Abstract

This paper places caste at the center of a regional history in which it has often been seen as marginal, and it places a region generally thought to be of little consequence to the history of caste politics at center stage. In doing so, the paper examines the most obvious though neglected question of what did Dalit political action mean in Bengal, and how and why did it decline. The epistemic premise adopted by the paper for discussing this question entails a historical revisiting and analysis of the different events in history and variety of reasons (approx. between 1930s-60s) that ultimately gave rise and consolidated the image of a casteless Bengal. There are few major events that the paper picks and revolves its understanding around. The paper does not heavily draw from the happenings outside of Bengal and mainly deals with the everyday of Bengal during that period, however, there is an ongoing thread of historicity that encompasses the entire country. While epistemologically engaging with the de-politicisation of caste by the upper caste bhadraloks , the Congress and later Leftists, the paper offers an ontological insight into categories which are not necessarily specific to the region or the period, for instance the category of ‘caste’ in Bengal and goes on to challenge conceptually the deep-rooted false dichotomies such as colonialism-nationalism, and the colonised-coloniser. The paper ends with a brief mention of what is being termed as the revival of caste, namely Namusudra politics in West Bengal and its contemporary significance if any.

CONTEXT & METHODOLOGY

The context of this paper is temporally and spatially set in a Bengal mainly between 1930s-60s. The socio-political context shifts from colonial to post-colonial and Independent India. The cultural milieu which forms another dimension of the context, interestingly enough, does not change much in terms of the one passively defined and strategically silenced though the other players involved changed power among them- but the inherent nature of the power remains the same- to dominate cultures and erase histories.  The question of methodology is one that occurs throughout the paper (since it forms part of the arguments as and when they are made in the paper), and operates at two levels- a brief analysis of the methodologies that have shaped the history of a casteless Bengal and the methodology adopted in writing this paper. The epistemic premise of this paper is to pick up certain well-known or not-so-well-known events ie moments marked in histories, and then discuss these events from the contextual basis of this paper. Hence an empirical historical analysis is what the paper attempts to engage in. In this process the paper the aims to ponder over some critical questions which can be understood by the re-examination of certain events and hence deconstruction of popular beliefs.; these questions would broadly entail:

What was the caste dimensions in Bengal and why did these not gain the attention that other anti-caste movements in the country did??? Rather how was Bengal’s ‘caste’ different from other discourse on ‘caste’??

Hence does ontology of a category become contextual as well? (in this case that of ‘caste’ in particular)

Post 1947 what made the ‘caste’ question completely disappear from Bengal’s landscape? Rather did it disappear or was it only suppressed??

Do recent developments show a re-emergence of the never resolved caste question or rather a forceful claim for dividing votes and creating communal tension?

 THE CASTE SCENE DURING PRECOLONIAL TIMES

The accounts of Bengal during  precolonial times consists of works that mainly advocate the idea that caste was not very rigid in Bengal and a number of reasons are given for this –  a combination of some or most of the following events-the fact that  Aryanisation took place late in Bengal, also there was an existing indigenous tribal culture that constantly interacted with the orthodox varna system making it hence less rigid; Brahmanism was further contested by Buddhism during the 8th and 12th century during the Palas dynasty, however, there are mixed views on this and few believe that Buddhism was fading out from Bengal by the post-Gupta period itself; there is mention of Brahmanical hegemony taking place at the peripheries of the Aryan civilisation but its orthodoxy also allowed a degree of flexibility and with some amount of reservation, included a number of local rituals and worship of local Gods and Goddesses ; with the coming of Islam in the 13^th century, many peasants converted but it is not certain that they did that for emancipation from the caste system; from the 15^th century onwards there was an influx of Bhakti movements, the most famous saint of that time being Chaitanya;  in the 15^th to 16^th century when there were attempts to consolidate the hierarchical Brahmanic order then alternative orders such as the Sahajiya Vaishnava cults took birth along with a   number of non-Brahmin gurus engaged in contesting  the Caste-Hindu way of life. Hence though from a limited scope of reading, this paper can claim that Bengal was quite the case of a syncretic socio-religious system and hence extreme cases of Caste-Hindu inflicted violence might not have been the norm. Again, most of the studies corroborate the fact that there was some amount of movement taking place within the caste system and this process of mobility even though restricted, is what kept the caste system functioning hence in some way maintaining status quo of the system. The observations of these scholars with the coming of colonialism is that changes did take place in the material context of caste but this was highly restricted to the three higher castes of society- the Brahmins, Kayastha and Baidya. Hence it is safe for the paper to assume that though social mobility was facilitated with the coming of the British, it was of a limited type (Ray, 1949, Chakrabarti, Eaton, Chatterjee, Sanyal, as cited in Bandyopadhyay, 2004)

As far as the reasons concerned with why caste system carried on into colonial times, it has been believed that keeping the Brahmins’ power structures intact was advantageous for the British to carry out their business; also the structure of the occupational dimension of the caste system dovetailed into the new economic system under the Raj.

