Mana – An Abode of Peace For 65,000 Evacuees
From C. S. Sarkar, Mana, July 2 – The Long rows of tents set up at Kendri, Mannabhata and Nowgaon in Mana, for Bangladesh evacuees looked like white doves – symbols of peace – with their wings spread wide on the ground as I peeped through the window of the plane. It was carrying me along with about 170 evacuees including about 60 children from Calcutta to Mana.
The evacuees who had to trek 100 to 150 miles on foot before entering Indian territory had boarded the plane at Calcutta Airport with whatever humble belongings they had – earthen pitchers of a few cooking utensils and torn garments. Women and children were seated on one side and the male members of their families on the other.
Among them was a mother with her five-day-long daughter. The fellow passengers named her “Manali”, an appropriate name as she was among those who were bound for Mana. Manali’s mother had to trek all the way from a village in Khulna to the Indian border. Manali was born at Barasat.
The temperature inside the plane had become so warm while it stopped for a while on the runway at Calcutta Airport that its occupants began to perspire profusely. But the young mother with her baby on her lap took it calmly. She whispered to the woman by her side: “We are lucky like on the Pushpak rath, we are going to Mana airborne. We never dreamt of it in our life.”
As the plane taxied to a halt at the Mana airstrip, smiling boys and girls, children of the migrants who had gone there between 1964 and 1970, gathered around it and helped the passengers disembark. The welcoming children were Boy Scouts and Girl Guides and some trainees at the local nursing school. The evacuees were given TABC injections by the boys and girls themselves before they were taken to buses waiting at the airport bay. These children also cheerfully carried the luggage to the waiting trucks.
On their arrival at the Kendri camp the evacuees were greeted by those who had arrived there about a fortnight ago after the necessary registration and checking the evacuees were given cooked food for the day.
The weather appeared to be friendly to the evacuees. Patches of clouds in the sky, a cool breeze and the nearby tanks and nullahs filled up by rain water probably remained the evacuees of the country they had left. But the brown color of earth and the undulating dry landscape made them realize that it was not Bangladesh. The green grass on the apparently rough-looking soil, however, afforded some solace. A weary woman came out from a tent allotted to her family and said; “We have found at last an abode of peace No chasing by the Pakistani military, no more begging for food and shelter.”
Mana, only a few miles away from Raipur had already given shelter to about 65,000 Bangladesh evacuees. It is also almost 15,000 people. The spen fields in and around different camps are humming with activity – some people are digging holes, some pitching tents and some laying power lines for electrification of the camp areas.
Asked about the possibility of accommodating more evacuees in the area, an officer of the Rehabilitation Department said everything depended on the decision of the State Government and the Center.
The Rehabilitation and Development Minister of the Madhya Pradesh Government Mr. Ganesh Ram Anant who visited the evacuees camps at Mana yesterday expressed keen interest in the welfare of the evacuees. During his tour he urged the officials to speed up the work of setting up camps at Bilaspur so that the evacuees could also be given shelter there. Replying to a question an official said, however, that the suitability of the place was being studied, particularly with regard to the water resources in the area.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 03.07.1971