Special Issue: Part 6

 (Un)Common Landscapes and Ruptured Memories: Auto-ethnographies of North Bengal

Talking of Colonial Narratives and Peoples Histories

 Aparajita De and Rajib Nandi

Aparajita: You know, whenever one talks of North Bengal, it is Darjeeling - the snow-capped mountains, beautiful forest bungalows, tea estates that comes to one’s mind. Next is Siliguri and NJP (New Jalpaiguri Station). So whenever I told someone that my husband is from Siliguri, who was born in Naxalbari …there was no apparent excitement… just the opposite a sudden dead silence. One obviously associates Naxalbari with Naxalbari movement and Naxalism. I always wondered what it was like to be born in Naxalbari… to live in a place that gave its name to a movement, movement of a particular type… radical and revolutionary. So how do you see the place Naxalbari and your life there…how long did you live there?

Rajib: Yes I was born in Naxalbari where I spent the first ten years of my life  before moving to Siliguri. When I was born, the movement had just started. It began sometime in May 1967, and I was born in October 1968. So obviously, I can’t remember the first few years of the movement…though heard much later from my mother on the earlier days of the movement. But definitely few scenes of early seventies still remain fresh in my memory.

We used to live on the ground floor of a two-storied building and our small sitting room used to open out to the main road through a large square verandah. Once, I remember I was playing there alone in the evening and suddenly I heard noises … loud slogans… Naxalbari Zindabad…Inqulaab Zindabad. I came running to the middle of the road and saw a large procession,  hundreds of people maybe, with torches in their hands, bows and arrows, spears, sickles… it seemed as if they were coming towards me. I was very scared that day, somehow I quickly ran back to the veranda. In another incident during the same period, one morning when I came out to the verandah, I saw the white walls of the verandah being written in black tar. I had just learnt to read but one line I still remember even today … “jotedarer matha kata jaabe…” [the jotedar’s (zamindar’s) head would be chopped off]. When we were growing up in Naxalbari we often heard that so and so person, mostly young men, who were in hiding … had fled to Nepal or Assam to save himself from police arrest.

Anyways, I really enjoyed my childhood in Naxalbari for many other reasons. It was a beautiful place surrounded by forests, tea gardens and paddy fields criss-crossed by several streams. I still cherish those days, our long walks with my father towards Panighata- east of Naxalbari.

I started my studies in the primary section of Nand Prasad School that was the only high school of Naxalbari at that time. Interestingly my classmates were Nepali speaking boys and girls, Adivasis like Oraon, Santhal, and of course Rajbanshis and Bengalis. I still remember Bene Oraon, one of my good friends in primary school. One more thing I remember from early seventies…refugees from east Bengal. Often we used to hear about families having just come from Pakistan.

If you look at the history of Terai region, the region where Naxalbari is situated… historically it was a contested land between Nepal and Sikkim. But it was always a land of many people and many communities…. This area ..the whole of Terai and Dooars, from River Mechi in west to River Sankosh in the east.

Aparajita: What strikes me is… what was it about Naxalbari that gave birth to a movement like this. How did it start, who were the people, were they really involved with this? Why this particular type of movement started here and not elsewhere?

Rajib: There is a history of peasant movements in North Bengal. Naxalbari was not the first rebellious movement. From mid- 40s a series of peasant uprisings had taken place. You might have heard about the Tebhaga movement. Apart from Tebhaga, there were a few other smaller movements here and there. However, among them Naxalbari definitely got a different kind of attention from media and scholars. Perhaps for many reasons, which I think we don’t have the scope to discuss here. A culture of peoples movement did exist much before Naxalbari happened. But I would like to mention here that the geographical and political location of Naxalbari was one of the key strategic reasons for Naxalbari uprisings. It is a bordering area with Nepal, Bihar, Bangladesh, Sikkim…strategically an ideal place for the revolutionaries to hide. The peasants who participated in the movement were mostly from various adivasi communities. Among them, the adivasis from Chhota Nagpur, who used to constitute a large part of the movement, were originally brought as tea coolies by the planters. Later the tea sector could not recruit all of them. The surplus labourers became the adhiars (share-croppers), and consequently became a large part of the peasant communities of North Bengal. There is plenty of literature on the agrarian structure of North Bengal, the conditions of peasants and share- croppers, vulnerable occupancy rights of the peasants and how the share-croppers used to be exploited by the jotedars…and how the peasant movements intensified in various parts of India including Bengal. Some argue, over a period of time, numerous struggles against such exploitation led to the emergence of Krishak Sabha, the organization that mobilized peasants on several occasions and then Naxalbari.

