The Other Side of Kindness - By Sudarshan Chhotray

It’s all very well for the Indian government to be hospitable and generous to refugees from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, but the ground reality is different. Settled in Orissa, the preferential treatment meted out to them by the government has become the cause of much resentment and bitterness among the locals Rani Haldar belongs to Goda village of Orissa’s Jagatasinghpur district, which was the worst hit by the killer super-cyclone in October 2000. She lost her husband, children and home. She is yet to recover from the trauma. She claims her forefathers have been staying in the village since 1943. They are not infiltrators.

They belong to the area. Kamini Khan (Roy) belongs to Raighar area of Nabarangpur district. His wife is a panchayat sarpanch. Although he came here as a refugee, he has now become a landlord and is reportedly the kingpin in clashes between local tribals and refugees of the area. Aurobindo Dhali, Orissa’s co-operation minister, hails from south Orissa’s tribal dominated Malkangiri district.

He is in the centre of a fresh controversy consequent to his meeting with the West Bengal chief minister, who is seeking support for the cause of at least 400,000 Bengali settlers in Orissa, for the revival of their lost language. Dhali is reportedly a Bengali refugee, elected to the state assembly on a Bhartiya Janata Party ticket, and is allegedly fighting more for the cause of refugees than in the interest of the state. Rani Haldar, Kamini Khan (Roy) and Aurobindo Dhali have created a furore over Orissa in the last two years because of their links with the refugee problem in the state. While no official figure is available, it is estimated that more than 700,000 refugees are living in various parts of Orissa. A majority of them are Bengali refugees, the rest are from Tibet, Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. The Bengali refugees have their own story to tell.

After the formation of East Pakistan in 1948, thousands of Bengalis had left their homes to settle in India. After the formation of Bangladesh, in 1971, more Bengalis (both Hindu and Muslim) sought refuge in India. Some of them were rehabilitated in Dandakaranya forest range of South Orissa by the government of India in collaboration with the government of Orissa. Apart from this, a large-scale influx of Bengali refugees, who have subsequently settled in coastal areas of the state, has raised many eyebrows. Besides engaging in marine and inland fishing and allied trades, they have illegally occupied coastal forestland and are responsible for the destruction of the coastal eco-system, complain some local residents of Jagatasinghpur district.

The interception of illegal radio stations and the arrest of a few suspects in the Rajnagar block of Kendrapara district in May 2002 have brought to light the activities of infiltrators from Bangladesh and security breaches made in the vicinity of sensitive defence installations. It is suspected that ISI and other foreign intelligence networks have installed some transmission centres near Wheeler Island in the Bay of Bengal to get information regarding Chandipur missile testing range. Orissa’s home department has identified for deportation 2,867 Bangladeshis in six districts – from Kendrapara, Malkangiri, Bhadrak, Nowrangpur, Jagatasinghpur and Sambalpur. 392 have been issued “Quit India” notices; 21 from Nowrangpur district were recently handed over to the border security forces in neighbouring West Bengal for deportation.

The rest will be deported in a phased manner as the process of identification is still under way with several districts yet to submit their final lists. State home department sources said that in the past too, the state government has taken steps to deport illegal immigrants. About 102 Bangladeshi infiltrators were deported from 1973 to 1993. Meanwhile, the state director general of police, NC Padhi, recently said in Malkangiri that the list of the settlers has been submitted to the government and deportation will be undertaken only after a government decision. Of late, a tug of war over immigrants between the ruling Biju Janta Dal (BJD) and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has become sharper. BJP alleges that the identification for deportation is being made on communal lines, because Hindu refugees have not voted in favour of BJD and Congress. Dismissing this charge, a senior state government official said that all has been done as per a central government circular issued on 16 September 1997. The circular states: “Any Bangladeshi found to have settled in the state after 16 December 1971, will be deported after due inquiry and issue of “Quit India” notice as per Foreigner Act, 1946. While those who have entered the state between 25 March 1971 and 16 December 1971, will be referred to the government of India for a decision.

