The riots that broke out in erstwhile East Bengal soon after Partition saw a
steady inflow of refugees into West Bengal. In the more impersonal government accounts,
refugees formed part of a vast logistical exercise. They had to be housed in camps,
issued voter and ration cards and, in some cases, provided due compensation. But each
individual refugee story is a tale of individual loss, of escape and survival in a
new land; a narrative rendered especially poignant by the sudden whiff of nostalgia for a lost
homeland or desh. In the more jingoistic present, desh has taken on a connotation
similar to the patriotic fervour, nation evokes. However, for refugees, as the
personal narratives in this article reveal, desh will forever remain in place
as ones homeland, now only sustained by memories.
ANASUA BASU RAYCHAUDHURY
T
he partition of India in 1947 was a cathartic event. The Hindus from East Pakistan. In this tussle, shared memory could
British India gave birth to two separate states India and be a powerful mechanism through which the shelter-seekers
Pakistan on the basis of the so-called two-nation theory. acquired a specific identity. In fact, the reality of displacement
On the eve of and immediately after the creation of these two from their desh due to the violence accompanying partition did
new states, communal tension and riots gripped the subcontinent. not stop these people to work for the progress and prosperity
The communal frenzy not only killed thousands of people, it also of their adopted land. Although the refugees felt some kind of
uprooted and displaced millions from their traditional homeland, detachment in their new place of residence, that detachment did
their desh. This displacement forced many to search for a new not come in their attempts to make the adopted land more livable
home away from home. Partition had made their homeland hostile for themselves.
and they started imagining that peace and security were on the A few narratives of these refugees may indicate that they have
other side of the border. either gained or lost many things in material terms through their
The partition was traumatic to those people who, having faced displacement. Sometimes they have been able to create a new
physical violence, humiliation and sexual assault, were com- para or a locality of their own in this new land. Still the adopted
pelled to leave their homeland. These uprooted people had to land remains a distant caricature of their desh. Their desh may
first sustain themselves in survival mode in a somewhat alien not be reinvented and remains only in their memory.
land. If the relatively well-off people could sometimes reconstruct Memory indeed is the engine and chassis of all narrations.1
their lives on the other side of the border in newer pastures with In fact, memories are objects that tumble out unexpectedly from
comparatively less struggle, for those belonging to the middle the mind, linking the present with the past. From the narratives
and lower middle classes, it was almost impossible. Many of them of past it becomes possible to understand how these displaced
even had to spend several years in the refugee camps before they persons perceived their own victimisation and to what extent it
could imagine a better life. Many of them could not even return came into conflict with the identity imposed on them or the
to their original occupations and, therefore, felt a sense of alienation one they accepted. It has been argued that, a traumatised memory
and irreparable occupational loss even after partial rehabilitation. has a narrative structure which works on a principle opposite
Although the past of these people remains in many ways, to that of any historical narrative.2 A historical narrative, after
their present, their desh is nowhere in sight. The refugees, who all, concentrates on an event explaining its causes and the timing,
have been surviving in camps for five decades and have not yet but what it perhaps cannot explain is whether the subjects belong
been rehabilitated, still remain the prisoners of the past. It seems to the marginalia of history like accidents, concurrences or
that their lives and times have frozen within the boundaries of not. This is why one sociologist has rightly pointed out that,
the camp. To some of them, it is even better to live the rest of memory begins where history ends.3
their lives with memories of the past rather than de-freezing it. It is worth mentioning here that, the narratives are always
They live with their memories the memories of happier days related to some sense of the self and are told from someones
in their desh and unbearable agony of losing their friends and own perspective to take control of the frightening diversity and
relatives during communal tensions and riots. Sometimes, these formlessness of the world.4 Through the narrative, the self finds
memories of happier times, memories of abundance can be a home, or would perhaps, to use Sudipta Kavirajs words,
somewhat imaginary. It is possible that some of these people describe the process better if we say that around a particular
actually never saw abundance. Similarly, sometimes without home they try to paint a picture of some kind of an ordered,
even witnessing violence with the their own eyes, they tend to live intelligible, humane and habitable world.5 Here the self tells
with the fear of communal holocaust. As the present has very little the story to an audience in this case the author and thereby
to offer them, the past seems to envelop their entire existence. creates a kind of relationship with the listener.6
It is against this backdrop that this article intends to capture It may be that, the historical self configures memories dif-
the dynamics of the tussle between the sentiment of nostalgia ferently from the way the ahistorical self does.7 Therefore,
and the sense of trauma of some of these displaced Bengali although the memories of these refugees may be subjective in