| Marichjhapi incident | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | 24 January 1979 – 18 May 1979 | ||
| Location | 22°06′25″N 88°57′04″E / 22.1070°N 88.9510°E | ||
| Parties | |||
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| Lead figures | |||
| Casualties and losses | |||
Marichjhapi massacre (also known as Marichjhapi incident) refers to the eviction of Bengali Hindu[1][2] Dalit refugees[3] who settled on legally protected reserve forest land on Marichjhapi[4][5] island in the Sundarbans, West Bengal, in 1979, and the subsequent massacres and deaths by disease of Hindu refugees.[2][6]
During and after the division of Bengal, many Hindu Bengalis fled Islamist violence in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The first flow was of refugees who were mostly upper and middle class Hindus who were able to resettle in West Bengal. However most lower caste Hindus remained behind. But this latter huge flow of poor, mostly low-caste Hindus[7] 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 Lok Sabha that Bengal had become saturated and relocating migrants was inevitable.
There was 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),[8][9] Terai (Uttar Pradesh, now in Uttarakhand), and Little Andamans. Most of them were destined to bear the brunt of an already failed Dandakaranya Project.
Left Front leaders like Ram Chatterjee then opposed the relocation policy of Union Govt[citation needed]. They reached out to migrants by visiting camps in Dandakaranya and promised them that if the Left Front comes to power in West Bengal then all migrants would be brought back and settled in Bengal itself.
Once the Left Front came to power in 1977, the Hindu refugees started to return to Bengal in huge numbers. Approximately 150,000 refugees, which was almost all of Dandakaranya, arrived.[9] But the Left Front had changed its policy on refugee settling and considered the refugees as a burden to the state, and that the refugees were not the citizens of West Bengal but of India.[8] Approximately 150,000 Hindu refugees, which was almost all of Dandakaranya, arrived, where most of them were deported back. In the meanwhile around 40,000 refugees went south to Hasnabad, Hingalganj and Geonkhali, and about 15,000 settling in the small island of 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 attained self-sufficiency fishing for food and had built schools and hospitals on their own. However they had to travel to nearby Islands for obtaining grain and clean drinking water.
The Communist government considered the Hindu refugee settlement unauthorized occupation of a reserved forest land, and claimed that with subsequent chain of migrations that it may lead to in that area could result in a severe ecological disaster. It pressured the Hindu refugees to vacate. On 24 January 1979, the Communist-run 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 a complete blockade. Thirty police ferries started patrolling the island,[11] preventing food and clean water access to the residents of the island. Under the blockade, the starved Hindu refugees were forced to consume contaminated and poisoned water resulting in dozens of deaths.[2]
Eyewitness accounts say that on 31 January, the police opened fire on the Hindu refugees who settled on the island, when the refugees allegedly attacked a police camp with traditional weapons,[12] killing at least 400-500[2] refugees. After 15 days, the 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]. Several attacks continued in the months that followed. Hindu refugee women were kidnapped at night and raped to pressure their families.[2] Over 6,000 huts were burnt down. Eyewitness accounts recount the participation of Communist Party of India (Marxist) cadres in the carnage against the refugees.[1] They also recount bayonets being thrust into fifteen school kids – aged between five and twelve – who had taken shelter inside the thatched hut that was their school and their skulls being crushed. The kids had gathered there to make arrangements for Saraswati Puja, which was to be celebrated the next day. The policemen had smashed Saraswati’s idol before they left. The process of firing, rape and threats against the Hindu refugees continued till May.[1]
Some of the remaining 250-300 refugees were then forcibly relocated to Dandakaranya while the rest were escorted in police launches to Hasnabad. 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]
Different accounts have put the death toll anywhere between 5000 and over 50,000.[2] The official toll was two.[16][17]