However, very little work has been done with respect to the everyday politics and experience of the lower castes in Bengal. Perhaps the reason for this gap in literature is the methodology that is often employed, that of  a scholar well-educated in English (mostly a Bengali man) looking into archival sources, literary works, journals/papers, instead of anthropological methodologies which should originate from the very ground reality that it is meaning to document; hence something more on the lines of lived experiences, autobiographies etc. – works which make knowledge of the everyday genuine and rich. Hence the paper feels that the often distorted or partial versions of these histories which are available must be attributed to a methodological fallacy

CASTE in COLONIAL BENGAL

The two main lower castes in Bengal are the – Rajbanshis and the Namasudras (while the total SC population in West Bengal is 28%)[1] .  This paper will mainly be dealing with the Matua sect (of the Namasudras) in the beginning part of the paper and then only towards the end,  but the arguments in the paper deals with the Namasudras as a whole[2] and in certain places the Rajbanshis, however,  all the  lower castes collectively have been mentioned as Scheduled Classes and sometimes the term Dalit and Scheduled Caste might be used interchangeably as well.[3]

The Matua sect formed by Harichand Thakur (1811-1878) was formed as a movement of lower caste Namasudras of Eastern Bengal. Their main demand under Harichand’s son, their next leader, Guruchand Thakur, was to publicly recognise the term ‘Namasudra’ instead of the earlier derogatory identity of a ‘Chandal’ that referred to them.

To understand the caste movement during the 20th century, at the very local level, we have reports of sporadic incidents of anti-caste acts in different parts of Bengal, mainly East Bengal.  For instance, there are specific references to two incidents- one in Sylhet in mid 1937, where Namasudra peasants had waged a prolonged and not completely non-violent struggle to demand their right to wear shoes in the presence of caste Hindus and ultimately the caste Hindus had given in to their demand, second there were tensions between the Kayasthas and Namsudras in Fardipur  which resulted in arrest of some Namasudra leaders (Bandopadhyay , 2011). However, there was almost simultaneously, an overall perception that Hinduisation was taking place gradually and at a large scale.  Therefore though the gurus- Harichand and Guruchand vehemently opposed the Brahmanical order and sought to establish a counter to it, however, this never really happened; though the reasons are unknown but Namasudras never completely rejected the Hindu cultural-religio values (Bandhopadhyay, 2011 ).  An ethnographic study[4] of the Matua Mahasangh’s journey in itself might provide for deeper understanding of whether they ended up adopting a process of Sanskritisation or whether they were posing a challenge and claiming the spaces that they had been left out from by the Caste Hindus.

It is not enough to assume that such a cultural resistance was the only form of expression that the caste movement in Bengal had undertaken, and in the early decades of the twentieth century, Manindranath Mandal a Poundra-kshatriya[5]  leader formed the Bangiya Jana Sangha (BJS) also known as the Bengal People’s Association and which acted like an umbrella organisation for many oppressed castes. Manindranath’s main contention was towards the Hindu bhadralok politics[6]. In 1926 then the All India Depressed Classes Association was formed. The paper will not go into the details of these but only wishes to make the point that the lower castes and their politics in Bengal, had entered the stage of institutionalised formal politics as well.  This only became more articulate with the coming of Jogendranath Mandal and the All India Scheduled Caste Federation.

CASTE existed but of a different kind?

The ‘caste’ experience in West Bengal seems to have been a bit different from the mainstream discourse and experiences of ‘caste’ while also  Bengal did not witness the kind of mass mobilisations as in the case of UP, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

A distinction should not be confused with an absence of caste since that assumption then perpetuates the very inequality arising from the category that is being denied existence. As Nancy Fraser’s famous formulation claims that to misrecognise is to actually refuse another the full status of a partner in social interaction or denial of participation in the institutionalised ways of life and hence a denial of history. The denial of this history allows for falsification of histories which follow from the upper middle class bhadraloks in Bengali society.

Hence the question of how to define the caste phenomena in Bengal? What is the ontological basis of ‘caste’ in Bengal then? The paper discusses these questions first through analysing the strategies adopted by the  caste-Hindus in Bengal to suppress the lower castes and then a reflection on these processes which would help understand ‘caste’ in Bengal.

