Independence came to India, a land of immense linguistic and ethnic diversity. over the partition of the country into three zones on the basis of religion. Obviously the impact of this phenomenon was bound to be far-reaching and complex. The holdings of the West Bengal State Archives that relate to the challenges that the nascent government of Independent India faced and the policies and measures that it adopted to respond to the situation pertain mainly to the partition in the eastern side of the country, the then government of West Bengal being the key actor. On exploring these records, the compilers found that a single volume on it would barely suffice to satisfy either themselves or the readers. After exploring policy matters, such as those pertaining to refugee re-settlement, employment, identification of refugees, exchange of property and so on in the first volume, a lot more remained to be shared with interested readers regarding movements of farmers, workers, and settlers that at a point almost came close to challenging the legitimacy of the new government. The greatest problem that seems to have emerged during this time was the rise of the communist party and its growing mass base. How the governments of both sides tried to contend with this major challenge, how they tried to handle intermittent spurts of communal riots, how they tried to ensure harmony, how they ported on peoples' efforts to forge a bonding, how they tried to find solution to Joundary problem caused by rising of chars in the post-monsoon months etc. form the content of a second volume under the same title. It ought to be noted that the views of government in the east that have been incorporated in this volume are part of the partition documents reserved in West Bengal archives received from the government in the east in form of correspondences through letters, telegrams etc.
Readers need to be reminded that the records of official archives being the creation of the authorities, the tone and descriptions clearly bear the slant and prejudices of the latter.
To Smt. Jhumur Sen Gupta (Chief Archivist) goes the major credit of planning this publication. But it goes without saying that no project of the Archives can be accomplished by individual effort-this takes whole-hearted assistance from and the contribution of the entire staff. We extend our thanks to the personnel of the Saraswati Press for their efforts to meet our demands.
We are indebted to the Hon'ble MIC and respected Principal Secretary of the Higher Education Department for their generous financial sanction for the Project. We hope to get their support for similar other projects in future.
In the first volume on the aftermath of Partition of 1947, we have tried to show how the nascent government of independent India tried to grapple with a host of problems, namely resettlement of refugees, absorption of new entrants in government jobs, the norms and rules of exchange of property and so on, on the basis of the documents preserved in our Archives.
However, even after collating the aforesaid ones, there still remain in archives a plethora of documents relating to other administrative concerns and related actions justifying a second volume on the theme. This volume deals primarily with the incidents that variously challenged the authority of the nascent government. In the decades preceding the Partition thus we see that both East and West Bengal had faced numerous instances of ethnic or communal disputes.
In the chapter 1 of this volume attempt have been made to present some important reports of communal disturbances in the both Bengal during 1950s.
COMMUNISM AND COMMUNALISM The peasant and labour movements in Bengal started long before the Partition of 1947. The zamindars or jotdars habitually oppressed and cheated the peasant or tenants. This led to series of resistances, often spearheaded by the communists (CPI workers) in the second half of the 20th century. Three important examples of such disturbances are given below:
1. INCIDENTS IN SYLHET Place: Saneswar and other adjoining villages in Beanibazar and Barlekha thanas in the district of Sylhet.
Date: 18 August 1949 onwards. West Bengal Government received the information of incidents that occurred in villages of Sylhet from Press, telegrams and letters of the eye witnesses that there was organized and planned firing by the Pakistan police on Hindus along with pillage, arson and molestation of women. Srimoti Aparna Pal, B.A., an active member of communist party was reported dead because of miscarriage after 6 months of pregnancy. It was also reported that there were Indiscriminate arrests, brutal killing, looting of property, breaking of house and taking away of cows, calves etc. On the Manasha Puja Day the deity was putatively defiled and cows owned by Brahmins were slaughtered in their own homes. Along with illegal levies of Rs. 1000/- per village other means of exaction and compulsory forced labour of six hours a day per adult member of the minority community were also said to have been imposed.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
Hindu (888)
Agriculture (95)
Ancient (1021)
Archaeology (619)
Architecture (535)
Art & Culture (866)
Biography (598)
Buddhist (545)
Cookery (158)
Emperor & Queen (496)
Islam (235)
Jainism (274)
Literary (877)
Mahatma Gandhi (360)
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