kamtapur People‟s
Party.194

Greater Kuch Bihar Movement: in the meantime North Bengal has witnessed the birth
of another movement under the name of Greater Kuch Bihar Movement. Regarding the
origin of this movement Sukhbilas Barma wrote, „An investigation into the documentary
evidence brings out that such movement originated in 1998 and ventilated through an
„Appeal‟ dated 20.10.98 circulated by one Arun Kumar Roy on behalf of „The Greater
Kuch Behar People‟s Association.‟195 Afterwards the Association got divided into two
groups- the first group was led by Arun Kumar Roy and Anilendra Narayan and got their
association registered under the name „The Kuch Behar Peoples‟ Association‟ while the
second group was led by Banshi Badan Barman and Jyotish Chandra Sarkar and started
agitation under the name of „The Greater Kuch Bihar People‟s Association‟. At the initial
stage, as it appears, the main aim of the original Association was to get Kumar Anilendra
Narayan who was a distant relative of the king of Kuch Bihar, mounted to the post of the
President of the Debuttar Trust Board. However, as Bansi Badan Barman took over the
reins of „The Greater Kuch Bihar People‟s Association‟ it demanded, as it included in the
Memorandum submitted to the District Administration for onward transmission to the
President, Prime Minister, Home Minister and the Chief Election Commissioner, under
“Dangar Kuch Bihar Basir Koyta Katha” (A few words of the residents of Greater Kuch
Bihar) pointing out that:

„The people of Cooch Behar have been deprived of all constitutional rights after the
merger of Cooch Behar with West Bengal and that West Bengal and Assam Governments
have been administering this area illegally and without constitutional rights…that the
Assembly Election of West Bengal should not be imposed on the people of Cooch Behar
and a Care Taker Ministry should be formed to administer the affairs of the „C-category‟
State of Cooch Behar‟.196

Because the Greater Cooch Behar People‟s Association argues that:

King Jagaddipendra Narayan signed the document for merger of Cooch Behar with India only and not
specifically with West Bengal; and Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy at the instigation of some people of Cooch
Behar other than the son‟s of the soil over-utilized his own political in fluence and mettle on the Prime
Minister and the Home Minister practically annexing Cooch Behar to West Bengal, wh ich, according to
them, was not less than a coup-de-etat. They claim that after the king had signed the instrument of accession,

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Cooch Behar enjoyed the status of a province; therefore, the option of returning Cooch Behar to the status of
a province or union territory by revoking its merger with West Bengal still remains, and Cooch Behar be
197
declared as a separate state .

In the meantime, the Greater Kuch Behar People‟s Association faced division because of
the difference of opinion among its leaders and one faction of it of late formed a new party
named „Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party‟. And in a bid to strengthen their struggle
for a separate statehood Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party, Kamtapur Progressive
Party and Assam‟s All Koch Rajbanshi Student‟s Union have formed a joint forum
„Greater Kamta United Forum‟ demanding formation of a bigger Cooch Behar State with
11 districts of Assam, 6 districts of North Bengal and 2 districts of Bihar which according
to them have one culture and one people.198 However, the activities of the KPP were
labeled as secessionism or separatism. 199 And the party organization has suffered a major
setback as in November, 2000, at least 500 leaders and activities of the KPP were
arrested.200

In a bid to strengthen the demand of the separate State, some over enthusiastic indigenous
youths have formed an organization came to be known as KLO or Kamtapuri Liberation
Organization which is stamped as the extremist wing of the KPP, „although the KPP
leaders denied their connection with the KLO.‟201 The members of the KLO took up arms
for the purpose of attacks on the soft targets thereby creating terror in the mind of
common masses. The first gruesome incident which was executed by the KLO was a
series of horrible murder of the CPI (M) Party leaders and activists in Jalpaiguri District of
West Bengal in the year 2000.202 And due to the attacks of the KLO, the Bhatiyas became
more worried and terrified because the Bhatiyas, in most of the cases, fell victims to the
bullets of the KLO. Because, as Debnath noted, „…secret ire of the sulking terrorists was
that only the Bhatiyas had all connections with the Calcuttans and southern Bengal and
they were against the formation of Kamtapur as a state‟.203 However, the Military
crackdown in Bhutan and severe measures of the Police virtually broke the spine of the
K.L.O.204

The discussion made above expresses that all these movements were directly or indirectly
expressed their concerns over the issue of the refugees and migrants or the bhatiyas which

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as they considered played havoc to the interest and advancement of what they termed as
deshi people. In order to find out the actual causes for such movements which took place
one after another, an impartial enquiry into the situation is very much needed. Facts
expressed that the numerical strength of the refugees and migrants who entered into this
region from East Pakistan or present day Bangladesh was far low in comparison to the
districts of South Bengal. As till 1958 there were only two refugee camps and homes in
North Bengal. There must have been some Government Sponsored Colonies, Private
Colonies and Squatters‟ Colonies in North Bengal. But as it appears that the Government
must have purchased land for the establishment of the Government Sponsored Colonies
and the Private Colonies were mostly established at the initiatives of the refugee people
under the Baynanama Scheme according to which the new settlers had to find out the land
of his choice at his own enterprise, he had also to convince the owner o f the land for the
sale of the land and after that he could have the required amount as loan for the purchase
of that plot of land. Regarding the squatters‟ colonies, as per the R.R & R Manual,
Calcutta, it can be asserted that most of these colonies which were established under the
cover of darkness in North Bengal were situated either on vest land or Lands belonged to
the various department of the Government. There are also some instances to show that
some of the refugees and migrants had exchanged their houses and properties situated in
East Pakistan with some of the Muslims of this region who opted for East Pakistan. Under
the circumstances, the role of Bengali refugees and displaced migrants in creating
discontent in the mind of the local people of this region is needed a proper scrutiny.

