NB: A thought provoking essay to which some caveats could be placed. To begin with, Hindutva is not synonymous with Hindu Nationalism, the latter being more widespread and accomodative than Hindutva. The fascination with violence that characterised early militant nationalist groups was something which held sway in Maharashtra and Punjab as well; and the tendency towards merging social conservatism with political radicalism needs to be considered carefully. Be that as it may, the author has raised a very pertinent issue: is it really wise to pretend that Bengal. with its history of three partitions (1905, 1947, and 1971) is, or ever was, a haven of communal harmony?
We like to pull the wool over our eyes a bit too much. The second comment, beneath this article, is in a different vein, more contemporary, but also very pertinent. Both are worth reading carefully. DS
The question now is: Is Hindu nationalism which had started in Bengal in the second half of the nineteenth century coming full circle?
Historians have an inbuilt defence mechanism. Since they know that every history has history, they are surprise-proof. The West Bengal election results which have gone hugely in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may have upset many of them temporarily, but on reflection they have found themselves firmly footed. For them, Bengal has traditionally been an enigma, which has just once again been reconfirmed.
It was Bengal, from where the East India Company had started its Indian journey. The Mughals before them too had found the province interesting. Initially they encountered some difficulty to control it because of its wet cartography but in due course they took full advantage of the situation to build a prosperous rain-fed agricultural economy which helped them raise a massive standing army that was able to browbeat all contemporary Indian rulers. That the changing course of the Ganga in the previous hundred years came handy to them to take advantage of the situation is a long story.
During the hundred years of the East India Company rule (1757-1857) it was this province alone which was chosen for two important Hindu social reforms, one, the abolition of the Sati ritual, and two, the validation of widow remarriages. These reforms, however progressive, angered the Hindu conservatives, who had traditionally dominated the Bengali Hindu social order. This fact did not escape the notice of the politically suave British. They realised that since their business was business, they should scrupulously avoid interfering with the Hindu social norms.
Soon after the 1857 revolt when the British Crown supplanted the East India Company rule, their governing-bible was not to dirty their hands with the Hindu social practices however retrograde they were. They took the logic even further. Through systematic political manoeuvres, they sowed the seeds Hindu-Muslim discord which by the end of a few decades assumed monstrous proportions. It was no surprise that when Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was initiating a Muslim political and social awakening in the early twentieth century he identified the Bengali intelligentsia as his primary enemy.
It may be underlined that Bengal was the first breeding ground of Hindu nationalism. Even the idea of Hindutva originated there. It was not Vinayak Damodar Savarkar who had invented the word through his 1923 book Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? Which is commonly believed. The idea was developed by a Bengali, Chandranath Basu (1844-1919). He wrote a book in Bengali in 1892 called: Hindutva: Hindur Prakita Itihas (the true history of the Hindus). Even much prior to that, in 1858, another Bengali, Tarinicharan Chattopadhyay, had written Bharatbarsher Itihas (the history of India), which was out-and-out a Hindu chauvinistic-nationalistic statement spouting venom at everything Muslim.
From 1867, an annual event called Hindu Mela had been institutionalised in Bengal to which Bengali Bhadralok flocked in large numbers. The Bhadralok is a complicated concept which can be summarily understood as representative of the upper caste Bengalis consisting primarily of the Brahmins, Baidyas and the Kayasthas, the literati of Bengal in general. (One can entertainingly remember them as KABAB – KA for Kayastha, BA for Baman (Brahmin), and B for Boddi, or Baidya.) Started by Nabagopal Mitra, its initial financier was the Tagore family (six years after Rabindranath Tagore was born).
Over to Bengali Leftism now. Ironically the same Bengal which was the cradle of Hindu nationalism was also arguably the hotbed of India’s Left politics (though one must not forget the Telangana movement of 1946-51). During the second world war, particularly, after the Soviet Union joined the war on the Allied side, the Communist Party of India, which had a strong presence in Bengal, sowed the seeds of Leftism in Bengal. The Great Bengal Famine of 1943 boosted the movement which the then cultural troupes like the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) popularised further. Incidentally IPTA was established in the same year the famine had taken place. IPTA took its Leftist message to every middle-class Bengali home. The massive Partition refugee arrivals that overwhelmed Bengal, particularly Kolkata, advanced Leftism in general.
Since both the ruling Congress Party and the opposition Leftists were looking for the same political space in Bengal it had at least one positive effect. Though the Partition had ravaged the Bengal economy, this Congress-Left contestation ensured that there was no Hindu-Muslim communal violence though just in 1946 the province had witnessed The Great Calcutta Killings (a direct fallout of Mohammed Al Jinnah’s militant Direct Action Day call). It was a notable achievement given the fact that Bengal had a long history of Hindu-Muslim riots during the entire half a century prior to the Partition.
