Blood Island

by Deep Halder

  ‘There was a meeting in Bhilai, where Jyoti Basu himself had made a promise to refugees that they would be welcomed back with open arms once the Left came to power in West Bengal. What led to the conflict was the fact that the refugees were operating under the Udbastu Unnayansil Samity, and the Left wanted the Samity to function as its branch. If it did that, the outfit could no longer carry out independent movements. But it refused to do so; it snubbed offers to attach itself to any political party. And that’s where the trouble began.

  ‘In Tripura, for example, all adivasis were communists, while the Bengali refugees were affiliated to the Congress. However, in 1977, the refugees voted for the Left Front and the CPI(M) came to power in that state. So, the Left leaders felt that if the refugees stayed where they were, outside Bengal, the Left’s power would proliferate across India. In fact, in Bastar, erstwhile Madhya Pradesh, a CPI candidate had won the local elections. The Left leaders didn’t want the refugees to come to Bengal.

  ‘I had written about this strategy of the Left’s in Anandabazar Patrika, when I was asked to analyze the reason behind its stiff resistance to refugee resettlement in Marichjhapi. I had also translated and published two letters – one by Jyoti Basu himself and the other by Samar Mukherjee, written in 1961, to the then relief and rehabilitation minister Prafulla Sen against the resettlement of the refugees in Dandakaranya. Who would imagine that these very people would not only refuse them land, but kill them mercilessly when they refused to follow the state’s arbitrary orders?

  ‘What’s worse is the government didn’t stop its efforts to evict these refugees even during the devastating floods of 1978. To help them, Jyotirmoy Dutta, noted poet and journalist, arranged a cultural function where celebrity singers such as Suchitra Mitra, Debabrata Biswas, Nirmalendu Chowdhury, Hemanta Mukherjee [incidentally, most of them were Left sympathizers] performed to raise money.’

  ‘What about the government’s claim that refugees were felling trees on the island?’ I ask next.

  ‘That’s a lie. These refugees were from East Pakistan, which has an abundance of water bodies. Fish breeding was in their blood. Even in Dandakaranya, a mainly arid land, whenever they had access to ponds, they would cultivate fish and send them to Calcutta. At Marichjhapi, they cultivated galda chingri[lobsters], which were high priced and in demand. They also worked in fields, built a school and a hospital, where two doctors from outside the island came to work for the islanders. They never cut trees.

  ‘The police mixed poison in the water source of the hospital inside the island. Children died, doctors sent the water for examination and the truth was out. During the Marichjhapi operations, one of the doctors who would come to the island regularly fled to Bangladesh. Every time he tried to come back, there would be raids on him. His home was in Maslandapur in North 24 Parganas. He shifted base to Helencha in Bagda, but they raided him there too. Then he had to flee to Uttarakhand, which had a sizeable population of Bengali refugees. He was later discovered to be in Indore. The Left government was ruthless in its pursuit of islanders, both before and after it crushed them in Marichjhapi.

  ‘We newspapermen could have done more, but reports were too few and far between. The media proprietors were worried about the state government stopping advertisements,’ Haldar says.

  ‘What about legal help?’

  ‘There was a man called Debabrata from the island. When the economic blockade started, he went to barrister Niharendu Dutta Majumdar and his junior Sakya Sen. The government flouted the court’s order against economic restrictions. When the island was torched in May 1979, Majumdar and Sen filed another case, after their inspection of the burnt-down island, as instructed by the court. When they came back and submitted the report, the Bench had changed, it was headed by Justice B.C. Basak, known to be close to Jyoti Basu. The court dismissed the case, saying it was a reserved area and the Marichjhapi dwellers were encroachers. Thus ended any hope of legal deliverance.

  ‘The fact is that these refugees were a self-sufficient, independent lot – they used to manufacture bidis and sell them. They used to make bread and sell that, the flour for which was also grown by them, along with fish cultivation, boat-making … This self-sufficiency was a threat to CPI(M)’s core policy – help the needy, the downtrodden, in exchange for their support, vis-à-vis votes. But the Marichjhapi people didn’t want anything from the government; all they wanted was a place to stay.

