Memoirs of Chandal Jeevan

Memoirs of Chandal Jeevan

Shiva Shankar . Manoranjan Byapari articulates pangs of his pain, hatred, cruelties, discrimination and degradation. His narrative is simple but compelling: he drives his readers through a dreary land of poverty, hunger, humiliation, unemployment, illiteracy, anarchy, crime, gangsterism, deception, political betrayal, turmoil, hypocrisy etc.—all rolled into a 459-page autobiography in Bengali, under the rubric Itibritte Chandal Jeevan. ... In the face of indomitable adversities, he delivers a powerful message — a message of hope. He exemplifies elegantly that human endeavour and perseverance has no parallel and that human spirit in an awakened soul can conquer the most formidable obstacle. ... Memoirs of Chandal Jeevan: An Underdog's Story - Sunday 14 April 2013, by A K Biswas  http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article4116.html REVIEW ARTICLE - Itibritte Chandal Jeevan, Vol. I by Manoranjan Byapari; Priya Sipla Prakashan, Kolkata; Rs 250. Uncommon Memoirs He is no pedigree, nor has any pillar of support. He does not rest on the laurels of ancestral tradition of letters. Nonetheless he is a unique phenomenon with no parallel in Bengali literature, if not in Indian literature. His arrival at the centre of the glittering world of creative Bengali literature and adulation in train has left his readers and critics overwhelmed. He is a gatecrasher with backbreaking burden of experiences of life he lived in dark and stifling alleys, strewn with filth, carcasses, faeces, dirt and danger; traversing through garbage dumps and sewers of cities, towns and suburbs. An outcast, he is the invader of an arena and exponent of a theme that Bengali readers hitherto were either ignorant of or unaccustomed to. Surprisingly bold in contents, unsophisticated though in style and unrestrained in narrative, he has made a spectacular mark. ... ... The writer introduces himself as a Chandal, renamed in 1911 as Namasudra, who are the lowliest in the hierarchical Bengali caste order. Hailing from village Turukkhali, Barisal district of former East Pakistan, he, barely a-year-old, reached West Bengal with his refugee parents in 1953. Like millions of Indians, he does not know his date of birth, a gift of illiteracy. His depiction of six years of his life in a refugee camp at Shiromanipur, district Bankura, West Bengal is harrowing. The transit camps, set up by the government for refugees fleeing from East Pakistan in the aftermath of partition, lacked the barest facilities. ... ... All of a sudden one day, cash payments, called dole and dry ration, were suspended and the refugees were told to go to Dandakaranya. The Shiromanipur transit camps mainly sheltered the labouring castes, for example, the Namasudras, Pods, Kamars (blacksmiths), Kumhars (potters), Jolahas (weavers), Haris (sweepers), Muchis (cobblers), etc.—all of low social strata. (pp. 32-39) The writer laments that no touch of human feelings, compassion or appreciation in handling the issues of refugee rehabilitation was visible either in the government or among public leaders. Destiny made them pawns in the hands of ambitious, calculative and foresighted leaders. The experiences of horrors of the camp over-shadowed the writer's entire life. Partition of India gave a convenient tool in the hands of the political masters and bureaucrats to segregate the refugees based on traditional social or caste identity and perpetuate the divide on lines ordained by the Hindu scriptures! The curse of Dandakaranya and the tragedies of Marichjhapi awaited one segment while the other was blissfully ignorant of those calamities. Manoranjan Byapari tells us that the bhadralok, the euphemism for the Brahmans, Baidyas and Kyasthas, fleeing from East Pakistan, were averse to go to the transit camps and live on dole in the neighbourhood of the accursed chhotolok, a term used by the former to express their disdain for men of low castes. The bhadralok refugees got preferential and distinctive treatment in rehabilitation from the upper-caste Ministers, MLAs and MPs. In the suburbs and vicinity of the Calcutta metropolis alone, 149 unauthorised —locally or colloquially called jabor-dakhal (forcibly occupied)—colonies sprung up to accommodate the bhadralok refugees only. If anybody of the disadvantaged section ever intruded the forbidden haven, he succeeded in doing so by faking, fudging or suppressing his low-caste identity and pretending to belong to the upper caste or by paying bribes. (pp. 39-40) They were not pushed out of West Bengal to be left to their fate unlike their unfortunate counterparts of the despised castes. ...