Born on 22 November 1943, at Kotalipara village in Faridpur district of undivided Bengal, Nikhil Chandra Dey vividly remembers what his family had to go through during the turbulent days of the 1947 Partition. Within a year after his birth, his father, Raj Kumar Dey, and his four siblings passed away due to cholera. He recalled stories of how as a child, he too was sick, and everyone thought that he would not survive. He referred to a superstition where it was believed that Hindus could not die inside the house. So, he was kept outside at the entrance of the house. Somehow, he managed to survive. After his father’s death, his eldest uncle took charge of the family. However, he also passed away in 1946. In retrospect, he thinks that having no patriarch, to a reasonable extent, impeded his family’s transition from East Pakistan to West Bengal. When the Partition was declared, they had to leave in a hurry, relinquishing their properties. They took a steamer to Khulna and then came to Sealdah on a train.

Nikhil Chandra Dey’s family shifted from the squalor of the Sealdah railway station to a government-sponsored camp in Ballygunge, Kolkata. He narrated that the camp belonged to the army. It was used during the Second World War. Each day fresh refugees were given shelter in the camp. Nikhil Chandra Dey stayed in the camp for six years, from 1948 to 1954. In the camp, refugees, who migrated from various parts of East Pakistan, formed a collective of their own to put their demands before the government. A colony committee was established. Despite his age, Nikhil Chandra Dey clearly remembered the names of the committee members. They were Sudhir Ghosh, Shankar Mukherjee, Jiten Dey and Kanti Gupta. To give their collective an identity, the residents of the Ballygunj Camp formed the club ‘Sangha Sri’ in 1949. People would gather at the club and share stories of their struggles in the city. The budding camaraderie among the refugees motivated them to conduct a satyagraha before the house of Renuka Ray, who was the Minister of Relief and Rehabilitation in West Bengal between 1952 and 1957. Eventually, Renuka Ray took notice of their struggle and offered the residents of Ballygunge Camp land near Barasat and Bansdroni. 

Along with other camp members, Nikhil Chandra Dey shifted to Bansdroni, where they were rehabilitated in an area called ‘Government Colony’. The residents of the colony were handed 5 kata of land per family. He recollected that those who were rehabilitated later in Bansdroni were kept at the ‘New Government Colony’, and they were offered 3 kata of land. It was during this period that Nikhil Chandra Dey became actively involved in the refugee movement in Kolkata. He remembered how multiple jabardakhal colonies mushroomed in South Kolkata without government support. Though he was lucky to get land, others like him, who were not so favourably received, took to the streets to oppose the government’s unsympathetic attitude. Nikhil Chandra Dey felt that those affected by the Partition deserved proper rehabilitation. Hence, he joined the refugee movement. At present, Nikhil Chandra Dey lives with his family in Government Colony at Bansdroni.