  ‘The government’s dirty tricks department stooped very low to break the backbone of the refugees. In Kumirmari, I met a boy from Marichjhapi who had tried to set the island on fire. He couldn’t. It was later discovered that the government, via the block development officer, had enticed him with the promise of a livelihood as a road construction worker.

  ‘During the economic restrictions on the island, there was no food as all aid was prevented from reaching islanders. People had resorted to killing crows to feed themselves. It was that bad.’

  ‘If it was a different government, would you say things could have been different?’ I ask him.

  Weariness creeps in like a quiet thief on the chronicler’s face. ‘Thejananetri [peoples’ leader], Mamata Banerjee, who came to power in 2011 with chants of “Maa Mati Manush” [Mother, Homeland and People], had promised a judicial probe into the Marichjhapi massacre. After coming to power, she called a few survivors scattered here and there, and gave them rice at Rs 2 per kilo and a special ration card. That is the price that was fixed for the lives lost, and the indignities heaped on thousands.

  ‘It is the nature of power. The strange thing is, even today, if you try to go to Marichjhapi, you will see policemen keeping a close watch on the island. What or who is being guarded is a mystery. Humanity died on that island in 1979.’

  January 2018, Bose Pukur, Kolkata

  5

  Sakya Sen

  P

  alm Avenue. One of south Kolkata’s most upscale colonies is, ironically, where the last communist chief minister of West Bengal currently stays. You can’t, of course, grudge Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee a fancy address when the party he has spent a lifetime in has been guilty of worse crimes.

  Around me are swish apartments, no more than a few decades old, some even younger. But the house I walk into is a lone wolf from a bygone era, proudly standing apart from its showy, younger peers, with a smirk of having seen it all.

  14/1/B, Palm Avenue houses advocate Sakya Sen, now in his seventies, who, at thirty, had fought for the hunted of Marichjhapi and tried to give them justice. This city lawyer stood up for those whose backs were broken, homes burnt, near ones snatched away at night’s end.

  He had lost.

  The chamber I am taken to is full of fat books and yellowing stacks of legal papers. As I take my seat opposite him, Sen sounds out a cautionary note, ‘If you want precise dates of events, I may end up disappointing you.’

  I assure him I am not looking at a chronological re-telling of Marichjhapi; rather, how and why he got involved in a losing fight. Why would a young man, at the dawn of his career, take up a case like this? What was the motivation?

  ‘Those were different times; you practised law to serve people. I started my law practice around 1973 under the guidance of Niharendu Dutta Majumdar, a barrister in the Calcutta High Court. I heard about Marichjhapi in 1978, when I was around thirty years old. An association named Amra Bangali [We, the Bengalis] that was fighting the cause of refugees seeking rehabilitation approached us for legal help. They introduced us to the tragedy of Marichjhapi.

  ‘As they were fighting for homeless Bengali refugees who, after being uprooted from their homeland, were facing displacement yet again, that too unfairly; my senior and I felt we should help Amra Bangali.’

  Amra Bangali, Sen tells me, played a big role in the legal battle that took place against the state, since the association, as a singular unit, was the second petitioner in the case of the People of Marichjhapi against the State of West Bengal, the first petitioner being Debabrata Biswa
s, a resident of the island.

  ‘You must have heard this? Even before they came to power in 1977, Left leaders, including Jyoti Basu, had extended invitation to refugees – then in Dandakaranya camps – to come to Bengal?’ Sen asks me.

  ‘I have heard this from many quarters. Is that, documented?’

  ‘There was no written document, but I know that on more than one occasion, prominent Left leaders had promised them rehabilitation in West Bengal once they came to power, that too in public speeches. They were even allowed to come in for five to six years, before 1978. The Left government or its predecessor didn’t stop them from settling in Marichjhapi.

