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The Myths Refugees Live By: Memory and history in the making of Bengali refugee identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2013

UDITI SEN
UDITI SEN*
Affiliation:
South Asian Studies, Hampshire College, USA Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Within the popular memory of the partition of India, the division of Bengal continues to evoke themes of political rupture, social tragedy, and nostalgia. The refugees or, more broadly speaking, Hindu migrants from East Bengal, are often the central agents of such narratives. This paper explores how the scholarship on East Bengali refugees portrays them either as hapless and passive victims of the regime of rehabilitation, which was designed to integrate refugees into the socio-economic fabric of India, or eulogizes them as heroic protagonists who successfully battled overwhelming adversity to wrest resettlement from a reluctant state. This split image of the Bengali refugee as both victim and victor obscures the complex nature of refugee agency. Through a case-study of the foundation and development of Bijoygarh colony, an illegal settlement of refugee-squatters on the outskirts of Calcutta, this paper will argue that refugee agency in post-partition West Bengal was inevitably moulded by social status and cultural capital. However, the collective memory of the establishment of squatters’ colonies systematically ignores the role of caste and class affiliations in fracturing the refugee experience. Instead, it retells the refugees’ quest for rehabilitation along the mythic trope of heroic and masculine struggle. This paper interrogates refugee reminiscences to illuminate their erasures and silences, delineating the mythic structure common to both popular and academic refugee histories and exploring its significance in constructing a specific cultural identity for Bengali refugees.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 37 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

1 From the Author's introduction, Mukhopadhyay, Kaliprasad, Shikorer sandhane (Quest for roots), Calcutta, Bhasha O Sahitya, 2002Google Scholar.

2 Dedication, Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane.

3 Ganguly, Indubaran, Colonysmriti: Udbastu colony pratishthar gorar katha, 1948–1954 (Memories of colonies: An account of the early period of the establishment of refugee colonies), Calcutta, Published by the author, 1997Google Scholar; and Sinha, Tushar, Maranjayee sangrame bastuhar a (Refugees in a death-defying battle), Calcutta, United Central Refugee Council, 1999Google Scholar, are examples of such autobiographical narratives that marked the fiftieth anniversary of Indian independence. However, several autobiographies and biographical accounts of individuals who contributed to refugee rehabilitation were also published in an earlier period. For example, see Bandyopadhyay, Hiranmoy, Udbastu (Refugee), Calcutta, Sahitya Sansad, 1970Google Scholar; and Datta, Kanailal, Madhyamgram-Navabarakpure Punarbasan O Haripada Biswas (Rehabilitation in Madhyamgram-Navabarakpur and Haripada Biswas), Nababarakpur, Haripada Biswas Baktrita Trust, 1984Google Scholar.

4 For example, see Datta, Debabrata, Bijaygarh: Ekti udbastu upanibesh (A refugee colony), Calcutta, Progressive Publishers, 2001Google Scholar. For an excellent self-reflective and analytical account of life in a refugee colony by a second-generation refugee, see Ray, Manas, ‘Growing up refugee’, History Workshop Journal, 53, 2002, pp. 149–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 For example, see the translated interviews published in Bagchi, Jasodhara and Dasgupta, Subhoranjan (eds), The trauma and the triumph: Gender and partition in eastern India, Calcutta, Stree, 2003Google Scholar; and Chakrabarti, Tridib, Mandal, Nirupama Ray and Ghoshal, Paulami (comps and eds) Dhangsa-o-nirman: Bangiya udbastu samajer svakathita bibaran (Destruction and creation: Self-descriptive accounts of Bengali refugee society), Calcutta, Seriban, 2007Google Scholar.

