GADCHIROLI : Bijoy Das was 20 when he found himself left in the middle of the treacherous Dandakaranya forests of central India. More than 50 years later, he still shudders to think of the circumstances that forced him and countless other Hindus to leave their ancestral home in the then East Pakistan and seek refuge in India. Circumstances that are echoed again in the reports of violence against minorities in Bangladesh following the recent ouster of PM Sheikh Hasina. As more Bangladeshi Hindus mass at the border to seek shelter in a new country, the settlers from the previous decades find themselves reliving their story of loss, displacement and the long wait for legal recognition from Indian govt.
‘No Choice But To Flee’
Now 72, Das’s voice still quavers when he recalls the funeral of his sister back in his village. “They dragged her away. She kept screaming for help. As a young boy, I could only stand petrified. She was raped and killed. Her name was Dulaan. We later found her body in the river,” he says staring out of the window of his hut in Pakhanjore village on the southern tip of the Maoist heartland of Bastar. The area is more than 1,400km away from the home he left behind by the banks of Laukhati river, 250km from Dhaka.
Standing next to Das, an elderly Somaresh Singha recounts a chilling tale of escape. “My father walked out of his burning home in a burqa, helped by sympathetic Muslim neighbours in Charbat village in Faridpur district. Mobs were on a killing spree and had kidnapped scores of girls. There was no choice but to flee,” he says.
Das and Singha’s families crossed over to India on foot. Once here, they were bundled into trains or trucks and brought to Mana tran- sit camp near Raipur, then in Madhya Pradesh (now part of Chhattisgarh). After sheltering for months in tents in dense forests, they were settled in hamlets that are now part of the Maoist Red corridor. There are 2.8 lakh East Bengali refugees spread across 300 camps in these forests, including in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district.
A History of Violence
The killing and persecution in East Pakistan had begun long before the world woke up to it in 1971. The 1964 Dhaka riots, sparked by Kashmir’s Hazratbal shrine incident, pointed to East Pakistan’s descent into intolerance. Operation Searchlight of 1970-71, led by Pakistani army and Razakar militia, marked a period of unspeakable agony for millions of Bengali Hindus.
Kalikrishna Biswas, 75, whose entire family was massacred, says “the Razakar militia unleashed by the Pakistan army were brutal”. As violence increased, lakhs fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Amar Mandal, originally from Khulna district, recalls crossing the Padma river at night, wading through waterlogged fields as mothers pressed down on their children’s mouths to muffle cries that could betray their presence. He was separated for years from his father, who had stayed back. “One day, a telegram came from my father. He was standing at the Indian border, having borrowed money to reach there. He was lucky to be reunited with his family in Gadchiroli,” says Mandal.
Fight For Survival
But the struggle for Mandal and the thousands like him didn’t end when they reached India. As they tried to start a new life, they found they had a new threat to deal with inside the dense forests. “Many children and elderly were mauled by tigers. There DhakaBangladesh Kolkata 1,400km is not a single village where people didn’t fall prey to wild animals. Slowly, we cleared the forests and made the place habitable and grew crops,” says Sunil Biswas, a settler since 1970. But the land was infertile and the produce barely enough to feed their families. “After each harvest, we would look for odd jobs to make ends meet,” he adds.
Many refugees sought to return to the newly formed Bangladesh post 1971, but efforts in that direction proved abortive. Biswas says the 1979 ‘Marichjhapi massacre’ in the Sundarbans “by police in Leftruled West Bengal doused any hope of getting closer home”. “We took Dandakaranya to be our abode and made peace with the wild,” he adds.
But relations with the local tribals have been testy. “Initially, the adivasis were indifferent towards us, but tensions have grown over the years,” says one of the settlers. Sporadic campaigns to oust refugees have sparked fears among settlers. “We are scared. We pray that Pakhanjore does not end up becoming like Bangladesh,” he says.
A Question Of Identity
The residents of these refugee hamlets have held on to their Bengali culture and beliefs. In ‘Ghot’ or village No.53, the sound of evening prayers echoes through the air. A red ‘gamcha’ tied with rice and jaggery — a lucky charm — adorns each doorway. Inside, images of ‘Lokkhi Thakur’ (Goddess Laxmi) grace the walls.
Settlers in Dandakaranya can be divided into two groups: those who came via official channels from East Pakistan between 1964 and 1971, and those who migrated after the formation of Bangladesh in 1971. The first group received a ‘border slip’ as proof of their refugee status. Others settled without documents. Some managed to carry only a few valuables or just the family deity or a photograph.
For first-generation refugees like Jyotishchandra Sarkar, the effort to establish a home has been lifelong. “We broke rocks, cleared forests and built a liveable place in the wilds,” says Sarkar, now 87. Today, the border slip of 1985 is his only identity proof.
