WHERE TO LOOK FOR CASTE IN BENGAL, AND WHY???

BY 

ANIRBAN BANDYOPADHYAY

CULTURES OF CASTE

PART 2

Caste in Bengal is not present, where it is elsewhere and this is precisely; why it is elsewhere in Bengal. In other words, caste in Bengal is manifested in sites where the common sense searches do not expect it. Let me clarify, that by caste I refer to prejudiced or preconceived hierarchies as though they were natural. In this post, I present two contemporary stories. Both of them came to my attention on 13 December, 2015. This post then, is about some of the ways in which caste is present in Bengal in the everyday perceptions and prejudices of the urban middle classes.

The Errant Politician

The two stories emerge from reports from the largest circulated Bengali newspaper published from Kolkata. They happened to me in the sense that I read them, like lakhs of other Bengalis. But something about the content of the report made me read it against the grain. Here, I describe how I read it and about the unanticipated directions to which that reading directed me. 

The first was a long report on a major local politician in Malda district who had refused to release an ambulance to its target recipients, in this case a Dalit Caste Association. The ambulance had been purchased presumably; out of the local area development fund of the politician. He is something of a royalty there. Years ago, his elder brother practically ruled the place as a major Congress leader, and dispensed benevolence and retribution freely and generously. People there; would treat him with reverence, in shock and awe; considering him to be an absolute monarch or a divine entity. Other members of the family have since laid claim to that legacy, in substantial measure and with a degree of success. Even today, the family can make or break political and material fortunes in that district. 

The Missing Association

There has been research on ‘voluntary’ caste associations by historians and political scientists. But the focus generally remained confined to the extent to which these associations manage to consolidate caste groups into homogenous voting blocks. Since caste associations in Bengal cannot do that in Bengal, research on caste associations in Bengal has never quite taken off. But they continue to exist, largely as non-governmental organizations, distributing relief or serving the needs of fellow caste-men within the limited resources in its command. As such, these are social organizations composed only of fellows from a particular caste. They may or may not be politically active or useful, but only detailed research can bring out exactly what role they get to play in organized electoral politics. This particular caste association in Bengal survives as a social service organization and local interest group.

Hierarchy as a Force

The ambulance was to be ceremoniously handed over to the Dalit Caste Association by the Leader. As such, the organization had put together a ceremony,accordingly. Meanwhile, something about them; caused the leader some displeasure and he refused to attend the ceremony. He then, called the leaders to another ceremony he would be attending. They rushed. There, the leader formally handed over the key to the ambulance. Yet, the very next day he sent a man and asked for the key. The unsuspecting, or simply puzzled recipients did as asked. Since then, the ambulance had been idling away in the custody of this political leader. He has not even formally denied the charge. The newspaper published the report as an instance of the unjust and arbitrary conduct of the leader, that is, he had been impeding public good and so on.

Forging Association

But the report also mentions that the members of that Dalit caste association are not too happy and that they were planning formal complaints to various governmental authorities, such as the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police. Besides, they had already got in touch with the media, or else I would not be reading the story sitting in Kolkata. They also spoke about planning to mobilize their entire community against this perceived injustice. The community, they claimed, numbered almost a million.

New Possibilities…

So here we have a caste association actually claiming some control over a constituency of some million citizens. Whether they actually succeed in their plan is for future to tell. But the very fact, that there is still a Dalit caste association in West Bengal; which is actually planning to mobilize a million strong members is news enough. After all, researchers on caste in West Bengal have not yet found any major caste collective, other than the Matuas, which command that large a following. Again, only detailed focus research can work out if indeed; they actually command that large a following in reality. I am happy enough to note; that there are influential caste collectives other than Matuas in Bengal. The point I am making; is simply; that by presuming that caste associations in Bengal are not political or electorally insignificant, we end up obviating possibilities of actually exploring what exactly it is that they do, or are. Now, they can well be less electorally influential than caste associations, say, in Bihar, but has there been any research to that effect, apart from the little that has been done on the Matua Mahasangha? To a non-Malda resident, and most certainly to a non-Bengali scholar, it would appear that such caste associations simply do not exist. 