The denial of caste was substantiated politically by the bhadralok mentality which had always dismissed the presence and relevance of caste in Bengal. This can be  understood explicitly by looking into how the politics of ‘caste’ played out with the coming of the Communal Award, Poona Pact, Tenure Reform Bills, Temple Entry Bills in Bengal (Sen, 2018). Sen provides a detailed account of these events by researching the speeches made in the Assemblies, local newspapers and letters/notes written by the famous political leaders of that time, emphasising on Jogendranath Mandal, since Mandal emerged and remained one of the key spokespersons for the Depressed Classes during colonial and post-colonial Bengal.

To give an idea of how the bhadralok reacted and completely negated the possibility for the caste movement to politically express itself leave alone offer a formidable challenge to the minority but dominant  caste Hindus, it is noteworthy to share what happened when the Poona Pact proposal and Award were introduced- as the number of seats for the Depressed Classes in Bengal was going to rise from ten to thirty under this formulation. The upper-castes Congressmen fought this by saying that they were in concurrence that there were particular classes and castes that suffered political and civil disabilities  in Madras and the United Provinces (present day UP) and Bombay Presidency but in Bengal they felt this was not the case. They strongly argued that in Bengal the lower castes did not fit into the test of untouchability which the Lothian Committee had formulated and even if they did in few places then in such places their total population was negligible and hence there was no need whatsoever for proportional representation. Jitendralal Banerjee (an eminent Congressman) further argued that lower castes among the Depressed Classes observed rigid caste rituals like the Brahmins and Kayasthas and not the Depressed Classes as a whole; hence they questioned how could then a Namasudra or Rajbangshi be more legitimate to speak or represent a Pod or Bagdi than a Brahman or Kayastha would be[7]. There was also the attempt to remove the Act in the Legislative Assembly. The consequent Temple entry Bills were portrayed as attempts of religious reform but seemed more like a pacifying response to do away with the Communal Award Act and Poona Pact.  At this point there were reforms made to the 1885 Bengal Tenancy Act (in 1928), showing the conspicuous merging of the Congress and zamindars‘ interests and divide between them and the Muslims and Depressed Classes. The passing of these Amendments[8] is further proof of the inadequacy of Muslim and Depressed Classes’ representation in the mainstream political processes of the state and more importantly proof of the fact that Upper-Caste dominated  political rhetorics of unity and fair representation on behalf of the all the Scheduled Classes was simply breeding social and economic inequality through their political dominance.

The presence and perpetuation of ‘caste’ dynamics in Bengal can be further affirmed from the Census results of 1931 in which the caste-occupation nexus in an apparent casteless Bengal becomes clear. It revealed the predominance of the three upper-castes ie the Brahmins, Kayasthas, and Baidyas, in the industries and public administration and land administration jobs, with very few Namasudras in such professions, also it showed a Namasudra dominance in cultivation and very few Namasduras as rent-receivers. The following census of 1941 is worth mentioning as well.  The ploy of warping numbers is not an uncommon feature for undermining political strength and mobilisation of already marginal identities.  Shyam Prasad Mookherjee, one of the key figures in Bengal politics and highly influenced by the likes of Savarkar, felt that the only way to challenge the British was through a Nationalist-Hindu identity and unity and hence he declared that only the term ‘Hindu’ should be used for Census enumeration. Though a considerable number of Dalit associations opposed this but the final results showed clearly that the Census process had been tampered with. The Scheduled Caste population had declined in Bengal by more than 18 lakhs between 1931 and 1941 (Mandal, 1944 as cited in Sen, 2018).

The reaction of the caste-Hindu dominated Congress to the various reforms of the colonial period is hence rooted in the simple truth that if they accepted an independent Dalit political subjectivity that would delegitimise  the power of the minority ruling-elite to act on behalf of the apparently homogenous ‘Hindu’ category. In fact even great liberal minds from Bengal, like that of Tagore, expressed unhappiness with the idea of separate electorates since he believed it would create tension and communal jealousy. Therefore it can be concluded that though originally stemming from a cultural superiority complex, the closely knit bhadralok circle had taken over political and hence economic power in Bengal.  There are certain scholars who believe that the opportunities(specially English education) being given by the British in certain forms of protective discrimination(such as government job employment) as well, to the otherwise lower castes of society, would help them get educated and aspire to rise the social ladder thus threatening the elite position, hence one can see desperate attempts on the part of the bhadralok led Congress to hold onto their exclusive political power with all their might.

The unfolding of many such events in Bengal is indicative of processes at work to deny expression of  Scheduled Caste politics, and ultimately, Jogendranath Mandal, disillusioned with the Congress and upper-castes,  though he received some amount of patronage from them initially, formed the All India Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942 after returning motivated from his Nagpur meeting with Ambedkar. Albeit the paper does not attempt to discuss the work done by the Federation as an Ambedkarite institution, but, it is noteworthy to state that it was from Bengal that Ambedkar contested the elections and won his seat to the Constituent Assembly.

