August 1971: Remembering Edward Kennedy’s visit to India

Published : 13 August 2020, 12:36 PM
Updated : 13 August 2020, 12:36 PM

As I look out of the window here in Dhaka on Aug 13, 2020, I am glad to see that it is not raining. The floods this year in Bangladesh have reminded me of the steady monsoon rain that flooded the refugee camps in India in 1971. In August 1971 I remember standing in knee-deep putrid water and mud in a refugee camp near Bongaon and wondering how the lives of the Bangladesh refugees could be significantly improved. A cholera epidemic had challenged those of us working in the refugee camps in June and July but by August we had other concerns. At that time in August 1971, we, in Oxfam, had, through Oxfam-America, been closely connected with Senator Edward Kennedy's visit to the refugee camps and with my colleagues in Kolkata we had been urgently calculating the amounts of warm clothing and blankets that we would need for the refugees in the winter. One of my colleagues was able to accompany Senator Kennedy to refugee camps in Kolkata, Jalpaiguri, and Tripura. Here, in 2020, as a result of 'staying at home' due to the coronavirus pandemic, I have been trying to organise my archives of the last 50 years. I see that the London Times newspaper on Aug 14, 1971 had a news item as follows:

'Calcutta, Aug. 13th. – Hundreds of children are dying every day from malnutrition in the East Pakistan refugee camps in India, the co-ordinator of the Oxfam relief operation said here today.  Mr Julian Francis said the figures were based on reports and impressions of doctors and relief workers of other organisations as well as Oxfam, "There is no doubt that hundreds are dying every day", he said. He could not say how long this had been going on but said it was "for some time." He added: "The doctors think the malnutrition is worse than Biafra." '

On the same date, Senator Kennedy was in New Delhi to meet the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi and the Foreign Minister, Swaran Singh and Kennedy is quoted as saying that the refugee problem was "perhaps the greatest human tragedy of our times."

During the news conference he gave in New Delhi, Senator Kennedy said that he believed the Pakistan Government was carrying out "genocide". He also strongly criticised the secret trial of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Pakistan. "I think that the only crime Mujib is guilty of is winning an election", he said. "The question of the trial being secret is an outrage to every concept of international law and a travesty to those who believe in international law."

Before Senator Kennedy left New Delhi, he said that he had already opposed American arms supplies to Pakistan, and went on, "I will make every effort in the United States Senate not only to halt arms supplies in the pipeline but also those in the future and also to halt all economic aid until there is a political solution."

Later that year, in October, in an attempt to shock and wake up the world, Oxfam decided to collect and publish statements of many individuals about the plight of both the refugees in the Indian refugee camps and the people inside East Pakistan who were slowly running out of food and hope. The 'Testimony of Sixty' was published on Oct 21, 1971, in time to be distributed at the opening of the UN General Assembly. In his statement entitled 'Mosaic of Misery', Senator Kennedy pleaded that the entire world should accept the burden of the refugees. He wrote about his experiences of visiting the border crossing at Bongaon/Boyra.

"The very young and very old were exhausted from many days and night in flight-usually on foot. Many were in a visible state of shock, sitting aimlessly by the roadside or wandering aimlessly toward an unknown fate. They told stories of atrocities, of slaughter, of looting and burning, of harassment and abuse by West Pakistani soldiers and collaborators. Many children were dying along the way, their parents pleading and begging for help. Monsoon rains were drenching the countryside, adding to the depression and despair on their faces. To those of us who went out that day, the rains meant no more than a change of clothes, but to these people it meant still another night without rest, food, or shelter.

You see infants with their skin hanging loosely in folds from their tiny bones– lacking the strength even to lift their heads. You see children with legs and feet swollen with oedema and malnutrition, limp in the arms of their mothers. You see babies going blind for lack of vitamins, or covered with sores that will not heal. You see in the eyes of their parents the despair of ever having their children well again. And, most difficult of all, you see the corpse of the child who died just the night before."

One week after it had been published, Senator Kennedy introduced the 'Testimony of Sixty' to the United States Senate and requested that as evidence of the 'Crisis in Bengal', it be reproduced in the Congressional Record. There was no objection and so the entire document forms part of the Congressional Record of the 92nd Congress. This was an example of Senator Kennedy's commitment to help solve the problems that he had seen with his own eyes.

These are my memories of August 1971 and at the same time I was writing to Oxfam that aid workers in Kolkata were anticipating that by November that year we would experience widespread malnutrition, epidemics of cholera, smallpox and malaria, and deaths from lack of shelter in the freezing cold.