When Memory is Traumatic: A Critical Study of
Bangla Autobiography Dandakaranyer
Dinguli
Jyoti Biswas
Ph. D. Research Scholar
Dept. of English Studies
Central University of Jharkhand
Jharkhand, India
Abstract:
Autobiography is a valuable repository of memory, both personal and
collective. It encompasses familial accounts of happiness and suffering; and at
the same time its narrative remains a faithful representation of a whole
community. Besides, it covers up social and political timeline as well. In this
respect, an autobiography is not simply a family saga; rather its narrative
accounts for understanding contemporary social situations. To contextualize it,
political cataclysm of Partition of Bengal into East Pakistan and West Bengal
in 1947 creates an identity crisis among its victims, that the victimhood leads
to formation of traumatic memory. Dandakāranyer
Dinguli (Days of Dandakāranya), a Bangla autobiography written by Sudhir
Ranjan Haldar is a valuable repository of traumatic memory that both records
the personal recollections and social commentary. The present paper focuses
primarily on theoretical dimension of traumatic memory; and examines two
important issues in the selected text: traumatic memory of Namo community being
refugee in India; and traumatic memory of Namo community within a vicious
circle of caste-based discrimination in their refugee life in refugee
camps. An individual’s personal
narrative by the virtue of its representational dimension becomes a collective
utterance for entire community; it brings out a common ethnic identity and
commonly felt ethnic trauma running through the individual author and other
community members in an unmistakable manner.
Keywords: partition;
trauma; memory; refugee; caste discrimination; autobiography
There is no life without trauma. There is no
history without trauma. Some lives will forever be overshadowed by violent
histories, including colonial invasions, slavery, totalitarianism,
dictatorships, wars, and genocide…Trauma…violently halts the flow of time,
fractures the self, and punctuates memory and language.
―Gabriele Schwab1
Memory and trauma seem to have an inseparable communion in human
survival. Memories or storage of past incidents in human brain bear varied
contexts in which they take place. Some contexts are familial, some
professional, and some contexts social or political. Each context develops its
structural framework for creating respective memory narrative. In other words,
childhood memory of happiness in familial context is quite different from
traumatic memory of casteist/racist discrimination in professional context. The
narrative of memory recollection whether oral or verbal is, therefore, seen
bound with contextual impact. Modern-day Jews feel it unbearable to hark back
the cursed days of the Holocaust, that global Jews community live with the
traumatic memory of Nazi operation till date. Although utterly painful and
heart-wrenching, memory of lost homeland to millions of Namo2
community in the Partition is inseparable. Speaking especially of Namo
community members, they being the worst victims of partition have still been
suffering from an identity crisis even after more than seventy years as NRC3
has evoked it afresh since 2014. The
entire trajectory of the Partition and its deadly aftermath has given rise to
what can be termed as ‘traumatic memory’ among the community members, both first
generation victims and successive generations. Memory stained with trauma, or traumatic memory therefore has become an
essential psychic component in their reminiscence of the past. The selected
text Dandakāranyer Dinguli (Days of
Dandakaranya), by Sudhir Ranjan Haldar, a member of Namo community, who along
with thousands of fellow community members migrated in the aftermath of the
Partition from erstwhile East Bengal-turned-East Pakistan to Dandakaranya,
India in 1965, narrates the traumatic memory of his life and simultaneously of
his victimized community in his autobiography in quintessential manner.
