Siddaramaiah’s unkept promise leaves Bangladeshi settlers grappling with caste identity

RAICHUR: Over 22,000 Bangladeshi settlers in four Raichur camps of who 12,000 have voting rights are cross with the government for not recognising them as Schedule Castes, and that could be the deciding factor for the prospects of Congress here.Prasen Raptana, a second-generation resident of a Bangladesh camp in Sindhanur taluk is one among 10% of his kind who completed decent education. The caste factor, Raptana says is beleaguering the aspirations of settlers in the state of Karnataka.

During 1971, when East Pakistan was carved out to form a new state, Bangladesh, many Hindus facing atrocities left that country and entered India. On the instruction of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, Bangladeshi Hindus who sought refuge here were accommodated in many parts of the nation. The Union government initiated a programme to facilitate their stay in India. As part of it, the “victims of persecution” were given space in six states of the country; Assam, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura, West Bengal and Odisha.

Owing to space constraint in these states, refugees of the last leg were resettled in the northeast part of Karnataka, ie Raichur. While in the initial years, only land was given to them for economic sustainability, Government of India in 1979 bestowed upon them citizenship and voting rights.There are four such camps in Raichur, which are labelled RH2, RH3, RH4 and RH5, with the total population of these settlers being a little over 22,000. During these Assembly polls, over 12,000 of them have voting rights.

CM lobs ball in Centre’s court

All most all – 98% – residents of the camps are Namasudras, which is categorised as scheduled castes in West Bengal. However, in Karnataka’ gazette, this community was not listed as such a caste did not exist in the region. These people have been demanding the caste certificate for over two decades now, albeit with little progress.

Prasena Raptana, who is in the forefront of this “fight for recognition”, says the Congress promises them the SC status in every election. “Unfortunately, the issue is still alive and even in the present polls, Congress candidate Hampanagouda Badarli has assured us the identity. But we are losing faith in the Congress leadership, for they are not resolving the issue,” he said.

He elaborated their struggle further to say Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in person promised to give him and his community the caste certificate. “He kept his hand on my shoulder and promised to issue a gazette notification. But he only recommended to the Centre on April 4, 2014,” he said, going on to add, “The recommendation was rejected as it was not in proper order.”

The state then directed Tribal Research Institute to research the matter, which the Institute refused saying it only studied tribal populations and not scheduled castes. Following the refusal, the state in July, 2017 directed Ambedkar Foundation to do the study. “The Foundation carried out the study in Kannada, which the state is now getting translated,” he said.

“We have begun to wonder if the state is keeping the issue alive only to galvanise votes. The delay is costing our community dear, as we are deprived reservation in education and government jobs,” he added.

Complete land rights denied

Even though land was given to the settlers, the patta (papers that give land rights) was not. Another settler Shiva said, “Apart from tilling rights, we have no powers over land. The revenue records state that it is the government that is the owner of our land.

Over 22,000

There are four camps for Bangladeshi settlers in Raichur with the total population of the settlers being a little over 22,000