The state government will not disturb any Bangladeshi, who had landed in India before 25 March 1971”. According to Basanta Kumar Panigrahy, president of Utkal Samilani, Orissa’s leading nationality organisation, the issues is ``explosive’’. He has charged the government for taking a dual stand and demanded immediate deportation of hundreds of thousands of infiltrators who have destroyed socio-cultural ethics of the state. He has also criticised the BJP, who is an alliance partner in the state government for serving the interest of the so-called ‘Hindu refugees’ for its vote bank. He alleged that the BJP had not been voted to power to protect the infiltrators”. Demanding an ouster of the state’s co-operation minister, Aurobindo Dhali, Panigrahy said that the minister, without the state government and the chief minister’s consent, has highlighted the plight of illegal refugees and met the chief minister of West Bengal, with an infiltrators’ delegation, requesting further facilities. Meanwhile, Dhali says that the state government has neglected the refugees’ lot. Refugees from Bangladesh who are now living in Malkangiri, Raighar and Umerkote areas should not be treated as infiltrators as they all came to India before December 1971.

They have been here for the last 40 years and should be able to avail of all facilities and services, according to him. Dhali clarified further that following the announcement of the government of India through All India Radio, most Hindu refugees came here from East Pakistan after the partition and were rehabilitated by the union government in consultation with the state government in Malkangiri, Raighar, Umerkote, Kendrapara and Puri districts. In those days, the government had provided land, agriculture equipment and citizenship certificates in the names of the heads of their families. Now their families have expanded and they are facing a problem of citizenship, because teenagers were not issued with this certificate at that time. They have now been short-listed for deportations. Interestingly, local politics has also taken an ugly shape -- those who were fighting against refugee ouster have now politically settled into various parties. As a result, the conflict owing to the refugee issue is gaining momentum, and both refugees and the tribal are victims of their ugly game. The “development” of refugees has concentrated on settled agriculture and their exposure to the market economy.

The local tribal population’s shifting cultivation practices and lack of education has made them subservient to the refugee population, feels Dhirendra Tripathy, a Bhubaneswar-based social activist. The other issues, according to him, are large-scale deforestation of forest land and encroachment of tribal land. Local legislator Mamata Padhi charged that some Bengali refugee men are allegedly involved in false marriages with girls from local tribal and backward communities; later, these men desert the women they have married. Right to citizenship Those who argue in favour of the refugees’ right of citizenship say that Bengali refugees had come here after partition and during the formation of East Pakistan/Bangladesh. A generation has been created here.

Those who were teenagers or young at that time have now grown old, they have lost their property and relatives in Bangladesh. Today they face an identity crisis. Neither the Bangladeshi government nor the Indian government accepts them. Not possessing citizenship certificates, they are vulnerable to exploitation and torture by the local police. “Refugees should not be dealt with like outsiders; they should be treated like human beings,” said Mohammad Amin, chief of Adhikar, a state level NGO. Wherever they go, they adopt the norms of the local society, its culture and lifestyle.

In fact, the problems with refugees are not of the local people, it is the politicians who are making a hue and cry about the issue, argues Amin. He adds that refugees are Migrant Labourers and the government should enforce the Migrant Labour Act to protect them. Besides, many international bodies and summits exist to protect the human rights of refugees and migrant labourers. Jagadish Pradhan, social scientist and president of Sahabhagi Vikash Abhiyan, calls upon non-government organisations and the government to work for reducing the disparity between refugees and local people. There is a need to do both, educate the tribal population and to orient the refugees to respect local practices and traditions.

He added that the settling of non-tribal refugees in the tribal belt is bound to create serious socio-economic and cultural problem, and conflict is inevitable. This has been seen in Malkangiri, Raighar and Chandragiri belts of Orissa as well as other parts of the country. Sometimes the local tribal population is becoming a minority and is culturally and politically threatened. The story of Raighar Those who had left the erstwhile East Pakistan for India after its partition came all the way across the border in search of safe shelter and to earn their livelihood. The government of India, in view of the magnitude of the problem, identified the Dandakaranya forest range bordering Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh of the Eastern ghats to rehabilitate them. An estimated 7,500 refugees were put up in Malkangiri and Umerkote subdivision of Koraput district; the government distributed at least 92,252 acres of land among them. Of the total land about 55,690 acres were given to refugees settled in Umerkote area of now Nawrangpur district. In the first phase, each family got at least seven acres of land for housing and kitchen gardens.