OED defines trauma as a
“psychic injury, esp. one caused by emotional shock the memory of which is
repressed and remains unhealed; an internal injury, esp. to the brain, which
may result in a behavioural disorder of organic origin” (441). OED records
early commentary of trauma by some of the prominent practitioners of psychology
such as William James who says that trauma denotes “certain reminiscences of
the shock fall into the subliminal consciousness where they can only be
discovered in ‘hypnoid’ state” (441). Henderson and Gillespie’s Textbook of Psychiatry for Students and
Practitioners (1969) puts the following definition of trauma that it is a
“mental symptoms in one of the two ways. Either it causes structural injury to
the brain, or it causes emotional disturbances” (qtd. in OED 441). On the other hand, OED defines memory in
multiple ways, such as “the faculty by which things are remembered; capacity
for retaining, perpetuating, or reviving the thought of things past”; or “The
recollection (of something) perpetuated amongst people; what is remembered of a
person, object or event”; or “The length of time over which the recollection of
a person or a number of persons extends” (596-98). To analyze aforementioned
definitions of both trauma and memory, it can be deducted that ‘traumatic
memory’ is primarily the recollection of traumatic experiences either by an
individual or by a group the manifestation of which can be found through oral
and verbal narratives, although other mediums of cognitive ability, such as
archaeological evidence, photography, documentary, oral archive also help us
develop the narrative of loss of cultural past.
Psychic trauma as a psychological property of
human consciousness has been a subject of research and investigation to
psychologists and clinical practitioners for over a century. Pioneered by
British surgeon Sir John Eric Erichsen (1818-1896) who studied trauma as a
disease of mind, one of the early psychological formations of psychic trauma is
developed in Breuer-Freud cathartic method4 that was based on
hysteria in which reminiscences occupy a crucial role. According to Ruth Leys,
the early psychological study of trauma is predominantly underlined as
“wounding of the mind brought about by sudden, unexpected, emotional shock. The
emphasis began to fall on the hysterical shattering of the personality
consequent on a situation of extreme terror of fright” (4). Although psychological
investigation and research on hysteria and other sorts of mental depression
have long been recognized by practitioners as vital resources to study
traumatic memory in individual self, treatment and research of trauma outside
psychology has been pioneered by many cultural theorists and historians, such
as Cathy Caruth, Dominic LaCapra, Elain Scarry, Marita Sturken, E. Ann Kalpan,
and Ruth Ley. Seminal texts, such as Unclaimed
Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (1995), History and Memory after Auschwitz (2001) and Trauma Culture: The Politics of Terror and Loss in the Media and
Literature (2005) have paved the way for research of trauma and memory in
Humanities. Maurice Stevens explicates how trauma turns into a cultural essence
in human life: “At its base is the notion that trauma is not simply a concept
that describes particularly overwhelming events…but is a cultural object whose
function produces particular types of objects, an predisposes specific affect
flows that it then manages and ultimately shunts into political projects of
various types” (20). The function of trauma as a cultural object shifts our
attention from purely being a psychological disease, almost hysteric to lived
experiences of either an individual or an entire community, the experiences
which consequently turn the shape into both oral and verbal narrative. These
narratives provide readers with what Maurice Stevens calls critical trauma
studies (Stevens 25).
According to Gabriele Schwab trauma “is
concerned with what happens to psychic life in the wake of unbearable violence
and focuses on irresolvable…loses that occurred under catastrophic
circumstances that bring us to the abyss of human abjection” (3). In this
respect, recollections and remembrances of the victims who suffer from all
sorts of catastrophe and violence become the primary sources to studying the
construction of traumatic memory that usually turns into a cultural property in
the sense that narrative of such memories got transmitted from source
generation to next generations. This trans-generational transmission of
traumatic experiences of first generation is inherited by the successive
generations in the form of oral narrative or verbal narrative. The way
grandparents and other elders of a family narrate folktale to young boys and
girls, memory sharing takes the similar sort of transmission. In this respect,
trauma becomes the content and memory the form of entire narrative structure.
These narratives have tended “to focus on the trauma and related…memories of victims
and victimized people” (Schwab 22).
