Marichjhapi massacre refers to the forcible eviction of hundreds of BengaliDalit refugees who occupied legally protected reserve forest land on Marichjhapi island in the Sundarbans, West Bengal, in 1979, and the subsequent death of some due to gunfire by police and Communistgoondas, blockade and subsequent starvation, and disease.
Background
After the division of Bengal along communal lines many Hindu Bengalis fled East Pakistan. The first flow of refugees who were mostly the upper and middle classes from upper castes easily resettled in West Bengal. However most lower caste Hindus remained behind, seeing their plight as no better than the Muslims. However they too were persecuted by Muslims and were forced to flee to West Bengal as well. But this latter huge flow of poor, mostly low-caste Hindus couldn't be accommodated in Bengal. After initial resistance from the refugees they were forcibly sent to "rocky inhospitable land" of Dandakaranya., Terai, and Little Andamans.
Massacre
Once the Left front came to power in, 1978 the refugees started to return to Bengal in huge numbers. But the Left Front meanwhile changed its policy on refugee settling and considered the refugees as a burden to the state, as the refugees were not the citizen of West Bengal but India. An approximately 150,000, almost all of Dandakaranya refugees arrived. In the meanwhile approximately 40,000 refugees went south and camping for few months in Hasnabad settled in Marichjhapi, a protected place under Reserve Forest Act. A survivor claims that there were only shrubs on the island when they came. They were involved in fishing and had built schools and hospitals. The Left government considered that an unauthorized occupation of reserved forest land. The government tried to pursue them to return to their respective place, but with little effect. On 24 January 1979, the Government of West Bengal clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC around the island of Marichjhapi. The police and the district administration started an economic blockade. Thirty police launches started patrolling the island, preventing anyone from providing food or water to the residents of the island. Survivors claim that on the morning of 31 January 1979, when some women tried to row boats to the next island to fetch drinking water, grains and medicine, the police rammed their launches into the boats and drowned all three. People who took boats into the river to save the drowning women were fired on by the police. Police continued attacking people who braved the action and took multiple boat trips back and forth to get the necessities. This ultimately resulted in a confrontation between refugees armed with crude implements like bows and arrows, lathis, bricks and stones, on one hand, and the police on the other. Eye witness accounts say that on 31 January, the police opened fire on the settlers of the island when the settlers allegedly attacked a police camp with traditional weapons. After 15 daysCalcutta High Court ruled that "The supply of drinking water, essential food items and medicines as well as the passage of doctors must be allowed to Marichjhapi". The media were barred from entering the area on that day. 13 people died when someone poisoned a tube well. The survivors were then sent back to Dandakaranya. Some of them were settled in Marichjhapi Colony near Barasat while others rehabilitated themselves in the shanties near railway tracks in Sealdah. Some of the survivors resettled themselves in Hingalganj, Canning and nearby areas.
Death toll
The death count was never confirmed. Official statistics put the deaths due to firing at two, but other sources put the total deaths between 50 and 100.