When I grew up, in early to mid-70s, not much was actually happening in Naxalbari, as far as peasant movement is concerned. Because, by that time the movement in West Bengal had already spread to urban centres including Calcutta. But police was active with many arrests taking place.

Aparajita: You know being born in Calcutta, I am an outsider to North Bengal, though my family came from East Bengal during partition, …. we visualized North Bengal, as Darjeeling and the tea gardens, Dooars and the Wildlife Sanctuaries like Jaldapara …all of which are made by the British. As if, there was nothing before the British came in. I mean there were no people, there was no local history… a wild kind of a place. When you talk about the indigenous people, we had no knowledge about them and often by indigenous; we assumed it to be the adivasis, but they too were settled there by the British. The only non-British thing we were aware of was the Cooch Behar Royal Family…and again they were highly colonized.  They shared good relations with the British. Even, a Cooch Prince was married to a daughter of Keshav Chandra Sen, a famous social reformer of Calcutta…just a royal family…as if beyond that nothing existed.

Rajib: Definitely, it’s a popular imagination of North Bengal, particularly of many Bengalis outside North Bengal. So when Kamatapur movement started in the late-90s, people started thinking from where did this movement come…Bengalis used to think that only Bengalis live there, people other than Bengalis were the Nepali speaking people in the hills and the adivasis from Chhota Nagpur in the tea estates, all from outside….

Aparajita: You are right. When you say Rajbanshis and Kamatapur movement, I distinctly remember a television show from that period when KPP (Kamatapur Peoples Party) and KLO (Kamatapur Liberation Organisation) were active.  It was a discussion with a few Rajbanshis who were demanding the separate state of Kamatapur on the basis of the language – the Kamatapuri language. They claimed that their language pre-dates Bengali and is different from Bengali and everybody at home almost exclaimed in utter horror…what is this person saying?...This is not a different language this is only a different Bengali dialect nothing more than that…and there was this utter disbelief that it could be a different language and that it was too older than Bengali… and even in the show this disbelief was rife amongst the other participants.…

Rajib: I think that’s a different debate, whether Kamatapur or Rajbanshi language is a part of Bengali or a different language altogether. The politics of formation of a language and claiming/reclaiming of a language is totally a sociological issue….nothing to do with linguistics or grammar. Languages are born first, grammars are written much later. Every language has strong links with other languages. The boundaries are often blurred. Two different languages may look very similar, their grammars might look similar, because two languages which are recognized as different languages today, might have been born from one common language. If you look at histories of languages, you will find this everywhere.

But I would like to highlight one thing very clearly. North Bengal is a part of an ancient culture of eastern India. It has a very strong pre-British history. Why it’s known or why it’s not studied in school or college text books.. that’s again a separate issue. But, yes the Bengali history in North Bengal largely began only during the colonial period, as far as top three districts of North Bengal are concerned. Once the British administration started development in the form of tea plantation, extension of railways, forest conservation, various other government offices, and also in the Cooch Behar native state, Bengalis started coming in search of white collar jobs, as office babus and for small business opportunities. Therefore, the Bengali history in North Bengal starts during the colonial period. However, there were already histories existing; if not in the form of scientifically documented histories; but in the form of folk traditions, in poetics, in the form of oral histories, and myths. But they may not be recognized as legitimate or formal form of histories…but these things were there. Interestingly, the histories written by the colonial ethnographers and surveyors or by the historians of colonial period became the official history of North Bengal. From late eighteenth century you know, there were a lot of surveys and ethnographic studies by the British ethnographers and surveyors. And these eventually became the authentic histories and ethnographies of North Bengal. 

Aparajita: I find one thing very amazing, whenever I go and talk to people here, whether in a seminar or any other gathering or social media sites, I am always astonished by the number of people quoting and referring to colonial literature…Hamilton, Dalton, Sunder, they always mention these surveys at some point of time or the other. And these people are not academics but are ordinary people from various occupations. And would then elaborate that such and such babu who helped that sahib for that survey, he himself wrote another book later…and they will come and say, do you want a photocopy of this? And he will happily give you a photocopy as well.  