It has to be noted that an individual
traumatic memory very often becomes representative oral or verbal narrative for
an entire community. An individual self does not grow in isolation. She/he
grows up in a family and in a large community. Throughout this growth right
from childhood she/he learns language and family culture. Following the same
imitative process her/his mental growth is traceable in constant interaction
with others because it is through imitation of other family members as well as
community members the individual’s psychic growth keeps the sense impressions
in the mind. Maurice Halbwachs (1877-1945), a noted sociologist who pioneered
the study of mémoire collective or
collective memory observes on individual memory that “individual recollections
[are] those recollections in which every individual retrieves his own past, and
often thinks that this is all that he can retrieve…each family member
recollects in his own manner the common familial past” (54). Although Halbwachs
puts much emphasis on the collective matrix of familial memory (61), he
considers that family constitutes “the essential social unity” (64). Looking
beyond family matrix, the germination of collective memory that germinates in
the family stretches its expansion beyond the family. An individual’s constant
interaction with the society brings forth a new dimension in the formation of
an individual’s personal recollections of past, i.e. it gets merged with
recollections of same cultural, social and political phenomena taken place in
this society, that can be called collective memory.
Traumatic memory with oral and verbal
narrative is an essential resource to scholars of Humanities to study the
history of cataclysm that resulted in such mental wound; it also occupies a
crucial place in formulating cultural identity among respective members of the
victimized group. As already discussed that autobiographical recollection of
past is personal as well as collective in respective contemporary socio-political
history and community-oriented identity formation, autobiography as written
document is the closest and most authentic record to study the making of
traumatic memory both personal and collective, to interrogate and then to
explicate the respective socio-political context in which the people become
victims, and to assess the text’s
cultural importance among its people and at the same time among general
readers. The present paper now discusses the selected text, the historical
context and textual/thematic analysis of selected excerpts to justify traumatic
memory as the central theme of the text.
The primary text Dandakaranyer Dinguli (Days of Dandakaranya) is a Bangla autobiography written by Sudhir Ranjan
Haldar, first published in 2014. Haldar was born in 1946 in village Moishani of
Barishal district in erstwhile East Bengal that became East Pakistan after the
Partition of British India into Secular India and Muslim Pakistan. Born in a
Namo community, Haldar qualified Secondary School certificate from Sekherhat
High School in 1963 in erstwhile East Pakistan. While studying Science at local
College, he witnessed raging flame of communal riots between majority Muslims
and minority non-Muslims5 including Namo community in adjacent
villages and in other districts throughout East Pakistan. Along with many
others, Haldar migrated to West Bengal, India in 1964. After a temporary
settlement there, he migrated to Dandakaranya. Dandakaranya6 is a
physiographic barren, hilly region in east-central India. Its landmass
comprises of almost 35,600 square miles. It spans about 200 miles from north to
south and 300 miles from east to west.
It is consisted of some parts of Chattisgarh, Odisha, Telengana and
Andhra Pradesh, an intersection of lands taken from different adjacent states.
Its longitudinal and latitudinal measurements are 82°05¢00²E and
19°05¢00²N respectively. It is located in such
intersection because it has been created so for specific purpose.
The history of Dandakaranya goes back to
refugee resettlement in 1958 and for soil conservation in 1947. Thinly
populated by some indigenous Tribes, Indian government arranged this
intersectional location for resettlement of thousands of refugees who started
pouring into West Bengal and other Indian states from erstwhile East Pakistan
right after the Partition. The refugee resettlement in Dandakaranya has taken
place in different phases. The first phase began from 1947 and the second phase
from 1971. Throughout these phases, migration and resettlement of thousands of
Namo community people formed the background of this autobiography.
