In the history of human civilization there have been several instances of mass migration from one country to another. The reasons may be political, religious, cultural or economic compulsions and so on.
The impact of such migrations, individual or collective, results in the immigrant people leaving their native place, their hearth and home, temporarily or permanently in varied circumstances to live in alien land. Living abroad can be, in some cases, extremely trying or painful as for the Africans who were smuggled out of their native land and sold as slaves in North or South America, including West Indies to work for generations as labourers in sugarcane fields under oppressive masters. Over a period of time they forgot their identity or even their native place but not always their habits, their food, their language, their social customs or even their dreams.
Let us narrate the story of Kunta Kinte, a slave boy from Africa, who was sold in the slave market in West Indies and who later in his life, fortunately, joined the US Coast Guard and became its first Chief Journalist. His well researched book “Roots” (Vintage Books, London) made him famous. The blurb of the book on its back cover reads, “The extraordinary account of Alex Haley’s twelve-year search for his family’s origin. Tracing his ancestry through six genrations - slave and freedmen, farmers and blacksmiths, lawyers and architects, back to Africa, he discovered a sixteen year old youth, Kunta Kinte. It was this young man, who had been torn from his homeland and in torment and anguish brought to the slave markets of the New World, who had the key to Haley’s deep and distant past.”
In the context of the sufferings of a forced and helpless migrant, it would be sadly interesting and at the same time illustrative to read a paragraph from Haley’s book (page 267), “Nearly everyone was gone for the next few days - so many that few would have been there to notice if Kunta had tried to run away again - but he knew that even though he had learned to get around all right and make himself fairly useful, he would never be able to get very far before some slave catcher caught up with him again. Though it shamed him to admit it, he had begun to prefer life as he was allowed to live it here on this plantation to the certainty of being captured and probably killed if he failed to escape again. Deep in his heart, he knew he would never see his home again, and he could feel something precious and irretrievable dying inside of him forever. But hope remained alive. Though he might never see his family again perhaps someday he might be able to have one of his own.”
There are many such touching accounts of the ordeals and agonies of migrant people (in this case “slaves”) in Haley’s book.
But this is one side of the story. On the other side there are many instances of success and achievements by migrant people, while forced to live in a foreign land, out of their strong urge to survive and move ahead, using local opportunities.
Armenians, like the Jews of Israel and Palestine, have a long history of mass migration and sizable diasporas in Russia, Europe, Middle East and other countries; but they have climbed great heights in different fields while displaying exemplary loyalty to their motherland. “The Journal of Ethics and Social Sciences” writes:
“A lot of Diaspora Armenians achieved great success in the host countries and contributed to their arts, social and economic life. Today they can be found in all arts and professions. Having found themselves in an unfavourable position, in these foreign countries, they had to put in more effort to gain recognition and lead a worthy life.”
Dana Boshnakova who did some research on the life of Armenian Diaspora wrote: “Their solidarity is so popular that Bulgarians started joking that all you need is put three Armenians together and they will immediately build a church, found a school and start publishing a newspaper.” About Bengali diasporas the joke or truth is: Put ten Bengalis together and they will organize a “Durga Puja”, set up a “Kali Mandir” or start a drama club!
The diaspora Armenions found great difficulties to interact with the people in host countries. They not only learnt local languages but also made serious efforts to maintain and strengthen their own language, in some cases upto fourth generation. An Armenian occupied the post of Prime Minister in France (Eduard Balladur). Another, named George Deukmejian, became the Governor of California (1983-91). Like the Armenians, Jews also had to struggle a lot to settle down in stages in their independent country, Israel, and also in many diasporas. In 1880 the total number of Jews in the country was 20,000 to 25,000 and on the eve of independence their number swelled into 6,50,000 in their different settlements.. European migration to the Americas began in late 15th century following the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus’s mistaken voyage to the ‘Far East’ that took him to the ‘New World”. The New World soon became an attractive land for many Europeans, like British, Dutch, French, Norwegian, Portuguise, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and many others. In the 19th century over 50 million immigrants from Europe settled down in the Americas, including a large number of African slaves and Indian indentured labourers.
Most of these migrants had to fight vigorously with local conditions and often with each other to eventually establish themselves in the New Word. Most of the Western hemisphere thus came under the control of the Europeans.
The perseverance, hard labour, willpower and vision of these early immigrants produced spectacular results. The United States is today economically, technologically and militarily supposed to be on top of the world. South America, particularly Brazil, Argentina, Chile and West Indies are also not lagging far behind. Kunta Kinte, the African slave boy became a world famous author (Alex Haley) with his unique lifestory - ROOTS. V. S. Naipaul, the grandson of an Indian indentured labourer in the sugarcane fields of the West Indies received the coveted Nobel Prize in Literature. Apart from them, just three more names would be enough to prove what migrants could do for themselves in the “New World.” First, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) - the third President of America, drafted the historic Declaration of Independence from the British Empire in 1776. Second, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) gave America and the world the most apt definition of democracy - a government of the people, by the people and for the people. And the Third, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. of African origin who spearheaded the Civil Rights Movement in America and got the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, just four years before his assassination for involvement in the same cause. So diasporas or immigrants achieved great success despite adversities.
