Born to Unbelong in India and That’s the Way I Like It

Where do I belong?

(Photo Courtesy: Shubho Shekhar Bhattacharjee) 

‘Halt’.

Light bandh karo.

Baahar niklo.

Aage badho.

Hands up!

My parents would look at me with amusement as I would play-order these ‘curfew words’ acting like the CRPF personnel who were in real action right below our apartments in Imphal. The paramilitary forces assigned at a security post just a few metres away from our building would stop every car and exercise the security drill, checking permits, etc. That was the only source of entertainment then for us and our neighbours, holed up in darkness and without any supplies, not even water, for almost a week. I was barely 7. Imphal was burning. A local militant outfit was on streets burning down marked buildings and shops with a violent war cry – ‘Mayang Halo!’ meaning, ‘Foreigners go back!’ Strangely enough, right inside an Indian state, our neighbours, and we, two middle-class harmless Bengali families, qualified as ‘foreigners’.

My father Shyama Prasad Bhattacharjee inaugurating the United Bank of India branch at the Sainik School by the Chief Secretary, Govt of Manipur, Mr L B Thanga;(Photo Courtesy: Shubho Shekhar Bhattacharjee) 

The ominous spell started with a high-voltage drama. My father was then the Manager of the main branch of a nationalised bank right in the heart of Imphal. One afternoon, after lunch, my mother and I were enjoying the balmy sunlight at our large verandah.

Just then there was a restless commotion right below on the streets. I leaned over and saw a van speeding away recklessly, hitting rickshaws and vehicles on the way. My mother froze. She had recognised the vehicle. The van belonged to the bank and my father was supposed to be in it around that time. She ran inside and called the branch. My father picked up the phone and informed her that he was safe. The branch was looted by armed robbers. Just before my father could step out of his cabin, the robbers shot the guard and sped away with the cash trunk. Thanks to the unobstructed panoramic view of Imphal our verandah offered, we helped the bank with details of the route the speeding van had taken. I was told later by my father that I was of great help. I felt like ‘Topse’ from Ray’s Feluda.

The situation worsened within a few days. ‘Mayang Halo’ picked up momentum across the state and became a fierce movement in Imphal. Young boys, armed with knives and lathis, terrorised the streets and I was witness to the arson and violence.

Have to mention here that our experience of living in Imphal, till that day, was nothing short of beautiful. The people were warm and friendly, the climate was perfect and the state was green and beautiful. Going to the ‘Ima Market’ with my father, who kept trying very hard to impress the ‘Imas’ with his language skills, always used to be an amusing experience. The market place was run and managed by women in Imphal and hence the name. Ima in Manipuri is for mother.

My mother Gauri Bhattacharjee, my sister and I with our neighbours, Nandi aunty, her daughter and our domestic helper at the Khoyathong Road building terrace. (Photo Courtesy: Shubho Shekhar Bhattacharjee) 

One afternoon, a large mob had gathered in front of the building opposite ours. I managed to sneak out into the verandah despite strict warnings from my father. Within no time, petrol bombs were hurled into the building and it was on fire.

Moments after that, a few young boys in the mob pointed towards our building and soon the entire ire was focused on us. Soon enough stones started landing on our verandah and hitting our doors and windows. My father tried calling the police, but by then, the phone line was disconnected. I remember we had a strong collapsible iron gate, down at the entrance and that was the only barrier they would have had to cross to lynch us.

Our neighbours, the Nandis’ gathered inside our dining room. I vividly remember my mother and aunty kept boiling hot water so that it could be used as an ammo – just in case. Neither of the families had any lathis or anything that could qualify remotely as weapons.

Finally, my father and Nandi uncle stood guard at the main door to our floor holding a ‘boti daa’ (a versatile Bengali floor knife, used for chopping practically everything) each in their hands. My father looked a strong handsome man, but definitely not a warrior who could lynch the mob, a la Bahubali. Did I panic? Well, to begin with, yes. But I think it finally started morphing into a strange kind of excitement.

My mother and Nandi aunty knitting at our terrace at the Khoyathong Road building. (Photo Courtesy: Shubho Shekhar Bhattacharjee) 

After trying to break in for a while, the mob gave up and strangely dispersed. Or maybe my mother’s zealous prayers worked. By then it was dark. Electric supply was also cut off. We remained huddled in the dark all night in our dining room. Later that night curfew was imposed. After about a week, my father managed to signal a CRPF jawan on duty and we were shifted to a safe locality, a couple of kilometers from the troubled Khoyathong Road.

Us, the non-resident ‘foreigner’ types, over the years, have evolved into individuals with exemplary capabilities to embrace, adopt and adjust. Soon enough, we had adjusted in our new locality with lovely neighbours and Imphal was yet again our much loved home. My parents were however scarred yet again. They took a prudent decision to pack me off to the Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith in Deoghar.