Firstly: the refugees and migrants of East Pakistan who entered this region were mostly
farmers in profession thus after their arrival their main target was to purchase a piece of
land. Alongside, as they were basically cultivators thus they made an attempt to make
their livelihood either acting as agricultural laborer or adhiars or share croppers. And in
both the cases they created pressure on the limited landed property of the region and threw
challenge to the previously existing agricultural laborer or adhiars or share croppers. The
situation became worst as the most of the lands of North Bengal were un- irrigated and
relatively less fertile. Furthermore, North Bengal being a non- industrial zone could not
offer any alternative jobs other than in the agricultural field to both the locals and the new

comers. And in the field of the business, the Marwaris had already strengthened their

position. Some of the new comers, as time passed, must have entered into the field of petty

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business or acted as agent of the Marwaris in matter of purchasing goods for his Marwari
lords but in turn it created bad impact on the mind of the locals as they held the new
comers responsible if they faced any loss in selling any goods even if the current market
price was like that.

But in case of South Bengal the scenario was totally different. There must have been some
commotions at the initial stage between the new comers and the locals but as time rolled
on the simmering got merged in the wave. There were instances to show that the local
people of south Bengal took the initiative to resettle the refuges without waiting for the
Government‟s assistance alone. 205 The reason might have been that in south Bengal the
new comers did not need to depend upon the land only. Because Calcutta, 24 Parganas and
Howrah, where 4,489 factories (81 percent of the total) out of the 5,658 registered
factories in West Bengal in 1966206 were situated, were very close to them and they could
pick up any profession as per their capability. Furthermore, the quality of most of the
lands of South Bengal was far better than that of North Bengal and irrigation facility was
strong there. Thus, the amount of yield was definitely higher than that of North Bengal.

Secondly: the application of ceiling laws and Operation Barga had further complicated the
rural environment of North Bengal. The refugees and migrants had already given the
Jotdars, Zamindars and big land lords an alarming signal by establishing squatters‟
colonies by capturing some of the private prope rties. In such a situation, application of
ceiling laws and recording of the lands under share cropping in the name of the bargadars
made the situation more complex. In North Bengal the Jotdars and the big land lords had
mainly depended upon their landed property while in South Bengal the case was not the
same; beside land, many of them were involved in business and other professions there.

Thirdly: the local people of this region earlier were the supporters of the Hitasadhani
Sabha and then Congress. And later on they also turned to be the supporter of the Left
Parties. On the contrary, the refugees, being disappointed with the Congress Government
on the issue of relief and rehabilitation, turned themselves as the followers of the Left
Parties at the earliest and the candidates of the Left Parties own the election wherever the
refugees were in highest number. Thus, as the land distribution and land recording was
done under the guidance of the Left Parties and the refugees were mostly the supporters of
the same at the same time land less thus issue of the refugees and migrants might have
received the first consideration. And this was surely not whole heartedly welcomed by the

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local peasants as they were also desperately in need of the same. Thus, it seems that a
tensional environment was created in the rural North Bengal at first at the lower level and
then at the higher level.

Fourthly: though the modern model of secular state was very much in use in Cooch Behar
long before its implantation in the other Princely States of India yet the local people of
Cooch Behar followed a policy of exclusiveness as far as the issue of the outsiders is
concerned. And keeping in mind that exclusiveness the Hitasadhani Sabha whose origin,
according to Professor Ananda Gopal Ghosh is shrouded in obscurity had launched a
crusade against the caste Hindus i.e. the outsiders or the Bhatias. They raised the slogan of
Bhatia Hatao and Abbas Uddin Ahmed the noted folk singer, had rightly pointed out that
the predominance of the outsiders was the main cause behind that slogan. As a
consequence, a new kind of ethnic and caste based communalism developed in Cooch
Behar which found its expression through the Election of 1946 when the Hitasadhani
Sabha attained a thumping majority in the election.207 Though with the merger of Cooch
Behar with West Bengal the Hitasadhani Sabha went into oblivion yet with its remnants a
new wing of politics commenced in a different way. The difference was that the basic
issue was revised and enlarged. Thus, the fuel of discontent was already there and the
influx of the refugees and migrants in the wake of the Partition of Bengal just added fire to
it.

However, things could have been different and the statehood movement in Cooch Behar
even after the 53 years of its merger could have been avoided had the State Government
paid due attention for the all round development of North Bengal. Being a farthest zone
from that of Calcutta it failed to attain the due care and attention of the Government in
power. Threats of poverty, lack of proper facility of health, education, electricity and
communication are the common features of rural North Bengal. Furthermore, the rapid
expansion of tea gardens in this region has no doubt left bad impact on the production of
the audible crops. As Debnath has rightly noted:

„Now after 50 years of the merger they find Cooch Behar is decaying, and lagging behind
most other districts of the southern delta of West Bengal. The rural areas are getting
blenched into skeletal shapes of economic resources. Thousands of jobless people are
migrating to other states in search of works and means of earning and living. On account

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of this mounting frustration owing to the dispossession of the way of life, they have
become emotional in their outburst against the government and people in power.‟208

Hills under Upheavals

It has already been discussed in the introductory part that how the Nepalese people
gradually and virtually ceased the hilly areas of North Bengal due to their continuous
influx from neighboring Nepal. Here an attempt will be made to draw a pen picture how
the continuous influx of the migrants from the neighboring states of Nepal, Bhutan and
Tibet into the hilly areas of North Bengal have influenced the political scenario of that
region throughout these decades after independence.

The history of Darjeeling had many twists and turns since its creation in 1835 which is
however not a part of the present discussion. It would be wise to have a look at the
circumstances through which the Nepali population in these hill regions went high in an
astonishing manner. L S S O‟ Malley noted,

When the Brit ish first acquired the hill territory in 1835, it was almost entirely under forest…It was, in fact,
estimated that the whole of this tract, comprising 138 square miles, contained only 100 so uls. This state of
affairs was soon altered by Dr. Campbell, the first Superintendent, whose object it was to inspire the
aboriginal people of the hills with confidence in British rule, to induce the neighboring tribes to settle in the
territory, and to render Darjeeling the commercial centre of the hills… When in 1869 a rough census was
taken of the inhabitants in this tract, it was found that they aggregated over 22,000 persons.209

The first regular census of the district in 1871-72 expressed that the number of population
was further shot up to 94,712 persons with an average density of 81 persons per square
mile.210 And the census of 1901 recorded 249, 117 populations that meant that the number
of inhabitants was by now 21 /2 times as great as it was 30 years ago. 211 There were two
main causes behind this phenomenal growth of the population – (a) the development of
the tea industries and (b) the entry of the migrants to take advantage of the waste land of
the district. It was recorded that in 1876 among the inhabitants of Darjeeling some 34
percent population was of Gorkha or Gurkha ethnicity. 212 After the independence
Darjeeling got merged with the state of West Bengal. A separate district of Darjeeling was
formed out of the hilly towns of Darjeeling, Kurseong, Kalimpong and some portions of

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the Terai region. When in 1950 Tibet was annexed by the People‟s Republic of China
thousands of Tibetan refugees also settled across Darjeeling district. 213 The steady growth
of the Nepalese population in the hill regions of Darjeeling left far reaching consequences
on the political atlas of the post independent West Bengal.

