RECOVERING THE SILENCED VOICES: THE PLIGHT AND TRAUMA OF KAIBARTA PARTITION REFUGEES OF SONBEEL, BARAK VALLEY OF ASSAM

The historiography of the Partition of India, the creative literature andthe films evoked out of the pangs of Partition are primarily concerned withthe Partition of Punjab and Bengal. Assam as the third site of Partition remained under the veil of silence for nearly six decades. In recent years, academic interventions are forthcoming to unveil the human history of the Partition of Assam which triggered a huge forced migration of population in the Brahmaputra Valley, Barak Valley and the hill areas of Assam. Given the discrimination that the Dalits experienced during and after the Partition of India, they are the triply marginalised group due to their caste, class and refugee identities. As the Dalits lacked agency in the Barak Valley, their plight largely remains unattended. In this context, the present paper is an attempt to recover the plight of the Kaibarta Partition refugees who were the victims of forced migration from Sylhet/ East Pakistan to Sonbeel area of Barak Valley of Assam especially, after the communal violence of 1950 in East Pakistan.