The idea of ‘rehabilitation’ remains inextricably linked with the process of migration, and the politics of dispossession in narratives related to the 1947 Partition of Bengal. It is interesting to note how the genesis of a specific social settlement uniquely shapes the experiences of Partition survivors and becomes synonymous with the identity of an uprooted refugee. I draw on ethnographic research at two of the East Bengali refugee settlements (Cooper’s Camp in West Bengal, and refugee colonies in Kolkata), to re-imagine the boundaries of a refugee camp and a refugee colony characterised by a shared history of violence, and collective action. It further examines the interplay of caste identity, gender, education, and in the process, reconceptualise ‘rehabilitation’ as an analytical tool to problematise the idea of rehabilitation induced planning. Refugee agency in post-Partition was largely influenced by social status and cultural capital. The positive figure of a self-settled refugee helped in gaining social legitimacy and respectability in a newfound land. For the upper-caste refugees, the act of resettlement was primarily in terms of self-reliance and social integration into the existing socio-cultural milieu of the society. The new place seemed alien to the lower caste refugees as they remained displaced from the agricultural or fisheries-based livelihood. In the professional sector, there seemed a new wave of labour market displacement within the urban economy. The educational institutions were socio-political measures to make the refugee population contribute to the mission of development. The difference in these social settlements is worth noticing through the caste identity of the East Bengali refugees and their associated political loyalties. Thus, the act of migration was not merely economic in nature, but had social components that made educational planning the foundational ground to pave the way for ‘new men’ and ‘new societies’ in the aftermath of Partition.