In the autobiographical writings of Namo
writers there are two broad socio-political themes dealt with: social
marginalization in the caste-based hierarchical system in Bengal; and politics
of the Partition and their victimhood. Despite the fact that research and
publications on the Partition historiography have been continuing
over a long period of time, the questions respective Namo community writers and
scholars raise remain neglected in the popular Partition historiography. The
binary of Hindu-Muslim seems to be too dominant to let other enquiries creep
into the intellectual space. The three central questions raised by Namo
writers, scholars and historians are: 1. Despite the fact that Muslims and
Hindus divided their respective landmass for themselves in the name of East Pakistan
and West Bengal in 1947, why were Namo-populated districts of Faridpur, Khulna,
Jessore, Barishal kept outside Hindu-majority West Bengal? 2. What are the
reasons that only Namo community refugees were sent to Dandakaranya, Andaman
and Nicobar Islands and other far-off places in refugee resettlement programs
in different phases after 1947 and after 1971? 3. Why were only Namo community
members massacred in deadly Marichjhanpi by Brahminical Communist government of
West Bengal in 1978-79?7 The present text not only narrates the
lived experiences of the author and other fellow members, but also raises these
three issues and provides us a clue to understand the politics of caste-based
hierarchy even in the Partition and in refugee distribution and resettlement
programs thereafter. A cluster of Namo scholars and historians, such as Dr.
Oneil R. Biswas, Dr. Upendranath Biswas, Dr. Gyanprakash Mandal, Dr. Atul K.
Biswas, Mr. Swapan Kumar Biswas, Dr. Sunil Kumar Roy, Dr. Manoshanta Biswas;
and writers, such as Kapil K. Thakur, Manohar M. Biswas, Jatin Bala, Nakul
Mallik, Jagatbandhu Biswas, Kalyani C. Thakur and others have done a
considerable research on Partition and its aftermath. Dr. Manoshanta Biswas
argues:
Independence and the Bengal partition in 1947
were not quite a favorable phenomenon to many marginalized communities, such as
Rajbanshi and Namasudra. The Bengal partition in 1947 weakened the impact of
independently-built political movements of both communities and at the same
time divided their political ideology and consensus by dividing the population
into two lands. “Transfer of power” was carried out based on the communal
demand of Hindus and Muslims. The religious-political demand of the
marginalized communities was beyond the calculation. (my trans.; 262)
Autobiographies written by Namo writers, such
as Dandakaronyer Dinguli (Days
of Dandakaranya) by Sudhir Ranjan
Haldar; Smritir Pata Theke (From the
Leaves of Memory) by Jagatbandhu Biswas; Amar
Bhubone Ami Benche Thaki (Surviving in My World) by Manohar M. Biswas; Shikor Chhenra Jibon (Uprooted Life) by
Jatin Bala and others interrogate all these questions and to a great extant
critique the caste-based hierarchy that was initiated behind the Partition. All
these autobiographical writings highlight two interrelated themes: traumatic memory
emerged out of their refugee life; and traumatic memory emerged out of
caste-based discrimination in refugee camps. Dandakaranyer Dinguli adds another dimension, i.e. it depicts the
refugee life of thousands of Namo community people in Dandakaranya that is a
far-off land from West Bengal. The readers come to know that not only in
different refugee camps and colonies in West Bengal, but also in Dandakaranya
too, Namo refugees became the victims of dual marginalization in which
caste-based discrimination played a crucial role.
The text Dandakaranyer
Dinguli is a literary product of the author’s superannuated life, hence
overloaded with reflective strain of words and expressions that are too
emotional and that influence its readers by travelling back to 1950s and 60s to
visualize the mass exodus crossing the border of East Pakistan and pouring into
an imaginary flux known as West Bengal with a blazing hope that it would be
their destination, no matter how illusory their hope would be. The images or
photographs of mass exodus of refugees to West Bengal through Gede border or
Petropole8 border kept in West Bengal State Archives or made
available in Google homogenize the author’s verbal presentation of refugee
life. Sudhir Ranjan Haldar begins his autobiography with not only with an acute
feeling of homesickness, but also with a possible anticipation of illusion of
future life:
With the turbulence in my mind that bulged up
on the eve of forsaking my birthplace, I set off onto my marathon long ago;
this is almost forty years that I am still sprinting on the circular court of
my life’s marathon. The turbulence has not been weakened yet, nor terminated my
sprinting. I really don’t know how long I have to run to reach to my
destination.