Those who arrived later were given five acres each of non-irrigated land or three acres each of irrigated land. To curb growing resentment over such facilities being given to outsiders, the government declared that it would provide at least five acres of land to the local landless people. Their promise never materialised and, as a result, conflict and hatred between the local people and the refugee population grew, observes journalist-turned-activist Bibekananda Das. According to Das, the government could have resettled these refugees in West Bengal or Coastal Orissa. Since these politically sensitive areas denied outsiders, they selected this neglected region.

The local people were tribal and Harijan and were supporters of the Congress. The Congress, the ruling party at that time both at the Centre and the state, backtracked on their promise of land to the people. Subsequently, the government which had set up Dandakaranya Development Authority (DDA), to plan safe livelihood, came into trouble in the same area because thousands of acres of forestland had been destroyed in the name of development. Large-scale encroachment of government land and siphoning land from the tribal and Harijan has become the order of the day. The government has allegedly used more than 227,000 acres of forestland to rehabilitate 7,500 refugees. Besides, the refugees were given fishing ponds, an agricultural university sponsored a maize cultivation project, the multinational company Kargil sponsored a seed depot, Bhaskal dam was set up to irrigate their land, etc. Above all, they were enlisted in the scheduled caste category and even attained political sanction to contest elections. In the recent past, the tribal and local residents have raised their voice for the ouster of refugees.

The movement has now taken the shape of violent resistance. At least four tribal people have been killed in police firing and two by Bengali refugees, from June to October last year. Justifying their movement, tribal leader Jagabandhu Majhi says, “Refugees who were provided with seven acres of land by the government have become land-owners with more than 40 acres – like Kamini (Roy) Khan. Given the facilities available here, large scale infiltration of refugees and outsiders has taken place. They have brought their kith and kin, settled where they desired. They have unleashed a reign of terror in this region, virtually taking the local commercial establishment and economic activities in their hold.” With help from government officials, the police and politicians, they have encroached our state lands and have subsequently taken away our people’s right over forestland and minor forest produce also, he added. Sri Lankan refugees According to union home ministry sources, on 30 November 1999, about 66,000 Sri Lankan refugees were staying in 130 refugee camps in Tamil Nadu and one in Orissa. 96,421 refugees were staying outside the camps. They were granted temporary staying facilities by the government of India on humanitarian grounds, awaiting improvement of the situation in their country.

Between 20 January 1992, and 20 March 1995, seeing the gradual normalisation of the situation in Sri Lanka, the government of India air-lifted and repatriated nearly 55,000 refugees. Due to troubled conditions there and lack of willingness of the refugees to go back, the repatriation process could not continue. Despite the strict vigil and repatriation efforts, the arrival of Tamil refugees to India continued. According to government reports, at least 463 people came to India in 1998, 769 in 1999 and more than 1,000 in the year 2000. According to the latest reports, there are at least 72 Tamil refugee families in Orissa. According to Paramananda Bideika, additional district magistrate of Malkangiri, about 1,540 families have been sent back. He further said, “Though the district level integrated tribal development agency is looking after their problems, it has run into trouble due to lack of funds.

Although the district administration is all set to support refugees and claims that nothing is wrong with their presence, the local people and politicians do not feel the same way. A local youth organisation distributed handbills which spoke about the arrival of more Tamilians to Orissa. They could control the locally available natural resources, encroach upon more cultivable land and make local people their slaves as it has happened in the past by Bengali refugees, the handbills said. They further said that in 1961, the government brought 12,000 Bengali refugees to Orissa in the name of rehabilitation, 75 per cent of thick forest was cleared, and of this, 45 per cent fertile land were given to them. Besides all this, the refugees are enjoying government facilities, as their names have been included in the scheduled caste list. Local residents expressed anguish over the government’s identification of this tribal area for refugee settlement. As one No Tiku Gomango said, Bengali refugees should have been rehabilitated in Bengali speaking states like West Bengal or Tripura. Similarly, Sri Lankan Tamilians should have been resettled in Tamil Nadu. ``Why are they brought to Orissa, a backward and economically weak region, where we are fighting to make ends meet?”