-- Zafarul-Islam Khan
    
Abridged version of the article published in the print edition of The Milli Gazette (1-15 May 2005)

All the elements of a tragedy are present here along the western bank of River Padma, which divides India and Bangladesh. Every inch of this Muslim majority area, which was earmarked for East Pakistan until the British changed the partition plan at the last minute in 1947, tells a tale of poverty, illiteracy, neglect, nature's fury and official India's apathy towards the downtrodden. The river in this area is slowly eating away lands of poor farmers for about a decade. Residents of the affected villages move to the lands along the river bank on the Indian side whenever life becomes intolerable under the onslaught of the river depriving the farmers of their only means of sustenance: agricultural lands. Not just villages here and there, the river has swallowed even the old town of Jalangi. The new town bearing the same name came up after the earlier one was eroded. Villagers in resettlement locations live under constant threat as the river keeps changing course which may be checked only if the western embankment is fortified.

During early days the authorities offered meager grants and agricultural lands to the victims but started to look the other way as numbers of victims kept rising. According to victims, there are around 25,000 oustees who now live on private or government lands and are always threatened of eviction.

To reach this remote area we travelled to Kolkata, capital of West Bengal. The distance from Delhi to Kolkata was covered in 90 minutes by air but the onward 200-kms journey from Sealdah to Murshidabad took a whole day, and we could reach Murshidabad only after sunset travelling in a slow passenger train.
 
Official apathy is evident from the fact that the Murshidabad district headquarters is not located in Murshidabad, West Bengal State itself but in the nearby city of Behrampore which boasts many colleges and even a modern university. Behrampore is a prosperous, rich Indian city while in comparison Murshidabad seems to be on the deathbed.

Next day we proceeded to Jalangi, which has been witnessing starvation deaths. If the neglect and poverty of Murshidabad had surprised us, much more was in store on the way to Jalangi. The bus taking us to Jalangi seemed to be the only vehicle on the road, which had almost no vehicular traffic except a few buses moving in both directions. Even motorcycles were rare. Thus we reached Jalangi on the Indo-Bangladesh borders. The present "Jalangi" is a resettlement town as the river had gulped the old Jalangi, which now lies on the eastern bank of Padma. People told us that the old town had 900 houses, none of which stand today. It is rare here to come across a modern house built with steel and cement. Most houses are small shacks built with bamboo, which cost around Rs. 2000 and last for ten years on average. These light shacks, which have no foundations or pillars, are often swept away during floods and strong winds. We saw men, and sometimes women too, sitting under large bamboo canopies built outside shack clusters where people were taking rest or playing cards or simply chatting. We were told that these people have nothing else to do so they are just passing time. "What are the jobs available here?" I asked. No one came up with an answer except occasional agricultural work or some digging or filling ordered by the authorities implementing programmes to create work for the poor. I was told the whole of Jalangi area has no industry except a bidi factory, which employs around 100 persons. You can see the river eroding lands, houses and graves along the coastline. We are told that the next season some of the houses on the edge of the coast will cease to exist. Jalangi's underground water is not potable as it contains dangerous levels of arsenic. The authorities have dug a few deep hand-pipes but these do not meet the demand.

We started moving along the coast where displaced people have built shacks in a number of clusters bearing the names of their lost villages. Everywhere we went people came out to tell us identical stories of how they lost their lands and homes, how their loved ones are dying due to lack of enough food, how the able-bodied are deserting the villages and going to Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat and other areas of West Bengal in search of jobs leaving behind their women, parents and children. We came across a number of villages which had no pucca (established) roads, like Ghoshpara, Farzipara, Rajpara, Paraspur, Dayarampur, Ghauripur Bhanganpara, Schoolpara…The last two stand on government land given to the villagers when they moved here long ago but they are still to receive the Rs. 5000 grant each family was promised as a help to build their houses.

People here have undergone similar experiences. The river changed course, devouring their houses and lands and they had no choice but to move to other areas. Some like Ayub Ali of Paraspur, say they changed their abodes three times during the last decade as a result of this problem. Their other problem is that the authorities are not issuing them below poverty line (BPL) ration cards, which allow them to buy subsidized rice and entitle them to at least 100 days' work in a year. Even for those who are lucky enough to get BPL cards, rice is not always available in the ration shops and their wages are not paid in full. They are supposed to receive Rs. 62 for each day’s work but it is not paid to them in cash. They are supposed to receive five kilos of rice and Rs. 32 in cash but this is not what they actually get days later. CPIM cadres deduct two rupees from each day’s cash wage and 300 grams from the ration as donation to party fund. People here have agitated for long against this injustice. They went to the local government offices and even refused to receive the stinking rotten rice, which was kept in the silos in the same area but the authorities preferred not to distribute it in time.

Others find casual work in private farms for which they are paid Rs. 20 for a full day's work. Even at such low wages they manage to get work only for 10-15 days in a month. Every household here has gone through starvation-like situation during recent months. Since last February many homes have lost men, women and children as a result of the scarcity of food. English-language newspapers seldom publish these developments but Bengali newspapers, like Anand Bazar Patrika, have regularly published these tragic developments, which are a sad commentary on a communist government, which claims to serve the poor and defend their rights. This government has not even made good its promises of offering land to the uprooted villagers when the tragedy started to unfold about a decade ago.

These people are so poor and illiterate that they cannot raise their voice in the face of an apathetic administration or reach the media and courts. A majority of the victims are Muslims although some are Hindus as well and live in the same villages side by side Muslims. One of them, who identified himself as Degen Parawanik of Dayarampur village which is worst-affected, told us that there are 692 persons in his village on the verge of death due to starvation. We also met a woman here whose father-in-law, called Alimuddin, had died due to starvation only two months ago. His wife too died a week later. The woman told us that her neighbours now give them food from time to time in the wake of the death of her father-in-law.

In Paraspur we came across a woman who was stitching a kind of quilt which she called 'katha-sila". She told us that she was making it for a man in another village. How much it takes to complete the quilt and what she will get in return, we asked. She told us that it takes her three months to complete the quilt and she will get Rs. 200 for her pains. In the same village we find an almost blind old man who introduced himself as Sariat Mondal. He told us that he has the BPL card which entitles him to get two kilos of rice each week at the subsidised rate of Rs. 3 per kg but the rice is not always available in the ration shop. People told us that their children go to school, which is free, and they get mid-day meal on every school day.

These villagers squatting on others' lands pay rent twice a year. The rent is calculated according to the area used. The rent in this area is Rs. 2000 per bigha (6 bighas makes an acre) per year. Some people have erected their houses on both sides along the main road.

There are a number of government schemes to help such people like BPL ration cards but most victims failed to get these cards. They told us that only around 20 percent people get these cards and they constitute the CPIM cadre, their friends and hangers-on. I asked them why they do not raise their voice against this injustice.. Who can oppose the party cadres, they replied, adding that these people are quick to take revenge by unleashing violence and stopping them from work.

In the meantime a PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court of India against the central ministry of food and the West Bengal government to force them to rehabilitate these victims and help them stand on their feet again. The PIL is expected to come up for hearing next week.