The communists from the 1940 onwards were stressing the issue of Gorkha identity. And
in pursuance of that they developed the plan of a separate state of Gorkhastan and using
this as a propaganda plank they created a popular base especially among the tea plantation
workers of Nepali origin in the hill areas. Ratanlal Brahman and G.L. Subba, Nepali
Communist leaders from Darjeeling and were very vocal in the demand for regional
autonomy thus they along with some junior activists formed the district committee of the
Communist Party. In 1944 the District Committee passed a Resolution asking for regional
autonomy for the three hill sub-divisions of Darjeeling. After the Resolution was approved
by the State Committee of the CPI, Brahman and Subba, the secretary of the District
Committee, received encouragement to formulate the „Gorkhastan‟ plan and made stern
attempt to get the plan accepted by the All India Gorkha League (AIGL) which was
established by Dambar Sing Gurung, a representative from the hills in the Provincial
Assembly on May 1943 with the objective of securing the future of the Gorkhas, in case
India attained freedom. The League built up its political agitation on two important
issues- (a) the recognition of the Nepali language and (b) conferment of the citizenship on
the Indian Gorkhas. The rapid spread of AIGL in Darjeeling and even outside made the
Hill men‟s Association, came into being in 1917, irrelevant and in due time useless. At the
same time, the members of the AIGL planned to „merge the district of Darjeeling with the
province of Assam‟214 or „preferred making the area a union territory under the national
government.‟215 The plan of the CPI was to form a „Free Gorkhastan in Free India‟ by
joining the „three contiguous areas of Darjeeling district, southern Sikkim and Nepal.‟ 216
The AIGL however consistently opposed the idea of separate Gorkhastan as the AIGL
leader Deoprakash Rai explained his refusal to hold up the „demand of the CPI‟ 217 by
telling that „the people are already waiting for the bugle call not for creation of any „sthan‟
but for the onward march in the struggle for survival as equal human beings.‟218

On 29th April 1952 the AIGL submitted a memorandum to the Government of India
which presented three alternatives for Darjeeling- (a) to build Darjeeling a separate
administrative unit straightly under the Centre; (b) a separate province with Jalpaiguri,

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Cooch Behar and Sikkim and (c) amalgamation of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri with Assam.
And the common point in all those three alternatives was the separation of Darjeeling
from West Bengal.219 This however, could not be materialized in fine. However, in 1957
the Communists in collaboration with the Congress and the AIGL submitted a
representation to the Prime Minister of India with a view to attaining regional autonomy
for Darjeeling.

After the publication of the census report of 1961 which shot the percentage of the Nepali
speaking people in Darjeeling to 60%, the Nepali language was given the official status of
the lingua franca by the State Government in the three hill sub-divisions of the Darjeeling
district. In 1967 the AIGL joined the United Front Ministry in West Bengal with the
express objectives of persuading the Government for – (a) Autonomy of Darjeeling
district within West Bengal and (b) the recognition of Nepali language. The State
Assembly, supporting the claim for regional autonomy, passed a resolution. However, the
resolution was quiet on the disposition and the extent of the autonomy. To agitate for the
Constitutional recognition of the Nepali Language in 1972 the All India Nepali Bhasa
Samity (AINBS) was formed.220 As time rolled on, the AIGL started losing its
organizational strength. And with the death of the AIGL supremo D. P. Rai in 1983 the
party more or less became nonfunctional. However, when the AIGL was counting its last
days by then (in April 1980) another organization under the name of the Pranta Parishad
came into being which appeared to be the first organization to claim in a bold and
uncompromising way for a separate state and nothing less than that. Madan Tamang,
formerly an AIGL supporter broke away from that and took the leadership of the Parishad.
The first notable task of the Parishad was that it unambiguously submitted a memorandum
to the Prime Minister of India in April 1980 for the creation of a separate state of
Gorkhaland, consisting of Darjeeling and the Doors of Jalpaiguri, outside West Bengal.
But the Parishad could not have an easy passage. It became inconsequential when many of
its members assembled under the banner of the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF),
a party formed by Subhash Ghishing, an ex-army man on July 24, 1980. The GNLF
highlighted many issues and the main issues were:

(a) Creation of separate homeland for the Nepalese in India;

(b) Recognition of the Nepali language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution;

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 (c) Abrogation of the Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty of 1950 with a view to removing
uncertainty in the Nepalese minds;
(d) Employment of the „son of the soil‟, with emphasis on more recruitment in the
army; and so on

After the formation of the GNLF, Ghising wanted to test the political situation by
boycotting the Municipal Assembly and the Lok Sabha elections from 1980 to 1984 but it
went unnoticed. Then he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of India pleading for a
separate state of Gorkha Land outside West Bengal. And after few months he sent a
telegram to the Chief Minister of West Bengal with the same objective in mind. However,
neither the Prime Minister of India nor the Chief Minister of West Bengal did give any
ostensible response to these communications. 221 By July1985, Ghising mobilized adequate
number of students and youths towards GNLF. On June 2, 1985 he delivered a speech at
Kurseong that stridently raised the demand for Gorkhaland. His speech at Kurseong was
widely circulated in audio cassettes in the hills and attained instant popularity. The reason
was that according to the treaty of 1950 those who had come to India from Nepal were not
Indian citizens and thus India could disown them at any time. And Ghising succeeded in
touching the correct chord by stoking the basic fear in the minds of the Nepalese in India
through his speech.222 Though Ghising was telling again and again that he was willing to
continue the movement for a separate state within the frame work of the Indian
Constitution in a peaceful way yet very soon GNLF movement took a violent turn. Long
term bandhs and severe disturbances became the common features of the Darjeeling hills.
Even there was a call for a 40-day bandh by GNLF started on 10th February, 1988. D. P.
Patra noted, „…the mounting tension and the sudden spurt in number of violent incidents
gave rise to a grave sense of insecurity accompanied by fear…Evening were rocked by
blasts all over…Economic activity reached an all time low…Injuries, casualties,
destruction of properties, disruption of services and general suffe ring reached an all time
high‟.223 In the face of near standstill situation in the hill a tripartite agreement was signed
by the State Government, Central Government and the G.N.L.F. at the resplendent
Banquet Hall of the Raj Bhawan in Kolkata on August 22, 1988 which resulted in the
creation of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC). Furthermore, the GNLF, in the
overall national interest and response to Prime Minister Rajib Gandhi‟s call, agreed to
discard the demand for a separate state what GNLF called as Gorkhaland224 and agreed to
issue a call to its cadres to surrender all unauthorized arms to the district administration.

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Accordingly the „Arms Surrender‟ programme started on the 2 nd October, the birth day of
the worshipper of non-violence. Finally, the poll was held on 13th December, 1988 without
major incident and when the result was declared it came to light that the GNLF candidates
attained an overwhelming majority. Out of the 28 seats, the GNLF captured 26 while the
CPI-M could manage only 2. The elected councilors took oath in the last week of
December, 1988 and Subhas Ghising became the maiden Chairman of the Darjeeling
Gorkha Hill Council.225 Though in the Gram Panchayet election that was forced on the
hills on 26-03-1195, the GNLF refrained itself from fighting the election under the banner
of the party, yet it set up independent candidates and out of the 629 constituencies where
the election took place the independent candidates won 577 seats. Out of the remaining
seats CPI (M) own 47, Congress own 4 and CPI own 1 only. In the General Election of
1996 the GNLF participated in the Assembly elections and won all the three seats from the
hill sub-divisions. And again in the DGHC election held on March 17, 1999 the GNLF
won 27 out of 28 seats; the remaining one was won by Akhil Bhartiya Gorkha League
(ABGL) and thus the CPI-M was drawn blank. In the Municipal Election, held soon after
the DGHC election in May 1999, the GNLF became an undisputed victorious in
Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong.

Ghising‟s increasing popularity made the CPI-M and Congress more or less routed from
the hill politics. Both the parties must have tried to strengthen their respective influence
over the hill people but without noteworthy success. And even after the formation of the
DGHC, Ghising did not give up his demand for separate state. And on the issue of
separate state another round of movement had started in the hills under the leadership of
GJMM (Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha) that is however not the part of the present d iscussion
as it goes beyond the period of the study.

Thus, the influx of the refugees and the migrants has left a considerable influence on the
political scenario of West Bengal in various ways. On the one hand the refugees and
displaced Bengalis have played crucial role in bringing a political change under the banner
of the Left Parties in West Bengal on the other hand their arrival in North Bengal acted as
one of the many causes which brought about a series of socio-political unrests in this part
of Bengal. Simultaneously, the influx of the large number of Migrants from Nepal has
pushed the hilly region of Bengal into an environment of continuous upheavals. And now
what is needed for the solution of the problem, if the further bifurcation of West Bengal is

294
to be avoided, is to meet the economic grievances of the people of this region at the best
possible extent.

In fine it may be said, that the society, economy and polity of any state or any country are
bound to be changed with the passage of time. This is, in fact, the principle of History.
Changes come catching the hands of the various agents who act as the deciding factors in
course of this transition. And in case of West Bengal the refugees, displaced migrants,
economic migrants and the infiltrators have acted as strong agents of the social-economic
and political changes which it witnessed throughout these fifty three years i.e. from 1947-
2000.

295
 Notes and references

1. At the time of independence the area of West Bengal was 75,187 sq. km. After the
annexation of Cooch Behar in 1950 and French Chandannagar in 1954 the area of
West Bengal became 78,572 sq. km. In 1956 as per the recommendation of the State
Reorganization Commission Islampur subdivision of Uttar Dinajpur and Purulia were
amputated from Bihar and added to West Bengal thus attained its present shape.
Lekhak Samabay Samity, Bangla Amar Bangla, Published by Rupak Guha on behalf
of the Lekhak Samabay Samity, Kolkata, 1985, p.3.
2. Census Report, 1951.
3. Ibid.
4. Chakraborty, Satyesh C. „The Growth of Calcutta in the Twentieth Century‟ in
Chaudhury, Sukanta, (ed.), Calcutta-The Living City, Vol. II, Oxford University
Press: New Delhi, 1990, p.3.
5. Ibid., p.3.
6. Bustee is defined as an area of land occupied by collection of huts standing on a plot
of land not less than seven hundred square meters in area.
7. Bandyopadhyay, Raghab, „The Inheritors: Slum and Pavement Life in Calcutta‟ in
Chaudhury, Sukanta, (ed.), op.cit., p.86.
8. West Bengal –An Analytical Study, Sponsored by The Bengal Chamber of Commerce
& Industry, Calcutta, Oxford & IBH Publishing Co: New Delhi, 1971, p.65.
9. Census of India 1961, Vol. XVI, part I-A, book (i), p.175.
10. Ghosh, Ambikaprasad, „The Demography of Calcutta‟ in Chaudhury, Sukanta, (ed.),
op.cit. p.57.
11. Ibid.,p.57.
12. Bandyopadhyay, Raghab, op.cit., in Chaudhury, Sukanta, (ed.), op.cit., p.83.
13. Bagchi, Jasodhara, „Women in Calcutta: After Independence‟ in Chaudhury, Sukanta,
(ed.), op.cit., p.45.
14. Census of India, 2001.
15. Pakrashi, Kanti. B., The Uprooted: A Sociological Study of the Refugees of West
Bengal, India, Calcutta: Editions Indian, 1971, p.72.
16. Weber, Rachel, „Re (Creating) the Home: Women‟s Role in the Development of
Refugee Colonies in South Calcutta‟ in Bagchi, Jasodhara and Dasgupta, Sukharanjan

296
 (ed.), The Trauma and the Triumph- Gender and Partition in Eastern India, Stree:
Kolkata, 2006, pp.66-67.
17. Ibid., p.63.
18. Ibid., p.70.
19. Roy, Sabitri, Badwip, Nabpatra Prakashan: Kolkata, 1972, p.52.
20. Chakravarty, Gargi, Coming out of Partition: Refugee Women of West Bengal,
Bluejay Books: New Delhi, 2005, p.80.
21. Weber, Rachel, op.cit., in Bagchi, Jasodhara and Dasgupta, Sukharanjan (ed.), op.cit.,
p.72.
22. Ibid., p.74.
23. Chakrabarti, Prafulla Kumar, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political
Syndrome in West Bengal, Lumiere Books: Kalyani, 1990, p.95.
24. Chakravarty, Gargi, op.cit., pp.83-84.
25. Ibid., p.92.
26. Ibid., p.85.
27. Ibid., pp.85-86.
28. Ibid., p.84.
29. Ibid., p.92.
30. The word „Udavastu‟ was later omitted.
31. Rao, Bhaskar, The Story of Rehabilitation, Government of India: Delhi, 1967, p.173.
32. Sengupta, Nitish, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy; Jiban O Samaykal, Dey‟s Publishing:
Kolkata, 2009, p.106.
33. Ghosh, Ananda Gopal, Swadhinata Shat; Prasanga Chhere Asa Mati, Sahitya
Bhagirath Prakashani: Cooch Behar, 1416, p.57.
34. Chakrabarti, Prafulla K., op.cit., p.419.
35. Samaddar, Ranabir, „Still They Come-Migrants in the Post-Partition Bengal‟ in
Samaddar, Ranabir, (ed.), Reflections on Partition in the East, Vikas Publishing
House Pvt.: New Delhi, 1997, p.98.
36. Ghosh, Ananda Gopal, op.cit. p.123.
37. Ibid., p.123.
38. Ibid., pp.118-119.
39. Mandal, Monika, Settling the Unsettled- A Study of Partition Refugees in West
Bengal, Manohar: New Delhi, 2011, p.234.

297
40. The term Bangaal literally stands for a native of eastern Bengal. But it had pejorative
connotations, implying that these people were not sophisticated and was of rustic in
nature, while the Ghotis were considered to be the more sophisticated people of West
Bengal. Chatterji, Joya, Spoils of Partition –Bengal and India, 1947-67, Cambridge
University Press: New Delhi, 2007. p.221, See end note.
41. Mandal, Monika, op.cit., pp.235-36.
42. Bandyopadhyay, Sandip, Deshbhag-Deshtyag, Anustup: Kolkata, 2010, p.58. Sinha,
Kankar, Deshbhag Sankhyalaghu Sankat Bangladesh, published by Shubhapratim
Roychaudhury, 2011, Kolkata,p.39.
43. Sinha, Kankar, op.cit.,, p.32.
44. Ibid., p.32.
45. Barkat, Abul et al, Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh-Living with Vested
Property, Pathak Samabesh: Dhaka, 2008, pp.66-68.
46. Sinha, Kankar, op.cit., p.33.
47. Kumar, B. B. ‘Introduction’, in Kumar, B. B (ed.), Illegal Migration from
Bangladesh, Astha Bharati: Delhi, 2006, pp.1-2.
48. Census of India, 2001, * Adjusted data cited in Ray, Mohit, „Illegal Migration and
Undeclared Refugees – Idea of West Bengal at Stake‟, Source:
http://www.asthabharati.org
49. Ibid.
50. Pramanik, Bimal, ‘Illegal Migration from Bangladesh: A Case Study of West Bengal‟,
in Kumar, B. B. (ed.), op.cit., p.140.
51. Kumar, B, B, op.cit, in Kumar, B. B. (ed.), op.cit., p.2.
52. Ibid., p.3.
53. Ray, Jayanta Kumar, „Migration from (East Bengal/East Pakistan) Bangladesh to
India‟, in Kumar, B. B. (ed.), op.cit., p.42.
54. Ibid., p.45.
55. Debnath, Sailen, West Bengal in Doldrums, N.L. Publishers: Siliguri, West Bengal,
2009, pp. 250-52.
56. Bandyapadhyay, Barun, Pschimbanga: Thik Kotota Pichhiye, Prajanma Prakashan
Sangstha: Howrah, 2011, p.5.

298
57. West Bengal –An Analytical Study, p.21.
58. Ibid., p.22.
59. According to statistical survey 1956 just over half of all the East Bengal refugees
ended up in towns, Chatterji, Joya, op.cit, p.123. See end note.
60. De, Hanna, A, Unsettled Settlers; Migrant workers and industrial capitalism in
Calcutta, Rotterdam, 1994, pp 68-69.
61. Kaviraj Biseswar Nath of the Nath community of weavers demanded that after
partition 60,000 of his fellow caste members had settled in Nabadwip: Biseswar Nath
o Maulana Azad, 2 September1955, AICC-II, PB-21/1955, cited in Chatterji, Joya,
op.cit., p.123.
62. CMPO, Basic Development Plan, 1966-86, p.13 cited in West Bengal –An Analytical
Study, p.25.
63. Ibid., p.16, quoted in Ibid., p.26.
64. Chakraborty, Satyesh C. op.cit., in Chaudhury, Sukanta, (ed.), op.cit., pp.5-6.
65. Chakrabarti, Saroj, With Dr. B. C. Roy and Other Chief Ministers, Vol.1, Published by
Rajat Chakrabarti, Calcutta, N.D. , p.172.
66. Goswami, Omkar, „Calcutta‟s Economy 1918-1970 The Fall from Grace‟ in
Chaudhury, Sukanta, (ed.), op.cit., p. 94.
67. Luthra, P. N., Rehabilitation, Publications Division: New Delhi, 1972, p.6.
68. Chatterji, Joya, op.cit., p.157.
69. Rehabilitation of refugees, A Statistical Survey (1955), State Statistical Bureau,
Government of West Bengal, Alipore, 1956, p.3.
70. Chatterji, Joya, op.cit , p.145.
71. West Bengal-An Analytical Study, p.26.
72. Weber, Rachel, op.cit., in Bagchi, Jasodhara, and Dasgupta, Sukharanjan, (ed.),
op.cit., p.75.
73. Ibid., p.77.
74. Cakravarty, Gargi, op. cit., p. 90.
75. Rehabilitation of refugees, A Statistical Survey (1955), State Statistical Bureau,
Government of West Bengal, Alipore, 1956, p.4. Chatterji, Joya, op.cit., p.146.
76. Chatterji, Joya, op.cit., p.147.
77. Ibid., p.147. See foot note.