Apart from attempting to establish the presence of ‘caste’ during this period in Bengal’s histories, this analysis also brings up some observations on Bengal’s caste system itself. Sen in his vivid description of Jogendranath, states that according to Jogendranath, there was no grievances against the Caste Hindus apart from the fact that they did not allow for  political representation of Depressed Classes. If Jogendranath’s view is considered reflective of the caste reality, then the caste movement in Bengal assumes a different colour compared to other parts of the country where practices like untouchability were rampant; Mandal speaks of untouchability of a different type when he explains the exploitation of the labour class and the Dalits whom he refers to as the foremost producers and inhabitants of Bengal.   There seems another hint of a difference between Bengal’s caste discourse from the other ‘mainstream’ discourses, this lies in the fact that Mandal focused more on the economic welfare of the Scheduled Castes, this then could be taken to mean that the caste politics in Bengal was a demand for both recognition and redistribution simultaneously(Sen, 2018). In other caste movements of the country, an independent identity affirmation, gained more prominence. Hence in Bengal, if the Federation is assumed to be the key institution in building, mobilising and implementing the region’s Dalits’ needs, then one will find widespread work on education and agriculture along with continuous political assertion.  Another significant feature of Bengal’s caste movement seems to be the idea of a Muslim-Dalit unity (Sen, 2018 Bandyopadhyay, 2004). The Dalit or Scheduled Castes of Bengal, were often in alliance with the Muslims in early 20th century. Mandal explained this similarity between the two communities based on their similar socio-economic conditions which he felt should unite them in their struggle against the zamindari and upper-castes. It is precisely this unity that is ruptured by the Congress and Hindu Mahasabha as discussed later in the paper.

In order to further consolidate the ontological basis of ‘caste’ in Bengal, this paper advocates the need for a comparative study of caste experience, across different geographies and  different contexts, not to show the supremacy of one over the other but in order to develop a rich and multifaceted anti-caste discourse in colonial India, through a historical methodology drawing hence empirically. Such an exercise will construct and reconstruct the ontologies of ‘caste’ through time and space without running the risk of decontextualizing it and giving rise then to a theory on ‘caste’ challenging the ‘universal’ versus ‘particular’ dichotomy. Armed with such theories one can then embark on the journey of decolonisation of research and knowledge and philosophy.

The paper will now like to discuss briefly but critically another phase in Bengal’s histories- the events leading up to  Partition of Bengal (1947) and India’s independence movement. Before the Partition of Bengal into East Pakistan and West Bengal, it is interesting to note the presence of a the ‘caste’ dimension in the analysis of Bengal’s first Partition in 1905 as well. The Partition of 1905 came  as an apparently administrative decision and hence did not witness peoples’ mobilisation or participation in it, however, the reaction to it was one of mass mobilisation in the form of the Swadeshi movement which demanded repeal of the Partition order and was successful in doing so in a span of six years. However, limited literature on the Matua Mahasangh shows that the Namasudras in particular, refrained from participating in what was considered a strong peoples’ Swadeshi movement and even Gandhi’s famous mass mobilisations. The Partition was in reality (as recorded in trustworthy historical sources) a move by the colonial government to curb and crush the growing nationalism of Hindu middle-class against the British. The important thing to note is that during this historical moment Bengal stood for the idea of unity, irrespective of religious and linguistic differences and hence vehemently opposed the idea of a partition.  The change from such a situation can be pointed out in the emergence of Hindu communalism during the 1930s and 40s. Partha Chatterjee, attributes this rise in communalism with the hegemonic character of Hindu nationalism which was not so apparent few decades back. The reasons he sights for this change is the nature of  Muslim politics in Bengal (during this decade specially). He characterises the Muslim majoritarian politics of that time as non-hegemonic in relation to the Hindu minority and the reason he cites for this is the minority nature of Muslim rule in the rest of the country at that point.  Chatterjee to substantiate this reasoning, states how during this period, there was no instance of a single cultural or political move imposed by the Muslim government in Bengal on the Hindu minority. Joya Chattejee attributes this change in the attitude of the middle-class or bhadralok mentality from 1905 to 1947  to the fact that they as a group became from nationalistic to communal; she argues that there was a growing distancing of the Congress in Bengal from the Centre and a right leaning wing within it was emphatically propagating the idea of an extremist nationalism. The key themes which were present during the 1905 situation were reconstructed,  British Rule was looked upon in a more favourable manner and the main tyranny seemed to be the Muslim Rule, also the bhadralok which anyway enjoyed and believed in an elite cultural identity, felt that their cultural superiority over the Muslims of Bengal should not allow them to be politically ruled by Muslims. In the analysis of both these scholars, the dynamics of the caste movement during the 1905 Partition, is not spoken of much. The only observation we can draw from these readings is the absence of the active participation of the Depressed Classes in the Swadeshi movement post 1905 and the strategic suppression and denial of ‘caste’ in building the idea of a united Bengal is obvious. The convenient usage of lower caste identity and presence, as and when required by the ruling elite, is further elaborated in the following section dealing with the second Partition of Bengal. However, it is interesting to note how various definitions of nationalism had started being constructed as and per the situation arose with changing identities and construction of the ‘Other’- sometimes the British, sometimes the Muslim, while in reality all along the Dalit anyway remained the insider ‘Other’ within the Hindu community – a trend which has not altogether disappeared even today.

