Memory of a Massacre: Ecological Preservation and the Marichjhapi Debacle

Pratiti Roy

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Chapter 12 Memory of a Massacre: Ecological Preservation and the Marichjhapi Debacle

In: Memory Studies in India

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Pratiti Roy

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 196–214

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004722514_014

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Abstract

This essay attempts to highlight the environmental and memory debates around the evacuation of East Bengali refugees settled on the Marichjhapi island in the Sundarbans by the West Bengal state government on the grounds of ecological preservation. The Sundarbans is a protected forest reserve with an army of officials and a tight cluster of laws protecting its forests and exotic animals. These laws often fail to consider the plight of the human inhabitants occupying the same space, which leaves them vulnerable to ignorance and oppression. The marginalization of the humans, putatively for ecological preservation, disregarded their long trail of memory associated with the land which they called their homes. Drawing from theoretical concepts such as Rob Nixon’s ’Slow Violence’ (Nixon, 2011), and Lawrence Buell’s take on Environmental Memory (Buell, 2016), this essay assesses the complex dynamic of trauma and justice associated with dislocations due to ecological reasons. By considering displacement narratives from various literary and nonfiction sources, this essay calls attention to the human-animal conflict in the Sundarbans, the effects of the conflict on the inhabitants, and the state’s use of the conflict to defend their actions against the refugees that settled on the island of Marichjhapi.

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Memory Studies in India

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Series: Mobilizing Memories, Volume: 5

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004722514

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 21 Apr 2025

Subjects
- Asian Studies
  - South Asia
- Literature and Cultural Studies

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Chapter 12 Memory of a Massacre: Ecological Preservation and the Marichjhapi Debacle

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Memory Studies in India

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