Narratives from the other side of the border: Muktijuddha and Assam

Anindita Ghoshal

Assam, a north-eastern state of India, has always been an ethnically diverse region in India. Because of the strategic location of this state, which shares a geographical boundary as well as an international border with Myanmar, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, Assam however became a zone for diverse types of conflicts even in today’s world. Yet this land of the Ahom Kings carries the legacy of composite cultures and an essence of shared history with East Bengal during the pre-Partition times. Though migration of both Hindu and Muslim Bengali professional and agrarian classes to and from Assam and East Bengal had been a tradition and had become the culture of both the territories, still the colonial Government played a crucial role here. To make their administrative machinery comfortable and chiefly in order to maximize revenues, the Raj had declared Eastern Bengal and Assam one province in 1906. Their intention was to resettle Muslim peasants from East Bengal who would till the land of Assam, a state of lahe lahe (slow) domiciles. But this move resulted in leaving a permanent mark on the politics, policies, state systems, and mentality of the masses of Assam, primarily towards the Bengalis, who were apparently an ‘insider’ as a community legally, yet ‘outsiders’ in the eyes of the sons of the soils of Assam, emotionally. Now the essential identity of the Bengalis both in today’s Assam and Meghalaya is a pejorative reference as ‘Bangladeshis’. It was during the time of the creation of Bangladesh that both Assam and Meghalaya became the epicentre of the Liberation War of 1971, along with Tripura. Those places also turned out to be the safe havens for the saranarthi (shelter-seekers) and Muktijoddha (freedom fighters). 

The concept of Bengali nationalism and the changing definition of nationhood, chiefly among the East Pakistanis, led to the prominence of the Awami League as one of the major political parties in Pakistan. The then-nationalist leaders like Maulana Bhasani, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Tajuddin Ahmed had virtually shaped emotions of the Bengali masses. Therefore, when East Pakistan was burning under the repressive policies and organized genocide initiated by the Urdu/Hindi-speaking West Pakistanis (chiefly Punjabis) from March 1971, the bordering states and areas of north-eastern India like Assam, Tripura, and Meghalaya became the den of the saranarthi and Muktijoddha of an imaginary state named Bangladesh, through their ‘open’ and ‘notional’ borders. By April 1971, when the Bengalis of East Pakistan became convinced that their state would not offer them any guarantee of security of life—which should be an inalienable right for every citizen—the exodus began in millions in search of safe shelters. The Assam-East Pakistan border remained open ‘to a large body of suffering humanity to ensure the security of their life, honour and property’. Assam was not initially ready to accept the saranarthi, in form of accommodating more migrants, as on the one hand this state was overflowing with pre-Partition Bengali settlers and Bengali refugees, on the other. Therefore, the Liberation War aggravated the migration situation in Assam. The influx was unprecedented and, within a short time, as many as 9,55,854 evacuees, including 6,27,507 in Meghalaya, were provided shelter and relief. According to the official statement, 7,20,718 of them were accommodated in camps, and 2,24,134 stayed with friends and relatives. The War of 1971 was the last blow on the bordering provinces of Northeast India. The growth of population in Assam was 345 per cent in 1971, as against an increase of 132 per cent for India. The population of Assam increased from 14.6 million to 22.9 million during the 1970s. The increase of 56.6 per cent in one decade could not be treated as normal population growth parallel to the rest of India which increased at the rate of 24.7 per cent during the same period.