Caste during the Partition

This draws us to the most important aspect of the caste movement during the time of Bengal’s Partition (1947) -what is it that was happening to the Scheduled Castes during this historical juncture , what were their experiences of the Partition; such an  exploration becomes necessary to try and answer the vital questions the paper had set out with.

From 1940s onwards a number of riots broke out between the Namasudras and Muslims in a way that had not happened before. Earlier the fights were more secular in nature but now the Namasudras confronted the Muslims not as Namasudras simply but as Hindus. Though tension existed before, it was more in the nature of land disputes and fights over cattle, lacking communal trends. Hindu religious organisations mainly the Hindu Mahasabha was responsible, along with the Namasudra Associations of different districts, to lend a religious colour into the structures of community relations. Regions of tension arose and specific cases of violence were reported from places like Khulna, Jessore, Faridpur. While some works state the Calcutta riots as the watershed moment, others feel it was the Dacca riot 1941 (Das, 1991 as cited in Bandyopadhyay, 2009) that marked the height of the Muslim-Namasudra tension.  Commenting on the communal riots, Jogendranath Mandal said that “Even if these riots appear communal, this is not a communal war” (Sen, 2018, .p 156.) He was of the opinion that the riots were simply a conflict between the Congress and the Muslim League in which unfortunately the Dalits had been used as pawns.

Bandopadhay offers an account of riots and fights that broke out between the Muslims and Namasudras , in quite an organised manner-  date and place wise , he describes how the elite leaders of the movement intervened only towards the end of such riots in order to gain political mileage.  Bandopadhay also lists a number of meetings which took place in different places  under the aegis of the Hindu Mahasahbha and in which similar resolutions were passed in favour of a separate province comprising of Hindu majority which would remain part of the Indian Union. The important feature of these resolutions , however genuine they were or not, lies in the fact that it relegated ‘caste’ to only a microcosm of the larger Hindu identity and propelled the view that maximum Scheduled Castes accepted the integrationist position. Hence it was a number of factors acting out at different levels which did not mean to still recognise the Dalit Other as a coeval but conspired to win over their support in any manner possible.  These efforts were not suddenly thought of and executed, and can be linked even to events outside that of Bengal , for instance the appointment of Savarkar and his ideology of ‘who is a Hindu’ in the late 1930s , gave a impetus to these mass meetings and rallies held by the Mahasabha in Bengal. Also, it must not be assumed that the effects of these campaigns were the same across the different populations of the Scheduled Castes across the region, different groups reacted differently, for instance the Rajbanshi were initially very much drawn into the fold of Hinduism since it provided them an opportunity to claim a higher Kshatriya genealogy which they were anyway striving towards. Also, it should not be forgotten that the tribals were being made part of these mass mobilisation efforts as well. Hence the dynamics of the situation was quite complex and still lacks clarity since the records are mostly those of the upper or middle-caste Hindu historians. But clarity should remain on the fact that the instances of unifying the Dalits under the Hindu identity was limited only to creating and mobilising them against the Muslim Other and did not extend to any feelings of fraternity. A critical analysis of what happened in order to build an ideology for and implement Bengal’s Partition, is the only epistemic premise that this paper could adopt in order to build the narrative of ‘caste’ during this historical juncture. Though much has been written about the India-Pakistan Partition and its damages, Bengal’s Partition does not get that amount of academic attention and within that, the narratives of the Scheduled Castes in it is minimal.

Drawing from this epistemic gap then, the paper would like to put forward for the purpose of contemplation and further research, the following question- Was the  Scheduled  Caste a passive victim of Partition? or as can be deduced from the contextual references stated briefly in the paper above, did the identity of the Dalit became particularly important during this time, because the demand for Partition forced the upper caste to take notice and cognizance of the Dalit identity since they needed their support to lend legitimacy to their claims of a Hindu province and in ‘Othering’ the Muslim.

