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‘Enemy Agents at Work’: A microhistory of the 1954 Adamjee and Karnaphuli riots in East Pakistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2020

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LAYLI UDDIN*
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Abstract

Between March and May 1954, an election and two riots took place in East Pakistan, with far-reaching implications. On 30 May, the prime minister of Pakistan, in a bellicose tone, declared that ‘enemy agents’ and ‘disruptive forces’ were at work and imposed governor's rule for the first time in East Pakistan. The autocratic and high-handed attitude of the Central government in Karachi over the seemingly wayward East Wing was to become a portent of future conflicts between the province and the state, eventually leading to the unmaking of Pakistan in 1971. What precipitated the 1954 crisis? Who were the enemy agents and disruptive forces that the prime minister had alluded to? The reference was to the Bengali labourers in East Pakistan—the main protagonists of the 1954 Karnaphuli Paper Mill and Adamjee Jute Mill riots. These were the most violent industrial riots in the history of United Pakistan, if not the subcontinent. Using sensitive materials obtained from multiple archives, this article dismantles the conventional thesis that these riots were ‘Bengali–Bihari riots’, fanned by the flames of Bengali provincialism at the political level, or events instigated by the Centre to derail the democratic hopes of the Bengali population of Pakistan. A microhistory of the events demonstrates a more complex picture of postcolonial labour formations and solidarities; the relationship between state-led industrialization and refugee rehabilitation, and conflicting visions of sovereignty. This is a story of estrangement between employers and workers over the question of who were the real sovereigns of labour, capital, and Pakistan itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , March 2021 , pp. 629 - 664
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

I am heavily indebted to Richard Williams and Matt Birkinshaw for their support throughout the entire process of writing and revising this article. Thanks are also due to the following for their excellent feedback and suggestions during earlier presentations and drafts: Sarah Ansari, Anish Vanaik, Sumeet Mhaskar, Aditya Sarkar, Anna Sailer, Lotte Hoek, Delwar Hussain, Ravi Ahuja, Kamran Asdar Ali, and attendees of the Labour History workshops in Warwick, Berlin, and Göttingen. I am very grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and critical engagement with the article. Needless to say, any mistakes are my own.

References

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8 James Burke, photographer for LIFE magazine (1951–64) was present in East Pakistan in the aftermath of the Adamjee Jute Mill riots and onset of governor's rule. He was the only photographer to have captured scenes during and after the Adamjee Jute Mill riots. His photographs of the events are available at https://layliuddin.wordpress.com/2019/08/20/enemy-agents-at-work-a-microhistory-of-the-1954-adamjee-and-karnaphuli-riots-in-east-pakistan/ [accessed 20 August 2019].

9 Various shouts were heard during the day; the prominent ones have been mentioned. High Court, Dacca, 29 August 1957, Appeal no. 201 of 1956 (Chittagong Hill Tracts), Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction, pp. 74–75 (hereafter High Court, Dacca, 29 August 1957).

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11 Office of the UK High Commission, Dacca, 24 May 1954. ‘Preliminary reports on the Adamjee riots’, File no. DO35/5323, National Archives, United Kingdom (UKNA).

12 Ibid. On 14 May, Bengali workers killed a Bihari durwan, allegedly on the grounds that smoke from his cooking fire had wafted over to the Bengali housing colony, he refused to stop when asked, and was thus attacked. The durwan died from the injuries sustained.

13 Ibid. Biharis was a generic term used for the non-Bengali, largely Urdu-speaking refugee population in East Bengal. They came from different states in India such as Bihar, Orissa, Tripura, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, and so on. I will speak in detail later on the formation of Bihari identity.

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40 More work needs to be done on the relationship between state-led industrialization and refugee rehabilitation in postcolonial nation states, and in particular the relationship that refugees forged with industrial scapes and relations. There is some scholarship on this: see Gyanesh Kudaisya, ‘Divided landscapes, fragmented identities: East Bengal refugees and their rehabilitation in India, 1947–79’, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, vol. 17, no. 1, 1996, pp. 24–39; Chatterji, The spoils of partition.

41 High Court, Dacca, 29 August 1957.

42 Government of East Bengal, ‘Review of half-yearly return of serious crimes for the period ending on 30.6.54’, Home Police, B Proceedings, File no. 156, November 1954, National Archives, Dhaka (NAD).

43 Government of East Bengal, ‘Suspension orders to the L.S.S of this dptt for non compliance with govt. orders’, Home Police, B Proceedings, File no. 6D, January 1952, NAD.

