 Buxa Fort | |
 Interactive map of Buxa Fort | |
| Location | Buxa Tiger Reserve,Alipurduar district,India |
|---|---|
| Type | Fort |
| Part of | West Bengal |
| History | |
| Builder |  Bhutan |
| Material | Bricks,Granite andLime mortar |
| Site notes | |
| Condition | Ruins |
| Management | Government of West Bengal |
Buxa Fort is located at an altitude of 867 metres (2,844 ft) in theBuxa Tiger Reserve, in theKalchiniCD block in theAlipurduar subdivision of theAlipurduar district inWest Bengal,India. It is 30 kilometres (19 mi) fromAlipurduar, the nearest town. TheKing of Bhutan used the fort to protect territory connectingTibet withIndia, viaBhutan. During the unrest in theannexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China, hundreds of displaced persons used the abandoned fort as a place of refuge.
The fort's origin is uncertain. Before the occupation of the fort by the British, it was a point of contention between theBhutan and the erstwhile princely state ofCooch Behar.
The British, invited by the Cooch King, intervened and captured the fort. It was later formally handed over to the British on November 11, 1865 as part of theTreaty of Sinchula.[1] The British reconstructed the fort from a bamboo wood structure to a stone structure. The fort was later used as a high-security prison and detention camp in the 1930s;[2] it was the most notorious and unreachable prison in India after theCellular Jail inAndaman. Nationalist revolutionaries belonging to theAnushilan Samiti and Yugantar groups, such as Krishnapada Chakraborty, were imprisoned there in the 1930s. Poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote a poem to lift the morale of the prisoners kept in this forest prison.Forward Bloc leader and ex-law minister of West Bengal, Amar Prasad Chakraborty, was also imprisoned at Buxa Fort in 1943, as were some communist revolutionaries and intellectuals like Nirad Chakraborty, Shibshankar Mitra and Satish Pakrashi. The poetSubhash Mukhopadhyay was also imprisoned there in the 1950s. He gave a vivid description of this jail in one of his stories, “Prison in the Clouds” (Bengali:মেঘের গায়ে জেলখানা,romanized: Mēghēra gāẏē jēlakhānā) in his Bengali book (Bengali:আমার বাংলা,romanized: Āmāra bānlā).
In March 1959, Chinese troops tasked with quelling the Tibetan uprising moved aggressively against theDrepung Monastery; only a few hundred of over 10,000 monks escaped to India via Bhutan. These Drepung monks, and other refugee monks and nuns representing diverse Tibetan orders, first set up a monastic study center and refugee camp known as Buxa Chogar, on the grounds of the jungle-bound former prison camp.[3][4]
In 1966, theIndian Ministry of External Affairs was alerted to the conditions of the Buxa refugee camps, and it became apparent that the Tibetan refugees would have to be relocated to a more hospitable place. Initially reluctant, a message from the Dalai Lama, urging them to think of the future and to strive for sufficiency, and the option of settling near other Tibetan refugees, convinced the monks to move. In 1971, the monks left Buxa Fort for new locations atBylakuppe andMundgod in the state of Karnataka.[5]
Buxa Fort is located at26°45′17.86″N89°34′49.04″E / 26.7549611°N 89.5802889°E /26.7549611; 89.5802889.
Alipurduar district is an extensive area in the eastern end of theDooars in West Bengal. It is undulating country, largely forested, with numerous rivers flowing down from the outer ranges of theHimalayas in Bhutan. It is a predominantly rural area, with 79.38% of the population living in rural areas. The district has one municipal town and 20 census towns; 20.62% of the population lives in urban areas. The scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, taken together, form more than half the population in all the six community development blocks in the district. There is a high concentration of tribal people (scheduled tribes) in the three northern blocks of the district.[6][7][8]
Note: The map alongside presents some of the notable locations in the subdivision. All places marked in the map are linked in the larger full screen map.
The following routes are popular among tourists and nature lovers –
