DISCUSSION

Caste and Politics in Bengal

Sarbani Bandyopadhyay

Any attempt at understanding the presence or absence of caste in West Bengal today calls for a contextualisation of the problem by studying the history of caste politics in pre-Independence united Bengal. A response to Praskanva Sinharay (A New Politics of Caste, EPW, 25 August 2012) and Uday Chandra and Kenneth Bo Nielsen (The Importance of Caste in Bengal, EPW, 3 November 2012).

raskanva Sinharay has argued that caste has never been important or relevant category in the electoral process in West Bengal and that the situation has now changed with the political assertion of the Matua Mahasangha. Chandra and Nielsen have referred to Chatterjees (1997) argument that in everyday village life and popular consciousness caste remained important to underscore their point that caste has always been a relevant category in Bengal, including Bengal politics. While agreeing with much of what they argued in that discussion I intend to point out through this article that caste was not only relevant in everyday life and the apparently uninstitutionalised world of what may be called politics among the people (Chandra and Nielsen 2012: 59) but very importantly in the world of institutionalised, formal politics. My argument is that because assertive lower caste politics made its presence well felt in the domain of formal politics, it became necessary for the bhadralok to resist it. This article seeks to ground the question of caste in present-day West Bengal in the history of caste movements and politics in late 19th and 20th centuries of undivided Bengal. A history of lower caste assertions in Bengal is likely to help us locate the prominence or lack of caste in Bengal today. Hyper-Visibility of Caste

I would like to thank Kushal Deb, Rowena Robinson, D Parthasarathy, Manabi Mazumdar and Shoma Choudhury Lahiri for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Sarbani Bandyopadhyay (sarbani.bandyopadhyay @gmail.com) teaches sociology at St Xaviers College, Kolkata.
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If one looks at histories and literatures of caste mobilisations during the colonial period in Bengal one would be obliged to confront and rethink the alleged lack of signicance of caste in Bengal. In this period we nd a hyper-visibility of caste. Although these movements began seeking higher varna status for their respective castes they soon began to claim special treatment from the colonial government arguing that their current economic and political oppression was inseparable from their caste oppression.1 That caste was marginal to Bengal politics was a nationalist/bhadralok myth but the sustenance
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of this myth was becoming increasingly difcult as the swadeshi movement began to show not only a clear lack of interest of the so-called lower castes but also their active resistance to it (Bandyopadhyay 2011). Around the early decades of the 20th century Manindranath Mandal a Poundrakshatriya2 leader was making strenuous efforts to build a counter-hegemony to (brahminical) bhadralok politics and dominance. The result was the formation of the Bangiya Jana Sangha (BJS) (Bengal Peoples Association) in 1922, an umbrella organisation of many oppressed castes. Though short-lived, the BJS was an important move in the history of dalit politics in Bengal. It seems to have crossed the limits when it threatened to launch agitations along the lines of the Muslim League if its demands were not met (M Mandal 1922: 10). It meant pursuing a separatist agenda that could have further jeopardised Hindu bhadralok politics. The signicance of the BJS could be well grasped when in 1926 the All Bengal Depressed Classes Association was formed which supported the system of separate electorates. However it may be more signicant in our context to note that when a section of the All India Depressed Classes Association led by M C Rajah was opposing the separate electorates stand and entered into a pact with the Hindu Mahasabha, the Bengal Association stood rmly by Ambedkar (Bandyopadhyay 1990: 165-66). Although fraught with disunity3 the dalit castes and their politics had entered the forbidden stage: that of institutionalised formal politics. One of the planks on which these castes claimed higher varna status was their authentic Hinduness that was shown to be clearly established in their ritual and social practices (Ray 1916). Attempts were made by the Congress and Hindu organisations, like the Hindu Mahasabha and the Hindu Mission, to co-opt the different caste movements, especially when their demands for high ritual status got combined with their efforts to seek benets in the secular eld of politics, education and employment. Some recent dalit activists and scholars4 think that this claim of Hindu-ness created and in many ways weakened the caste movements but it also could not be denied
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DISCUSSION