6 Within the scholarship on partition and its refugees, different scholars have conceptualized the distinction and the interaction between memory and history in different ways. For Dipesh Chakrabarty, the narrative structure of memory, especially the memory of trauma, emphasizes the inexplicability of events or experiences. This is diametrically opposite to a goal of history that seeks to explain events. See Chakrabarty, Dipesh, ‘Memories of displacement: The poetry and prejudice of dwelling’ in Chakrabarty, Dipesh, Habitations of modernity: Essays in the wake of subaltern studies, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2002, pp. 115–37Google Scholar. Ranabir Samaddar, ‘The historiographical operation: Memory and history’, Economic and Political Weekly, 3 June 2006, pp. 2236–40, draws upon Paul Ricoeur's landmark work to argue for a relationship of complementarity between memory and history. He argues that, far from being structurally incompatible, memory is a constitutive element of the historiographical operation. See Ricoeur, Paul, Memory, history, forgetting, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 2004CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Dominant memory, following the Popular Memory Group's analysis of the relationship between history and popular memory, can be understood as a social group's shared perception of its past which gains dominance through public rituals such as commemoration, institutional backing (such as ‘official’ histories promoted by the state) and last, but not least, the utility of the dominant representation of the past in fostering formal political alliances. See Popular Memory Group, ‘Popular memory: theory, politics, method’ in Johnson, Richard, Mclennan, Gregor, Schwarz, Bill and Sutton, David (eds), Making histories: Studies in history-writing and politics, London, Hutchinson in association with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, 1982, pp. 205–52Google Scholar.

8 The city of Calcutta (renamed Kolkata in 2001) is defined as the urban areas governed by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. However, throughout history, urban life has spilled out of the official boundaries of the city into neighbouring suburban and rural areas in the district of 24 Parganas. This has resulted in repeated redefinitions of the limits of the city and constant incorporation of additional areas into the remit of the Calcutta (now Kolkata) Municipal Corporation. The post-partition influx of refugees into Calcutta was a driving force for the rapid urbanization of surrounding areas. In 1984, this led to the second official extension of the boundaries of the city to include the municipalities of South Suburban, Garden Reach, and Jadavpur. See: <https://www.kmcgov.in/KMCPortal/jsp/KMCAboutKolkataHome.jsp>, [Accessed 21 November 2012].

9 In theory, ‘evacuee property’ was the property left behind by Muslims who fled India and Hindus who fled Pakistan. In practice, minority communities were treated as ‘intending evacuees’ and were forced out by a conjunction of refugee belligerence and state complicity. The ‘evacuee property’ they left behind enabled the new states to house their refugees. For a detailed study of state complicity in the displacement of Muslim and Hindu minorities in India and Pakistan respectively, see Zamindar, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali, The long partition and the making of modern South Asia: Refugees, boundaries, histories, New York and Chichester, Columbia University Press, 2007Google Scholar; and Tan, Tai Yong and Kudaisya, Gyanesh (eds), The aftermath of partition in South Asia, London and New York, Routledge, 2000, pp. 163–203Google Scholar.

10 Estimates of East Bengali refugees who entered West Bengal between 1947 and 1971 vary widely, from between 5.8 million (see Luthra, Pran Nath, Rehabilitation, New Delhi, Publications Divisions, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1972Google Scholar) and 4.1 million (Committee for Review of Rehabilitation Work in West Bengal, Report of the working group on the residual problem of rehabilitation in West Bengal, Calcutta, Ministry of Supply and Rehabilitation, Government of India, 1976Google Scholar).

11 According to the census of 1951, 433,000 of West Bengal's total refugee population of 2,099,000 went to Calcutta alone. Another 527,000 settled in 24 Parganas, the district bordering Calcutta. See Republic of India, Census of 1951, Vol. VI, part III, Calcutta City, Delhi, Office of the Registrar General, p. 305.

12 Chakrabarti, Prafulla Kumar, The marginal men: The refugees and the left political syndrome in West Bengal, Calcutta, Lumiere Books, 1990, pp. 33–66Google Scholar.

13 The first enumeration of squatters’ colonies in 1952 led to the list of 149 Group of Squatters’ Colonies, Calcutta Corporation Area. This can be found in various government publications on rehabilitation, including Manual of refugee relief and rehabilitation, Vol. I, Kolkata, Government of West Bengal, 2000, p. 63. Bijoygarh is the fifteenth colony in this list.

14 For a study of the governmentality of refugee rehabilitation in post-partition India, see Uditi Sen, ‘Refugees and the politics of nation building in India’, 1947–71, PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2009.

