Who is this ‘development’ for?

The first displacement happened in the 1950s. The Pakistani government acquired about 1,842 acres in Gobindaganj, Gaibandha in northern Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan), promising both the local Santal and Bengali communities employment as labourers in the sugarcane farm that would be set up on that land. This was in 1955-56—a time when the subcontinent was still recovering from the shock of Partition and the riots that followed. Perhaps the memory of the killings of 17 Santal refugees, who were shot point-blank by the Pakistani police in March 1950 at the border, not far from Gobindaganj, was still fresh in the minds of the native community. But the pangs of hunger were probably a stronger driver—after almost two centuries of colonial exploitation, North Bengal was, at that time, one of the poorest and most deprived areas in the region, and continued to be so for many decades to come.

We know now that the original owners of the land were duped by the repressive Pakistani regime. According to the Jatiya Adivasi Parishad, at least 1,200 acres of the land taken belonged to the Santal community, and the rest belonged to local Bengalis. In 2016, The Daily Star checked old land records, the agreement between the Rangpur district administration and the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation signed in 1962, and the report of a cadastral survey completed in 1940, to corroborate this claim, and found it to be beyond dispute.

 Reportedly, only two Santals were later employed in the farms. The land was never returned to them again, and the Rangpur Sugar Mill, which was established on what is now known as the Sahebganj-Bagda farm area, continued to operate till about last year. Although many of the Santal and Bengali communities returned over the years to live on their ancestral land in makeshift homes, they effectively had their ownership rights stolen, pushing them and their next generations into poverty.

The second displacement occurred only five years ago: on November 6, 2016, more than 2,000 Santal and Bengali families were evicted from the area following a violent clash between the families, mill employees, and police. Three Santal men were killed and 20 others, including nine policemen, were injured. Their makeshift shacks were set on fire, and almost all of them lost all or part of their belongings.

To this day, the victims' families have not received justice. In fact, many of them are still being forced to waste precious time and resources in fighting cases that were brought against them after the clashes. This lengthy legal process is also preventing them from travelling to find the employment that they badly need, since most of the community are mainly engaged in low-wage agricultural work.

It is now highly possible that we will soon witness a third displacement, if the government goes ahead with its plan to build an export processing zone (EPZ) on the disputed land. There are currently about 1,500 Santal and Bengali families living in the Sahebganj-Bagda area and in two Santal villages in nearby Madarpur and Joypurpara, who are also under threat from the EPZ. Almost every official involved in this project maintain that the land belongs to the government, with the project director telling this daily's district correspondent that "the 1,842 acres of land were fully acquired during the Pakistan period and the government has decided to hand it over to the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA)."

Now, the question is: Why is the acquisition of land by a regime whose very purpose was to subjugate the people of then East Pakistan, and who relished in profiting from the sufferings and hardships of the local population, being accepted so casually in independent Bangladesh? Should we not have done everything in our power by now to mitigate the effects of the cruel and repressive policy of the authoritarian Pakistani government in Gaibandha, which made thousands of Bangladeshi citizens destitute and homeless?

After the 2016 attacks, there were claims from certain quarters that the land did not originally belong to the Santals. As mentioned earlier, The Daily Star's own research, and that of others, have disproved this claim. In fact, the 1962 agreement holds two important clauses that, if taken into account long ago, would have provided the original owners of the land with the justice they deserve. A portion of Clause 3 declares that "the aforesaid corporation shall not change the character of the requisitioned property" and Clause 5 states that "...if it is decided that the land shall not be acquired for the aforesaid purpose, the said corporation shall surrender the land to the provincial government for its release and restoration… and the corporation shall bear all costs and compensation in connection with the release and restoration of the land."

The Rangpur Sugar Mill authorities first violated these clauses when the mill shut down in 2004, and they began leasing the land out to local influential groups. In the following three years that the mill remained shut, these influential groups then began sub-leasing the land to farmers at exorbitantly high prices, according to a 2019 report by this daily. Santal leaders have also alleged that, despite incurring massive losses—from 2016 to 2019, they amounted to around Tk 3-4 crore in each fiscal year—the mill continued to operate in order to prevent them from returning to their ancestral land.

Given that the character of the "requisitioned property" has been changed, that it has in the past not been used for the "aforesaid purpose" (of sugar farming), and that its future purpose will be completely different as well, it is high time that the "release and restoration" of this land was taken seriously. It is a great shame that not only have no serious steps been taken to rehabilitate the Santal and Bengali populations living in poverty in the Gobindaganj area, but there are now plans to push them into further destitution. In fact, it seems like they have hardly crossed the minds of those in charge of the proposed EPZ project—on August 24, BEPZA Executive Chairman Md Nazrul Islam visited the farm area and held a meeting at the Gaibandha DC office with stakeholders, but not a single member of the Santal community was invited.

At the meeting, the reassurance was given that 200,000 people would be employed at the new EPZ. How many of the locals will be part of these lucky 200,000? Members of the Santal community have every right to be sceptical, especially since their forefathers' trust in empty promises of employment turned out to be their greatest misfortune. Earlier this month, Philimon Baske, president of the Sahebganj-Bagda Farm Bhumi-Uddhar Sangram Committee, told The Daily Star that without education, and with no experience of work outside of the manual labour expended on agricultural fields, it is highly unlikely that those evicted by the EPZ project will have any opportunity to work there in future.

Questions have been raised on its sheer size as well. Currently, the plan is to acquire the entire 1,832 acres of land for the EPZ, even though the largest EPZ in the country to date is built on around 500 acres of land. So far, no information has been shared on why this entire space is required, and what industries will be built upon it—just that the EPZ will be built on a small area first, and then eventually expanded. The authorities must ask themselves if this is reason enough to make so many marginalised families homeless and landless, without a second thought to their livelihoods and way of life.

Without a doubt, the establishment of EPZs in different parts of the country has created much-needed employment and developed previously poverty-stricken areas. But who exactly is this development for, if it does not reach the local population—especially if that population not only lives in one of the poorest regions in the country, but consists of landless agricultural labourers belonging to a historically marginalised indigenous community? What is the point of all this development, if inequality continues to grow, and the poorest end up slipping through the cracks?

Shuprova Tasneem is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star. Her Twitter handle is @ShuprovaTasneem