that in the 19th and early 20th centuries this provided them with the legitimate language for mounting their challenges against brahminical oppression. To Be Hindu or Not For at least a few castes such as the Poundra-kshatriya and the Mali, their entry into the Hindu Mahasabha took place through the fascinating gure of Dingindra Narayan Bhattacharyya, a Hindu Mahasabha leader and also a Congressite. Manindranath Mandals (1926) short biographical account of Bhattacharyya gives the idea that much of the emergent elite sections of dalit castes considered him an avatar of the oppressed. Mandal (1926) also states that Bhattacharya should have been accorded at least the same status as a reformer along with Vidyasagar, Rammohan and Vivekananda but he was not because, unlike the rest, he worked for and amongst the untouchables and was acerbic in his attack on the caste system. In fact, the conservative Bangiya Brahman Sabha called him the second Kalapahar.5 While, the politics of dying Hindus and the closeness of these castes to the colonial rulers did have a good deal of bearing upon Bhattacharyyas reformism, to be fair to him that was not his only concern. His reformism was not purely of this instrumental type and that is precisely why it was Bhattacharyya and not U N Mukherjee (who propagated reform of the caste system to save the Hindus) who attracted these castes to the Hindu Mahasabha.6 However, one would possibly not be in a position to state that they were completely taken-in by the Mahasabhas politics. The different associations, their manifestos and movements/politics are pointers in the direction and desire to maintain their autonomy, their closeness to the Mahasabha and other Hindu organisations or even, later, the Congress, notwithstanding. However, by the 1930s when religious identities were getting hardened, this claim for a Hindu identity possibly created problems for an autonomous dalit politics. Most of these castes simultaneously pressed for higher varna status and Depressed Classes status from the government. Such caste associations petitioned and agitated for provisions for special economic and political treatment
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of the different dalit castes by the colonial government. They claimed their loyalty to the colonial government and the latter adopted a position that was in some ways favourable to the dalit castes. It created considerable problems for the bhadralok whose hegemony stood to be contested by the very sections it despised. Since the time of the Swadeshi movement the dalits have made their political presence felt and were there to stay had Bengal not been partitioned. The bhadralok enthusiasm behind the second partition of Bengal begs a question. Why were those (in terms of social location) who opposed the 1905 partition of Bengal pushing for the partitioning of the province 40 years later? To understand why caste suddenly seemed to disappear from the political lexicon of West Bengal one needs to study the dynamics of partition politics in undivided Bengal. The electoral process in colonial Bengal clearly shows that the Hindu bhadralok could not come to power in a Bengal where the Muslims were a majority and there was a large dalit population which, in turn, was suspicious of caste Hindu organisations like the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha. Communalisation of all conicts, most importantly, those that took place between Muslims and dalits, succeeded due to various factors and processes7. Suspicion and lack of unity amongst dalit leaders,8 their different ideological positions as well as the political ambitions of individual leaders9 were amongst the reasons that weakened dalit politics10 and also led to their co-option into the Congress and the Mahasabha. Caste and Partition Since the majority of the dalit population resided in eastern Bengal a Partition Plan without an exchange of population was, for the bhadralok, one sure way out of this political death. Indeed, Sen calls the partition a nationalist resolution of the caste question (Sen 2012: 323). Dalit groups and activists in Bengal consider this moment the most unfortunate in their political history. Partition not only kept a huge dalit population away from West Bengal; when they ed East Pakistan and came to West Bengal they did so as refugees whose primary concern could
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not have been politics but survival.11 Thus even if dalits were to come in large numbers (being dispersed over different parts of the country which were mostly ethnically, politically and environmentally hostile12 and lacking an effective dalit leadership) they were unlikely to pose a threat to bhadralok order in West Bengal. The partition thereby solved the thorny question of caste in Bengal politics. But it did not happen without resistance. And the most important gure and association that tried to actively resist the partition conspiracy was Jogendranath Mandal and the Bengal Provincial Scheduled Castes Federation (BPSCF) that he and members of different scheduled castes founded in 1943. It was a branch of Ambedkars All India Scheduled Castes Federation (AISCF). From the beginning Jogendranath made the intention of the BPSCF clear: to align with those who would protect the interests of the scheduled castes, in particular of those who were economically deprived.13 He argued that in terms of economic and political interests the scheduled castes and Muslims14 could have an alliance, though he did not place the Muslim middle class and its fundamentalist section above suspicion.15 He, along with the Muslim League and Sarat Bose and Kiron Shankar Ray of the Congress, pushed for a united Bengal plan in the event of partition (Sen 2012; J Mandal 2003). The 1946 elections, the rst to be held after the Poona Pact, could be seen as a measure of Jogendranaths popularity. The pact was heavily weighed against the scheduled castes (Sen 2012). On top of that the Congress had made all-out efforts (slander and bribes included) to defeat the BPSCF candidates, in particular Jogendranath. In the election, Jogendranath was the only scheduled caste leader of the BPSCF who was elected to the assembly (Sen 2012; J Mandal 2003). To mount a further challenge to bhadralok politics, it was Jogendranaths concerted attempts that saw Ambedkar elected to the Constituent Assembly from Bengal. No one seemed to be a greater threat to bhadralok aspirations than Jogendranath.16 But Jogendranath was ghting a lost battle. The British, eager to leave the country, found it expedient to leave the AISCF
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DISCUSSION

