The number of such notices issued in Assam between 1990 and 1993 were 637. Of these, 407 were actually served. Notices could not be served on 112 as the foreigner had either shifted elsewhere or was ‘untraced’.

The Quit India notice is issued on a piece of paper by the local Superintendent of Police. It informs the person to whom it is addressed—a foreign national—that his or her presence is illegal and he/she must leave the country through the nearest available exit point as soon as possible. These orders can be challenged in court, as can all orders of government, ensuring further delays in the deportation process.

Quit Notices, court orders, whatever—once in place, people stay or move on.

Chapter Ten

Memory is a Fickle Companion

Sushil Das of Satrasal village, from where the Indo-Bangladesh border is within touching distance, is a Koch-Rajbonshi, a descendant of the proud, martial race which ruled over southern and western Assam, extending its influence over parts of today’s Bangladesh and West Bengal. In a conversation, he spoke of how ‘hundreds of refugees’ had crossed over during the 1971 Indian war with Pakistan. That exodus followed the crackdown on the Awami League of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and mass massacres by the West Pakistani army in its Eastern province.

The refugees at Satrasal, 400 kilometres south-west of Guwahati, were initially housed at the local high school. But as the numbers swelled, epidemics of dysentery and diarrohea broke out and the Bangladeshis were transported to the town of Gossaigaon, north of Satrasal and now located in Kokrajhar district. ‘Where they all went after that, we do not know,’ said Das.

Das’ home town of Satrasal is still identified in revenue records and election lists by another title: Ram Rai Kuti. This should really have been Ram Rair Kutir, or the home of Ram Rai, a relative of the great Vaishnavite saint and reformer of the sixteenth century, Sri Sankaradeva.

The sleepy settlement of small lanes and houses with tin roofs and mud-plastered walls is dominated by a sixteenth century satra, a monastery where celibate monks still live, set up during Sankaradeva’s time and where his sister is said to have married the great Koch general Silarai. The wood panels, recently restored, show flashes of eroticism, desire and torture, elements which seem out of place at a major religious centre. But then, so are the temples of Khajuraho where sexual love is celebrated in diverse forms and positions.