Author: Sailendra Sil
Publication: Daily Times
Date: August 15, 2007
URL: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C08%5C15%5Cstory_15-8-2007_pg4_23
After staying in the camps for six decades they are in constant fear of being sent back to their homeland
THOUSANDS of refugees still occupy this forgotten and forlorn camp close to the Bangladesh border in a terrible testimony to the bitter legacy of the partition of India.
Gauranga Das, 80, has lived at Cooper's Camp for almost 60 years and can find nothing to celebrate as India marks six decades of independence. As the sub-continent shook with the bloody aftermath of partition and the migration of some 14 million people, Das fled his riverside home at Barishal in the newly-created Muslim-majority nation of East Pakistan for what he hoped would be a new life in India.
He was part of a late exodus of Hindus under pressure to abandon their homes to Muslim immigrants heading east from India. As the steam train chugged into Petrapole station, Das and other passengers were led to 40 funnel-shaped warehouses named after an English missionary called Cooper who ran a hospital nearby. "The corrugated tin sheds at Cooper's Camp were built to store the army's food grains and ammunition in British India," Das told AFP.
"But they became a temporary shelter for nearly 100,000 refugees from East Pakistan after the partition. "I came to the camp on 11 March, 1950," said Das, one of about 200 of the original thousands of refugee families who are still stuck in limbo in this last outpost of the partition tragedy. The site lies 80 kilometres 50 miles) from West Bengal state capital Kolkata and is one of dozens used to house refugees who came after the initial slaughter of the August 14-15, 1947, partition.
British India was carved up to create Muslim West and East Pakistan separated by majority Hindu India. While many of the estimated one million deaths caused by one of the greatest migrations in human history happened within weeks on the north-western side of the subcontinent, the trauma lingered here in the east.
In the west, mainly via the rich farm state of the Punjab, Hindus who came from West Pakistan to India and the Muslims moving the opposite way clashed in a bloodbath that lasted weeks. But migration was drawn out between West Bengal and the new East Pakistan. Tensions between the two states culminated in 1971 when India sent in troops to aid Bengali independence leaders who fought West Pakistan.
The war led to the creation of Bangladesh - still tied by language, food and culture to West Bengal - but the two states remain uneasy neighbours, especially over the issue of refugees. Many of the original refugees at Cooper's Camp took offers of Indian citizenship in exchange for agreeing to move to the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Andaman and Nicobar islands. But others like Das asked to be allowed to stay in West Bengal, which the state and federal governments have refused.
"We are neglected, ignored. It seems that not only the Indian federal government, but that time has forgotten us as well," Das said, leaning against a rusted tin shed. "Thousand of refugees from here were sent to Andaman and Nicobar islands. Those who refused to go there have been denied Indian nationality," he said. "After staying in the camps for six decades they are in constant fear of being sent back to their homeland."
The federal government stopped grants for the camp in 1990. Today remaining refugees receive some rice, grain and 400 rupees (10 dollars) each month from the West Bengal state government. "We are appealing their cases with the ruling communist government of the state," said Das, who is also vice-president of United Central Refugee Council, a left-leaning forum spearheading refugee rights.
"The government has failed to honour its promises to give employment and financial support to unemployed youth, the third generation of refugees in the camp," he charged. Minto Sanyal, 22, who was born at the camp, said that it was slowly falling into irrelevance, even though as many as 7,000 others like him call it home. "The only hospital in the camp has been shut nearly a decade ago. A post office still functioning with three staff may close its doors and four primary schools in tin sheds are virtually closed due to lack of students," he said.
Kiranbala Saha, an elderly woman who can't remember her age said: "We are living in a hell." "Rainwater seeps from the tin roof. Clogged drains swamp my room. We spend sleepless nights during the monsoon," said Kiranbala, who lost her husband about a decade ago. "Only death can give me relief from the daily suffering. I am waiting for that," she said.