According to the archival sources available at the National Archives of India and Assam State Archives, including proceeding of the Legislative Assembly Debates, the largest concentration of the saranarthi had taken place in Goalpara, Barpeta, Nalbari, Mangaldoi, Nowgong, Cachar, Garo Hills, United Khasi and Jaintia Hills. It was mentioned in the official ‘Statement made by the Chief Minister of Assam Shri M. M. Choudhury in the Assam Assembly on 26.10.71’ that ‘Since the flow of the influx has been shot up from the middle of April, 1971 in avalanches as it were, considerable difficulties were experienced in giving shelter to this surging mass of humanity by district officers particularly in Garo Hills, Cachar and United Khasi and Jaintia Hills’. At least ‘158 camps were established where the evacuees were accommodated and given reliefs’. In reality, lakhs of Bengali saranarthi and Muktijoddha were entering Assam in waves. The key reason behind a kind of negative mentality towards the uprooted populace was because the domiciles or bhumiputra of Assam were afraid that, owing to the flood of the saranarthi, the refugee population would swell to unbearable levels and they themselves would become endangered. An Assamese novel Kobor Aru Phool by Birendra Kumar Bhattacharjee (translated into English by Mitra Phukan as Blossoms in the Graveyard) based on the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 recounts the story of a young girl named Mehr from a village in erstwhile East Pakistan. Though it is fiction, it is the narrative of a land that is struggling to assert its identity and moving towards a hard-won independence in a crucible of blood and tears. The character Mehr signifies and portrays a metaphor for the struggle of Bangladesh to achieve independence. Set at a crucial time in the history of the freedom struggle, when the land is on the cusp of becoming Bangladesh, the novel is in the voice of a man named Robin Babu. He is an Assamese and, like many other people living in the place near the theatre of war, is deeply affected by the happenings near his doorstep. But, when writing on the events, proceedings, and impact of the War of Liberation, historians, political scientists, and journalists followed a similar pattern. Yet, in the works of Kalyan Choudhury (1979), Antara Dutta (2013), and Haroon Habib (2017), concerns about the saranarthi and Muktijoddha and the role of the Central Government of India and different aid organizations for their survival received some attention.

An International Rescue Committee was sent to the bordering states of East and Northeast India including Assam and other places to initiate an emergency relief program for these saranarthi and Muktijoddha. The Guardian wrote on September 10: ‘No nation or world community can realistically be expected to succour nine million refugees indefinitely’. IRC Mission, Red Cross, Caritas, Oxfam, World Council of Churches, Ramakrishna Mission, Bharat Sevasram Sangha and several other social welfare organizations worked in the refugee camps in bordering areas of West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, and Meghalaya. Yet, though the State Government of Assam was hesitant to accommodate more saranarthi and Muktijoddha, they initially had to abide by the instruction of the Central Government headed by Indira Gandhi. In fact, from 1965, the Government had taken back all the facilities provided to the refugees and halted rehabilitation processes, and even withdrawn some of the rehabilitation departments before the Liberation War of 1971. It had turned more complicated in 1971 when approximately seven million migrants crossed the international borders. It was another spate of refugee flow into Assam and the State Government thought some of the refugees, especially the Hindus, might try to stay back in Assam after the war got over.

In the wave of migration in 1971, both the Hindu and Muslim muktijoddha of Muktibahini and supporters of Awami League were the primary targets of the West Pakistani army. It led to two patterns of interpreting the migration flow and expectation of the migrants. Interestingly, the Indian nation-state started perceiving that while migrations of the Hindus were permanent in nature, Muslim Bengali families treated their stay on the other side of the border as a temporary relocation. The Assam Government felt that ‘the refugee camps would provide adequate protection against the local Assamese who do not welcome the influx of Bengalis, whether Hindus or Muslims’. The State Government instructed the bordering police stations to take responsibility for the registration of refugees, even those who would be staying with friends and relatives. It was a joint responsibility of the Centre and the State along with the Department of Finance, to maintain relief camps opened for them. The Government of Assam had formulated a scheme named ‘Operation-71’ to cover arrangements for providing relief and shelter in Assam and Meghalaya. The scheme included inter-alia opening of reception centres, relief camps, administration of improvised relief in the form of daily ration, medical facilities, etc.’ Yet the facilities provided to them never proved to be adequate in comparison to the situation of crisis. For example, in a report about a refugee camp in Cachar, it was mentioned that ‘The Sorbhog Refugee camp houses 5984 refugees, the health condition of the children, specially the infants, were found to be weak. It was reported that about 20 persons had died of whom 70% were children’.