78. Ibid., p.147. See foot note.

299
79. Ibid., p.148.
80. Bose, Nirmal Kumar, Calcutta, 1964, a social survey (anthropological survey of
India) Bombay, New Delhi, Calcutta and Madras, 1968, p.32.
81. Chatterji, Joya, op.cit., p.157
82. Ibid., p.157.
83. Ibid., p.149.
84. Chakravarty, Gargi, op. cit., p.89.
85. Das, Samir Kumar, „India: Homelessness at Home‟ in Banerjee, Paula and others,
(ed.), Internal Displacement in South Asia-The Relevance of UN’s Guiding Principles,
Sage publication: New Delhi, 2005, p.135.
86. Ibid., p.135.
87. Ibid., p.135.
88. Chatterji, Joya, op.cit, p. 150.
89. Ibid., p. 150.
90. West Bengal- An Analytical Study, p.29.
91. Dutta, Ajoy Kumar and Roy, Joydip, „Land Reforms & Socio-Political Tensions: A
case Study of Alipurduar Block No.1‟ in Debnath, Sailen, (ed.), Social and Political
Tensions in North Bengal since 1947, N.L. Publishers: Siliguri, 2007, p.266.
92. West Bengal- An Analytical Study, p.80.
93. Ibid., p.80.
94. Ibid., p.82.
95. Debnath, Sailen, West Bengal in Doldrums, p.81.
96. Ibid., p.81.
97. Ibid., p.85.
98. Bandyapadhyay, Barun, op.cit.,p.68.
99. Ibid., p. 70.
100. Ibid., p. 70.
101. Yojna Dhanadhanye (Bengali), Unnayan Mulak Masik Patrika, May 2008, p.12.
102. Chatterjee, Nilanjana, „The East Bengal Refugees: A Lesson in Survival‟ in
Chaudhury, Sukanta, (ed.), op.cit., p.77.
103. Cahtterji, Joya, op.cit., p.212.
104. Ibid., p.291.
105. Ibid., p.214.

300
106. As the eastern districts of Bengal sent as many as 344 delegates to the All India
Congress Committee (AICC) while the western districts could send only 200
delegates to the AICC.
107. Sengupta, Nilendu, Bidhan Chandra O Samakal (1948-62), Ekush Shatak; Kolkata,
2010, p.96.
108. Ibid., p.98.
109. Chatterji, Joya, op.cit., pp.221-22.
110. Ibid., p.218.
111. ‘The heads of the provincial governments were designated as Prime Minister or
Premiers till the adoption of the Constitution on 26 January 1950.‟ G., Partha Sarathi,
(ed.), Jawaharlal Nehru-Letters to Chief Ministers 1947-49, Vol. I, Oxford University
Press: Delhi, 1985, p.1.
112. Chatterji, Joya, op.cit., pp.224-25.
113. Ibid., p.221.
114. Ibid., p. 291.
115. Chakrabarti, Prafulla K., op. cit., p.139.
116. Chakrabarti, Saroj, op.cit., p.121.
117. Sengupta, Sukhranjan, Banga Sanghar Ebang, Nayaudyog: Kolkata, 2002, p.146.
118. Ibid., p.142.
119. Chakraborty, Saroj., op.cit., pp.122-123.
120. Ibid., pp.124-125.
121. Sengupta, Nilendu, op.cit., p.282. However, there arose a conflict between Dr. Bidhan
Chandra Roy and Atulya Ghosh on the issue that Dr. Roy showed a tender attitude
towards Ram Chatterji, Ibid., p.282.
122. Chakravarti, Prafulla K., op. cit., pp. 67-68
123. Ibid., p. 68.
124. As the moral energies of the party was exhausted by the trauma of more than two

years of uprising and internal disagreement. Ajoy Ghosh and Ghate had given a

description how the adventurist line of Ranadive and Rajeshwar Rao affected the

Party: „The party membership had dropped from 1, 00,000 to 20,000; complete

stagnation and paralysis prevailed in the Communist trade unions; the peasant

organization had been practically wiped out, and the party itself was in a state of

301
 paralysis and disintegration.‟ Chandra, Prabodh, ‘On A note on the Present situation

in our Party’ PHQ Open Forum, No.12, October 1949, pp.4-5.

125. Chakrabarti, Prafulla K., op. cit., pp. 76-77.

126. Myron, Weiner, Party Building in a New Nation, The Indian National Congress,
Chicago, 1967, p.352.
127. Chatterji, Joya, op.cit., pp.290-91.
128. Chakrabarti, Prafulla K., op.cit., p.123.
129. Chatterji, Joya, op.cit., p.275.
130. Franda, Marcus, Radical Politics in West Bengal, Cambridge, 1971, p.116.
131. Basu, Jyoti, Memoirs: A Political Biography, Aniruddha Chakraborty, National Book
Agency Private Limited: Kolkata, 1999, p.78.
132. Ibid., p.78.
133. Chakrabarti, Prafulla K. op. cit., p.134.
134. Ibid., p.139.
135. Ibid., p.331.
136. Ibid., p.334.
137. Ibid., pp. 336-7.
138. Cancellation of the enhanced second class tram fares; withdrawal of the ban under
Section 144 clamped on the city; immediate release of all persons arrested in
connection with the TFERC movement; judicial enquiry into Jadavpur, Asansol and
Amherst Street police firings. Ibid., p.339.
139. „(1) Immediate and unconditional release of all persons arrested in connection with
the resistance movement; (2) judicial enquiry into police atrocities; adequate
compensation to the families of the killed and the injured; (3)Adequate compensation
to the families of the killed and the injured; (4) non- victimization of the employees of
Government and other institutions; (5) no increase in the second class tram fares;(6)
pay for the period of strike and grant of loans to Tramway workers‟ Ibid., pp.342-343.
140. Ibid., p. 343.
141. Ibid., p.344.
142. Ibid., p. 344-45.
143. Basu, Jyoti, op.cit. p.71.
144. Sengupta, Nilendu, op.cit., p. 166.