  ‘Before 1978, I wasn’t even aware of Marichjhapi. When the state began the economic blockade against the inhabitants of the island, and when members of Amra Bangali informed us that this is happening, we made an appeal to the Calcutta High Court. For me, it was a matter of fighting for the homeless. These people had come all the way from Bangladesh, why should they be arrested if they had not committed any crime? Why would there be economic blockade against those who were trying to earn a livelihood without disrupting anyone else’s life?

  ‘I can recollect an incident, which is not in any way related to the case, but might help you understand why Marichjhapi affected me so deeply. On my way to court once, I saw a man lying on the street near the All India Radio building in Kolkata. There was a big crowd inside the court, and I had to attend to a case, but I couldn’t get the man out of my mind. I went back, fetched him food, gave him my address and some money; whatever little I could afford in those days.’

  Sen tells me that this is almost a family tradition, fighting the good fight for people who can’t. His paternal grandfather had helped revolutionaries during days of the Raj.

  ‘My thakurda [paternal grandfather], a barrister, was part of freedom fighter Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das’s core team. Other members were Deshapriya Jatindra Mohan Sengupta and Deshapran Bimal Sasmal – all tall men from the history books.

  ‘During the freedom movement, he helped revolutionaries, financially and otherwise. When Das was sent to jail, he had said about my granddad and another accomplice: “My right hand and left hand are here. They will carry on my work.” When my grandfather died, I was just four or five years old, but his stories remained with me. They moulded me.

  ‘I remember the famous revolutionary Ananta Singh, who was involved in the Chittagong Armoury Raid. He used to come to my grandfather for financial support, and Thakurda used to help him along with others. After my grandfather’s death, Baba [my father] took up the cause.

  ‘Later, I remember Singh lamenting, “Amra desher janye lorlam, kintu ekhon amra khete pachhi naa” [We fought for the nation, but now we don’t even get two square meals]. He stopped visiting us also. Those memories have stayed. And wherever I have seen injustice, I have tried to fight it.’

  I ask him about his feelings for Marichjhapi.

  ‘It was a damning violation of human rights. What strengthened my resolve to see justice being served to those sufferers, both as a legal professional and as a human being, was the government’s blatant disregard of fundamental legal and human principles.

  ‘The court had given an injunction order against the economic barricade by the government. But, instead of giving a legal reply to our application, or get the case heard at the first instance, as is the legal norm, they sent in their goons and burnt down the entire island. We came to know of this through the newspapers and via some of the people who used to report the happenings at Marichjhapi to us. Initially, around forty to fifty people from Marichjhapi used to come to us, sometimes in batches of ten, sometimes more, to seek legal assistance after the economic blockade by the Left government.

  ‘Mind you, the media wasn’t the powerful platform for information dissemination the way you have it today, and the two or three papers that were there were suppressed by the government. However, Anandabazar Patrika did publish one or two articles about the entire island being torched. Immediately, we made an application to the High Court, bringing the incident to the court’s notice. It was unbelievable that such a thing could have happened, that too in a pending case that was sub judice.

  ‘The court took a strong stand and the lawyers concerned, both for the petitioners as well as those who stood for the state, were asked to visit the island as special observers and submit their reports. The Advocate General of West Bengal, Snehangshu Acharya, was appointed by the government to fight its case.

  ‘Some people said the government had enlisted the help of Bihar Police to burn down the island. Bodies were said to have been thrown into the river, hutments razed to ground.

  ‘As mentioned, the legal parties involved on both sides were directed by the court to go for an inspection to Marichjhapi and file their report. My senior, Dutt Majumdar, and I, representing the people of Marichjhapi, went for the inspection as asked by the Court, but there was no one from the legal team on behalf of the government accompanying us. They didn’t go for obvious reasons, primarily fear; they thought they would be assaulted by the survivors who had fled to nearby islands such as Kumirmari or to the mainland.

