--- On Sun, 23/8/09, ss <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: ss <[email protected]> > Subject: [silk] Public private conversation with Bonobashi > To: [email protected] > Date: Sunday, 23 August, 2009, 7:38 AM > IG linked below is a screen grab of a > footnote in a Google book about the > partition of Bengal in 1947 > > http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a11/cybersurg/brf/bengalrefugee.jpg > > Also, I quote below passages from another source (which I > an not going to > bother to put on here) > > > The displaced in the East had neither adequate > compensation > > nor rehabilitation to reconstruct their lives. > > If the better-off people from East Pakistan could > reconstruct their lives > > with relative ease in West Bengal, for those belonging > to the middle class > > and lower middle class, it was almost impossible. Many > of them had to spend > > ten, fifteen or twenty years in refugee camps before > they could imagine a > > better life. Those who did not go to the camps and > settled in the jabar > > dakhal colonies on the margins of Calcutta also > continued with a > > hand-to-mouth existence for many years. Many of them > could never return to > > their traditional family occupations and, therefore, > felt a sense of > > alienation and irreparable occupational loss even > after partial > > rehabilitation. In other words, the partition of > Bengal had a long-term > > impact on the economy and culture of the region. > > Third, I want to say that I am currently ploughing through > Nirad Chaudhuri's > second autobiography volume (1921 to 195something). > Chaudhuri speaks of a > unique East Bengali culture. > > I have two queries and wonder if you can throw any light > 1) Are you aware of any unique east Bengali culture that > was destroyed by > partition? > 2) We only ever hear of stories of partition from the West. > But apart from the > deaths it appeared that the continued suffering in the East > was of a far > greater magnitude. I do not sense (from the Bengalis I > know) a great tendency > to hold grievances related to partition as chips on the > shoulder - but there > must be a sense of loss hidden somewhere. Can you thow some > light? > > shiv You've asked a monumental question. Somewhere sometime ago (never mind where) I asked an obstreperous interlocutor which Bengal was commonly said to be soured against the rest of India and Delhi in particular, with a set of choices, ranging from the harsh reign of Shashank of Gaud. One of the choices was: Was it during the period in office of Mehr Chand Khanna, appointed Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation by Nehru, who spent 90% or more of the rehabilitation budget on west Punjabi refugees? What you cited or wrote about the middle and lower middle class was practically the story of my own extended family as well. We are almost evenly distributed, as a caste, on both sides of the east-west border; the eastern set is practically non-existent today. For example, my provenance is Dhaka on my father's side, Barisal on my mother's. Nobody exists on either side in either Dhaka or Barisal. My sister is married to a Brahmo; her father-in-law, as a youngster, vainly tried to keep the family together, physically, during the nightmare journey to the border, and succeeded, by and large; he only lost a sister. For decades afterwards, we were sneered at and looked down upon by the finely-clothed, well-educated, well-housed and rooted local gentry. East Bengalis were bywords for being the Indian equivalent of a D'Artagnan Gascon; poor, but each one of reputed heritage and belonging to minor gentry, quick to take offence, equally quick to make extravagant gestures beyond their means. Largely false; the sneer most in vogue is that if one were to put together the legendary estates of all the refugees as claimed, it would be a landmass roughly the size of Russia. Most were poor people, but with recognised positions in rural society, not raised much above the peasantry, but not degraded either. On the banks of the rivers of Babylon, they were the scum of the earth, despised by all. When you are told of Bengali rivalry on the football field, it was the cold-hearted, well-settled babus who 'owned' Mohan Bagan; we scum supported (surprise!) East Bengal. It was the only outlet for our pent-up resentment and our violent hatred of both the oppressor who sent us out and the oppressor who hemmed us in. Loss? Sense of deprivation? You must be kidding, Shiv. It burns inside every 'Bangal', as the 'Ghotis' of the west mock us (you know what? 60 years later they haven't stopped). And it translates into a desire and an effort to do well no matter what the odds. These are people, many of them, whose only housing was jabar dakhal (squatted on) buildings in Calcutta and elsewhere, through a spectrum of increasing meanness and desolation, until the ultimate scum lived in the gap between the station platform overhang and the edge of the tracks, about four feet away. If you think that's urban legend, think again; I've seen it, not once, not twice, but a regular feature. You may have seen these slums on the outskirts of Calcutta, in Jadavpore, in Bagha Jatin, in all those pendants which went red with a vengeance in 68 and was crushed with clinical violence. Those are the killing fields which gave birth to the eccentric, half-crazed Mamata Bannerjee; many say she's almost suicidal in her extremism. Why not? What's to lose? She's the poster East Bengali woman, completely almost comically extreme in her views and attitudes, not prepared to back down, hostile and understanding and accepting of hostility, loyal to her friends, vindictive to her enemies, maniacal in her concentration on the winning of the battle, a figure of fun to the majority, our 'Didi' to her constituency, which is all the people who have never known a home after they were driven out. I don't know what on earth you mean by unique East Bengali culture being destroyed by partition. East Bengali and West Bengali cultures are completely different. Our clothes are different; our food is different; our songs are different; our land was different; our neighbours were different. Even the bloody languages are different; none of these 'Sassenachs' can speak our language. It was such bliss to step out onto Dhaka roads just outside the airport, and realise with a shock that they were speaking 'MY LANGUAGE', the secret language that my father and his brothers and siblings spoke at home. Within this general distinction, there are smaller areas of distinction; clothes and food were the typical markers, apart from the nuanced variations in speech patterns which we clung to so lovingly in our long exile. It isn't a great idea to ask about the sense of grievance. It lies buried but close to the surface, and the Indian Bengali, the Mussalman, from anywhere, and the other Indians are close together on the hierarchy of hate for the Bangal. You don't want to know what we think; you really don't. It made me almost physically sick to answer this question (two questions). Perhaps we could meet during the next four or five days that I'm in Bangalore and discuss this further (+91 93317 42638).