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145. Ghosh, Atulya, (ed.), Towards a Prosperous India Speeches and Writings of Bidhan
Chandra Roy, Calcutta, July, 1964, p.207.
146. Cakrabarti, Prafulla K., op. cit., p. 350.
147. Chakraborty, Saroj., op.cit., p.131.
148. Cakrabarti, Prafulla K., op. cit., p. 350.
149. Basu, Jyoti, op. cit., p.71.
150. Cakrabarti, Prafulla K.,op. cit., p.353.
151. Chakraborty, Shyamal, 60-70 Er Chhatra Andolan, published by Aniruddha
Chakraborty, National Book Agency, 2011, p.52.
152. Chakrabarti, Prafulla K., op. cit., p.381.
153. Chakraborty, Shyamal, op. cit., p.235.
154. Chakrabarti, Prafulla K., op. cit., p.381.
155. Yojna Dhanadhanye (Bengali), Unnayan Mulak Masik Patrika, July, 2008, p.13.
156. Chakrabarti, Prafulla K., op. cit., pp. 399-400.
157. Ibid., p.402.
158. Ibid., p.403-404.
159. Ibid., p.407.
160. Communist Party of India (CPI-M), A Review of the 1999 Parliamentary Elections,
New Delhi: CPI-M, 1999, p.5.
161. The indifference of the Left Front Government towards the displaced Bengalis at the
local level and the anti-Muslim propaganda and Hindu nostalgic agenda of the right
wing political forces made them popular among the displaced persons living in the
border districts, Calcutta and its suburbs. Dasgupta, Abhijit, „The Politics of
Agitation and Confession: displaced Bengalis in West Bengal‟ in Roy, Sanjay K.,
(ed.), Refugees and Human Rights; social and political dynamics of refugee problem
in eastern and north-eastern India, Rawat Publication: Jaipur and New Delhi, p.126.
162. Chaudhury, Pranati, „Refugees in West Bengal. A study of the growth and distribution
of refugee settlement within the CMD‟, Occasional Paper No. 55, Centre for Studies
in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 1983.
163. Census Report, 1971.

164. Barman, Lalit Chandra, Rajyer Dabite Uttarbange Andolan, N. L. Publishers: Siliguri,

2008, pp.9-10.

303
165. Barma, Sukhbilash, „Preface‟, in Barma, Sukhbilash, (ed.), Socio-Political Movements
in North Bengal, Vol. 1, Global Vision Publishing House: New Delhi, 2007, p. xi- xii.
166. Ibid., p.6.
167. Barma, Sukhbilas, „North Bengal and Its People‟ in Barma, Sukhbilas (ed.), op.cit.,
Vol. 1, p.5.
168. Ibid., p.5.
169. Dakua, Dinesh Chandra, „A Journey from Hitasadhani to Greater Kuch Bihar‟ in
Barma, Sukhbilas (ed.), op.cit., Vol. 1, p.58.
170. The West Bengal Land Reforms (Amendment) Act, 1977 says that „a person lawfully
cultivating any land belonging to another person shall be presumed to be a bargadar in
respect of such land if such person is not a member of the family of the other person
whose land he cultivates‟, Chattaopadhyay, Subhas, „Land Reforms and Rural
Development in West Benga‟, in Ray, Biswanath, (ed.), West Bengal Today; A Fresh
Look, Mittal Publications: 1993, p.101.
171. Acharya, Sukanta, „At „Work‟ in West Bengal: The Bhdralok, Communists, Peasants
and Others‟, in Jadavpur Journal of International Relations, Volume-7, 2002-2003,
Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, p.214.
172. Sutradhar, Kartik Chandra, ‘Bhumi Samskar Andolan o taar Probhab: Prasanga
Uttarbanga‟, in K. C. Sutradhar, P. Bhaowal & M. Khatun (ed.), Bibartaner Dharay
Uttarbanger Samaj, Arthaniti O Sanskriti, Deepali Publishers: Malda, 2010, p.72.
173. Debnath, Sailen, West Bengal in Doldrums, p.191.
174. The Government servants were told that they would have the opportunity to give
„option‟ for living either in Pakistan or India or leaving any of them. Bandyopadhyay,
Sandip, op.cit., p.38.
Prafulla Ghosh, the Chief Minister of West Bengal in 1947 announced, all the Hindu
officers of East Bengal would get the option to choose India as their base of operation.
And thus eighteen out of the nineteen Muslim ICS officers in Bengal, opted to join the
Government of Pakistan; while all the Hindu ICS officers opted to serve in India. Roy,
Haimanti, Citizenship and National Identity in Post-Partition Bengal, 1947-65, A
Dissertation submitted to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the
University of Cincinnati, p.135.
175. The Namasudra Kulguru instructed;‘Vidya chhara katha nai, vidya karo saar. Vidya

dharma, vidya karma, anya sab chhaar. (There is nothing to say without education,

304
 make education your motto. Education is religion, education is work and anything else

is worthless.) Pal, Babul Kumar, Barishal Theke Dandakaranya;Purbabanger

Krishijibi Udvastur Punarbashan Itihas, Grantha Mitra: Calcutta, 2010, p.148.

