The Pakistani refugees
From Dr N. R. Sengupta Sir: It is only a week since the Spectator of June 19 reached me because, thanks to the Israel/ Egypt hostilities, magazines or journals take two months or more to reach us here from England.
In this issue of your paper the first article 'Another Final Solution is so superbly written, so uniquely sympathetic and so utterly practical that I hasten to offer my deepest thanks for it.
On the subject of Bangle Desh so many nations have sent observers and their sympathetic comments have been so heartwarming that it would be invidious to single out any one for distinction but there is no doubt that few have touched the heights you have done. Few have been able to write that Pakistan should be expelled from the UN and all aid stopped.
It is three months since you have written this article; the refugees, then five millions, are now 8.5 millions. The brutalities are still going on, as the self-interest (?) of nations still does not allow them to act as their conscience dictates and the horror continues.
Those who have escaped with their lives with every rupee taken from them, reached India absolutely with nothing or except a dhoti. Sympathetic Muslims have kept them concealed in their homes to avoid the military and the Rajakars. And as a price they have extracted all the money from the evacuees; they have demanded most of the young girls; unmarried or married women have to be handed over, to the sympathetic Muslims who, polygamy being allowed, have no hesitation in adding these women to their harems. You have rightly said such horror is unthinkable in history. A race is being destroyed; they have however, not been able to destroy the spirit of these refugees.
A friend of ours, a godly man, living thirteen miles from Calcutta, was approached for jobs by two of such displaced persons. The gentleman had no work for them, but seeing their plight he put them to work to clear the garden, paid them some money as wages and at the end fed them: overwhelmed by his kindness they prayed for the gentleman's blessings. When the gentleman said, "What blessing do you want?" they said, "Bless us that we may never blame God for our misfortunes." Our friend was stunned and then they asked two more blessings, "That we may never covet other people's goods," and "That we may be able to feed ourselves and our children with our exertions."
Sir, these are samples of the fugitive Hindus of Bangla Desh.
Although all seems to be lost we believe that such a race will never die, although they are being subjected to untold horrors and are on the verge of extinction.
N. R. Sengupto 91 Chowringee Road, Calcutta 20
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