Rajib: Yes, that’s an amazing feature of North Bengal. There are a lot of local authors in North Bengal. The tradition may have started by a very few pioneering people, one of them being Dr. Charu Chandra Sanyal. Several others followed suit. Strangely a ‘supposedly’ unknown past always haunts the people of North Bengal and to know this unknown past, they heavily rely on colonial literature. It comes back again and again in the local literature. They cannot write without referring to the colonial literature. Even if they do not believe in the colonial version, they love to mention it, they often contradict it by adding another small piece of history to it. An unknown history and the quest for it to mark North Bengal for its uniqueness.

Aparajita: An unknown history and an unknown past… hmmm and Bengalis, and here I may add more particularly that Kolkata based Bengalis see North Bengal as part of it and yet outside Bengal. It’s like a far away distant land which is exotic and its not only the scenic beauty that attracts Bengalis but it is that unknown exotic past that attracts them most…you fear it and at the same time you love it as well. Fear and Love both enmeshed into one another. This is something, which I see reflected in the people of North Bengal themselves. So when they discuss and write…they are in a way trying to rediscover themselves by rewriting the past. And while engaging and rewriting the past; the colonial archives play a central role.

The colonial literature, sort of establishes a kind of valid or perhaps official histories and archives. But apart from them, different kinds and forms of histories get enmeshed - the documented with the undocumented ones. There is a beautiful blending of these two when local people start writing their own histories. They bring something more to colonial ethnography along with local narratives. Whenever I talk to someone here, they say if you are so interested, I have published an article, and then they will happily pass on a photocopy of the article. Everybody has written something or other. No matter what he/she may be… an engineer, a doctor, a clerk, a shopkeeper, a school teacher…..

Rajib: Why do you think this particular culture developed there?

Aparajita: Its not just Bengalis, I find Rajbanshi, Rabha, Boro, Nepali everyone from various backgrounds, occupations writing their own histories… But I don’t have an answer as to why … no answer at all.

Rajib: Perhaps it’s an unending process of rediscovering one’s self and history. Possibly also because it’s a transitional zone, it’s got borders everywhere… multiple political and ethnic borders. It’s not just one political border but many overlapping borders … So many ethnic groups and so many ethnic borders that overlap. Historically, lots of people belonging to different communities and regions travelled through this land, from west to the east … from north to south and vise versa.

Aparajita: It’s almost like a gateway…that’s why this region I think is called the "Dooars…the Doorway" to Bhutan, Sikkim and doorway to the west from Bihar to UP, and a doorway to the south the larger Bengal plain…so it’s almost a region that opens out in all directions. It’s an interface an area of constant interactions …

Rajib: That’s why I call this place a cultural frontier…different people came here at different points of time…lived here…and moved to another place after a period of time…so the borders are very blurred. You won’t find distinct borders here…even the borders between the ethnic groups.. between the languages…are very blurred… that’s the reason it is difficult to distinguish Bengali from Kamatapuri.. Not only the language, but if you look at the communities…sometimes you cannot differentiate one from the other. In a recent facebook page started by some Kamatapur supporters, I saw the other day, they themselves initiated a new argument, why the Koch and Rajbanshi now; have become Koch-Rajbanshi. And they themselves started contradicting their own histories of the name ‘Rajbanshis’ that was brought into public debate one hundred years back by Rajbanshi Kshatriya Samity. One has commented in the page that the name ‘Rajbanshi’ was actually invented by the British ethnographers and census officials rather than the people themselves. He further argued that the original name of the people is ‘Koch’ instead. A Rabha man, in a rejoinder wrote, “I am a Rabha, but Rabhas are also known as Koch”. He further argued, “Are we, the Koch and the Rabha, same people?” All these prove that the ethnic boundaries are too blurred to differentiate. In another incident, during my field work in Dooars in early 2000, I heard a common legend from Rabha, Mech, Garo, Toto, Rai, Limbu that all of them were actually brothers once. They came from Tibet, lived in the Himalayan foothills and finally they chose different paths, got separated and eventually became known in different names.

North Bengal is an interesting place as far as its history is concerned. It’s even more interesting, when you look closely at the historical process of history making. The identity of this place, which is known as North Bengal today has always been challenged and contested...from Pragjyotisa to Kamatabehar to North Bengal, as is the identity of its people. Peoples' identities are often fragile and ever changing. Moreover, peoples' involvement in the writing, re-writing and re-interpreting of its history and identity is amazing. This uniqueness of this place gives birth to a particular type of political culture…you may say a kind of politics of resistance.

