PARTITION: Tape 18 Writer 255MODEM Mod Date & Time 255MODEM Oct 16 13:01 TAPE 18 Dr ASHOK MITRA - Rajya Sabha MP, close to CPM; from East Bengali high caste Hindu family; in Dhaka in 1947-8 - interviewed in Delhi - in office in the Parliamentary annexe - 16 October 1996 Side A 12 - in 47, a student at Dhaka university; 'it was a v confusing period' - a lot of it Congress to blame 44 - at that time a member of (CP-led) students' fedn, not of CPI 63 - during tension, 'there was this kind of segregation that lasted for weeks on end ... by 47, thought this was over, and in a sense communal riots stopped ... it stopped along e India, even when partn took place, there was no 1/scale riot, which was quite contrary to what happ'd in w border and in Punjab' 90 - from an e Bengal high-caste family, from Dhaka district; 'it's sleepy little town domianted by two sets ... the District Bar Assn, cos there was a lot of litigation, land disputes, and murders ... the second elite was the univ teachers ... quite a phenomenon, a univ of that calibre in a hinterland which was that primitive' 120 - [rel cleavage in Bengal] 'that's cos of the sectarian attitude of the Beng Hindus; they wdn't treat the Ms as human beings ... the H landlords did not consc discriminate against the M peasantry, all peasantry had to be oppressed, ... but the mere fact that your religion had to be M meants you had to bear the greater burden1 134 - 'my mother's family, landed gentrym my mother had five brothers, sons of the zamindar, the law of the land; I still remember an incident, I was barely 6 or 7' between two land holdings you have a ... raised border, and that becomes a path ... there was an unwritten code that when a zam or anyone from his family travels n to s along that narrow path, nobody else wd have the right to ... be on the road' 152 - 'a M boy, the son of ... a small peasant, 15/16, one of my uncles who was barely 17/18 at that time, he was trav n-s, and this M, he just stood there, he didn't bother to slink down the slope; that was an unpardonable offence, so he was seized, then his feet were bound by rope, he was brought to the c'yard of my g/father's hse and I still rem'r, a wooden plank with some nails thrust in, that boy waas beaten mercilessly; and this was the tradn' 175 - CPI's changing policy towards partition 196 - 'we all thought that the formula brough over from London [by the Cabinet Mission] was excellent, you have a confederation with three units ... we thought that this