Two years in detention camp ruined Dipali Das' family: Four months outside, life is still a living hell

“Your wife is in jail.” “Oh we feel so bad for him, his wife is in jail.” “His family got ruined as his wife is in jail.” 55-year-old Dipali Das who got out of jail after completing two-year in May 2021, finds her family in shambles. But what keeps her awake is her quest for answers. “Why did my husband had to hear every day that I am rotting in jail? What on earth was my fault for which I was living in the jail with criminals of all sorts?” these are the questions, she says, keeps her awake. 

Dipali Das’ was an unusual prisoner. She did not kill anyone, she didn’t steal a penny, nor did she rape. Her fault was, she did not read a notice that the government claims to have delivered. The notice summoned her to report to the court failing which, she would be deemed to be a foreigner to have entered India illegally. She was sent to jail on May 5, 2019 five years after Narendra Modi stood in Silchar and said, “We will decimate all detention camps.”

Das came out on bail. A social activist Kamal Chakraborty arranged the necessary documents and that is how she stepped out. Supreme Court ordered that each detainee in detention camps across Assam will be eligible for bail once she/he completes two-year term. Provided, he or she is able to bring in a guarantor who own land. The guarantor signs that she will report to her nearest Police station once a week. “Yes, I go every week to put my thumb impression. It apparently is a proof that I am not running away,” she says.

Her husband has lost his mental balance, her daughters have dropped out of education. Her son, who was about to appear for degree final year moved to Bangalore and joined a security agency. “What I built brick by brick crumbled like house of cards,” cries Dipali Das. Her daughters run the family by running from pillar to post. She used to make Singara and Pulao which her husband sold at their own roadside stall in Dholai Legislative Assembly constituency’s Singduar Village in Dhalcherra area. “All our attention was devoted to finding a way through which we can bring our mother back. Also, our mother wanted us to focus in education. We had no idea how to run a shop, completing education and moving to Delhi for job were in our dreams. The shop got shut and so did the family’s source of income,” says daughter of Dipali Das.

Her father Suresh Chandra Das voted in 1965 according to the data available. She was born in 1966 and never crossed the Verandah of a school. The process of issuing birth certificates started in this region in 1978, by then, her family’s priority was to get her married and nobody cared about any documents. She failed to prove that she is Suresh Chandra Das’ daughter and so sirens wailed and she went to jail. Four months after coming out, she sings to Prime Minister of India addressing him as Modi Bhaya.

Nobody sang “Kagaaz Nahin Dikhayenge” for her. Silchar is known as Bangla Bhasa Saheed’s city, on May 19 every year, Saheed Dibos is celebrated to pay tribute to the eleven martyrs who laid their lives on May 19, 1961 in Silchar. In the same city, a Bengali lawyer charged Dipali Das’ daughter thousands with promise to get her released. “Nobody returned a penny and that’s the actual reality,” says Das. The money was collected through crowdfunding and handed over to the Silchar-based lawyer. During election campaigns, politicians, especially from BJP speak about the protection of Hindus. But when Dipali Das is rotting in jail, such politicians go missing.

Her father, she says was a baishnab and used to remain busy with Nam Kirtans. He never cared if her daughters are going to school, let alone acquiring government ids. Today, Dipali Das’ family lives in a rented apartment in Silchar. The apartment is a house built in a small room. The daughters partitioned the kitchen out of the hall and sleep in the narrow cabin. The parents sleep outside and with many pending bills to pay, installing a fan is the last priority. Her question is that never in her life she has visited Bangladesh or any other country. Yes, she didn’t have documents to prove she is her father’s daughter, but on what evidence, she was deemed to be a foreigner?