Sukhendu Chakraborty, 68, a resident of Ghot No.20 in Gadchiroli, says they managed to flourish “despite the identity crisis and acute hardships”. “In those years, there was hardly any govt footprint here. Nowadays, officials and netas visit these forests with commandos and minesweepers. But we made peace with nature and the inhabitants. Adversity has hardened our will to survive, but we pray for stability and recognition,” he says.
Still Stateless
Decades after they arrived in India, Chakraborty and countless others remain stateless. They cultivated the land, raised families, and found a livelihood, but the struggle to become Indian citizens continues.
Many have managed to find a footing, some have benefited from govt programmes that gave them jobs, land and the chance to build small businesses and farms. However, their progress has not been without setbacks. Bengali medium schools, which were once specially set up by the govt for refugee children, have been shut down while many claim they are excluded from govt schemes. Many settlers till the land without official ownership.
“We have lived here for decades, but we are still waiting for recognition,” Bipin Bepari, a member of Nikhil Bharat Bangali Samanbay Samiti (NBBSS), voices the frustration of many.
Jatin Karmakar (name changed), a grocery shop owner, is euphoric that his son landed a corporate job. While he leads a regular life in India, complexities still surround his legal status. “I have an Aadhaar card and a voter ID, but I am still not an Indian citizen,” he says. Settlers say they need the bor der slip for citizenship documentation, which Karmakar doesn’t have.
Kalikrishna Ghose came to India in 1982 but, like many others, finds himself occupying a grey zone when it comes to citizenship. “I came through an agent. There are many in Bangladesh who help you cross the border. After staying in Kolkata for a while, I settled in Chamorshi in Gadchiroli in 1989, where my kin were already living,” he says.
Waiting On CAA
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) seemed like a beacon of hope for these refugees. CAA, enacted in 2019, paves the way to Indian citizenship for religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who arrived in India by 2014. However, many settlers have found the process difficult, especially those who lack documents to prove their eligibility. “Many are not applying because they don’t have documents,” says Subhodh Biswas, president of NBBSS. Of 221 applications filed by them so far under CAA, only six were successful.
The ongoing political turmoil in Bangladesh has triggered another wave of attacks on Bengali Hindus. “My brother keeps calling me on WhatsApp, asking me to come and take him to India,” says Krishna Bose of Chamorshi. “No one is buying our property there. They want Hindus to abandon everything and leave so it can be an easy smash-and-grab,” he says.
Recently, about 10,000 Bengali settlers gathered at Pakhanjore and urged the Centre to open its borders for Hindus from Bangladesh. Biswas says his outfit plans to hold similar rallies across Bengali pockets before launching an agitation on Sept 23 at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi.
‘No Choice But To Flee’
Now 72, Das’s voice still quavers when he recalls the funeral of his sister back in his village. “They dragged her away. She kept screaming for help. As a young boy, I could only stand petrified. She was raped and killed. Her name was Dulaan. We later found her body in the river,” he says staring out of the window of his hut in Pakhanjore village on the southern tip of the Maoist heartland of Bastar. The area is more than 1,400km away from the home he left behind by the banks of Laukhati river, 250km from Dhaka.
Standing next to Das, an elderly Somaresh Singha recounts a chilling tale of escape. “My father walked out of his burning home in a burqa, helped by sympathetic Muslim neighbours in Charbat village in Faridpur district. Mobs were on a killing spree and had kidnapped scores of girls. There was no choice but to flee,” he says.
Das and Singha’s families crossed over to India on foot. Once here, they were bundled into trains or trucks and brought to Mana tran- sit camp near Raipur, then in Madhya Pradesh (now part of Chhattisgarh). After sheltering for months in tents in dense forests, they were settled in hamlets that are now part of the Maoist Red corridor. There are 2.8 lakh East Bengali refugees spread across 300 camps in these forests, including in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district.
A History of Violence
The killing and persecution in East Pakistan had begun long before the world woke up to it in 1971. The 1964 Dhaka riots, sparked by Kashmir’s Hazratbal shrine incident, pointed to East Pakistan’s descent into intolerance. Operation Searchlight of 1970-71, led by Pakistani army and Razakar militia, marked a period of unspeakable agony for millions of Bengali Hindus.
Kalikrishna Biswas, 75, whose entire family was massacred, says “the Razakar militia unleashed by the Pakistan army were brutal”. As violence increased, lakhs fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Amar Mandal, originally from Khulna district, recalls crossing the Padma river at night, wading through waterlogged fields as mothers pressed down on their children’s mouths to muffle cries that could betray their presence. He was separated for years from his father, who had stayed back. “One day, a telegram came from my father. He was standing at the Indian border, having borrowed money to reach there. He was lucky to be reunited with his family in Gadchiroli,” says Mandal.