Following
the unstoppable sprinting, I reached Dandakaranya as if a floating water
hyacinth; it was that place where I have seen millions of refugees floating in
and getting ashore―all of them were the innocent victims the Partition. (my
trans.; 7)
The memory of bygone days has taken the shape
of a verbal narrative that is charged with a feeling of anguish and regret.
That sort of beginning of an autobiography has provided a hint to readers that
right from the beginning the author writes on behalf of an entire victimized
community that got displaced from their homeland in the Partition of Bengal. On
the other hand, it sets the tone for rest of the text that will keep readers
well-grounded on the thematic treatment. The factual details the author puts
along with authentic narrative of refugee resettlement is also helpful to
locate the time and place of the entire narrative. It bears its historical
authenticity as well by eliminating fictitious narrative.
The author explains the background why
thousands of minority non-Muslims fled East Pakistan in 1950s and 60s. It
primarily focuses on two interrelated situations: religious and political.
Since East Pakistan was Muslim-majority, the Islamic Law for non-believers
(known as Kafir) justifies the increasing incidents of rape, molestation on
non-Muslim women, mass killing and loot on non-Muslim settlements in the name
of holy Jihad. On the other hand, political instigation by Urdu-speaking West
Pakistani government in Lahore worsened the minority crisis even more intensely.
The author gives us the following account of Islamic atrocities on minority
non-Muslims in the following way:
There was a great humdrum going on in East
Pakistan at that time. At the beginning of the year a deadly riot took place
around our locality. Killing, loot, rape, setting houses on fire―they chose
only Hindus, Buddhists, and other non-Muslims and relentless torture was
carried out almost with the support of the government. Many non-Muslims already
fled from East Pakistan to save the dignity of their women and their life at
large. (my trans.; 8)
Two issues, i.e. the dignity and respect of
non-Muslim women and the safety of non-Muslim communities in general were their
major preoccupation. The mental tension of a father for his young daughter or
of a young man for his newly-married wife, or a mother’s deep concern for her
young son or a young wife’s mental unrest for her husband in such terrorized,
religiously and politically hostile environment became inseparable part of
their daily living. It shows how traumatic their living was during the initial
decades followed by the Partition. Their memory was submerged by the unbearable
weight of terror and trauma.
As it was mandated in the religious
bifurcation that Pakistan with its West and East provinces was a political
entity for Muslims, the mind of minority non-Muslims was naturally and
desperately craved for India, especially West Bengal that was supposed to be
the final destination. In this part of the text, especially the episodes of
communal riots and political provocations highlight authentically how
inhospitable the native land turned and how insecure thousands of non-Muslims,
especially Namo community members were. It remains the background of their
forced migration to West Bengal in 1950s and 60s. It has to be noted that Namo
community is traditionally agrarian, having inseparable link with the soil. Dr.
Manoshanta Biswas’s research shows how difficult it was for them to terminate
their traditional livelihood and migrate to West Bengal overnight. On the
contrary, only upper castes who were politically and financially privileged
managed to settle to West Bengal before the burning flame of communal riot
could affect them badly (265-66).
