The Hungry Tide

In Part I, Kanai tells Nilima about Nirmal's notebookm which was written in May of 1979. Nirmal wrote the account in Morichjhapi, an uninhabited island that was designated a tiger conservation area. In 1978, the island was turned into a camp for thousands of Bangladeshi refugees, who'd escaped from a government resettlement camp, a place that was “more like a concentration camp, or a prison” (118). Over time, the government had made numerous attempts to remove them from the island without success. In 1979, the government massacred the refugees living there.