15 Numerous studies have criticized the dismal failure of the government of West Bengal to deal with the refugee crisis. For example, see Chakrabarti, The marginal men; and Chatterji, Joya, The spoils of partition: Bengal and India, 1947–67, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 105–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 This failure is well documented in official publications as well as later scholarship. See, for example, Guha, B.S., Memoir No. 1, 1954, Studies in social tensions among the refugees from Eastern Pakistan, Calcutta, Manager of Publications, 1959Google Scholar; De, S.L. and Bhattacharje, A.K., The refugee settlement in the Sunderbans, West Bengal: A socio-economic study, Calcutta, Indian Statistical Institute, 1972Google Scholar; Ghosh, Alok Kumar, ‘Bengali refugees at Dandakaranya: A tragedy of rehabilitation’ in Bose, Pradip Kumar (ed.), Refugees in West Bengal: Institutional practices and contested identities, Calcutta, Calcutta Research Group, 2000, pp. 106–29Google Scholar; and ‘“Dispersal” and the failure of rehabilitation: Refugee camp-dwellers and squatters in West Bengal’, Modern Asian Studies, 41, 5, September 2007, pp. 995–1032.

17 Joya Chatterji has illustrated how imported European attitudes, which demeaned the recipients of charity, were amalgamated with more recent colonial caricatures of the effeminate and weak Bengali male to produce these potent stereotypes. She argues that in government discourse on rehabilitation, Bengali refugees were by definition victims and recipients of charity. See Chatterji, Joya, ‘Right or charity? The debate over relief and rehabilitation in West Bengal, 1947–1950’ in Kaul, Suvir (ed.), Partitions of memory: The afterlife of the division of India, Delhi, Permanent Black, 2001, pp. 74–110Google Scholar.

18 Rehabilitation at Jirat consisted of relocating largely literate camp-dwellers unaccustomed to hard labour to a malarial village in an area disconnected from urban settlements where agricultural labour was already plentiful. See Guha, Studies in social tensions, also cited in Chatterji, ‘“Dispersal’”.

19 Guha, Studies in social tensions, p. 32.

20 Guha, Studies in social tensions, p. 32.

21 Rao, U. Bhaskar, The story of rehabilitation, New Delhi, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Publications Division, 1967, p. 141Google Scholar.

22 Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, p. 31.

23 Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, p. 31.

24 Chakrabarti, The marginal men, p. 33.

25 For example, Chakrabarti describes camp refugees as ‘a shapeless mass of humans huddled together like beasts with all the sap squeezed out of their battered frames’: Chakrabarti, The marginal men, p. 14.

26 Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane.

27 Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman.

28 Datta, Bijoygarh.

29 Ganguly, Colonysmriti.

30 Interview with Shantiranjan Sen in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 48.

31 Kottah is a popular unit of measuring land in Bengal. One kottah equals roughly 720 square feet.

32 Despite retiring from active politics after the death of C.R. Das, Basanti Devi continued to be associated with Gandhian social reconstruction in East Bengal. She commanded great respect among politicians and social workers in Calcutta.

33 Datta, Bijoygarh, 2001, p. 28. Also see the interviews with Shantiranjan Sen and Gouranga De Chowdhury in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, pp. 46–66; and the interview with Manindra Pal in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman, pp. 123–24.

34 Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, p. 23

35 Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, p. 35.

36 Chakrabarti, The marginal men, p. 36.

37 Chakrabarti, The marginal men, p. 37.

38 Ganguly, Colonysmriti, p. 28.

39 Ganguly, Colonysmriti, p. 28.

40 Indubaran Ganguly quotes entire sections of Bandyopadhyay's Udbastu and summarizes Chakrabarti's The marginal men verbatim.

41 A scattered group of revolutionary terrorists who joined the Indo-German conspiracy came to be known as the Jugantar group. For a history of Jugantar, see Guha, Arun Chandra, Aurobindo and Jugantar, Calcutta, Sahitya Sansad, n.d.Google Scholar Also see Laushley, David M., Bengal terrorism and the Marxist Left: Aspects of regional nationalism in India, 1905–42, Calcutta, K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1975Google Scholar.

42 Chakrabarti, The marginal men, p. 66; and Ganguly, Colonysmriti, pp. 28–29.

43 Ganguly, Colonysmriti, pp. 28–29.

44 In the absence of any documentary evidence, it is impossible to conclusively prove or disprove this theory of a ‘secret pact’. Besides rumours and speculation, later accounts faithfully reproduce Bandyopadhyay's unsubstantiated reference to evidence of government consent. See Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, p. 23. However, taking into account all the available interviews with Bijoygarh residents, it is clear that Dr B.C. Roy was far from pleased with the actions of the Bijoygarh refugees. The unofficial support might have come from lower down, that is, from the rehabilitation commissioner and secretary of rehabilitation in Dr Roy's government, Hiranmoy Bandyopadhyay himself. In their interviews, Dhirendranath Ray Chowdhury (alias Kalabhai), and Shantiranjan Sen repeatedly allude to the sympathetic response of Bandyopadhyay. See Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman and Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane. Kalabhai claims that Hiranmoy Bandyopadhyay, in response to a memorandum submitted by the refugees, promised to legally acquire the colony's lands if he ever became the rehabilitation commissioner. He apparently kept his word, though—given the proliferation of colonies by 1950—Bijoygarh's claim for special consideration had become impossible to implement. See Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 90. If this is true, then it could also explain Bandyopadhyay's uncharacteristically vague allusion to ‘evidence’.