Class over Caste

Though class politics in Bengal was always prominent and hence the allusion to bhadralok class throughout, however, its emergence in a new way just before Partition, is an interesting dimension since it provides an alternative to the Muslim-Dalit antagonism that was being built concurrently. The emergence and interaction between these two strands remains a hypothesis for the scope of the paper as for now due to lack of literature. Even though the dynamics cannot be elucidated it remains important to note that the  presence of the nascent  CPI after the ban on it was lifted in 1941 and its breakaway from the Congress, seemed to have made quite an impact on the caste movement; by taking up peasant issues and uniting workers and peasants on occupational basis and not on the lines of caste, we see the emergence of the Left in Bengal . Their major support base was established in North Bengal among the Rajbanshi peasants by 1945 and the results could be seen in the election of 1946. The Rajbanshi peasant class had been mobilised against the landed Rajbanshis and hence we see the first prominent replacement of caste with class- an ideology which dominated Bengal for decades to come. The most conspicuous and historical moment in this  discussion can be attributed to the Tebhaga movement when large numbers of Namasudras participated and displayed a unity across caste and religion to other small peasants and sharecroppers. The argument of class over caste is quite common in debates over politics in Bengal, however, historically if analysed, the CPI was only building on what the Federation had initiated. The Federation and Mandal both stood strongly for agrarian issues and in many of Mandal’s writings and speeches one can sense a leaning towards the Left but that was in no means over and above the caste issue though. Gail Omvedt’s ‘caste feudalism’ though used in a different context, can also be taken to describe the consolidation of Brahmanical power in Bengal with other apparently non-casteist actors hence not disconnecting the caste-class complex but feeding into one another.

Another feature which the late colonial Bengal provides us with is the relationship between communalism and caste.  Communalism is generally associated with a specific community, not necessarily due to facts but due to the way facts are portrayed and hence Hindu communalism is quite an understudied phenomena. Dilip Menon in his essay (2010) adeptly addresses this by stating how violence against an internal Other ie the Dalit, gets displaced as an act of violence against an external Other ie the Muslim; and hence communalism can be seen as a diversion of the inequality within the Hindu religion and way of life. This theoretical explanation has arisen from contexts such as the Bengal Partition and even the more recently Godhra riots of 2002.  The usage of both Dalits and tribals as foot soldiers against those Muslims who often share similar space as them and are occupied in similar work, along with phenomena of Hindu communalism, are concepts that get reflected in a Dalit epistemology of Bengal’s Partition politics.

Caste in Bengal post-Partition

The Partition clearly had two effects on the caste movement in Bengal, something which  can be identified more confidently than what was happening to the movement during and pre-Partition; these were, firstly the rupture of Dalit identity and  a Dalit movement solidarity, both the Namasudras and Rajbanshis had lost their territorial grip, secondly, there were instances of caste Hindus and lower castes finding themselves in a similar situation and hence were forced to turn to mainstream political parties to negotiate jointly since that was the only means for survival.  The displaced groups came to be known as refugees first and foremost and the Dalit identity was pushed to the background. This ‘push’ again was deliberate on the part of the ruling Congress in order to retain their numbers within the Hindu fold or to portray a disappearance of ‘caste’ with the independence of India and Partition, or this ‘push’ could also be seen as a survival strategy adopted by the Dalits themselves in order to gain better services from the Hindu dominated State, or perhaps a mixture of all three.  The primary concern of this paper is that  in no way was the caste issue resolved with independence but yes the caste movement of Bengal did suffer a decline.

The process of appropriation has always been a violent one and so is the history of the Dalits in Bengal- being displaced not only from their place of origin but also being displaced of their identity- the replacement of the Dalit identity with the Hindu-refugee identity, as discussed earlier in the paper, further silenced their anti-caste movement as both the Rajbanshis and Namasudras lost their territorial grip.

The State’s dealing with the refugee crisis in West Bengal brings to light the attitude of the State towards the Dalit population at large since most of the refugees were Dalits. The then Chief Minister, Roy, inspite of all the promises saw to it that the refugees were forcefully deported out of Bengal;  the government employed harsh tactics to achieve the same- stopping of doles on a mass scale, inhuman condition of the camps and denying any sort of negotiation even from the likes of Mandal who continued to relentlessly not let the Dalits be betrayed. While many will object that the forced removal of Scheduled Castes first from East Bengal to West Pakistan and then back from Bengal to places distant from West Bengal, was a meditated and deliberated effort to quash the solidarity that existed or may have arisen among the vast numbers of Schedules Castes, however, there is no denying the fact that these events did in reality break the numerical strength of the Scheduled Castes even if not conspired.

