The violence of return: partition migration and human rights violations in Marichjhapi

Nation-making is often shaped by elite politics and calculated aspirations which are far removed from the lives of ordinary citizens, who ultimately shoulder its gravest burdens. The 1947 Partition illustrates this, as millions of Bengali Hindus in East Pakistan were abruptly transformed from citizens into refugees. The situation became extremely grievous for marginalised Bengali peasantry lacking any social capital and depending on state sponsored relief and rehabilitation. Crossing into West Bengal exposed them to new forms of state-inflicted violence in the hostland layered with caste-based marginalisation. In India, state rehabilitation programmes framed in humanitarianism displaced this group multiple times. This pattern reached its tragic culmination in the 1979 Marichjhapi Massacre, when the West Bengal government deployed lethal force to evict and suppress a group of such marginalised refugees who reverse migrated from Dandakaranya to self-settle on the island, resulting in widespread human rights violations. This paper examines Marichjhapi carnage through a human rights lens to demonstrate how state-led rehabilitation, frequently driven by electoral priorities and agendas can directly contradict the very rights it claims to uphold. Drawing on archival records, oral testimonies, and secondary sources, the study traces the gross human rights violations endured by these socially marginalised refugees in post-Partition India.