45 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 21 March 1951.

46 For details, see Chakrabarti, The marginal men, pp. 80–81.

47 Extract of the report by the commissioner of police, Calcutta, for the week ending 7 April 1951, File no: 321/22 (KW), Sl No: 46/1922, Government of Bengal, Intelligence Bureau, henceforth GB IB.

48 The Bengali daily, Swadhinata (Independence), was first published in 1946 as the mouthpiece of the Bengal Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of India. It fell victim to the severe factional fights within the Communist Party during the early 1960s and had ceased publication by 1965.

49 For example, see Swadhinata, 22 February 1951.

50 Report on the proceedings of the Hooghly District Sanjukta Bastuhara Sammelan (Joint Meeting of Refugees) held at Masirbari Maidan, Mahesh, P.S. Serampur on 28 January 1951, File no: 321/22 (KW), Sl No: 46/1922, GB IB.

51 Manas Ray, ‘Growing up refugee: On memory and locality’ in Bose (ed.), Refugees in West Bengal, p. 166.

52 The first attempt at establishing a squatters’ colony under Nikhil Vanga Bastuhara Karma Parishad (All Bengal Refugee Working Council) leadership in south Calcutta, though a failure, was made memorable by the dogged fight put up by refugee women against the police. For details, see Chakrabarti, The marginal men, p.65.

53 The suburban squatters’ colony at Mahesh evolved this strategy under the leadership of a local student activist. For details, see Chakrabarti, The marginal men, pp. 81–82.

54 Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 54.

55 For the full text of Manindra Pal's interviews, see Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, pp. 112–15 and Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman, pp. 117–34.

56 For the full text of Shantiranjan Sen and Dhirendranath Ray Chowdhury's interviews, see Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, pp. 46–93.

57 Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 114.

58 Interview with Manindra Pal in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman, p. 123.

59 See Nilanjana Chatterjee, ‘Interrogating victimhood: East Bengali refugee narratives of communal violence’, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, n.d; < http://www.swadhinata.org.uk/document/chatterjeeEastBengal%20Refugee.pdf>, [Accessed 17 March 2013].

60 Chakrabarti, The marginal men, p. 48. He calls the first refugee rally in Calcutta, organized on 14 January 1949, the city's ‘first taste of a new power in the land’ (p. 53).

61 For a detailed analysis of the political fallouts of partition and the role played by refugees in changing political calculations in West Bengal, see Chatterji, Spoils of partition, pp. 209–309.

62 Ganguly, Colonysmriti, 1997, pp. 25–26.

63 For a literary representation of this social distance, see Ghosh, Amitav, The shadow lines, Delhi, Bloomsbury, 1988Google Scholar. Also see Rahman, M.D. Mahbubar and van Schendel, Willem, ‘“I am not a refugee”: Rethinking partition migration’, Modern Asian Studies, 37, 3, 2003, pp. 551–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It is only of late that the popularization of the heroic trope of the self-settled Bengali refugee has made refugee identity a mantle worth wearing among the ‘bhadraloks’ of Calcutta.

64 Jashoda Kanta Ray was the deputy commissioner of relief and rehabilitation with the government of West Bengal.

65 Sarathi means ‘the charioteer’, but in this context clearly evokes the role played by Krishna in the epic battle of Mahabharata when he guided the mythical Pandava brothers to victory as the charioteer of Arjun.

66 This translates as the birth anniversary of the Sanskrit composer Kalidasa; it is, in fact, more likely to have been the opening ceremony of a literary and cultural festival.

67 Interview with Dhirendranath Ray Chowdhury in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 77.

68 Interview with Manindra Pal in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 113.

69 Himanghsu Majumdar, a member of the central committee of Bijoygarh colony and a resident since December 1947, makes special mention of his aid. For details, see the interview with Himangshu Majumdar in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 103.

