That must have been an eye-opening experience.
Yes, it was. I had no idea this little object on the ground was a major obstacle to my efforts to improve animal husbandry. When you come from another culture, you may have no idea how local people actually think.
Another time, we were digging wells, and our civil engineer had an idea: Wedge shaped bricks would fit snugly, and you wouldn’t need to use any mortar. The wells could be bigger. We thought this was a great idea. But a few days later, when we came back to check, the work had stopped. The landowner was in charge of the workers building the well, and he didn’t think it was a great idea at all. We were puzzled. Why not build a bigger well, if there was a choice? Because, he explained to me, if I have an argument with my wife, it’s going to be easier for her to throw herself down the well if it’s bigger. I was speechless.
Sometimes it’s mentality and beliefs; at other times its just habits that present obstacles. A cow will make more milk if water is available when they want it. But it was a struggle to get villagers to keep a bowl of water next to the cows. As far as they were concerned, cows drink water when they are brought to the water. Why? Because that was the way it had always been!
Were you in Bihar when the Liberation War broke out?
Yes. Oxfam’s office in Ranchi in Bihar, which then covered Eastern India and East Pakistan, received news of thousands of refugees coming across the border. In April 1971, it was clear there was a huge refugee crisis in West Bengal, so Oxfam asked me to go to Calcutta and assist relief operations. So I got in one of the Oxfam famine relief jeeps, and drove down from Bihar to Calcutta.
We set up an office in a hotel on Little Russell Street. The hotel had three phone lines, which was very useful, and it was minutes away from a 24-hour telegram office, a Grindlays Bank branch, and a Catholic Relief Services office, that had a telex machine we could use.
Also Read- Julian Bhai, friend of Bangladesh (Part 1)
Most of the other foreign aid organizations were flying in foreign personnel, but we consulted our Gandhian friends and decided that more expats were not required. This proved to be a very good decision as, shortly afterwards, the Indian government prohibited foreigners from going to the border areas. We hired young Bengalis as staff. Many of them were former pupils of St Placid’s school in Chittagong. They had learned that their former principal, Raymond Cournoyer, was with Oxfam in Calcutta to help the refugees. They didn’t have any contact information for him; they just turned up in Calcutta, to look for him!
Raymond Cournoyer must have been a charismatic figure to inspire such loyalty.
Yes, he was. Raymond Bhai, as everyone called him, was a French Canadian, Catholic Brother of the Holy Cross Order. He had taught in various schools in East Pakistan from 1958 to 1965, before joining Oxfam. By the time the refugee crisis erupted, Raymond was responsible for all Oxfam operations in Eastern India and East Pakistan, out of the Bihar regional office. It was Raymond who sent me down to Calcutta to help set up the relief operations. Oxfam’s head office protested that I might be too young, but Raymond Bhai insisted.
When Oxfam head office wanted to fly in more expats from the UK, the better to generate publicity and donations, it was Raymond who led the resistance. He told them we could manage without. Personnel who couldn’t speak the language were simply not that useful. One of Raymond’s former pupils that we hired was Uday Sankar Das, who went on to have a successful career in journalism.
What are some of your memories from the refugee camps?
November 1971 sticks out in my mind. That was when the two sides started shelling each other, across the border. The refugees were very close to the border, so it became dangerous for them. Hundreds might have been killed in the shelling. Not that the Pakistan military command cared, of course.
I remember once I was talking to the officer commanding in a huge tented compound, near Hili, in West Dinajpur, when there was an explosion nearby. Nobody batted an eyelid. But after the meeting, I realized the jeep I was sitting in just a short while ago had taken a direct hit!
The Indian military decided to move the camps farther away from the border. That was partly for safety, and partly because they wanted to lay landmines along the border. So the camps were moved.
The official arrangement was that the Indian government provide shelter and basic food rations. All else was to be provided by aid agencies. However, unofficially, the Indian army medical corps tended to the refugees near that particular border, and Oxfam sometimes provided basic health care for Indian soldiers.
Rezwan Hussain is a writer and researcher in Dhaka. This is the second instalment of a multi-part interview with Julian Francis.