Indians

Sagar and Opu, two cousin sisters, were born in an island of idyllic beauty, named Sandwip in the southern tip of East Bengal - a part of British India before Independence. Bengal played a significant role in the freedom struggle and these girls grew up in that ambience. But the course of their life was vitiated by the communal riots of 1946, and the partition of Bengal in 1947. Like lakhs of refugees, they too faced harrowing times before they could resettle in the truncated India through struggle for many years.

Long life came as a curse to the life of Opu. As a refugee she had chosen Assam for her new habitat. Now, after living in India for nearly sixty long years, she faced the challenge of proving herself as an Indian citizen through documented evidence. Opus devotion for Mother India and loyalty to the state were of no consequence.

In absence of these papers, what happened to her? How was an old teacher treated by the society and the state? Where was her sister, Sagar during this crisis?

How did a person born in Bharatvarsha lose his Bharatiya identity? Did the state, the British India or the independent Republic of India ensure issuing a birth certificate to all people born on its territory?

About the author: Swapan Chaudhuri, a published author (Hridoypur Junction, a Bengali fiction, ISBN: 9789350203675 Mitra and Ghosh, 2019), has dealt in this novel the question of human tragedy caused by unwise intervention of the state, bringing untold misery to countless people.

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