Evacuees in Balat Camps settling down
From Our Shillong Office, JUNE 28. – The only daughter of Mr. Nabagopal Das was married off to the third son of Mr. Kartick Chandra Pal on Tuesday last. Mrs. Sushilabala, wife of Mr. Arjun Mandal, gave premature birth to a son on Monday night and the three-year-old grandson of Mr. Brindaban Basak, who has been suffering from gastroenteritis for the last few days, responded encouragingly to the medical treatment. ‘Kansa Badh’ was performed at a Jatra party on Tuesday evening.
All these social tit-bits were collected recently from the sprawling evacuee camp at Balat on the Umngi.
Life at the evacuee camps in and around Balat today is neither gay nor grim. Complaints and grumblings are there and there are genuine difficulties and hardship but in spite of everything. Life has been setting down in the evacuee camps of Balat. Marriages are getting married, children are playing in the small compounds before the thatched huts and the neighbors also have started quarreling over the vitally important trifling while the housewives are busy with their daily chores. After overcoming the initial disorderliness life has again begun to move in its eternally repetitive cycle in Balat camps.
There are two camps facing each other across the river Umngi at Balat. One of them is known as Balat camp while the other as Mailam. Originally they were planned to provide shelter to 10,000 evacuees; 4,000 for Balat and 6,000 for Mailam. But now the two of them house more than 21,000 evacuees with a regular trickle of new evacuees arriving at the rate of 50-75 every day. With all these constantly unsettling factors, the Balat camps could logically be a lot more disorderly and chaotic; with the limited resources at their command they simply could not be more orderly or better organized. A foreign visitor, who has seen other evacuee camps in West Bengal, Tripura and Assam, described the Balat camps as ‘a paradise among them all’.
We were, however, not deceived by the apparent well-being of the camps. The Balat camps had recently hit the headlines in the national press.
The truth, so far we could ascertain it, however was horrifying enough to require any exaggeration to hit the headlines. The system of sanitation remains worse than deplorable – it was surprising that the cholera epidemic, which broke out in the area immediately after the evacuees began to take a bigger toll or receded so early though all the opportunities to spread like a wildfire was there before it. What was the total number of victims in the scourge? it was impossible even to make an intelligent guess. Officials were unashamedly silent on the point that none were reported to them and they could detect very few. Unofficial figures varied from 2,000 to 50. The absurdity of the former figure was as obvious as the conservativeness of the latter. About 1,000 people went back to their homes frightened entirely by the scourge.
Medical facilities
The medical arrangements in the camps too were very inadequate. Altogether there are four doctors and 11 nurses to look after about 2,000 people. The ratio might not be very frightening by the Indian standard, but the incidence of illness under the condition in which the evacuees are living is higher by quite a few times. Scarcity of medicine and other essential equipment is also there to add to the plight of the few physicians. We found them all overworked and tired but they were working with a missionary zeal and they have every right to feel proud of their achievements.
The evacuees have other complaints too. Water, many of them grumbled, has to be fetched from very far away. But they agreed that in the terrain they have migrated to it just could not be helped. So went with many of their other complaints all of which were disowned after a little explanation. The quality of the rice was bad, they complained. Agreed, But did they expect Basmati in an evacuees camp? No, they didn’t. The complaints were withdrawn immediately. The mustard oil was adulterated of course, but when it was explained that the same staff was sold throughout India as pure, the complaining evacuees smilingly sympathized with their hosts. And so on with most of their other grievances. They were all genuine but it was appreciated that all of them were also inevitable and incurable. The evacuees have already almost learnt to live with them. It would be offensive to suggest that they were happy with their lot but they have realized that they cannot help but endure them. With a disturbing past and an uncertain future and Eric resignation now resigned over the Balat evacuee camps.
It would be outrageous to suggest that the thatched huts provided to them as shelter were ideal. They have been built to last for just one monsoon and with the hope that there would not be any high wind during the season. The rooms allotted to each family are small. Inside every room there is an elevated platform made with bamboo and wooden planks. The rooms are neither spacious nor cozy, but with the few belongings the evacuees had fled from their country, most of them have a vacant look rather than being cramped. None of the evacuees made any complaint or paid any compliment on this score. It deserves neither.
There were other complaints too , most of which have by now lost their edges. The queues for ration were too long. They complained, but they corrected themselves in the same breath that with so many evacuees it could not be different. There were dumplings with weights and measures too, not at all uncommon in this part of the world, but the same was solved by handing over the responsibility of distributing food-staff to the evacuees themselves under the supervision of Government officials. None required to be told that the evacuees were not in the beat of the worlds but the evacuees themselves agreed that the situation could quite legitimately be much worse.
Committees have been formed with members from among the evacuees to look after sanitation, education, recreation, mediation to settle disputes and such other things in the camp area. The evacuees camps in and around Balat, aided by Government officials are now run more or less by the inmates themselves. This has also greatly helped to lessen the tension which prevailed between the local people and the evacuees when the camps were being established.
Tension inevitable The tension was inevitable and that the same did not burst out in bigger and more widespread violence speaks a great deal about the innate restraint of the local people. The original population of the Balat area was around 1,000 and they were suddenly overwhelmed with a huge influx of evacuees over 20,000. The disastrous impact of such an influx can more easily be imagined than described. Small market places were deluged by a huge number of purchasers; essential commodities became scarce and prices shot up. The evacuees, further, collected fuel from the already deforested hill slopes, they polluted the streams and brought pestilence with them. It would have been too much to expect that the local, illiterate, hilly peasants would hear all this with fortitude and a smiling face. They could not; they did not. They resented the intrusion and, being also uninhibited there were also quite a few skirmishes at the initial stage when the Government machinery itself was yet to gear up to face the challenge. Within days, however, the camps were organized properly and we failed to discern a single sign of the tension which we were told was there even a few days back. The credit for this should go in its entirety in the Meghalaya Government and the few devoted employees who have been deployed there.
About the return of the refugees we gathered that about 1,000 evacuees might have gone back. All of them were Muslims with their homes within 10 miles from the border which have further been re-liberated before they’re-migrated.
Before we left the camp we found a few youths ereeting a small bamboo platform ‘Kansa Badh’ was to be staged there by the camp Jatra Party in the evening.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 29.06.1971