The text focuses next on the narrative of
refugee life that in many ways multiplied their trauma and identity crisis. In
other words, if religious terror changed their peaceful living in their
motherland into unbearable trauma and extreme form of insecurity, their refugee
life in West Bengal and later on in Dandakaranya exposed them harshly in the
refugee camps. The text documents this new phase of their life authentically
and visually. The episode of Dandakaranya begins with a mythical account of
this place that this place was the famous forest in which prince Rama, his wife
Sita and his brother Laxmana spent their exile as it was narrated in Sanskrit
epic the Ramayana (30). As already
mentioned, this place was peopled by a few Tribes who might have been described
as demons in the epic. The author’s first encounter with this new place and its
inhabitants was of strange feeling because a man born and brought up in fertile
land of East Bengal or East Pakistan found quite difficult to cope with his new
environment and new language. Unlike many other Namo refugees who have been
resettled in different parts of West Bengal, the Namo people documented in this
text found for themselves a barren, forest land with unknown people and
language, as if a fish out of the water. His first arrival was at Ambagura by
bus. After staying a few days there, he headed toward Malkangiri. At
Malkangiri, he found around himself the typical hill and forest for which
Dandakaranya was well-known. There he encountered first what was like being a
marginalized despite being refugee along with others. He searched for a hotel
for temporary shelter. When he contacted the officials at Dandakaranya Project
office headquarter, he met with one Kalidas Som, a clerk in the office. The
office clerk arranged for him a temporary shelter before he finally shifted to
new Tribal village as an appointed teacher. One day, he and Kalidas Som were
talking about the prospect of new schools and education policy. On hearing that
the author would be appointed as a teacher in one primary school in a nearby
village, Kalidas Som expressed his concern: “How do you stay over there as a
teacher? You know this place was occupied mostly by all uncivilized castes,
such as Namo, Pod, Jele, Malo9 among others―all of them are
Scheduled Castes, all quite dirty and uncultured. Do you know how many teachers
already fled from these places?” (my trans.; 32-33). This observation of
Kalidas Som who indirectly hailed him as belonging to higher than those
Scheduled Castes who are traditionally considered as ‘Untouchables’ by Brahmins
and other Twice-born castes in Hindu society was the very first incident where
caste became a determinant factor for judging the social status of any
particular community. This observation by Kalidas Som was the first such
incident the author witnessed at Dandakaranya that the thousands of refugees
despite being homeless, utterly helpless in a foreign land couldn’t get any
respite from caste-based social hierarchy, a system that puts some castes
higher and some castes lower. The very first caste phenomenon in the refugee
settlements add a new dimension to this autobiography that caste-based
hierarchy is inseparable no matter how helpless and hopeless people might be in
any situation.
There are many such passages with reference
to caste status of the refugees. In another incident the author witnessed how
some castes, like Brahmins, Kayasthas hated Namo and other marginalized castes.
A fellow teacher, Shyamsundar Paul while talking about the refugee settlements
told the author: “What will happen if students don’t turn up in your school?
All refugees settled here are Scheduled Castes, all are uncivilized,
uneducated. Caste Hindus haven’t come here as a refugee that education will be
valued. All refugees belong to Namo, Pod, Jele, Malo and other castes” (my
trans.; 42). This episode gets extended to more than four pages and throughout
the narrative. What unmistakable here is the names of different castes into
which refugees are divided, such as
Brahmin, Kayastha, Namo, Pod, Jele, Malo. What is more evidential is the social
hierarchy. Namo, Pod, Jele, Malo and other castes which constitute majority of
refugees in different camps throughout Dandakaranya have been assigned a low
status. Being refugee is not enough; what is added with this fate is ‘lower
caste refugee.’