Irrespective of such a contradictory and chaotic situation, most of the political leaders from diverse political parties were supportive towards the new nation makers in the map of South Asia. The Shillong Times reported on 3 April 1971, ‘Both Assam and Meghalaya Assemblies did express the sentiment and feeling of the people of their respective States when they condemned the inhuman slaughter carried on by Pakistani rulers and urged upon the Government of India to recognize the provincial Government of Mujib. The Meghalaya Assembly also condemned the atrocities against the unarmed people of Bangladesh by the West Pakistani troops, and expressed their sympathy to the suffering people’. The political leaders of the Assam Legislative Assembly agreed unanimously on the fact that ‘It is no longer an internal affair of Pakistan, because on the other side of our border innocent people including women and children are butchered. We can’t keep ourselves aloof from what is happening there. Members of this August house who are representing the entire people of Assam, also expressed their feeling, anxiety and anger’. But simultaneously, Mahendra Mohan Choudhury, the then-Chief Minister of Assam stated that the ‘situation will also give rise to the people to agitate against the influx of a large number of evacuees from East Bengal’ and he indeed mentioned, ‘On the other hand, the situation of the people of the State is of serious apprehension at the tide of influx continuing without any signs of early abatement. The communal incident at Badarpur and other recent incidents involving linguistic groups in the Brahmaputra valley indicates that agent provocateurs are actively engaged in creating seeds of disorder throughout the State and taking advantage of the sense of anxiety and apprehension already felt by a large section of the people’. But the All Party Hill Leaders Conference was sympathetic to the cause and the President, Captain Williamson Sangma conveyed support to them by publishing an official memorandum, ‘The Committee further expressed its sympathy and solidarity with the aspirations of the freedom fighters. It also declared to take all necessary steps to render relief to the needy’. The Shillong Times reported in the first week of April that ‘The students of Shillong condemn with bitterest words possible the mass killings of the unarmed and innocent brothers and sisters of Swadhin Bangladesh by the occupation army of Pak Military Regiment. The students of Shillong demand immediate action by the Government of India, all other Governments, and the U.N.O. to safeguard the glorious struggle for Democracy and to extend all sorts of help’.

The state administration sent a telegram to the Home Department, New Delhi stating that ‘In order to ensure adequate security in connection with the current influx of various categories of people from across the border, two special security camps are being set up by State Government under administrative Control of the State police’. The Assam Police was afraid, as ‘it would be difficult to distinguish between an infiltrator and an evacuee coming into India as a result of Pak action in East Bengal as the problem will be more difficult if the re-infiltrators would attempt to camouflage themselves as evacuees. It is therefore necessary that the check posts meant for detecting Pak infiltrators be vigilant about Pak infiltrators and re-infiltrators’. The bordering states of Assam and Tripura suffered immensely in dealing with the situation and sheltering the evacuees. Although, after the emergence of a new neighbouring nation, Bangladesh, and after the repatriation of most of the migrants legally and officially, to which the Indira-Mujib Pact of 1972 had tacitly agreed, Bangladesh would not be held responsible for persons who had illegally migrated to India before the birth of the new Republic prior to 25 March 1971. So, both the nation-states had declared 25 March 1971 as the cut-off date for the refugees who would be eligible for citizenship under the Citizenship Act of 1955. It was agreed mutually by the two nation-states that this Act was for classifying the migrants for consideration as ‘refugees’ to acquire relief and rehabilitation facilities and the right to citizenship in India. But, the absence of fencing led to ‘silent migration’ into Assam. The people of Assam, including the political parties and other voluntary organizations like that of the students, started terming the evacuees as illegal immigrants or foreigners in their land. Yet, the irony of the fact remains that the crisis that had erupted around the 1971 saranarthi continues on even today in Assam in connection to the politics of NRC and CAA, and has led to a kind of identity politics in this region.