When Tigers Became ‘Citizens’, Refugees ‘Tiger-Food’

Economic and Political Weekly April 23, 2005 1757

Dwelling on Morichjhanpi

When Tigers Became 'Citizens',

Refugees 'Tiger-Food'

http://sanhati.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/jalais-morichjhanpi.pdf

In 1978, several hundred Bengali refugees in Morichjhanpi, one of the

northern-most forested islands of the Sundarbans, were brutally evicted by the

authorities for violating the Forest Acts. This paper looks at how the memory of

Morichjhanpi was evoked by the islanders to reveal their resentment about the unequal

distribution of resources between them and the Royal Bengal tigers of the

Sundarbans reserve forest. The government's primacy on ecology and its use of force

in Morichjhanpi was seen by the Sundarbans islanders as a betrayal not only of

refugees and of the poor and marginalised in general, but also of Bengali backward

caste identity. At the same time, the reasons leading to the Morichjhanpi massacre have

to be understood in relation to the long history which led to the partition of Bengal

and the intricacies of caste, class and communal differences.

ANNU JALAIS

As developed by Ross Mallick,4

the reasons leading to the

Morichjhanpi massacre have to be understood in relation to the

long history which led to the partition of Bengal and the intricacies

of caste, class and communal differences. Briefly, in the colonial

period, the East Bengal namasudra movement had been one of

the most powerful and politically mobilised dalit movements in

India.5

In alliance with the Muslims, they had kept the Bengal

Congress Party in opposition from the 1920s. The exclusion of

the bhadralok from power led to the Hindu elite and eventually

the Congress, pressing for the partition of Bengal at independence,

so that at least the western half would return to their control.6

Partition, however, meant that dalits lost their bargaining power

when divided along religious lines of Hindus and Muslims and

became politically marginalised minorities in both countries.7

With the partition of India, threatened by their Muslim and

lower-caste tenants, the upper-caste landed elite formed the first

wave of migrants from East Pakistan into West Bengal. Subsequent migrants were rural middle class cultivators and artisans.

If the richest amongst them found a niche amongst relatives and

friends in Kolkata and its outskirts, the poorer amongst them

squatted on public and private land and tried to resist eviction.

In the 1960s and 1970s (especially after the Bangladesh war of

independence in 1971, Mujibur Rahman's assassination in 1975

and Zia-ur-Rahman's coming to power) communal agitations

started to hereafter be directed against the poorest and low caste

Hindus who had remained in East Bengal. They now sought

refuge in West Bengal.

Unlike their richer counterparts, who were backed by family

and caste connections, many of these poorer migrants did not find

a way of living in Kolkata and were sent to various inhospitable

I

Refugees and Bengali Identity

A

ll through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s Bengali Hindus

from what had become East Pakistan and subsequently

Bangladesh entered West Bengal in the hope of settling

down. They were however sent to various inhospitable areas

outside West Bengal with the assurance that they would eventually

be relocated in West Bengal. Soon after the Left Front came to

power, in 1978 they found their refugee supporters return; amongst

them, about 30,000 managed to sail to Morichjhanpi – one of

the northern-most forested islands of the Sundarbans – from

where they were brutally evicted for violating the Forest Acts.

Based on nearly two years' fieldwork in the Sundarbans, this

paper looks at how the memory of Morichjhanpi was evoked

by the islanders to talk about their resentment about the unequal

distribution of resources between them and the Royal Bengal

tigers of the Sundarbans reserve forest. This paper looks at how

the government's primacy on ecology and its use of force in

Morichjhanpi that saw hundreds of refugees dying, was seen by

the Sundarbans islanders as a betrayal not only of refugees and

of the poor and marginalised in general, but also, of the Bengali

'nimnobarno' identity.1

 In fact, the Morichjhanpi massacre was

considered a double betrayal by the Sundarbans islanders. They

argued that it was because they were considered as lesser mortals

situated at the periphery and marginalised due to their social

inferiority by the 'bhadralok'2

 – by which is meant the anglicised,

well-connected, educated, moneyed, essentially Hindu upper

caste, and mainly urban, Bengalis – that tigers, taking the cue,

had started feeding on them.3