176. Dakua, Dinesh Chandra, op.cit., in Barma, Sukhbilas (ed.), op.cit., Vol. 1, pp.58-59.
177. Ibid., p.58.
178. Ray, Haripada, „The Genesis of Uttarkhanda Movement‟ in Barma, Sukhbilas (ed.),
op.cit., Vol. 1, p.122.
179. Ibid., p.121.
180. Ibid., p.131.
181. Ibid., p.122.
182. Ibid., p.129.
183. Das, Dhirendra Nath, Regional Movements, Ethnicity and Politics, Abhijit
Publications: Delhi, 2005, p.85.
184. Ibid., pp.85-86.
185. Ibid., p.86.
186. Das, Naren, „Uttar Banga Tapasili Jati O Adibashi Sangathan (UTJAS): A Dalit
Student Movement‟ in Barma, Sukhbilas (ed.), op.cit., Vol. 1, p.158.
187. Ibid., p.159.
188. Das, Dhirendranath, op. cit., p.107.
189. Das, Naren, op.cit., in Barma, Sukhbilash, (ed.), op.cit., Vol. 1, pp.162-63.
190. Barman, Jitendra Nath, „Why Kamtapur State?‟ in Barma, Sukhbilas (ed.), Socio-
Political Movements in North Bengal, Vol. 2, Global Vision Publishing House, New
Delhi, 2007, p.279.
191. Debnath, Sailen, West Bengal in Doldrums, p.195.
192. Barman, Jitendra Nath, op.cit., in Barma, Sukhbilas (ed.), op.cit., Vol. 2, pp.283-4.
193. Ibid., pp.286.
194. Ibid., p.290.
195. Barma, Sukhbilas, „Greater Kuch Bihar-A Utopian Movement?‟ Barma, Sukhbilas
(ed.), op.cit., Vol. 2, p.362.
196. Ibid., p.365.
197. Debnath, Sailen, West Bengal in Doldrums, pp.207-8.
198. Barma, Sukhbilas, „Greater Kuch Bihar-A Utopian Movement?‟ in Barma, Sukhbilas
(ed.), op.cit., Vol. 2, pp.370-71.

305
199. Barman, Jitendra Nath, op.cit., in Barma, Sukhbilash, (ed.), op.cit., vol.2, p.289.
200. Ibid., p.289.
201. Ibid., p.289.
202. Debnath, Sailen, West Bengal in Doldrums, p.199.
203. Ibid., p.204.
204. Ibid., p.204.
205. „200 villages in Birbhum and Bankura only in 19 days made arrangement for the
rehabilitation of the 2,600 refugee families who were lying at the stations of Calcutta.
Arrangements were made for living and working for 13,000 refugees including male,
female and children. Seeing it, 3,000 villages also made arrangement for the
rehabilitation of the six lakhs refugees…the students carried the articles of the
refugees by their own shoulder . Poddar, Samir Saha, Ajker Unnayane Bidhan Roy-
Ekti Mulyayan, Calcutta, 2010, p.122.
206. West Bengal –An Analytical Study, p.47.
207. Ghosh, Ananda Gopal, „The Hitasadhani Sabha-Power Struggle by the „Cooch
Beharis‟ in Barma, Sukhbilas (ed.), op.cit., Vol. 1, pp.98-99.
208. Debnath, Sailen, West Bengal in Doldrums, p.210.
209. L S S O‟ Malley, Darjeeling District Gazetteer, Gyan Publishing House: New Delhi,
1907, p.35.
210. Ibid., p. 35.
211. Ibid., p.36.
212. Pradhan, Tushar, „Gorkhaland or Ghishing‟s Land?‟ in Barma, Sukhbilas, (ed.),
op.cit., Vol. 2, p.310.
„The term Gorkha denotes the disciple of a great saint, philosopher and Yogi named
Guru Gorakh Nath who happened to live in Northern India…Guru Gorakh Nath had
gathered many disciple and then taught and trained them. In course of time Nepalese
and others who were his disciples…began to be known as Gorkhalese or Gorkhas.‟
Upadhay, Purushottam, Nepalese and Gorkhas in India, Voice of Love Publications:
Shillong-2, 1986, pp.7-8.
However, the Gorkhas claim their descent from „the ancient Hindu Rajputs and
Brahmins of Northern India, who immigrated in present day Nepal from the West.‟
Baral, K. K., „Issues and Challenges of Ethnic Integration in North-East India: A Case
Study of the Gorkhas‟, in Chakma, Bindu Ranjan, and Dutta, Rajshree, (ed.), Ethnic

306
 Integration in North-East India: Issues and Challenges, Excel India Publishers: New
Delhi, 2013, p.69.
213. Pradhan, Tushar, op.cit., in Barma, Sukhbilas (ed.), op.cit., Vol. 2, p.309.
214. Samanta, Amiya K, Ghorkha land Movement, A.P.H. Publishing Corporation: New
Delhi, 2000, p.98.
215. Pradhan, Tushar, op.cit., in Barma, Sukhbilas (ed.), op.cit., Vol. 2, p.310.
216. Samanta, Amiya Kumar, op.cit., p.98.
217. „in consideration of the political situation after the Partition and independence, the
CPI kept the demand for separate Gorkhastan a low key and eventually in 1951,
…(sic) revised its earlier stand. It asked for complete regional autonomy and regional
Government „in substitution of the right of self determination of the national
minorities. The boundaries of the proposed autonomus region were changed, by
dropping Nepal and Sikkim from the plan…from 1952 onwards, the Communists did
not reiterate the Gorkhastan demand.‟ Ibid., p.99.
218. Ibid., p.99.
219. Ibid., p.88.
220. Eventually in 1992 the Nepali Language was incorporated in the Eighth Schedule by
the 71st amendment of the constitution. Ibid., pp.85-86.
221. Ibid., pp.120-121.
222. Ibid., p.133.
223. Patra, D. P., „Seasons of Discontents‟ in Barma, Sukhbilas, (ed.), op.cit., Vol. 2,
pp.327-328. In those days this had become a popular saying that „one can be merciful
with a snake but not with those who opposes Gorkhaland.‟ Sarkar, Swatahsiddha,
Gorkhaland Movement: Ethnic Conflict and State Response, Concept Publishing
Company Pvt. Ltd.: New Delhi, 2013, p.73.
224. Debnath, Sailen, West Bengal in Doldrums, p.157.
225. Ibid., p.160.

307