Morichjhanpi

Morichjhanpi (alternatively Morichjhapi) is an island set in the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans in West Bengal, India. It is mostly remembered today for the Morichjhanpi massacre incident of 1978-79 when the newly elected CPI(M) government of West Bengal forcibly evicted thousands of Bengali refugees who had settled on the island. The government's actions resulted in the deaths of many refugees; although the exact number is unknown, researchers believe that at least several hundred people died from police brutality, disease and starvation.

Background

The Partition of India in 1947 split the large eastern province of Bengal into two halves, along religious lines. One half became West Bengal, a Hindu-majority province in the new independent state of India. The other half became East Pakistan, the Muslim-majority eastern half of Pakistan, and later the independent country of Bangladesh.

Partition was accompanied by much bloodshed and suffering, and the mass migration of millions of people - Hindus from their ancestral lands in East Pakistan across to India, Muslims trekking in the opposite direction. This cross-transfer of peoples continued through the decades after Partition, although at a much slower rate. While the educated upper classes were able to settle themselves in the urban environs of Calcutta, the poor and the low-caste Hindus were moved to areas outside West Bengal, in inhospitable terrain in Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

When the present Left Front government first came to power in Calcutta in 1978, the refugees decided to move back to West Bengal. Many families went to the Sundarbans, especially those who were originally from the nearby district of Khulna in Bangladesh, and who already had relatives living from before in clearings in the forest.

The Sundarbans are the world's largest expanse of mangrove forest, occupying the southern half of Bengal and straddling national boundaries. It is also the natural habitat of unique flora and fauna, most notably the Royal Bengal Tiger, and the entire region is regarded as an ecological marvel.

Government violence

The West Bengal government reacted violently to the incursion by the refugee-settlers. It alleged that the refugees had violated the Forest Acts protecting the mangrove forest. The Morichjhanpi incident refers to the actions throughout 1979 when thousands of settler families were brutally evicted from the island. The incident resulted, directly or indirectly, in hundreds of deaths, including 36 refugees killed in police firings on January 31, 1979. In spite of a pathetic fightback by some of the islanders, several thousand settlers were eventually removed over the course of the year. The total casualty amounted to almost a thousand. The repeated pleas from the dwellers of the island did not reach the mainland owing to the iron fisted control of the left front, over the media. the plight of the refugees was supposed to be published in parts in the Bengali Daily Jugantar,25th July, however after the first part, it had to be discontinued. Later the editor Amitava Chaudhuri wrote, how the CPM led government forced him to back off from carrying forth the further publications, in spite of the declaration of the forth coming 2nd part in the 25th July issue itself. The entire documents, including the list of the casualties of this tragedy can be found in a bengali book, titled Marichjhapi Beyond Silence by Jagadish Chandra Mandal distributed by peoples' book society, 12C, Bankim Chatterjee Street, Kolkata-700073.

The Morichjhanpi incident has been extensively documented by Dr Annu Jalais of the LSE and also Mr Ross Mallich. It also features prominently in "The Hungry Tide", a novel by the well-known Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh, who drew extensively on Jalais' research for his story.