70 Interview with Kalabhai in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, pp. 79–80.

71 Interview with Manindra Pal in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 115.

72 Interview with Manindra Pal in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman, p. 120–21. Also see interview with Manindra Pal in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 115.

73 Since the records of criminal cases that do not reach the higher courts are routinely destroyed every ten years, the records of this case have not survived.

74 Interview with Dhirendranath Ray Chowdhury in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 81.

75 Datta, Bijoygarh, p. 59.

76 Interview with Dhirendranath Ray Chowdhury in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 81.

77 Datta, Bijoygarh, p. 59.

78 The details of this visit are roughly the same in Datta, Bijoygarh, and are also found in Kalabhai's interview in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, pp. 80–82.

79 Interview with Dr Subratesh Ghosh in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman, pp. 97–98.

80 Here, Bijoygarh was the exception rather than the rule, as a committee to regulate the day-to-day life of the Jadavpur refugee camp took shape only after the abandoned military barracks had been occupied.

81 The East Bengali migrants’ ability to secure white-collar jobs has been highlighted by Chatterji, Spoils of partition, pp. 141–50. Also see Bose, Nirmal Kumar, Calcutta: 1964, A social survey, Bombay, Lalvani Publishing House, 1968, p. 34Google Scholar. According to Bose, refugees from East Bengal tended to avoid manual labour and most found jobs as clerks. A statistical survey of refugees in West Bengal conducted in 1955 noted—with alarm—their high rates of employment in government and other services. For details, see State Statistical Bureau, Government of West Bengal, Rehabilitation of refugees—A statistical survey, 1955, Alipore, 1956, pp. 5–9Google Scholar.

82 Interview with Shantiranjan Senin in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, pp. 46–47.

83 Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 52.

84 Datta, Bijoygarh, p. 28.

85 According to Gouranga De Chowdhury, he was employed as the office superintendent in the Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation. See interview with Gouranga De Chowdhury in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p. 61.

86 Datta, Bijoygarh, p. 29.

87 For an analysis of the significance of education in the mindset of the residents of refugee colonies, see Dipankar Sinha, ‘Adjustment and transition in a Bengali refugee settlement: 1950–1999’ in Bose (ed.), Refugees in West Bengal, pp. 147–51.

88 Literally meaning ‘decent people’, the term was originally used to describe the landed and educated Hindu middle class of Bengal. However, with the radical decline of the bhadralok in the first half of the twentieth century, the term increasingly came to represent a claim to social respectability, bolstered by superior educational qualifications, lineage, and cultural pursuits, which may or may not have been reflected in economic status. For an exploratory survey of the decline of the Bengali bhadralok and their attempts to stem the rot, see Chatterji, Joya, ‘The decline, revival and fall of bhadralok influence in the 1940s: A historiographic review’ in Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (ed.), Bengal: Rethinking history: essays in historiography, New Delhi, Manohar, 2001, pp. 297–315Google Scholar.

89 Ray, ‘Growing up refugee’, p.173.

90 Manas Ray, ‘Kata deshe ghorer khonj’ (‘The quest for home in a divide land’) in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman, p. 254.

91 For a descriptive account of the foundation of numerous schools in Bijoygarh, see Datta, Bijoygarh, pp. 27–31.

92 See Datta, Bijoygarh, p 24.

93 Interview with Dhirendranath Ray Chowdhury in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, p.78.

94 Ganguly, Colonysmriti, pp. 36–39.

95 Ganguly, Colonysmriti, pp. 39–41.

96 Bandyopadhyay, Udbastu, p. 39. Also described in Ganguly, Colonysmriti, pp. 36–39.

97 Chakrabarti, The marginal men.

98 Though the majority of the refugee colonies in Jadavpur and Tollygunj regions have been formalized and integrated into the urban sprawl of greater Calcutta, most have retained the colony committees and membership of the United Central Refugee Council. While the latter continues to highlight outstanding issues and grievances of refugee colonies, most colony committees now concentrate on organising communal yearly festivals, especially the Durga Puja. Between 1998 and 2000, a number of colonies, their schools or the local Durga Puja celebrated their fiftieth anniversaries. Most commemorated the occasion by printing a booklet which included a section on the foundation and history of the particular colony and its institutions. One such example is Regent Colony Bastuhara Samiti, Subarna Jayanti Utsab (Regent Colony Refugee Association, Golden Jubilee Celebrations), 1999–2000, n.p., 2000.