In his Annihilation
of Caste (1936), Dr. Ambedkar explains that despite the fact that division
of labor is found in every civilized society, the Hindu society has elevated it
onto division of laborers the categorization of which is based on caste-based
identity (263). Such insightful commentary helps us see that underlying dual
structures in all professional spaces in India. The text suggests that Kalidas
Som, Shyamsundar Paul and author Sudhir Ranjan Haldar were refugees. But as the
caste-based hierarchy is exposed, the author and his thousands of fellow Namo
community members were not only refugee, but to a great extent ‘lower caste
refugee.’ The concept of double marginalization in which Namo, Pod, Jele, Malo
castes suffered in refugee camps add a new dimension of such autobiography. Dandakaranyer Dinguli is an important
social document in another respect. It gives us an authentic description of
Marichjhanpi10 massacre carried out shamelessly by the Communist
government of West Bengal in 1978-79. Throughout a large section of the text,
the author provides us how Communist leaders, such Samar Mukherji, Jyoti Basu
frequently visited refugee camps in Dandakaranya and convinced them if
Communists would form political power in West Bengal, they would arrange
resettlement for them at Sundarban (133-34). There was a time when
thousands of Namo refugees migrated to Dandakaranya from West Bengal at the
initial period of refugee settlement programs. In 1977, the Communist
government came to power in West Bengal. Consequently the refugees in
Dandakaranya under the leadership of Satish Chandra Mandal asked the Communist
government to fulfill their promises. The author narrates another great episode
of mass exodus, this time from Dandakaranya to West Bengal: “Right from the beginning
of the year 1978, thousands of refugees started returning to West Bengal. More
the time was passing away more number of refugees were vacating different camps
of Dandakaranya. About seventy percent of refugee population already vacated
Dandakaranya by the end of that year” (my trans.; 134). They were resettled
first at Hansnabad camp before they were deported to Marichjhanpi. Refugee
camps at Hansnabad turned into unhygienic as the government refused to help
them with basic amenities. The author writes: “I have personally seen the
helplessness of thousands of refugees who are heading towards Marichjhanpi.
Since there was some transport problem in making their way to Marichjhanpi, the
refugees first settled at Hansnabad camps. They settled along two sides of the
railway track, in bushes, in jungles wherever they managed” (my trans.;
134-35). Rest of the incidents has become stained with blood of thousands of
innocent people who had fallen victims in the hand of Communist government. It
is known in history as the ‘Marichjhanpi Massacre of 1978-79’ in which only
Namo refugees were terribly victimized. The author gives us a ground report of
the barbarous act of rape, murder and butchery inflicted upon thousands of Namo
refugees who were asked by the government to settle to Marichjhanpi from
Dandakaranya:
They set up schools, constructed roads,
markets under the guide of Udbastu
Unnoinshil Samiti (Refugee Development Association) at Marichjhanpi. They
started business by setting up small scale industries, as if they created their
own new world. With their tireless effort they made large fishing pond, tobacco
factory, biscuit factory. Had they got government’s support they would have
flourished there at Marichjhanpi. But instead of helping them out, the Communist
government with their police and cadre raped women, looted their resources, set
their houses on fire, killed them mercilessly, massacred women and children and
in this way drove them away from Marichjhanpi again. (my trans.; 135)
The autobiography Dandakaranyer Dinguli contextualizes the Partition of undivided
Bengal in 1947, connects the political conspiracies intended to marginalize
Namo and other populous communities in the partition, documents the deadly
aftermath in the form of rape, loot, mass killing, forced displacement of
thousands of Namo community members, exposes the political eloquence of Hindu
identity, and describe the plights and suffering of thousands of refugees who
have been deported to Dandakaranya. Throughout this tumultuous dimension, the
autobiographical narrative of Sudhir Ranjan Haldar justifies conceptual
implication of double marginalization of Namo community refugees: one, their
identity being refugee; and second, their identity being ‘lower caste refugee.’
This double marginalization multiplies their traumatic memory that got
transmitted through generations. Dandakaranyer
Dinguli is one of the few texts that weave the very complicated and
delicate ‘traumatic narrative’ of a community’s victimhood in the historic
context of the Partition of their beloved East Bengal.
End Notes
1.
Gabriele Schwab is a noted
literary scholar, focusing on Holocaust and trauma in her writings. See Schwab,
Gabriele. Haunting Legacies: Violent
Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. New York, Columbia UP, 2010, P.42.
2.
In this paper instead of
using Namasudra, Namo is used to refer to this community. The original argument
behind this is, a cluster of scholars and activists of this community do
believe that a great political conspiracy was played by Brahmins to influence
the British government to introduce a new combined word Nama+Sudra in 1911
census to forcibly include a non-Aryan, non-Hindu ethnic group within the Hindu
fold. Now-a-days, many scholars and activists of this community introduce
themselves as ‘Namo.’ They do not acknowledge Namasudra. See Roy, Sunil Kumar. Itihase Namojati. Kolkata, Lalmati
Prokashon, 2019. Biswas, S. K. Untouchable
Chandals of India: The Democratic Movement. New Delhi, Gyan Publishing
House, 2013. Roy, Sunil Kumar. Nirbachito
Probondho Sonkolon. Kolkata, Janomon, 2015.