Aparajita: I think the political culture and the politics of resistance that you say, takes the shape of people, local commoners, writing their own histories. That’s why I think the auto-ethnography approach or methodology takes on a different meaning here. Because it’s not just a self narrative, a simple writing of one's own  history but it is the dissenting voice of self from the margins resisting outsiders…colonizers who are writing for them, be that the British in the colonial period or the Bengalees in the present context.

(The conversation is part of a larger book project on North Bengal and the making of its local history)

Authors' Bio- Note:

The author is an Assistant Professor in Department of Geography, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.She is also the Convenor of the Department's Media Lab and Digital Library. She is currently working on Mediaspace, Bollywood and Popular Culture.

Rajib Nandi is a Research Fellow at Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi and holds Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.  His areas of research interests include Social movements and Environment. 

 Special Issue: Part 5 

 (Un)Common Landscapes and Ruptured Memories: Auto-ethnographies of North Bengal

Memoirs of my childhood in Marionbari T.E.

 by Rekha Nandy

I

Does the past speak? Can it really speak for itself? It does for me. It crowds my mind and in my memories. I have come a long way from my childhood; after all I am now 73 with grand children who are also grown up. Often, when I sit and watch the world go by, I open the door to my past and like a disheveled cupboard, my memories peep out wanting to come tumbling out and find their way into the present.

My father Mrinal Kanti Roy Chowdhury was a doctor who in the late 40s (1949 to be the exact) around November or December took up a position in a tea garden – in Marionbari or Garidhura tea estate. It was close to Kurseong and in the foothills of the Himalayas on the way to Darjeeling on Pankhabari Road. We were three siblings with my youngest sister, Mantu only a few months old, my brother Kalyan was seven and I was around nine year old. Our home in the tea gardens gave away to the majestic Himalayas and its snow capped mountains, dense forest and crystal clear skies. I had read about the Himalayas but to see it this close was another experience. It almost felt as if I could touch it and if I ran, I could start climbing. Imagine my excitement! But I could not do so. My father told me that the mountains were not as near as it seemed. Naturally I felt disappointed.

Fig.1: My father- Dr. Mrinal Kanti Roy Chowdhury

Fig.2: My family in Merionbari T. E.

Fig.3: The Himalayas

At the back of our home ran a mountain stream. We could not see but hear it at a distance. Also at the back was a vegetable garden and in its midst standing tall in one corner was the Madari tree, covered with its bright red flowers. On the ground the fallen flowers almost created a red carpet. Sitting underneath the tree, I would spend hours watching the many birds – wild hen, woodpeckers, parrots – that made the Madari tree their home. Once I even saw a peacock dancing in its full glory with wings spread wide out. In my excitement I ran inside to call my mother.

Soon after we arrived, a young adivasi boy named Theba came to help my mother and do small errands. With time, Theba became friends with Kalyan, my younger brother and my playmate. With Theba we played and roamed around the tea garden discovering many flowers, fruits, trees, vegetables and animals. Theba also had a catapult and even taught us how to use it. He rather skillfully could catch any bird with it and many a times we cooked and ate our catch with no one knowing the better.

Fig.4: The Tea Estates

Fig.5: A typical neighbourhood near the Tea Estates in Kurseong

Fig.6: Women Tea Pluckers

Speaking of birds, I recollect having Myna and Salikha as pet birds. Though I really cared for them but none seem to survive. My father on the other hand had several pets; among them a cat named Mini. Whenever we were out she would stroll towards the front gate and wait for our return. On returning she would stealthily; as if by magic, immediately sit on my father’s lap. Strangely, one fine day she left us never to return. We searched but could not find her. Not even her dead body. I remember my father also had a Bhutanese dog. In fact, he looked so big and ferocious that he was named Bagha.

II

There was a huge playground at front of our house. And at times we heard tigers roaring in the darkness of the night. The following morning, we would rush to find the pug marks. Often, in the early mornings a group of Dhanus Pakhi (Hornbill) would fly over our heads. Like my childhood, they too are long gone and lost.

Fig.7: Great Hornbill

Chitto Mitter, the manager of our tea garden was a renowned hunter having hunted deer, tiger, python, hedgehogs, monitor lizards, and a variety of birds. In those days there was no government rule against hunting. My father often accompanied manager babu on these hunting trips along with a few labourers and the sardar of the tea garden labourers. After most hunting trips, the animals used to be dumped in the playground and all of us would curiously gather around to have a glimpse of the animals that were hunted. Once the animals were skinned, the adivasi labourers would take the animal meat for their own feast. As children, we had also heard that they used to catch the rats and the snakes in the garden and eat them.