99 A handful of studies that have explored the lived experience of refugees in the various government camps and colonies reveal a far more complex world of everyday resistance and negotiations. See Kaur, Ravinder, Since 1947: Partition narratives among Punjabi migrants of Delhi, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2007CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sinha-Kerkhoff, Kathinka, ‘Permanent refugees: Female camp inhabitant in Bihar’ in Essed, Philomena, Frerks, Georg and Schrijvers, Joke (eds), Refugees and the transformation of societies: Agency, policies, ethics and politics, New York; Oxford, Berghahn, 2004, pp. 81–93Google Scholar; and Sen, Uditi, ‘Dissident memories: Exploring Bengali refugee narratives in the Andaman Islands’ in Panayi, Panikos and Virdee, Pippa (eds), Refugees and the end of empire: Imperial collapse and forced migration during the twentieth century, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 219–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 None of the 15 interviewees published in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman confesses to the experience of living in government camps or on railway platforms.

101 These include the 15 interviews published in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman; five respondents in Mukhopadhyay, Shikorer sandhane, and the various informants consulted by Datta, Bijoygarh.

102 Interview with Dr Subratesh Ghosh in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman, pp. 98–99.

103 Interview with Bharat Chandra Debnath in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman, p. 156.

104 Regent Colony Bastuhara samiti.

105 Ganguly, Colonysmriti, pp. 36–39.

106 Ray, ‘Growing up refugee’, pp. 149–79.

107 The Jadavpur Association mentioned in popular histories is none other than the Jadavpur Refugee Camp Association, which was instrumental in founding Bijoygarh colony.

108 Ganguly, Colonysmriti, p. 35.

109 Interview with Dr Subratesh Ghosh in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman, p. 99.

110 Ray, ‘Growing up refugee’, pp. 149–79.

111 Chakrabarti, The marginal men, p. 171.

112 Recent research has brought to light a sense of persecution among Namasudra refugees who clearly believe their low-caste identity to be the basis of their marginalization. For details, see Annu Jalais, ‘Dwelling on Morichjhanpi: When tigers become “citizens: and refugees “tigerfood”’, Economic and Political Weekly, 23 April 2005, pp. 1757–62. Also see Mallik, Ross, ‘Refugee resettlement in forest reserves: West Bengal policy reversal and the Marichjhapi massacre’, Journal of Asian Studies, 58, 1, 1999, pp. 104–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

113 For details of this agitation, see Chakrabarti, The marginal men, pp. 162–207.

114 Chakrabarti, The marginal men, p. 178–79.

115 Ganguly, Colonysmriti, p. 25.

116 Interview with Jatindranath Das in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman, p. 206.

117 Interview with Jiten Datta in Chakrabarti et al., Dhangsa-o-nirman, p. 145.

118 Morarji Desai, Finance Minister, Government of India to Renuka Ray, Member of Parliament, 15 August 1960, Renuka Ray Papers, Subject File No 5, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (henceforth NMML).

119 Ray, Renuka, My reminiscences: Social development during the Gandhian era and after, Calcutta, Stree Samya Books, 2005, p. 189Google Scholar.

120 Morarji Desai to Renuka Ray, 1960, Renuka Ray Papers, NMML.

121 A lakh a unit of enumeration equal to one hundred thousand (100,000) that is widely used in official and other contexts in South Asia.

122 A crore is a unit of enumeration equal to ten million that is widely used in South Asia.

123 Morarji Desai to Renuka Ray, 1960, Renuka Ray Papers, NMML.

124 For a discussion on the mythic structure of oral history interviews, see Jean Peneff, ‘Myths in life stories’ and Passerini, Luisa, ‘Mythbiography in oral history’ in Samuel, Raphael and Thompson, Paul (eds), The myths we live by, London, Routledge, 1990, pp. 36–50Google Scholar.

125 The worship of goddess Durga celebrates her victory over the demon Mahisasura and has grown in importance over the last two centuries to emerge as the largest and most important annual festival among Bengali Hindus and a focal point of community life.

126 The few studies that have explored the lived experience of refugees in the various government camps and colonies reveal a complex world of everyday resistance and negotiations, further highlighting the a-historicity of such representations. See Kaur, Since 1947, pp. 99–100; Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, ‘Permanent refugees: Female camp inhabitant in Bihar’ in Essed et al., Refugees and the transformation of societies, pp. 81–93; and Sen, ‘Dissident memories’.