My grandparents came to the present West Bengal from what is
now Bangladesh during the 1940s, just before the holocaust of partition.
Thereafter, till 1982, various other relatives have slowly come over and
settled down in West Bengal, mostly around Calcutta. Various families have
fared differently. Some have become richer, and some have been driven to the
brink of starvation. Since childhood I have been listening to the conversations
of the family elders and others who had come over as refugees. From my experience,
I have come to the conclusion that there is a pattern in the fortune of the
refugees. There are obviously exceptions and this hypotheses cannot be
applicable to other refugee communities at this moment.
The people who have prospered after coming to West Bengal
are generally those who had nothing when they were in East Bengal or who lost
everything in the partition. The ones who could not fare well were generally
from well-to-do families in East Bengal or those who could save something from
the partition. The people who had nothing or lost everything had nothing to
lose in the new land. They did not discriminate between dignified or
undignified labour and took up whatever employment came their way and whatever
opportunity were afforded them to make some money to subsist. Their zeal to
survive at all cost saw them work day and night and change their fortunes over
a span of a decade.
People coming from a well-to-do family did not take up just
any unemployment as they did not have to worry about subsistence and social
status was still higher on their priority list. They gave up opportunities and
most of them slowly began sinking into poverty unlike the other group.
Obviously there are exceptions to this generalization but
the majority follows this trend. This could also be true for refugees elsewhere
but without thorough knowledge about those communities and their background no
generalization can be applied. In the absence of any other compelling reason, I
believe that it is the force of physical survival and social status that
determined the future of the people who migrated to West Bengal from East
Bengal.
I am always open to new ideas and would appreciate inputs
and suggestions. I am reading more on this subject as of now and shall modify
my hypotheses as and when necessary.
In Punjab, people worked their way up the social and economic ladder and this cut across the economic status of the refugees. Land allotment in punjab followed a pre-determined pattern on which migrants worked. In bengal, re-settlement measures which took people as far as orissa and central india could be the reason for the varied profile of the refugees. of course this happened with refugees in western India too, but bengal received a steady stream of refugees much after 1947 and re-settlement became tougher as did the opportunities for better living because resources were under immense pressure.
ReplyDeleteApologies for the inordinate delay in replying back. I agree with what you have to say. To gain better depth about the situation in the West I am going through Prof Ayesha Jalal's works. The situation in Bengal was further worsened by a number of factors - social, economical and political - that was unique to Bengal at that time. The situation was also aggravated by the strong presence of the Communists who saw in the refugees an enormous vote-bank potential.
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