The next notable phase of Bengal politics was the rise of Naxalism in the late sixties and early seventies which was ruthlessly suppressed by the Congress Chief Minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray (1972-77), who incidentally is also credited for advising Indira Gandhi to declare her infamous Emergency in 1975. The Left Front rule in Bengal led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)) had a 34-year long innings from 1977 to 2011 to be replaced by the now defeated strongwoman Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
The question now is: Is Hindu nationalism which had started in Bengal in the second half of the nineteenth century coming full circle? Is the Bengali Bhadralok once again displaying his Hindu nationalistic fervour? If so, the inevitable question is will they lead the pan Indian Hindutva folk, or agree to be led by the Gujaratis, Marathis, or the Hindi-speaking north. Indian politics is at a critical juncture and the next ten years will be interesting to watch.
A much more interesting question, however, is if the Bengal BJP plays the same nasty communal game which the north Indian BJP has been playing at least ever since the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement of the early nineties, how it will end up. Not only that West Bengal has a 27% Muslim population, it is next to the Muslim-majority Bangladesh which has a 180-million strong population of which 8% are Hindus.
The Bengal BJP will tread carefully because India’s national security question is central to the whole issue. Mercifully, unlike in the past, India has appointed Dinesh Trivedi, a politician, not a career diplomat, as India’s High Commissioner to the country who should know the communal sensitivities better. Incidentally, though he is a Gujarati, he is from Bengal and speaks Bengali, which is his added political advantage.
Partha Ghosh retired as professor at JNU
+++++++++++++
NB: Taken from a Facebook thread. I am not posting the author’s name as I cannot verify it. The content is interesting, to whomsoever it can be attributed. DS
15 years ago, I stood on the terrace of a historical office building in Dalhousie (where I worked back then) with some colleagues and watched as Mamata Banerjee walked from Raj Bhavan to Writers Building after taking her oath as CM. People had piled up on both sides of the road, a baul was singing, and the atmosphere was of joy and expectation. So much that even cynical me thought for some time that Bengal would see better days. An expectation that was crushed within a year. After the Park Street rape incident, and the administration’s callous attitude in calling the victim at fault, everyone realized what they had elected. And those 15 years TMC wreaked havoc. A megalomaniac at the helm, widespread corruption, one government representative in every institute of repute, a general feeling of fear.
So it was a welcome change when the bastion of corruption & lies finally crumbled yesterday. People are celebrating again, thinking better days have come. But once the euphoria dies down, take a pause and think for a moment. What have you elected?
Let’s take the expectations one by one. “BJP will bring industry to the state, they will bring back our migrant kids”. Really? Name 5 BJP leaders in the current Bengal list who are educated. A party majorly made out of TMC turncoats, with Shubhendu Adhikary at the helm – Once Mamata’s right hand and equally adept in brutality and denial. Their entire cadre base comprises once CPM then TMC now BJP local goons, opportunists who will flock anywhere there is money. Let’s suppose Reena Debnath will manage to get justice for her daughter. What then? what is her political expertise in any field?No sir, BJP Bengal doesn’t have anyone to form an industrial policy, let alone a renaissance. They didn’t even promise any industrialisation in their manifesto. You want a party famous for not keeping it’s promises, to keep a promise it didn’t make? 🙂
“BJP will stop cross-border migration”. The border was always in control of the center. Not the state. Do you know that the number of illegal immigrants sent back between 2005-2013 is TEN times the number between 2014-26? Google it. What will change after they gain the state?
“Bengali educational institutions will become glorious once again”. Hein? From a 100 years ago, the independent-minded, left-oriented, liberal Bengali intellectual has been a thorn in the flesh of every administration – be it the British or Congress. A party that thrives on Majoritarian ideology to convince uneducated people, will allow free-thinking institutions to flourish? Err..umm..JNU?
No sir, I’ll tell you what will really happen. BJP will use all the money-making illegal channels that TMC made to fill its own pockets. Same people under a different banner after all. Crime and women’s safety will be as bad as it always was, just that if you object you’ll be called anti-national. Peaceful protest will be curtailed, protesters jailed under UAPA or some other draconian law, and the IT cell will make the masses believe you had foreign funding. Dislike it as you may, but having a separate administration in the state and center provided a natural check and balance system. With BJP at both ends, good luck.
Within a year, as Bengalis dress in their finery to celebrate Durga Puja, saffron goons with swords and lathis will descend upon the non-veg food stalls, claiming it is a sin to sell meat during Puja. Meat and fish shops will be closed during Navratri, just as they are everywhere else in India now. Social policing will go up to an extent that you’ll feel miserable. Take my word.
Not meaning to rant against my Kolkata friends. I know you had no choice. But just come to terms with one fact. In weeding out the rats, you brought the plague home.
=============
Domination and Chaos: India’s radical conservatism
The law of killing: A brief history of Indian fascism
A Political Man: Memories of Ranajit Guha
A Hard Rain Falling: on the death of T. P. Chandrasekharan (EPW, June 2012)
After the truth-shower 