Fight For Survival
But the struggle for Mandal and the thousands like him didn’t end when they reached India. As they tried to start a new life, they found they had a new threat to deal with inside the dense forests. “Many children and elderly were mauled by tigers. There DhakaBangladesh Kolkata 1,400km is not a single village where people didn’t fall prey to wild animals. Slowly, we cleared the forests and made the place habitable and grew crops,” says Sunil Biswas, a settler since 1970. But the land was infertile and the produce barely enough to feed their families. “After each harvest, we would look for odd jobs to make ends meet,” he adds.
Many refugees sought to return to the newly formed Bangladesh post 1971, but efforts in that direction proved abortive. Biswas says the 1979 ‘Marichjhapi massacre’ in the Sundarbans “by police in Leftruled West Bengal doused any hope of getting closer home”. “We took Dandakaranya to be our abode and made peace with the wild,” he adds.
But relations with the local tribals have been testy. “Initially, the adivasis were indifferent towards us, but tensions have grown over the years,” says one of the settlers. Sporadic campaigns to oust refugees have sparked fears among settlers. “We are scared. We pray that Pakhanjore does not end up becoming like Bangladesh,” he says.
A Question Of Identity
The residents of these refugee hamlets have held on to their Bengali culture and beliefs. In ‘Ghot’ or village No.53, the sound of evening prayers echoes through the air. A red ‘gamcha’ tied with rice and jaggery — a lucky charm — adorns each doorway. Inside, images of ‘Lokkhi Thakur’ (Goddess Laxmi) grace the walls.
Settlers in Dandakaranya can be divided into two groups: those who came via official channels from East Pakistan between 1964 and 1971, and those who migrated after the formation of Bangladesh in 1971. The first group received a ‘border slip’ as proof of their refugee status. Others settled without documents. Some managed to carry only a few valuables or just the family deity or a photograph.
For first-generation refugees like Jyotishchandra Sarkar, the effort to establish a home has been lifelong. “We broke rocks, cleared forests and built a liveable place in the wilds,” says Sarkar, now 87. Today, the border slip of 1985 is his only identity proof.
Sukhendu Chakraborty, 68, a resident of Ghot No.20 in Gadchiroli, says they managed to flourish “despite the identity crisis and acute hardships”. “In those years, there was hardly any govt footprint here. Nowadays, officials and netas visit these forests with commandos and minesweepers. But we made peace with nature and the inhabitants. Adversity has hardened our will to survive, but we pray for stability and recognition,” he says.
Still Stateless
Decades after they arrived in India, Chakraborty and countless others remain stateless. They cultivated the land, raised families, and found a livelihood, but the struggle to become Indian citizens continues.
Many have managed to find a footing, some have benefited from govt programmes that gave them jobs, land and the chance to build small businesses and farms. However, their progress has not been without setbacks. Bengali medium schools, which were once specially set up by the govt for refugee children, have been shut down while many claim they are excluded from govt schemes. Many settlers till the land without official ownership.
“We have lived here for decades, but we are still waiting for recognition,” Bipin Bepari, a member of Nikhil Bharat Bangali Samanbay Samiti (NBBSS), voices the frustration of many.
Jatin Karmakar (name changed), a grocery shop owner, is euphoric that his son landed a corporate job. While he leads a regular life in India, complexities still surround his legal status. “I have an Aadhaar card and a voter ID, but I am still not an Indian citizen,” he says. Settlers say they need the bor der slip for citizenship documentation, which Karmakar doesn’t have.
Kalikrishna Ghose came to India in 1982 but, like many others, finds himself occupying a grey zone when it comes to citizenship. “I came through an agent. There are many in Bangladesh who help you cross the border. After staying in Kolkata for a while, I settled in Chamorshi in Gadchiroli in 1989, where my kin were already living,” he says.
Waiting On CAA
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) seemed like a beacon of hope for these refugees. CAA, enacted in 2019, paves the way to Indian citizenship for religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who arrived in India by 2014. However, many settlers have found the process difficult, especially those who lack documents to prove their eligibility. “Many are not applying because they don’t have documents,” says Subhodh Biswas, president of NBBSS. Of 221 applications filed by them so far under CAA, only six were successful.
The ongoing political turmoil in Bangladesh has triggered another wave of attacks on Bengali Hindus. “My brother keeps calling me on WhatsApp, asking me to come and take him to India,” says Krishna Bose of Chamorshi. “No one is buying our property there. They want Hindus to abandon everything and leave so it can be an easy smash-and-grab,” he says.
Recently, about 10,000 Bengali settlers gathered at Pakhanjore and urged the Centre to open its borders for Hindus from Bangladesh. Biswas says his outfit plans to hold similar rallies across Bengali pockets before launching an agitation on Sept 23 at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi.