3. National Register of Citizens is a
legislative Act of registering all Indian citizens by Indian government. First
constituted in Citizenship Amendment Act, 1955 and amended later in 2003. It
has been implemented in Assam in 2013-14 and in 2019-20 by Government of India.
4.
Breuer-Freud cathartic
method is a psychoanalytic study on hysteria. Joseph Breuer’s famous case of
Anna O. was seminal for the study and development of Psychoanalysis. See
Breuer, Joseph and Sigmund Freud. Studies
in Hysteria. Translated by Nicola Luckhurst, London, Penguin Books,
2004.
5. In this paper, non-Muslims are referred to
those who do not follow Islam, such as Matuas, Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs,
Jains and Hindus. In India there is a peculiar tendency among general scholars
to categorize someone as Hindu if she/he is not a Muslim by faith. In the name
of Hinduism, many non-Hindu groups of people have been forcibly registered as
Hindu. In specific case, Namo people are not Hindus. In this respect, see
Biswas, Manoshanta. Banglar Matua
Amdolon: Somaj, Sanskriti, Rajniti. Kolkata, Setu Prokashani, 2016.
6. The refugee rehabilitation program was a key
political issue to the then Congress government. Since thousands of refugees
were pouring into West Bengal from erstwhile East Pakistan, Dandakaranya was
prepared to resettle refugees as well. See Elahi, K. Maudood. “Refugees in
Dandakaranya.” The International
Migration Review, vol. 15, no. ½, 1981, pp. 219-225. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2545338. Accessed 13
June 2021.
7. SojaKotha magazine edited by Harashit Sarkar has
brought out a special issue on Bengal Partition, Summer, 2020. Many Namo
scholars and writers have contributed in this issue. Mr. S. K. Biswas, Nakul
Mallik, Mrs. Madhabi Karmakar, Mr. Dilip Gayen, Mr. Dulal Krishna Biswas, Mr.
Mihir Sarkar, Mr. Jyoti Biswas have interpreted the Bengal Partition from a new
perspective in which Brahminical caste system and the political conspiracy have
been explained. See SojaKotha, Bangla-Bhag Special Issue, edited by
Harashit Sarkar, 5th year, vol. 1, 2020.
8. Two international gateways in West Bengal
connecting inter-border passage to Bangladesh. Since 1947 these gateways have
been common entrance point to refugees to come to West Bengal, India.
9. Names of some castes that have been marginalized
by Brahminical caste system in Bengal.
10.
Marichjhanpi is an island
situated in the mangrove forest of Sundarbans, in the district of South 24
Pargana, West Bengal. It is located at 22°06′25″N 88°57′04″E. It has an average elevation of 6 miters
(20ft.). It is approximately seventy-five kilometers away from Kolkata. The Communist government of West Bengal under the leadership of Jyoti
Basu invited thousands of Namo refugees
from Dandakaranya to settle at Marichjhanpi in 1978-79. It was followed by what
is known as Marichjhanpi Massacre. Jagadish Chandra Mandal has done an
authentic research work on it. See Mandal, Jagadish Chandra. Marichjhanpi: Noishobder Ontorale. 3rd
ed., Kolkata, People’s Book Society, 2018. To study the Marichjhanpi massacre
through poetic representation, see Biswas, Jyoti and Madhabi Karmakar. “Portrait of the Massacre: Two Dalit Poems on
Marichjhampi.” Perspectives on Indian Dalit Literature: Critical Responses,
edited by Dipak Giri, Bilaspur, Bookclinic Publishing, 2020, pp. 142-156.
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