and BPSCF out of consultations regarding the imminent transfer of power. These two organisations were hampering a smooth transfer of power. They no longer required the support of the scheduled castes. And when the majority of scheduled caste opinion in Bengal was secured in favour of partition (the 1946 Calcutta Killings played its due part in taking the scheduled castes closer to the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha) the demands of their leaders for the inclusion of the scheduled caste dominated parts of east Bengal in the new West Bengal were discarded.17 Casteless Communists The Communists were the loudest in proclaiming the irrelevance of caste in the struggles of the downtrodden. For a party whose leaders were bhadralok18 class was a more relevant, progressive and the only legitimate category. For them the question of caste was one of superstructure. One could see an almost clear division of labour in their organisations upper caste leaders, lower caste cadre, the former theorising (a high intellectual exercise) and the latter putting them into action.19 It is not surprising therefore, that the dalit refugees got the worst deal from the Left Front regime. It may be noted here that the Left Front government of 1977 did not include a single scheduled caste member in its ministry, for its need was, perhaps, not felt. Kanti Biswas was inducted only after he and other scheduled caste members could convince the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) to include scheduled castes in the cabinet.20 If any regime has secured the dominance of the bhadralok in West Bengal, it has been the Left Front regime, as Chandra and Nielsen have argued well. It made illegitimate the language of caste. In fact, the then chief minister Jyoti Basu, in his reply to the Mandal Commission, stated that in West Bengal there were only two castes: the rich and the poor (Ghosh 2001). In the last assembly elections here there was much hype about caste guring in West Bengal for the rst time. The role of Baroma and the Matua Mahasangha in defeating the Left Front candidates has also been spoken about.21 However, the Matua Mahasangha probably does
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not represent the organised voice of the Namashudras. All Namashudras are not Matuas. Some Namashudras are also antiMatua because they nd the Matua sect to be quite brahminical.22 Moreover, I do not think, given the history of dalit politics in united Bengal, this election could be seen as one that has brought caste back into the stage of Bengal politics from where it was banished in 1947. Here again, bhadralok politics played its role when the Mahasangha split one part owing allegiance to the Trinamool Congress and the other to the CPI(M). In fact one dalit organisation,23 (some of its members are Matuas) wondered if the Mahasangha had not lost more than it gained from this political manipulation. The structures of bhadralok dominance are too well-fortied for one assembly election to bring about a dent in those structures. The new chief ministers assurances to put the interests of the Matuas on her main agenda had caused discontent amongst another numerically strong dalit caste: the Poundras.24 It remains to be seen whether the different dalit castes can form their own platform25 and create space for an independent dalit politics here or whether they would continue to play into bhadralok hands.
Notes
1 A point derived from 19th and 20th century from Bengali dalit writings. 2 Since the middle of the 20th century the Poundra caste has moved away from the claim that they were Aryans and kshatriyas and adopted the position that they were the moolnivasis (original inhabitants) with a ourishing civilisation that was destroyed by the invading Aryans (Naskar 2012). 3 Personal differences as well as the predominance of Namashudras in the Association led to the formation of the All Bengal Depressed Classes Federation in 1932 which saw afliation of other castes. Both however campaigned for separate electorates (Bandyopadhyay 1990: 165-72). 4 See (Naskar 2012). Dalit activists/scholars I spoke to are D Lashkar, D Gayen, S K Ray, D K Biswas, S Naskar and P K Mitra. 5 The (now largely mythologised) Hindu convert to Islam who vowed to destroy Hinduism in 16th century eastern India. 6 See Mandal (1922), preface. 7 See Datta (1999) and Bandyopadhyay (2011). 8 See Bandyopadhyay (2011) for the conict between Poundra-kshatriyas and Namashudras over the Namashudra demand for proportional representation and benets; Biswas (2003) and Usuda (1999), Jagaran (12 October 1946) and Poundra Samachar (16 March 2012) for the conict between individual dalit leaders as well as between different dalit castes. 9 See Biswas (2003) for the race to gain an upper hand in BPSCF. 10 Ambedkar openly acknowledged this problem, see Biswas (2003). 11 Conversation with S K Ray, dalit activist (7 November 2012), Calcutta.
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12 From a discussion on the Bengali dalit refugee problem of Dalit Samanvaya Samiti, Calcutta, October 2012. 13 The resolutions he pushed for in the assembly as well as the steps he took as councillor and later as minister (J Mandal 2003; Biswas 2003; Thakur 2003). 14 Since the vast majority of landless labourers, sharecroppers and workers were from these sections. 15 See his statement against the partition in The Statesman, 11 May 1947. 16 For a fuller understanding see Sen (2012). 17 Conversation with Jagadish Ch Mandal, September 2012, Calcutta. See also Bandyopadhyay (2012). 18 Also pointed out by Chandra and Nielsen (2012). 19 One can refer to Nandys article in Anandabazar Patrika (24 May 2011) for a comment along these lines from a CPI(M) activist of North Bengal. 20 Interview with Kanti Biswas, 7 July 2012, Calcutta. 21 Anandabazar Patrika, 14 May 2011. 22 I came across this at a DSS meeting, in October 2012. 23 Conversation with one of its organising secretaries on 4 July 2012. 24 See Poundra Samachar (17 June 2011). There has been a history of discontent between these two castes and it continues today (see Bandyopadhyay 2011 and Poundra Samachar, 19 September 2010; 16 March 2012). 25 In September this year the Dalit Samanvaya Samiti organised a meet of dalit groups with the intention of creating dalit unity so that dalits could become a viable political force in West Bengal.