The first point, therefore, is that researchers on caste in Bengal now have a potentially large Dalit caste association to work on, in terms of what it had been, is or can possibly be.

Genealogies Galore

The second report is about a genealogy of some sort. One enthusiast had been collecting details about the forefathers of President Pranab Mukherjee, going back to nearly thousand years which he has formally presented as a richly bound tome to the President himself. The latter reportedly had earlier encouraged him. The document reportedly is an encyclopedia on all Mukherjees of Bengal, or of the gotra (clan/lineage) to which all Mukherjees of Bengal are reportedly bound by blood. In itself, it is a perfectly harmless exercise, for it entails no rape or murder in the name of caste. Yet, it points to the keen desire among sections of Bengali Brahmans to believe, and try to ‘scientifically’ establish, that all of them sprang from a single ‘original’ forefather, who had at some point of time in the past; migrated to Bengal from somewhere in North India. But can a Dalit caste in Bengal put together a comparable genealogy purportedly running into a thousand years, or make a list of secular successes within its own clan? Do the amateur researchers even realize that without their intentions, they are in the process; interiorizing others? Does the President really need a thousand year old genealogy to prove that his forefathers were great men? Aren’t his own current achievements great enough? In any case, it is hard to believe that every one of us had great forefathers for the last thousand years. Does the genealogy also include the rotten apples within the clan? It is a historical fact, that until the 1940s, urban Bhadraloks, and those in district towns, had this tendency to have their genealogies written, in order to publicly ascertain their glorious past. In some ways, these were Indian imitations of the Peerage list. Everyone wanted to be a grandee, with an illustrious set of pasts and predecessors. Given the current President’s age, and his legendary memory, he will possibly remember Gyanendra Nath Kumar’s Vamsha Parichaoy volumes. The point I am making is simply that the Bengali Bhadralok had once; deep anxieties about their very recent elevation to respectability, vis a vis the Europeans, especially in matters of peerage.

Research Possibilities…

There was nothing new or unique in this. New arrivals to money and respectability in every society look toward projecting a glorious inheritance. So, there developed a whole genre among amateur Bengali ‘researchers’ which dedicated itself to writing ‘genealogies’ or clan histories, as it were, of successful men and families in and around Kolkata. With time, that genre has faded away from the public memory. The researchers on caste in Bengal have explored this genre very rarely and when they did, such as Kumkum Chatterjee’s excellent articles on genealogies as historical material, the attention has either been on how they open up the very definition of history in early twentieth century Bengal, or on how they offer excellent material for a social history of medieval Bengal. They are both eminently valid concerns, yet it is possible to look at this genre also as a way in which the Bhadralok had been building a self identity, in alliance with the new discipline and discourse of ‘history’, and in contradistinction to the Europeans outside and to the ‘low’ castes within its own social world. The self making of the Bhadralok again is a familiar territory for researchers, but not pertaining to this genre of literature. 

The second point I make therefore, is that there is a need to research how distinguished Bhadralok families in early twentieth century Bengal had their genealogies made, as a mark of, well, distinction, and how this strategy possibly came to generate a sense of inadequacy among those who could not boast of such pedigree or had no means to arrange for their genealogies to be written up.  

Author's Bio- Note:

Anirban Bandyopadhyay researches social and cultural history of modern Bengal and India, with particular reference to caste questions in the public domain. He has a PhD in history from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India and is working on his first monograph. Bandyopadhyay has published on caste in edited volumes, EPW and South Asian History and Culture. He also publishes general interest columns on caste, cinema, sports, books and politics in Deccan Herald, DNA, Economic Times, Open Magazine, The Telegraph, Anandabazar Patrika and Ei Samay. A bilingual academic cum public intellectual, he currently works as a Junior Research Officer at the Educational Multimedia Research Centre, Kolkata.