Within a few years we had shifted base to Silchar, a buzzing town nestled amid a tea-valley in the southernmost tip of Assam. I thought it was homecoming for the family. Silchar is predominantly inhabited by Bengali migrants ousted in the ethnic/ communal cleansing of the Sylhet province of Bangladesh.

As you land in Silchar, you wouldn’t miss the large airport signage in Bengali, rather unusual for a district headquarter of Assam. Sylhet, or Srihatta before the Jalaluddin Shah conquest, was a part of Assam. It was attached to Assam by the British for the cultural and educational development of the state. However, in a referendum in July 1947, Sylhet was transferred from India to East Pakistan. That political jugglery immediately transformed my grandparents and my parents into soft targets for communal cleansing. They “unbelonged” and were sent packing soon after to take refuge in Silchar. Over the years, I started realising that, we unbelonged in Assam too!

The infamous and violent ‘Bongal Kheda’ (ethnic cleansing of the Bengalis in the North East) movement of Assam rendered lakhs of originally inhabiting Bengalis of Assam into refugees. Some fled to the apparently safe Barak Valley region of Assam, a few to Delhi and the rest to West Bengal. The tribulations of unbelonging in Assam didn’t ever get over for the Bengalis even amidst the predominantly Bengali population of the valley.

In the 60s, the government tried to impose Assamese as the only official language of Assam. Widespread protests in the Barak Valley led to 11 young men and women of the valley being martyred in the indiscriminate police firing on 19th May, 1961. Bengali was finally allowed by the government to be used as an official language in the region, but the ordeal never really got over. It never will probably. Hatred has an uncanny wildfire like agility. It spilled over to neighbouring Meghalaya too where the slur changed name from Bongal to ‘Dkhar’. Targeted violence, mostly during the festivities of Durga Puja, saw the mass exodus of Bengalis into Barak Valley and West Bengal.

Posing (in jacket and tie) with my building friends after moving over to the safer building, post the riots.(Photo Courtesy: Shubho Shekhar Bhattacharjee) 

Hatred also makes strange bedfellows. Language discrimination seamlessly transformed into communal disharmony. I remember, it was probably my 9th birthday. We were celebrating at my grandparents’ in a small town called Hailakandi in the Barak Valley region. Our house was made of mud walls and straw roof. A large number of invitees were all gorging on the staple delicious festive spread of ‘luchi’ (a deep-fried flatbread), Bengal gram dal, deep fried aubergines and mutton curry. Suddenly, an ominous war-cry of a certain religious group started filling up the air all around our colony. Details of what was happening and how many houses were burnt reached us in no time. Almost like a practiced drill, the guests ran out of our modest house into our neighbour’s RCC (Reinforced Cement Concrete) building.

Déjà vu for me! Except that, this time the entire colony had huddled into the house. The same drill ensued. This time however, there were lathis and the phone connection wasn’t killed. Also, the brave young men of our colony ventured out shouting Vande Mataram. I couldn’t however decipher how Vande Mataram could be a counter war-cry! I didn’t bother to ask my parents then. I was engulfed yet again in a strange sense of excitement, bigger this time with hundreds huddled and dozens of kids my age to play with. Riots have a similar routine. After hours of unrest and arson, curfew was imposed. And as people retreated back to their respective dwellings the next morning, I started realising that I unbelonged in my birthplace.

I continued to pursue a part of my education in the region with a looming sense of unbelongingness.

Discriminatory political manipulation to create vote banks would always trickle down into communities. All through the few years of my studies there, I could always sense the discrimination, some genuine, mostly perpetrated for vested interests. Slurs meanwhile evolved into ‘D-voters’ (dubious voters) and now the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 has added fresh and potent fuel to the simmering fire.

I know hundreds of these chided at people, who, after serving the state and the country since forever, in whichever capacity they have been able to, paying taxes diligently and paying fines for not paying their taxes, are yet again subjected to undue scrutiny, are being questioned, harassed, and living in this constant fear of being deregistered.

I now live in Mumbai and am frequently asked this question, even by the educated and liberated elite, ‘Where are you from?’

The usual reactions to my responses still are, “Oh, so you’re an Assamese?” When I respond saying that yes, I am an Assamese by virtue of being born in Assam, but that I am also a Bengali, I usually get the strangest question ever – “How come you’re not from Bengal?!”

I don’t really care where I belong. I have known through the years that I was born to unbelong. Our son, however, was born in Mumbai, take that! I am sincerely hoping he won’t be asked, “How come you’ve no connection to Bengal?” He probably wouldn’t even have the answer. We don’t want him to. We have brought him up to embrace, adopt and adjust. I wish everyone were to.

Shubho Shekhar Bhattacharjee, My Report

(I am the co-founder and Chief Creative Mentor of the Centre of Excellence in Indian & Western Music, Shillong. I was the Co-Founder, Creative Director & CEO of a boutique film production studio and had produced films like Do Dooni Chaar, Dosar, Mithya, The Last Lear and others.)

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