  ‘We put up at a local panchayat office in Kumirmari. Next morning, we were taken to Marichjhapi in boats. Debabrata Biswas, petitioner number one in the case, took the lead. Apart from the oarsman, only two people could fit into those narrow boats.

  ‘I remember that boat ride, the stillness in the air, the fear of being greeted by the horrors of what took place once we reached the accursed island, the expansive Raimangal and Matla rivers and the salty air due to proximity to the sea.

  ‘As we touched Marichjhapi’s shores, a few men in uniform appeared from nowhere. Maybe they were from the Port Commission, or maybe not; their uniform didn’t reveal their official identity. There were two senior officials and their assistants who told us that no inspection would be allowed. We asked them who they were. One of them turned rather aggressive, saying they had instructions from the government that no photographs should be clicked and that no one was allowed to inspect the island. Accompanying us, mind you, were no media persons. There were five to seven people who used to be inhabitants of Marichjhapi and a social service worker, Subrata Chatterjee, who was not directly involved in the legal case but knew the refugees well and was an active social worker himself.

  ‘Though we didn’t have cameras with us, I was taking notes, based on which I would file my report later. During the confrontation, we spotted a launch stationed at a distance, which made it clear that these men had been following us, most definitely under instructions from the government. One of the officers lost his temper and started shouting at us, asking us to leave.

  ‘We had the court order with us and asked him again who he was. We said we would not leave without completing our task and, if he wanted, he could arrest us. We also told him we would file a contempt application in court, saying he was forcing us to disobey the court’s order, and he may even lose his job.’

  ‘Didn’t you, even for a moment, fear standing up to an officer who claimed to be carrying out the government’s order, knowing what the latter was capable of doing to those who opposed it?’ I ask Sen.

  ‘No, the craving to see justice being served doubled after we met with resistance. We threatened him with a contempt case, and the fellow got unnerved. We asked him if he had any shame, whether he felt anything at all after seeing what had happened on the island. As we looked out, all you could see were burnt huts. The smell of burnt flesh hung in the air.

  ‘The officer told us, “The government has ordered us to come here. Kindly give it to us in writing that we came here and asked you to leave the premises.” My senior asked me to write a few lines on a notebook and I did so, saying that the said officer had come and raised objection to our visit, and that he had done his duty. I mentioned this in my report, too, which was filed in court.’

  As a young lawyer of thirty, what did Sen feel when he first saw a ghost island where the
re was once a thriving community?

  ‘First, there was disbelief,’ he answers. ‘How could something like this happen in the first place? This was a people’s government, a communist government, and it has wiped out thousands of people so easily? They have done so with utter disregard not only for justice, but going against the very tenets of humanity.

  ‘What happened after the mindless massacre of May 1979 was that the forty to fifty people who used to visit us regarding the issue disappeared. Some had lost their fathers, some husbands or wives, children or siblings. No one knew where they were, whether they were scorched in the fire, or whether their bodies were flung in the river. Debabrata used to come intermittently, but that too eventually stopped.

  ‘We spent the day at Marichjhapi. There were broken utensils lying around, burnt books and destroyed furniture. The school building had been razed; the hospital had become a blackened building. I remember collecting shattered pieces of a sankha [ the white conch bangle worn by married Bengali women] that must have adorned the arm of someone lost to inhumanity.

  ‘I deposited all of these to Amra Bangali. I never got them back! The organization doesn’t exist today. I must mention here that, while at Kumirmari, I had talked to some people from Marichjhapi who fled the island before it was burnt down. The people I talked to told me that on that fateful night in May, they had been able to see with their naked eyes a huge ball of fire at a distance engulfing their homes, their people – everything they had built and nurtured. They told me the night sky had turned blood red.

  ‘I had recorded their statements with a tape recorder. I gave that, too, to Amra Bangali. But as with the specimen collected from the island, so with this, I never did manage to get them back. I kept asking for them, but they would give some excuse or the other.’

  ‘Isn’t it strange that an organization committed to the cause of fighting for refugees could have been so callous about preserving evidence?’ I ask.