Kolkata, Aug 13 (IANS) The Bhumi Pujan for the Partition Memorial Statue at Sealdah railway station in Kolkata will be held on August 14.
The Union Ministry of Culture had earlier announced the setting up of the statue in memory of the millions who suffered, were displaced and made sacrifices during the Partition of India in 1947.
The Sealdah station was selected because millions of Hindu Bengali refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) not only arrived there between 1947 and 1950, but also took shelter on the platforms and other parts of the station.
Several ministers from the Government of West Bengal will be present at the event. The Eastern Railway general manager and other senior officials will also be present.
While exact figures are not available, historical records reveal there were over 20,000 stranded and marooned people at the station at any point in time during those years.
While Sealdah was treated as a sort of “reception centre” for the refugees by the Government, the station became an unofficial site of refugee “settlement”.
Till the late 1960s, the platforms remained crowded with Bengali Hindu refugees. While some refugees were moved to camps elsewhere in the state and beyond, many spent months and even years at the station.
They preferred the squalor at Sealdah as it provided them access to the city of Calcutta (now Kolkata). Despite the unhygienic living conditions, with limited sanitation or other facilities, Sealdah provided the refugees who stayed put with opportunities that those who were moved to locations like Cooper’s Camp in Ranaghat, Nadia, missed out on.
A BJP leader had posted on X a few years ago: “My father was working in Kolkata, and our immediate family did not suffer following Partition. But I saw at Sealdah railway station at the age of 8 a scene similar, but much worse. Etched into my memory, this is what eventually drove me into politics.”
Those who stayed on at Sealdah started hunting for jobs in Calcutta. They also looked for open spaces in and around the city, where they could settle by themselves.
Many families living in areas like Bijoygarh in south Kolkata say that their ancestors had occupied the Sealdah station for months before moving there and building temporary houses with rudimentary facilities. The area was marshland at that time. The refugee colonies were later regularised.
Others recall how their ancestors started working while living at the Sealdah station and managed to save enough after several months to move to a rented accommodation.
Most refugee families in Kolkata have done considerably well for themselves over the last eight decades, and some of them are well established today. Many of them owe a lot to the Sealdah station, which is today one of the busiest in the country.
–IANS
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