Nearer home, in Delhi - India’s capital, the Bengali Hindu refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) have earned a spectacular position in the history of immigrants and diasporas. Historians say that the largest diasporas in the world today are Chinese and Indians.
For this article we would like to concentrate on the Bengali diaspora of Chittaranjan Park in South Delhi. Ten million people had to leave former East Pakistan, renamed Bangladesh after independence because of communal riots in Chittagong, Dhaka and other places in 1946 and then immediately before and after the Mukti Bahini’s (of Bangladesh) determined assault on Pakistani Military to get freedom for Bangladesh from attrocious Pakistan. Migration of Hindus from Bangladesh to India did not take place in one go but in different spells and at different time. Apart from West Bengal (now likely to be Banga) the refugees spread over different parts of India in search of shelter and livelihood, like Assam, Bihar, Tripura, Jharkhand, Karnataka and some even over Europe and America.
Some Bengali Hindus were already in Delhi with government jobs, or in other professions like teaching, health care or legal service. With the partition of India, non-Bengali refugees from West Pakistan also migrated to India for shelter and livelihood. Government had to establish many refugee colonies in Rajinder Nagar, Malvia Nagar, Kalkaji, Trilokpuri and many other places.
Chittaranjan Park was established much later - in the 70s - for the Bengali diaspora already in Delhi and fresh refugees who migrated to Delhi in bulk after the partition of India. The colony with over 3000 plots grew into a bustling diaspora of about 20,000 Bengalis, now getting mixed with sizeable non-Bengali population.
Like other diasporas in the world Chittaranjan Park also had to pass through the trauma of adjustment with new environment, learn new spoken language, see new jobs, etc. not to speak of living a whole new life and live with dignity and dreams of their own. Those who got land in Chittaranjan Park showed tremendous enthusiasm to adopt C. R. Park as the new home. Volunteers came forward to ensure equitable distribution of milk in the booths of Mother Diary and Delhi Milk Scheme, run schools, start DTC buses, run fish and vegetables markets and dispensaries, and the last but not the least, run a highly organized ‘Kali Bari’ with a magnificent array of cultural and religious activities performed with meticulous devotion and strict discipline.
Traditional Bengali culture nurtured with reverence here in C. R. Park, like welcoming the Bengali New Year on the 1st of Baishakh when thousands of Bengali assemble in the lawn of Kali Mandir early morning to pay obeisance to the rising sun. Another sacred event participated collectively in the Kali Mandir by hundreds of elderly Bengalis is Tarpan, immediately before Durga Puja, offering water to deities and ancestors with the chanting of vedic mantras.
The cultural societies in C R Park, particularly Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Memorial Society, Bangiya Samaj and Purboshree Mahila Samity buzz with exceptional entertainment and cultural programmes, including dramas of social relevance, book reading by authors, review of such books and so on.
A very learned and highly respected resident of C. R. Park, Late R. C. S. Sarkar who was a secretary in the Central Law Ministry once said that C R Park would ever be remembered for three things in particular - its Kali Mandir, Dr. Kalyan Banerjee - a highly popular Homeopathic doctor and of course its “Machchhi Bazaar” (Fish Markets)!
The success stories of the Bengali Diaspora in C R Park are many. Almost every second family in the colony has one or two members in Europe, America or Australia engaged in teaching, research, IT industry or business. There are serveral senior bureaucrats including Dy. Governor of RBI, veteran Journalists, University Professors, member of an expedition team to the Antarcticas and a bengali Pulitzer Prize winner in a nearby colony - Safdarjung Development Area, and what not! Who in Delhi does not visit the ten Durga Pujas, the soul of Bengali culture and religious extravaganza, organized in C. R. Park.
The Bengali Diaspora of C. R. Park and also of many other parts of the world can be compared with Armenian and the Jewish diasporas, in their post migration achievements. In glorification, C. R. Park is known as the “Mini Bengal”. But we must not forget many old unfinished tasks and new emerging problems of C. R. Park which the established socio-cultural societies functioning in the colony like the Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Memorial Society, Bangiya Samaj, Purboshree Mahila Samity, East Bengal Displaced Persons Association and similar other organisations are already looking into.
Bravo! Well done, C. R. Park! Well done, Bengali diaspora! Here is Tagore’s reassurace for the global diaspora:
“কত অজানারে জানাইলে তুমি
কত ঘরে দিলে ঠাঁই -
দূরকে করিলে নিকট, বন্ধু,
পরকে করিলে ভাই।
পুরানো আবাস ছেড়ে যাই যবে
মনে ভেবে মরি কি জানি কী হবে,
নূতনের মাঝে তুমি পুরাতন
সে কথা যে ভুলে যাই
দূরকে করিলে নিকট, বন্ধু,
পরকে করিলে ভাই।”
………গীতাঞ্জলী
“Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not.
Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own.
Thou hast brought the distant near and
made a brother of the stranger.
I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave
my accustomed shelter
I forget that there abides
the old in the new and there also Thou abidest.”
…… Gitanjali
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