Marichjhapi massacre

Marichjhapi massacre (also known as Marichjhapi incident) refers to the forcible eviction of hundreds of Bengali Hindu Dalit[1] refugees who occupied legally protected reserve forest land on Marichjhapi[2] island in the Sundarbans, West Bengal, in 1979, and the subsequent death of some due to gunfire by police and Communist goondas, blockade and subsequent starvation, and disease.[3][4]

Part of a series on
Violence against Hindus
in independent India
Issues
Incidents

Marichjhapi massacre
DateJanuary 24, 1979 (1979-01-24) - January 31, 1979 (1979-01-31)
Location
Marichjhanpi

22.1070°N 88.9510°E / 22.1070; 88.9510
Parties to the civil conflict
Refugees from East Pakistan fled from Dandakaranya (mostly Namasudras)
Lead figures
Government of West Bengal , Chief minister Jyoti Basu None

Background

After the division of Bengal (during independence in 1947) along communal lines many Hindu Bengalis fled East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The first flow of refugees who were mostly the upper and middle classes from upper castes easily resettled in West Bengal. However most lower caste Hindus remained behind, seeing their plight as no better than the Muslims. However they too were persecuted by Muslims and were forced to flee to West Bengal as well. But this latter huge flow of poor, mostly low-caste Hindus [5] couldn't be accommodated in Bengal. This later surge reached its peak in 1970's. During this time in 1976 Ram Niwas Mirdha said in Loksabha that Bengal had become saturated and relocating migrants was inevitable.

There were resistance from refugees (hailing from wetland marshy coastal landscape) against the relocation to wastelands. However, after initial resistance from they were forcibly sent to "rocky inhospitable semi arid land" of Dandakaranya (mostly in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh),[6][7] Terai (Uttar Pradesh, now in Uttarakhand), and Little Andamans.[8] Most of them were destined to bear the brunt of an already failed Dandakaranya Project.

The left front leaders like Ram Chatterjee then opposed the relocation policy of Union Govt. They reached out to migrants by visiting camps in Dandakaranya and promised them that if Left Front comes to power in West Bengal then all migrants will be brought back and settled in Bengal itself.[9]

Massacre

Once the Left front came to power in 1978, the refugees started to return to Bengal in huge numbers. But the Left Front meanwhile changed its policy on refugee settling and considered the refugees as a burden to the state, as the refugees were not the citizen of West Bengal but India.[6] An approximately 150,000, almost all of Dandakaranya refugees arrived (where most of them were deported back).[7] In the meanwhile approximately 40,000 refugees went south and camping for few months in Hasnabad settled in Marichjhapi (renamed by them as "Netaji Nagar"), a protected place under Reserve Forest Act.[10] A survivor claims that there were only shrubs on the island when they came.[11] They were involved in fishing and had built schools and hospitals.

The Left government considered that an unauthorized occupation of reserved forest land. The government tried to pursue them to return to their respective place, but with little effect. On 24 January 1979, the Government of West Bengal clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC around the island of Marichjhapi. The police and the district administration started an economic blockade. Thirty police launches started patrolling the island,[10] preventing anyone from providing food or water to the residents of the island.

Survivors claim that on the morning of 31 January 1979, when some women tried to row boats to the next island to fetch drinking water, grains and medicine, the police rammed their launches into the boats and drowned all three. People who took boats into the river to save the drowning women were fired on by the police. Police continued attacking people who braved the action and took multiple boat trips back and forth to get the necessities. This ultimately resulted in a confrontation between refugees armed with crude implements like bows and arrows, lathis, bricks and stones, on one hand, and the police on the other.

Eyewitness accounts say that on 31 January, the police opened fire on the settlers of the island when the settlers allegedly attacked a police camp with traditional weapons.[12] After 15 days Calcutta High Court ruled that "The supply of drinking water, essential food items and medicines as well as the passage of doctors must be allowed to Marichjhapi".[13] The media were barred from entering the area on that day.

