Book Review Of 'Blood Island': Humanity Was Killed In Marichjhapi In 1979 - India Slept!

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In 1978, around 1.5 lakh Hindu refugees, mostly belonging to the lower castes, settled in Marichjhapi, an island in the Sundarbans, in West Bengal. By May 1979, the island was cleared of all refugees by Jyoti Basu's Left Front government. Most of the refugees were sent back to the central India camps they came from, but there were many deaths; of diseases, and malnutrition resulting from an economic blockade, as well as from violence unleashed by the police on the orders of the government.

"Blood Island" recreates the bone-chilling story of the gory state-sanctioned massacre of Hindu Bengali refugees that had escaped from Bangladesh. The left first promised them shelter and accommodation to the hapless refugees but upon coming to power changed its policy and betrayed the very same people as they were deemed as a 'burden to the state'. The book forms an eye-opening account of a communist state's capacity for violence on state subjects.

The book is divided into nine chapters, each based on the interview the author has done with people who are the living memories of that tragedy. Although the author is a journalist, the stories are not written in the distant manner of news reports. He tells the stories with compassion and blends them with an empathetic and considerate narration.

How does an entire island population disappear? How does one unearth the truth and the details of one of the worst atrocities of post-Independent India?

The author takes up the painstaking task of tracking down survivors of this cold-blooded massacre, people who lost their loved ones, their homes. It also has the voice of the 'other', a representative of the very party blamed for the bloodshed. In this, it's truly unbiased. It lives up to its name of being a truly oral history, and not once do the author's personal biases come through.

"Non-stop police action had demoralised islanders. One night, someone came and dropped a bottle of poison into the tube well. Thirteen people died the next day. Babies were dying like rats from diseases, and women were afraid to venture out for fear of being raped by policemen. There were several incidents of our boats being hit by police launches and sunk mid-river" Deep writes in the book.

Author- Journalist Deep Halder reconstructs the buried history of the 1979 massacres through his interviews with survivors, erstwhile reporters, government officials and activists with a rare combination of courage, conscientiousness and empathy. Blood Island is an extraordinary book, without politicizing the issue. It once again brings to the forefront the topic of step-motherly attitude taken towards the Hindu refugees from East Bangladesh as compared to the refugees from the West.

The book is a collection of stories from such refugees too. When Hundreds of thousands of Hindu refugees crossed the border from Bangladesh to India they wanted to live a life which can have a decent future, but once again they were deceived by fate.

Some of the refugees who survived Marichjhapi say the number of those who lost their lives could be as high as 10,000, while the-then government officials maintain that there were less than ten victims. It's the first book that exposes the terrible crime committed by Communist government in West Bengal against 1.5 lakh Hindu refugees from Bangladesh in 1979.

Deep mentioned very precisely in his book that even organizations like Rama Krishna Mission and Bharat Sevashram Sangha wanted to help them but the government did not allow them. Between 14 and 16 May 1979, in one of the worst human rights violations in post-independent India, the West Bengal government forcibly evicted around 10,000 or more from the island. There was rape, murder and poisoning. Bodies were buried in the sea. Countless were killed even as some escaped, too afraid to tell the tale. At least 7,000 men, women and children were killed.

A history that has conveniently been brushed under the carpet all these decades. It is the travesty of our times that crimes committed by the state on unarmed defenceless people go unpunished. Yet we don't know about refugees who crossed the border from Bangladesh and came to live here in India in the hope of finding a home in an unknown land. The book talks about the horrific hidden truth about the refugees which came for an unknown future and met a fate no one had ever imagined.

When the refugees understood that all hopes were gone they somehow found the small island in Sundarban's Marichjhapi and thousands of them migrated to this island. Marichjhapi is a small island in the Sundarbans where a group of refugees from Bangladesh had settled. That is not where the story of these people starts, before settling in here they spent years in refugee camps spread across Odisha and Madhya Pradesh. In Marichjhapi, when life had started settling down for them, they were uprooted in the most violent manner.

Life for once was looking good for them. They developed the island into a thriving town and were good enough to sustain what they gained by hard work. But again the same CPIM party goons won't like it as First the refugees were lower Hindu caste Second they had shown such potential that they don't have to rely on the CPIM (Left) government of state. Which was again affecting the vote bank of the communist? So they forcefully evicted the island.

Men were shot, women carried off and gang raped, children killed and thrown into the river; it gets very depressing. To realise that all of this happened at the hands of state police makes one shudder at the ability of the state to unleash terror.

The book not only unveils the forgotten history of Marichjhapi but also opens a dialogue about the current situation of refugees. The chest thumping politicians who want to send people back to their countries are not the only reason such massive blots of humanity become a reality. These tragedies happen because a lot of people choose nothing to do about it.

Through his travels around the many refugee camps spread across Central India, the author has brought forth the inhuman atrocities that the refugees endured. The book will make readers angry, sad and give rise to a lot of questions about the democracy we live in. In the name of power and equality, humanity was killed in "Marichjhapi" in 1979 - India slept!

What we know as history isn't always a true retelling of the past. And often, history is hidden by falsehoods and a complete whitewashing of facts. Through "Blood Island" the author Deep Halder did a brave work of uncovering the real bloody history of Bengal, a blot on its existence, carefully covered up by the Left, which ruled it for 34 years.

One can easily find substantial amounts of work on the Partition of India. Almost all of the books one would come across on Partition dealt with the western border. Partition happened on the east side too. What was named as East Pakistan in 1947, became Bangladesh in 1971. Whereas, the influx of refugees on the western side was over by 1949, on the eastern side it continued from 1947 up until the years following the formation of Bangladesh. Not much was written about it.

This compilation of recollections has successfully conveyed the pain and agony that the refugees underwent during their unimaginable ordeal. A commendable job by the author who searched for such unfortunate people who can share their story of Marichjhapi.

The article has been contributed by Ashutosh Kumar Thakur, a Bangalore based Management Consultant, Literary Critic and Advisor with Kalinga Literary Festival. He can be reached at ashutoshbthakur@gmail.com)

Book : Blood Island: An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre By Deep Halder
Publisher : Harper Collins
Price : 399