Another interesting thing to note is that while earlier the paper discusses how the Partition made Dalits on returning to Bengal be subsumed by the ‘refugee’ and therefore ‘Hindu-refugee’ identity, for the Congress state they were still the marginalised who ought to be treated without respect or dignity. Hence this transition is not a simple one, from the point of view of caste politics, it can be deduced that reducing the Scheduled Castes to Hindu refugees, does give them a position within the Hindu fold but more tactfully converts them into a minority status within that. From the perspective of State politics,  Minority politics is fundamentally different from caste politics. The vision to demand and claim is definitely higher in the case of the latter, while a Minority’s wellbeing largely depends on the magnanimous nature of the State and civil society. Minorities ask for space within the existing structures of society while Dalits/Scheduled Castes aspire for deconstruction/overthrow of the existing structural forms. Hence briefly, this paper has wanted to show the deeper nuances involved in the power play of State-Scheduled Castes interface as well, on the lines of identity formulation and dissolution.

The Politics of the Binaries

This encounter of the Dalits of Bengal brings into question the larger conceptual dichotomies of coloniser-colonised and nationalism-imperialism, since their everyday and histories do not fit into the world of cartesian dualisms. The relationship between the Dalit and the national movement has always been a problematic one. As Ambedkar had famously stated that Swaraj would be meaningless if the caste system was not destroyed.  Though this argument has been discussed in Dalit literature and subaltern studies, however, the incident of Partition of Bengal on the lower castes of the region, has never acquired enough attention precisely because of the assumption that ‘caste’ was non-existent in that region. The condition of the lower castes post-partition was foreseen by none other than Mandal and hence he had vociferously opposed the Partition; in a statement issued by the Working Committee of the Federation on May 14^th , 1947,that said –‘the division of the province into Hindu and Muslim Bengal..was no solution of the communal problems..it would check the growing political consciousness and ruthlessly crush the solidarity of the Scheduled Castes of Bengal…While the Schedules Castes of Eastern Bengal …would be at the mercy of the majority community (ie the Muslims), the Scheduled Castes of Western Bengal..would be subject to perpetual slavery of the caste Hindus.’ Reading this statement which was the reality of the situation, how would one link ‘independence’ of the Scheduled Castes with the ‘independence’ of the country.; how would one account for the Scheduled Castes’ slavery similar to the oppression of the coloniser on the colonised, continuing after the British colonisers had left the country?

The nuances of this region, situation and most importantly people, is anyway lost in the mainstream history of Bengal, however, the paper’s aim is not to let it get lost in the otherwise emerging Dalits’ ontological enterprise of deconstructing the nationalist discourse on freedom and India’s independence movement. As mentioned earlier in the paper, this contextual reality if further studied can only contribute to a richer historical narrative of the caste movements nation wide. Another interesting feature arising from the caste situation in post-Partition Bengal is the challenge it offers to the homogenisation of movements as movements of opposition and /or reclaiming respect, showing that caste movements can take up other forms of resistance arising from the immediate political context as well.

In a rare find, the paper came across the autobiography of Manoranjan Byapari- Interrogating my Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit, in which one can feel the pulse of a Namasudra as it is felt by one of  them instead of through the lens of yet another upper middle-class person’s superficial and partial account. As described beautifully in the introduction of the book itself, Byapari’s life somewhat gives a picture of the changing landscape that the caste question underwent through the years- beginning with the chaotic Partition when Byapari’s family crossed the border into India along with other refugees from East Pakistan, to the refugee camps and the efforts to rehabilitate these supposedly homogenous and people without a history to Dandakaranya and the Andaman Islands, to the conveniently forgotten Food Riots of 1959 to the false promises of the governments, through the violent Naxalite uprisings in the 70s, and the violent Marichjhapi massacre of 1979. Though this paper will not be tracing these events in detail but the purpose of discussing this work and its significance is for making the point that the concerns of Dalit narratives no longer remain distant and removed from the mainstream history, even though their experiences are poles apart and their histories contradictory. By discussing the question of caste in Bengal, this paper’s aim was to rise above the particularities of narratives without disregarding them but for the purpose of developing a larger framework of decolonised history and discourse; and how Bengal’s experience with ‘caste’ can contribute to this scheme. Hence working towards an affirmative answer to what Gopal Guru wonderfully puts as- can the Dalit articulate a universal position? Once again bringing us back to what the paper mentions earlier, of challenging the universal versus particular theoretical paradigm.

CASTE in BENGAL TODAY

Though there are a few events post the Partition till present day which can be further elaborated on to build epistemically the existence and changes of the caste question in Bengal, as even mentioned in passing in Byapari’s introduction to his autobiography, however, the paper would like to close its line of arguments with a brief discussion on the contemporary situation of caste in Bengal. Though the paper up until now has tried to make its case that ‘caste’ has been wrongfully neglected in the politics and scholarship of West Bengal while it always permeated the crucial events happening in colonial and post-colonial Bengal, the paper now would like to suggest how there has suddenly been a resurgence of ‘caste’ in the same region. This can be succinctly expressed by quoting the two most influential leaders of Bengal over a period of almost thirty years.