44 Government of East Bengal, ‘Review of half-yearly return of serious crimes for the period ending on 30.6.54’.

45 R. K. Bose handed over the negative rolls to the police; see High Court, Dacca, 29 August 1957, pp. 50–51.

46 Ibid., for Badaruddin, p. 45; for Abdur Rahman, p. 102; for Abul Kasem Zaidi, p. 66.

47 Ibid., p.162.

48 ‘Confessional statement of accused Anu Miyan’, in ‘Serious rioting at Chandraghona Paper Mills in the district of Chittagong Hill Tracts on 22.3.54’, Home Police, B Proceedings, File no. 166, January–July 1959, NAD (hereafter Chandraghona Files).

49 High Court, Dacca, 29 August 1957, p. 144.

50 Ibid., p. 144. The Judge S. M. Hasan described the men killed as those who were suspected to be ‘supporters and associates’ of Khurshid Ali.

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67 There are very few data on the actual labour force of these large mills, but readings of various documents indicate the regular use of casual labour.

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69 Richard Kriegel, Labor in Pakistan, 1947–59 (n.p., 1959).

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76 Chandavarkar, The origins of industrial capitalism in India.

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82 Ibid., p. 84.

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92 High Court, Dacca, 29 August 1957, p. 62.

93 Ibid., p. 8.

94 ‘Letter from UK Trade Commissioner Service’, Chittagong, 25/3/1954, DO35/5336, UKNA.

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106 Chandavarkar, The origins of industrial capitalism in India. For discussions on the working-class neighbourhood, see also Gooptu, The politics of the urban poor; Basu, Does class matter?.

107 ‘Meeting Report’, 21 March 1954, in Government of East Bengal (1957), Chandraghona Files.

108 For broader discussions of the role of neighbourhood, see Chandavarkar, The origins of industrial capitalism in India; Gooptu, The politics of the urban poor.

109 The Union President of Chandraghona Paper Mill Workers Union, Ali Akbar of Noakhali was a subcontractor under Aminullah Patwari. See fn. 104 for labour historiography on jobbers.

110 High Court, Dacca, 29 August 1957, p. 83.

111 ‘Memo from Office of the Superintendent of Police, Chittagong Hill Tracts’, 2 April 1954, in Government of East Bengal (1957), Chandraghona Files.

112 ‘Report on visit on Wednesday 24th March 1954’, DO35/5336, UKNA.

113 ‘Memo from Special Police Investigation Centre on 21.4.54’, in Government of East Bengal (1957), Chandraghona Files.

114 H. W. Glasgow, a New Zealand cost consultant deputed to the mills as part of the Colombo Plan, spoke of Khurshid Ali's constant fear of ‘sabotage’ at the hands of his Bengali employees. See ‘Chandraghona Paper Mill’, DO35/5336, UKNA.

115 High Court, Dacca, 29 August 1957, pp. 26–27.

116 These slogans were a constant during the riot; ibid., pp. 21–22, 39.

117 Ibid., pp. 21–22.

118 Ibid., p. 193.

119 ‘Meeting Report, 21 March 1954’, in Government of East Bengal (1957), Chandraghona Files.

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123 Ahmed Sofa, ‘Karnafulir dhare’.

124 On Chandraghona, see UK High Commission, Karachi to Commonwealth Relations Office, 24/3/1954, DO35/5336, UKNA. On Adamjee, see ‘Extract from Dacca report, for period ending 19.5.54’, DO35/5336, UKNA.

125 High Court, Dacca, 29 August 1957, p. 82.

126 ‘Diary of chief events, 1954’, File no. DO35/5324, UKNA.

127 High Court, Dacca, 29 August 1957, p. 152.

128 See Government of East Bengal, Eastern Pakistan Labour Journal, vol. 7, no. 3, September, 1954 (Dhaka: Labour Directorate)Google Scholar. In the second fortnight of August, a representation is made by retrenched workers of Adamjee Jute Mill asking for reinstatement to their old positions; the Labour Directorate had yet to take on their case as the management was yet to ‘screen’ the workers.

129 Government of East Pakistan, ‘Augmentation of the investigation staff of Dacca and Narayanganj Towns’, Home Police, B Proceedings, File no. 170, August–September 1960, NAD.

130 Chatterji, Joya, ‘The Bengali Muslim: a contradiction in terms? An overview of the debate on the Bengali Muslim identity’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, vol. 16, no 2, 1996, pp. 16–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There has been plenty of excellent scholarship since that has complicated the ‘Bengali-ness’ of the Bengal Muslim identity; see Bose, Neilesh, Recasting the region: language, culture and Islam in colonial Bengal (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tariq Omar Ali, A local history of global capital.

131 Ahmed Kamal, State against the nation, p. 6.

132 Alexander, Chatterji, and Jalais, The Bengal diaspora.