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Working on a book on plight of Hindu Bengali refugees from East Pakistan as perceived through Bangla literature. Learned that my father, his widowed mother, his siblings, and all others who fled to #India 1947-50, were classified as 'Permanent Liability' by Nehru Government. 1/n https://twitter.com/KanchanGupta/status/1204818611761598464
Rare if any is the Bengali Hindu refugee who became a 'Permanent Liability' for Government of #India -- either during the lifetime of Nehru who coined the term or in the following 7 decades. Our parents toiled night and day to rebuild their lives without any sarkari support. 2n
Unlike Punjabi/Sindhi-speaking Hindu refugees from West Pakistan, #Bengali #Hindu refugees were offered nothing by Nehru. The overcrowded, squalid, disease infested 'Permanent Liability Camps' were and remain a blot on the conscience, if he had any, of Nehru and his flunkies. 3n
As a Bengali Hindu refugee legatee, born in #India and proud to be a citizen of this great civilisational nation, I feel anger, hurt, loathing contempt for what Nehru and his flunkies did to my people: We the disinherited were dehumanised and degraded by Nehru and his policy. 4n
These few months have been a voyage of discovery of who I am, what I am, why I am the way I am. I've learned to appreciate why my parents never spoke about their past. I now understand why my grandmother gave me her tattered copy of 'Refugee Certificate', a permanent identity. 5n
My personal anger is about coming to terms with my inherited legacy and identity as a Bengali Hindu refuge legatee. The #CAA is a first step towards correcting Nehru's historic wrong, of ensuring that the degradation and dehumanisation of my people is not visited upon others. 6n
