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Contribution short abstract:

The Partition of India in 1947 resulted in a massive influx of refugees in both India and Pakistan. Following partition, thousands of East Bengali Hindu refugees left their homes in East Bengal/Pakistan and migrated to Kolkata, West Bengal.

Contribution long abstract:

The refugees fled in destitute conditions, facing profound disruptions in their socio-economic lives. Amid displacement, marginalization, and inadequate government response, refugees engaged in practices of commoning—collaborative and community-driven strategies to reimagine shared resources and social relations. Based on year-long ethnographic research, this paper examines how these practices were shaped by the challenges of displacement, resource sparsity, and cultural and political identity in post-partition Kolkata. It highlights refugees’ solidarity-based efforts to create, sustain, and manage the common good.

Facing inhumane living conditions in the government camps, refugees formed local and central committees and forcefully occupied empty government and privately owned lands, which were later developed into squatter colonies. The refugees organized local cooperative economies and collectively fought for access to essential services like water, healthcare and education. Women, often excluded from formal decision-making processes, contributed massively to fostering community ties and sharing the labour and resources. Nevertheless, the practices of commoning did not take place without internal conflicts as tension arose around caste, class and gender inequalities. This paper explores how the communities navigated these conflicts, revealing the complex intersection between solidarity, equality, and contestation in building communal life within the squatter colonies.

By Situating these practices within the broader theoretical framework of commoning, my paper examines how the East Bengali Hindu refugees addressed the dual imperatives of survival and solidarity. The paper argues that commoning among the refugee communities was not merely a pragmatic response to scarcity but also a political act of asserting collective agency against multilayered marginalization.