13 people died when someone poisoned a tube well. The survivors were then sent back to Dandakaranya. Some of them were settled in Marichjhapi Colony near Barasat while others rehabilitated themselves in the shanties near railway tracks in Sealdah.[14] Some of the survivors resettled themselves in Hingalganj, Canning and nearby areas.[15]

This incident is the most violent and brutal human right violation that took place in post independence India until 1984 anti-Sikh riots and Kashmir valley conflicts of 1990's took place.[16]

Death toll

The death count was never confirmed. Official statistics put the deaths due to firing at two, but other sources put the total deaths between 50 and 100.[17][18]

Further reading
  • Mandal, Jagadish Chandra (2002). Marichjhapi: Naishabder Antarale. Sujan Publications.
  • Sengupta, Sukharanjan (2010). Marichjhapi Beyond & Within. FrontPage Publications.
  • Halder, Deep (2019). Blood Island: An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre. HarperCollins Publishers India.

See also

References
  1. Debjani Sengupta (3 October 2018). "The Forgotten Massacre of Dalit Refugees in West Bengal's Marichjhapi". thewire.in. The Wire. Retrieved 16 July 2020.
  2. Soumya Sankar Bose. "Where The Birds Never Sing". Red Turtle Photobook.
  3. M, Dilip; al (15 May 2019). "40 yrs ago, the Left mercilessly massacred Dalit Bengalis. Now, it's back to haunt them". ThePrint. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  4. Deep Halder (11 May 2019). "The Left massacre of migrant Hindus in Bengal that was bigger than 2002 & 1984". theprint.in. ThePrint. Retrieved 16 July 2020. Not much is known about the Marichjhapi massacre that took place under the Jyoti Basu government on a tiny island in the Sundarbans where Hindu refugees had settled.
  5. Pramanik, Asim (23 March 2014). "1979 Marichjhapi killings revisited". The Statesman. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  6. Chowdhury, Debdatta (2011). "Space, identity, territory: Marichjhapi Massacre, 1979". The International Journal of Human Rights. 15 (5): 664–682. doi:10.1080/13642987.2011.569333.
  7. Mallick, Ross (2007). Development Policy of a Communist Government: West Bengal Since 1977. Cambridge University Press. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-521-04785-2.
  8. M, Dilip; al (11 December 2019). "Congress wore 1971 war trophy, but left an unfinished business. CAB came out of that". ThePrint. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  9. Mandal, Dilip (15 May 2019). "40 yrs ago, the Left mercilessly massacred Dalit Bengalis. Now, it's back to haunt them". ThePrint. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
  10. Mallick, Ross (February 1999). "Refugee Resettlement in Forest Reserves: West Bengal Policy Reversal and the Marichjhapi Massacre". The Journal of Asian Studies. 58 (1): 104–125. doi:10.2307/2658391. JSTOR 2658391.
  11. Halder, Deep. "'We were attacked thrice': A survivor's story of the Left Front government's siege of Marichjhapi". Scroll.in. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  12. "Controversies that dogged the pragmatic chief minister". The Telegraph. Calcutta. 18 January 2010. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  13. "The Tale of Marichjhapi :Review of the book "Marichjhapi chhinna desh, chhinna itihaash"". radicalsocialist.in. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  14. Mitra, Sukumar (6 July 2011). গণহত্যার সুবিচার হবে!. The Sunday Indian (in Bengali). Archived from the original on 23 June 2013. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  15. Mitra, Shyamalendu (3 August 2011). তিন দশক পরে মরিচঝাঁপির ফাইল ফের খুলল রাজ্য. Anandabazar Patrika (in Bengali). Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  16. Halder, Deep. "'We were attacked thrice': A survivor's story of the Left Front government's siege of Marichjhapi". Scroll.in. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  17. Bhattacharya, Snigdhendu (25 April 2011). "Ghost of Marichjhapi returns to haunt". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  18. Sankha Ghosh (27 November 2019). "Bauddhayan Mukherji busy with his 'Marichjhapi' project". The Times of India. Retrieved 16 July 2020.
  19. Soumya Sankar Bose. "Where The Birds Never Sing". Red Turtle Photobook.
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