[Reader-list] MARICH JHAPI, 1978-79: TORTURED HUMANITY

[Jhuma Sen]

                                                THE OTHER MEDIA

                           J-42, SOUTH EXTENSION-1, NEW DELHI-110049

            CORDIALLY INVITES YOU TO A SCREENING OF A UNIQUE FILM



         MARICH  JHAPI, 1978-79: TORTURED HUMANITY

               A documentary film that exposes official India’s cruelest secret

                                        (1 hour, 5 minutes; English)

In one of the least known instances of State persecution of backward
communities and displaced population groups in post-Independence
India, the Left Front government of West Bengal in 1978-79 massacred
unknown hundreds of refugees from the erstwhile East Pakistan after
promising them an alternate homeland. This gargantuan crime against
humanity was done away from media glare, yet word of it got out and
has found a place in Bengal’s oral tradition as the Marich Jhapi
massacre. Though scholars and writers like Ross Mallick, Udayan
Namboodiri, Annu Jalais and Amitav Ghosh have highlighted it in their
works, no film maker had dared to come forward to document this
tragedy. Now, Kolkata-based film maker, Tushar Bhattacharjee, has
unraveled for the first time the machinations and brutality that
preceded the Marich Jhapi massacre by catching up with relatives of
the victims, survivors and even the perpetrators.



                       Venue: Indian Social Institute, Lodi Road, New
Delhi-110003

                          Date: Friday, November 20, 2009

                         Time: 4 p.m.


The screening will be followed by an Open House discussion moderated
by Mr Sumit Chakravorty, editor, Mainstream weekly. Mr Tushar
Bhattacharjee, the film’s producer, will present a brief outline of
his project, and Mr Udayan Namboodiri, author, Bengal's Night Without
End (New Delhi, 2006), will place the incident in historical
perspective.


As this is the first ever national exposition of the Marich Jhapi
massacre, we hope you would attend along with your friends and
colleagues.



Ravi Himadri

The Other Media

(9871415186)