REFERENCES
Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (1990): Caste, Politics and the Raj: Bengal 1872-1937 (Calcutta: K P Bagchi). (2011): Caste, Protest and Identity in Colonial Bengal: The Namasudras of Bengal 1872-1947 (New Delhi: OUP). Biswas, Upendranath (2003): Jogendranath o Ambedkar in Chaturtha Duniya, January: 9-30. Chandra, Uday and Kenneth Bo Nielsen (2012): The Importance of Caste in Bengal, Economic & Political Weekly, 47 (44): 59-61. Chatterjee, Partha (1997): The Present History of West Bengal: Essays in Political Criticism (New Delhi: Oxford University Press). Datta, Pradip Kumar (1999): Carving Blocs: Communal Ideology in Twentieth Century Bengal (New Delhi: OUP). Ghosh, Anjan (2001): Cast(e) Out in West Bengal, Seminar (508 December), New Delhi. Mandal, Jagadish (2003): Mahapran Jogendranath Vol 1 & 2, Chaturtha Duniya, Kolkata. Mandal, Manindranath (1922): Bangiya Jana Sangha, Medinipur. (1926): Bange Didindranarayan, Kanthi. Naskar, Sanat (2012): Poundra Manisha, Sonarpur. Ray, Purnachandra (1916): Arya Paundra Kshatriya Samaj, Murshidabad. Sen, Dwaipayan (2012): No Matter How, Jogendranath Had To Be Defeated: The Scheduled Castes Federation and the Making of Partition in Bengal, 1945-47 in Indian Economic and Social History Review, 49(3), 321-63. Sinharay, Praskanva (2012): A New Politics of Caste, Economic & Political Weekly, 47 (34): 26-27. Thakur, Kapil Krishna (2003): Bharatiya Rajnitir Tragic Nayak in Chaturtha Duniya, January, 82-94. Usuda, Masayuki (1999): Pushed towards Partition: Jogendranath Mandal and the Constrained Namasudra Movement in Kotani (ed.), Caste System, Untouchability and the Depressed (New Delhi: Manohar).

Newspapers
Anandabazar Patrika: 14 May 2011 and 24 May 2011. Jagaran: 12 October 1946. Poundra Samachar: 17 June 2011, 16 March 2012, 19 September 2012.

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