Our tea garden had around ten to twelve staff members. And there were many children. We used to play different games like hockey and football. The youngest daughter of the Manager babu was my soi (friend) and not only were we close friends but our families were very close too. Since my father was a doctor many people visited our home from staff members to the labourers and other local people who lived nearby.

The one thing, that I cannot seem to erase from my memory are the rains. The rains in North Bengal are an experience in themselves. For days on an end it would rain incessantly, some times for as many as fifteen to twenty days. It was amazing. First the rain appeared to start at the distant hills and then it crossed over the hills on to the fields; over our homes and then beyond. Rain was the real queen of the hills; bringing life and lushness all around her. She knew no fear and had no hesitation either. I wished then I could be like her dancing and touching the hills, the rivers, the streams, the fields, the forests, the trees, even the branches and its leaves. The thought in itself filled me with great joy and wonder and I used to sing Rabindra sangeet and dance; thinking myself to be the rain goddess.

When I look back I am always amazed at how we found joy in the smallest of small things. Life was so different then. People may not have had great wealth nor lived their lives as lavishly as I see now all around me and yet life was so rich. Not many festivals used to be celebrated in the garden. But of course, Durga Puja was one of them. During the Pujas, all the staff members would get leave for at least four to five days. It was quite common for all the garden staff members along with their families to take the truck and go to Siliguri and celebrate Durga Puja. Bijoya Dasami for us used to be a fun filled day with people coming over to our home with sweets or us going to their homes. So many people… and so many sweets.

The Nepalese in the garden too celebrated Satyanarayan Puja in the playground with great fanfare. The adivasis had their own festivals too. The men would play madal and to its beat the women danced. They dressed beautifully; not with anything expensive but with simple malas (garlands) made from wild flowers. The women would also wear flowers in their heads tucked behind their ears or in their khopas (bun). The men on the other hand, would wear feathers in their heads. Music, dance and laughter still rings around the playground and in my memories.

Fig.8: Adibasi Dancing

Once during the winters a group of lama had come down from Bhutan and Tibet. They wore their hair in plaits. I remember almost all of them had long plaits on both sides of their heads. They used to wear a jobba and long beaded necklaces. Playing the domuru they sang songs in their own language. It was so different from the tribal songs or Bengali songs. They were strange and yet sweet and made you feel at peace.

Fig.9: The Lamas

III

Two events that created ripples of excitement in the garden were the Annual Sports Day and the Picnic. On Sports Day, the football match was the main attraction and reason of excitement. Everyone including the staff, labourers and the manager babu participated in the match. The other event was the Annual Picnic and yet again the entire garden with their families would travel in the truck and go to various picnic spots along the banks of Balason River, or under the bridge in Dudhia or Coronation bridge in Sevoke. I vividly recall that all of us, the children that is, would zealously collect different kinds of stones – of varied colours shapes and sizes. We would take them home for our own private collection of stones.

Fig.10: Coronation Bridge, Sevoke

Haat (weekly market) was another event that marked our lives in the garden. On every payday, in the open area, the haat was organized. Everything would be found in the haat from clothes, ribbons, clips, bangles, utensils, and food. Haat was also a source of entertainment as there was no cinema or televisison in those days. Cock fights used to be a major entertainment for all of us in the garden and the labourers as well as the babus sometimes, used to place bets and enjoy these cock fights. As the evening set in, homemade rice, beer or handia which was popular among adivasi labourers used to be sold with different kinds of fried food items. Actually, it was a quite common sight to see the adivasi men returning from the haat in drunken stupor.

IV

At one corner of the playground was a sort of crèche where women workers would leave their children before going to work. One of the women from the garden itself used to take care of the children. All of us used to gather there in the afternoons to play. There was a makeshift swing over which we had regular fights. But in most lazy afternoons when nobody used to be around, I used to swing on it and see the colours changing – the blossoming of flowers, the riot of colours in spring, the pitter patter of the rains, and the cold winters. And now when I’m 73, my childhood in Marionbari is almost like the Himalayas that I imagined then – so real and beautiful, so near that it was almost within my grasp and yet so far away.

Author’s Bio-Note:

Rekha Nandy is a retired teacher born in Calcutta and brought up in North Bengal. She had spent most of her life in North Bengal before moving to Delhi in 2009. She is currently writing a memoir of her life in North Bengal. The present essay is a part of her autobiography. She could be contacted at rekha1940@gmail.com