Caste is a legacy of the feudal system and viewing the social scene from the casteist angle is no longer relevant for West Bengal. – Jyoti Basu (1980);

I shall work for the Matuas as long as I am alive. I was moved when baro ma[9] told me how her people were being looked down upon as most of them belonged to lower castes. I do not believe in casteism and have no problem if people call me low-caste. I have instructed the railways to fill up all posts for SC/ST immediately– Mamata Banerjee (2009).

Add to this the BJP’s inroads into Bengal’s political scene. Interestingly while caste based identity politics in the State did come out in the open after all these years, however, it has not really translated into a low-caste movement/mobilisation. There have been factions created within the Matua Mahasangh already; while both the CPI (M) and TMC reached out to the Namasudras before the 2011 elections, the TMC emerged victorious and it was clear that the Mahasangh had supported Mamata Banerjee. This was further challenged in 2014 when crucial members within the Mahasangh (the family members of the Thakur family) fought elections on BJP tickets. The Mahasangh thus got divided and started to loose prominence. The recent attention that they have again received is due to the agitation posed against the National Register for Citizens (NRC) that began in Assam. Though most harmed by this exercise would be the Muslims, but there are a considerable number of Namasudras that would get effected as well. This gave BJP an opportunity to again reach out to the Namasudras on the pretext of the ‘Hindu refugee’ identity while the TMC decried the entire NRC process and promised it would never let it happen in West Bengal. Few months back Modi in his visit to Bengal, specially went to meet baroma in person and made BJP’s agenda quite clear through this gesture (though baro ma herself passed away recently).

However, the politics of caste in West Bengal cannot be defined by only Namasudras since their population remains restricted in and around Kolkata and have relatively progressed in terms of education and job opportunities compared to the other Scheduled castes of Bengal (Guha, 2019). Hence  if the major political parties are trying to revive the caste question in Bengal’s mainstream politics, even though for their own benefit, they need to address the other castes as well. Again, though these recent developments have spurred debates atleast within a limited circle of scholars[10] and find place in news-items, it cannot lead to direct clear conclusions mainly for two reasons- firstly, as in history, this time again the caste politics in Bengal is different from that in other states since it has hardly translated into political representation[11] and secondly, the Dalit identity is being subsumed once again into parties with a middle/upper caste base and leadership and are not blossoming independently.

CONCLUSION

The paper tries to discuss few particular events in the histories of Bengal from colonial to precolonial times from a perspective strikingly different from the prevalent and dominant history and narrative of the upper/middle caste bhadraloks, thus making visible the invisible dynamics of caste in the region’s political journey. The objective of undertaking this exercise has been mainly threefold- to analyse why and how caste was made to disappear in the first place and what does its sudden apparent resurgence mean; to prove that the ‘caste’ question in Bengal can contribute to the larger discourse of challenging colonial histories and constructed notions of nationalism; thirdly, studies on caste dynamics in Bengal will lend rigor to the discourse on anti-caste movements and struggles through its own ontology while it simultaneously building on its own ontological base from non-existent to a primary determining factor in Bengal’s politics. The denial of ‘caste’ in West Bengal is a denial of a history of the Scheduled Castes in the region and also those rehabilitated to far off regions, post Partition. Bengal’s castelessness hence was born of  misrecognition and denial of an independent Dalit identity with further false cooption of this identity then into nationalism and integrationist emotions and ultimately the Left’s forceful assertion of the presence of only two castes in Bengal- the rich and the poor, in order to prove the legitimacy of Marxian philosophy in the region.

[1] Socio-Economic Caste Census 2011, https://secc.gov.in//statewiseCasteProfileReport?reportType=Caste%20Profile#

[2] All Namasudras did not join the Matua sect

[3] The SCs in order of their numerical strength in WB are- Rajbanshi, Namasudra, Bagdi, Pod, Bauri, Chamar/Muchi

[4] Anti-Caste Assertion In Post-Partition West Bengal : A Study Of The Matua Mahasangha- Ananya Mitra, Thesis, 2017

[5] Poudra (Pod)- a caste in Bengal which would originally associated itself with the kshatriya but then declared themselves to be moolnivasi

[6] Prosperous, well-educated people typically associated with a particular class in Bengali society.

[7] Earlier footnote (3) on castes in Bengal

[8] These Amendments entailed provisions such as higher rent and exemption of payment of transfer fees by zamindars.

[9] Baro Ma- Binapani Devi, who is the spiritual leader of the sect Matua Mahasangh

[10] Economic and Political Weekly (https://www.epw.in/engage/discussion/caste-relevant-west-bengalpolitics)

[11] For instance not a single SC candidate since the past ten years has been selected from General seat as MP

[12] Jyoti Basu’s reply to the Mandal Commission; Ghosh, 2001 as cited in Bandyopadhyay, 2012