Sagarika Chakraborty, the real-life Mrs Chatterjee of ‘Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway’, writes: Don’t dismiss it as fiction, I lived this story

The Norwegian Ambassador has written that “a mother’s love in Norway is no different from a mother’s love in India.” But my love, which came out in the form of anguish at the prospect of losing my children forever, was used as a reason to take my children away

Mrs Chatterjee vs Norywa, Sagarika Chakraborty

Sagarika Chakraborty and Rani Mukherjee. (Screenshot)

5 min readMay 22, 2023 09:11 AM IST First published on: Mar 21, 2023 at 02:53 PM IST

Twelve years ago, my two-year-old son and five-month-old daughter were taken away by Norway’s child welfare agency, Barnevernet. It made all kinds of accusations against me. Under pressure from the Indian government, Barnevernet returned my children to India in the care of my brother-in-law, even though he was just a 26-year-old bachelor.

I fought back. I went to the Indian authorities and submitted myself for evaluation.

I proved myself. The Indian child welfare committee found me to be a fit mother. Its order was confirmed by the Kolkata High Court. The children have now been with me for ten years. The world can see how well they are doing.

But even though I have proven myself in every way, Norwegian officials continue to malign me. In his article in The Indian Express (‘Norway cares’, March 17), the Norwegian Ambassador has said that in his country, children are not taken away for reasons like hand-feeding or co-sleeping. But Barnevernet’s own report of the time says that my son “does not have his own bed” and that I was “force feeding” him. It says that things improved in foster care because “previously he had to be fed, but now he eats by himself” and “he now sleeps in his own bed in his own room”. If these are not the reasons, then why are they mentioned?

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Barnevernet accused me of being violent against my husband when I shouted at him for not doing enough to save our children when care workers threatened to take them away.

This accusation of me being violent was so absurd that when we first appealed against the removal of our children, the County Committee said that the babies should be returned to us. The County Committee said, “The mother was frightened when she understood that the Child Welfare Services might place the children away from the home.” It ruled that there was no emergency situation before the care workers came to our home and the problem only arose after they threatened to take the children away.

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We thought we had won, but Barnevernet got a stay order from the Stavanger District Court. The Court said that the removal of the children was correct because I had “screamed and howled” when caseworkers said they were taking away the custody of the children. The explanation that I was reacting to these threats of the care workers was rejected by the Court saying that even though my behaviour was a reaction to the understanding that Barnevernet could place the children outside the home, it was still right to have kept them away as my reaction was “incompatible with the care of small children”.

The Norwegian Ambassador has written that “a mother’s love in Norway is no different from a mother’s love in India.” But my love, which came out in the form of anguish at the thought of losing my children forever, was used as a reason to take my children away.

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After the Indian courts restored my children to me, I qualified in computer engineering and business management. I have been working for several years in different multinational software companies. I provide for my children all by myself. Yet Barnevernet had called me mentally unfit. Can a mentally unfit person meet all these challenges?

The Norwegian government had been quiet since my fight ended and my children returned. Only now, with the release of Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway, a movie chronicling my story for global audiences, have they once again belittled my truth. How can the Ambassador comment on the movie’s depiction of my story and condemn it as fiction, when I lived this story? I implore everyone to go and watch the movie to witness my truth as well as educate themselves about what continues to happen to Indian parents globally.

All I can say is that the truth will triumph.

The writer fought a year-long custody battle with the Norwegian child welfare service, Barnervernet, in 2011. Her story inspired the recent film, Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway