Transition of Bengali Nationalism from 1905 to 1970s
An Introduction
Who is a Bengali? Anyone who speaks in this language or the one who is a resident of Bengal? The notion of Bengal or a Bengali needs to be understood before we go through the process of analyzing Bengali nationalism because the geographical place denoted as Bengal has gone through such tumultuous transition over a period of sixty six years from 1905 till 1971, and even after, the flux of transition continues through several agents present in groups of individuals or some sections of Bengalis. So, to answer whom I am addressing as Bengali in this paper, I would say, the term will vary according to the change of the geographical landscape of Bengal. Thus, when Swadeshi movement is discussed the term Bengali would encompass 189,000 square miles of undivided Bengal; in 1947 it would speak of the people of East Pakistan and of West Bengal; when dealt with the formation of Bangladesh, the geographical landscape is the then East Pakistan as the movement uses the language Bengali as an agent; and during Naxalite movement, it focuses on the landscape of West Bengal. So, in this paper the term Bengali is based both on the language and the geographical landscape and is used in accordance with the political situation it is being dealt with.
The idea of nation is problematic because homogeneity is not present among all the people who are included within by a boundary. National consciousness develops unevenly among different social groups. With the rupture or on the eve of rupture the idea of belonging initiates. The formation of an identity is also the rupture of the previously existing identity. For example the idea of nation in India came into existence with independence. The rupture that takes place is the rupture of the people. Rupture on the lines of religious, linguistic, ethnic, political or economic identity. Economically lower most section of society is the last to submit to the nationalist ideals or they do not submit at all. The lowest strata of society were not linked direct to the imperialist power; they were connected with the money lenders and land owners. So, the national consciousness of this stratum may or may not react to the nationalist movement in the same way as the torch bearers of the movement would have wanted. Their reaction against the money lenders, the landlords and every apparatus that are instrumental in their oppressed condition of existence is their form of nationalism. This idea has been elongated in the final paragraph of the introduction and on the chapter dealing with Tebhaga movement. In spite of the rupture, the state tries to create homogeneity among people with diverse identities through the idea of the nation. The state asks its subjects to follow the line provided by the state by placing one’s moral judgment on hold. But with the formation of a nation, the marginalization of certain sections also took place in the process. The formation of nation is the process exclusion. Exclusion takes place, and the idea of a particular group that is granted becomes the central idea of the nation. From this deprivation, marginalization and exclusion raises the formation of new ideals which is exclusive to that section, which is their common identity and in due course this ideal becomes the seed for the nationalist identity of this group and striving on the common identity leads to the formation of nationalism and this may lead to formation of their nation.
The idea of nation building to one who is unaware of the history and its discourse is an idea which is entirely dependent on the common sense of a person. The reason behind the formation of certain groups into nation is based on single criteria such as language or ethnicity, or it can be a combination of cultural traits, common history, common territory, common language or anything that holds them together. Stalin’s definition of nation:
“A nation is a historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture.” (Hobsbawm, Eric J. Nations and nationalism since 1780: Programme, myth, reality. Cambridge University Press, 2012.)
This definition by Stalin is one of the best known but several other are present, but all such definitions have failed, because only some members of the larger class fit such definitions, whereas exceptions are always found. We will see that the criteria mentioned above are ambiguous, shifting and nebulous.
Nation is regarded neither as a primary entity nor as an unchanging social entity. Nations do not form nationalisms but it is the nationalism that forms the ‘nation-state’. Thus it can be said, nation follows nationalism. But the reality is, when nationalism takes pre-existing cultures or commonalities and weaves them into a nation, sometimes it invents them and often it is found it obliterates the true essence of the pre-existing cultures. Thus, it can be stated that nation and nationalism must be analysed in terms of political, cultural, administrative, economic and other conditions and requirements. In the course of this paper, we will look into the matter that among several social groups and regions of a country ‘national consciousness’ develops unevenly, and this is also seen that the popular masses, people from the lowest strata of society are the last to be affected.
In the second half of the 20th century nationalism was regarded as a feature of anticolonial struggles but the new institutional practices of economy and polity transferred nationalism to the histories of colonial empire. As Partha Chatterjee writes:
“In the 1950s and 1960s, nationalism was still regarded as a feature of the victorious anticolonial struggles in Asia and Africa. But simultaneously, as the new institutional practices of economy and polity in the postcolonial states were disciplined and normalized under the conceptual rubrics of ‘development’ and ‘modernization’, nationalism was already being relegated to the domain of the particular histories of this or that colonial empire.” (Chatterjee, Partha. Empire and Nation: selected essays. Columbia University Press, 2010.)
Thus the liberating aspects of nationalism were suppressed by several pursuits of private interests which were controlled by ethnic politics which blurred the lines between patriotism and terrorism.
“…the emancipatory aspects of nationalism were undermined by countless revelations of secret deals, manipulations, and the cynical pursuit of private interests. By the 1970s, nationalism had become a matter of ethnic politics, the reason why people in the Third World killed each other – sometimes in wars between regular armies, sometimes, more distressingly, in cruel and often protracted civil wars, and increasingly, it seemed by technologically sophisticated and virtually unstoppable acts of terrorism.” (Chatteijee, Partha. “Whose imagined community?.” The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. New Jersey: Princeton UP (1993): 3-13.)
This paper will deal with the transition of Bengali nationalism from 1905 to 1970s by analyzing five crisis points in the history of Bengal, the partition of Bengal in 1905, the Tebhaga movement, partition of India in 1947, formation of Bangladesh and the Naxalite movement in Bengal during early 1970s. The transition will be focused on the lines of the change that it faces from being a movement mainly of the upper class of the society during the partition of Bengal in 1905, to being a movement against colonial empire during the partition of 1947 but the formation of the nation is on communal lines so the above mentioned words “manipulations, and the cynical pursuit of private interests” becomes more prominent than nationalism “as a feature of the victorious anticolonial struggles”. Following that the formation of Bangladesh uses the commonality of language as an agent for creating a national consciousness but it is still the construct of the upper section of society which has been deployed or rather run through the mass as the only hope for survival against the oppression caused by the government of Pakistan.
The only case where the grievances of the mass, the lowest section of society got reflected and got channelized as a protest against the ruling section of society is the Tebhaga movement. Question may arise, how come a peasant revolt against the zamindars be grouped under nationalism or the formation of a nation-state. I would like to say, the protest of the peasants during the Tebhaga movement was against the Zamindars who were backed by the colonial power, before independence and by the govt. of Bengal, which became representation of colonial power after independence. Their nation-state does comprise of the part of land they cultivate, concerned with clan, tribe, village or province, people rarely extended their interests nationwide. So, the struggle of the peasants against the zamindars can also be seen as a revolt against the colonial empire, which withdrew taxes from the zamindars and also supported the zamindars with their repressive state apparatus. In a few places the peasants declared their zones as Tebhaga areas and many Tebhaga committees were set up to govern the area locally. Such kinds of Tebhaga areas were established in the districts of Jessore, Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri. So, I consider Tebhaga as nationalist movement and their ‘nation-state’ comprised of those areas where they were able to establish the rule of giving 1/3rd of the harvest to the zamindar.
Lastly, question may also arise on my inclusion of Naxalite movement of early 1970s in Bengal under the term nationalism. To that I would like to say, nationalism is a movement in which the nation-state is regarded as supreme for the understanding of social, economic, and cultural aspirations of people. But during Naxalite movement, the nation-state was not able to provide for the needs of the weakest sections of society. The social and economic aspirations of the people were not fulfilled by the govt. During Naxalite movement, though they were not trying to form a new nation, they were trying to establish a society according to their ideals by replacing the govt. Nationalism is characterized principally by a feeling of community among people based on common descent, language or religion. Thus it is an attempt of forming an area based on leftist ideologies by a community who believes in those ideals. I considered Naxalite movement within nationalism because it is the new form of muscular nationalism that exist highlighting how the govt. failed to include some voices of the deprived sections of society. These may be regarded as “acts of terrorism” and surely it does fall under the category of terrorism but my point is this is the transformation that nationalism has gone through. Nationalism has turned into muscular nationalism.
Partition of Bengal in 1905
In July 1905, the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, announced the decision to divide the provincial sate of Bengal. The Provincial state of Bengal expanded over an area of 189,000 square miles, which included the present day West Bengal, Bangladesh, Odisha, Assam and undivided Bihar. The partition took place on 16th October 1905, when the former province of Bengal was divided into two provinces, one comprising the western Bengal as well as the areas of Bihar and Odisha, and the other comprised of eastern Bengal and Assam. To provide better administration was promoted as the reason behind the partition. It was stated that the eastern region was neglected and under-governed, so, by dividing the province improved administration could be established. This resulted in the formation of provinces with Muslim-majority in the eastern half and Hindu-majority in the western half. Thus for the first time in the name of establishing administrative efficiency the ‘divide and rule’ policy was enacted on communal lines. The partition was generally supported by major sections of Muslims in East Bengal, which was motivated by two factors, first, by their poor economic condition in East Bengal because most of the factories and mills were in Bengal was set in and around Calcutta, while many sources of the raw materials for these factories were in East Bengal, and the second reason being the perceived dominance of Hindu businessman and landlords in West Bengal over the governance of Bengal. There was incitement by the British for Hindus and Muslims to form their own political parties to establish and assert their distinct religious identities, not only forming political parties on religious lines but various constructive steps were taken by the British to create situations where both Hindus and Muslims would be forced to think that their religious identity is at peril. This effort found its culmination in the partition of Bengal in 1905 along communal lines. Impetus was provided by this partition to the religious divide that was lurking its grievous existence in the rear, which resulted in the formation of All India Muslim League and All India Hindu Mahasabha, with the aim of fanning the communal interests and passions. Thus, in the partition of Bengal in 1905 along communal lines, the seed of the partition of India in 1947 on the same communal lines was sown.
The main reason for the partition was to reduce the Bengali influence on the growing nationalism by dividing the population on communal lines. Calcutta being the capital of British India, it faced upsurge of nationalism and to dilute this division among communities were created. It is also believed that partition was designed to curtail the Hindu demand for political representation as they were at the forefront of political agitation for greater representation under the British rule. The opposition to the partition was led by educated middle class of western Bengal. Swadeshi movement was started by Indian National Congress, which included the boycotting of British goods and public institutions. But all the sections of society were not equally incorporated within this fold. This was mainly a product of the resistance by Hindu upper and middle class. The Muslims of East Bengal opposed these movements because they hoped that the separate region would bring them more control over education and employment. Besides, the economically backward sections of society of western Bengal were not a part of these movements. Thus the nationalist movement focusing on the opposition of the partition of Bengal is a movement of a people belonging mainly to one religious community, and also among them not all the members but the economically well-off sections took part in it. So, the process of nationalism is limited to certain sections because the idea of a nation is not involuntary, but it is fractured on several lines.
Rabindranath Tagore was for the inclusion of every section of society in a way where they would be no need of speeches to people to make them understand the meaning of the word nation. This wholesome inclusion is seen in his observing of the ‘rakshabandhan’ when everyone should tie a rahki on every one ignoring the divisions that were present, as a symbol of Bengal’s unity. Although Rabindranath provided a poetic gesture with some of his most memorable songs and professed leadership to Swadeshi movement for a few weeks, he was not sucked into the movement blindly. His main interest in Swadeshi work was education and village reconstruction. The instances when the Swadeshi workers wanted to incite the peasantry to rise against British Oppression but the fact is they had no real interest in their welfare. On the contrary Rabindranath had suggested that Swadeshi workers should reconnect with the villages and village folk, and promote sanitation, work for the eradication of illiteracy and promotion of village products. He initially participated in the demonstrations and meetings, composed inspiring Swadeshi songs; yet his nature was never attracted by destructive impulses, or to the boycotting of English goods and making bonfires of them. He believed the Swadeshi movement would be the ideal opportunity for the people to reconnect and regenerate the existence that had been made poorer by years of colonial rapacity.
Tagore was critical about the boycotts and conflagrations of foreign clothes that the movement spawned. He put together all the anxieties and tensions in his 1916 novel Ghore baire (Home and the World) that he had faced during those tumultuous years. The novel showcases the deep reservation that Tagore had over jingoist nationalism and his enduring interest in the concept of freedom, both for the country and also for its men and women. But the ways of achieving freedom is what Tagore seems to be concerned about. The ways are that of a constructive swadeshi and that of a militant swadeshi. The implication of Tagore was that the Swadeshi movement was not yet a movement of the masses for they were not able to afford the Swadeshi goods which were more expensive and of inferior quality in comparison to foreign goods, so, the impetus was chiefly urban and bourgeois. The contradictory aspects of nationalism present through different ways Swadeshi movement has undertaken is shown through the characters of Nikhil who articulates Tagore’s views on the arguable issue of nationalism and Sandip, the fire band swadeshi, who expounds the western view of nationalism.
The biasness of the class is incorporated with the biasness on the communal front because the Muslims were economically weak. It is the class bias that led to the communal divide. For wealthy landowners and politicians who were mainly Hindus could afford to boycott cheap British goods and have the luxury of idealism on the bonfire made out of foreign clothes, but the economically weaker section could not afford it. If we look into the novel we would find that a difference between the truth and the political activity, as the political activists could not prevent Indian merchants from buying foreign goods, nor they could prevent the middle men from distributing them in the markets. But they burnt those goods by forcibly taking them away from traders who were economically weaker. Thus, it is the imposing of a model of an economically well-off class on a class which is economically weaker. For instance, Harish Kundu, a zamindar, fined Panchu, a poor trader, one hundred rupees and threatened with eviction from land. In extreme anxiety Panchu defiantly blurted out to the zamindar, “I can’t afford it! You are rich; why not buy it up and burn it?” (Tagore, Rabindranath. Home and the World. Penguin Books India, 2005.). Instead of paying heed to Panchu’s pleas, Kundu got enraged, gave him a shoe-beating and burns down Panchu’s purchased goods. Another instance which reveals both class and communal divide of the Swadeshi movement was that of the destruction of livelihood of Mirjan, a muslim, by sinking his boat. Many of the boatmen stopped carrying foreign goods by submitting to the diktats of the swadeshis Mirjan refuses to abide by with the order following which Sandip orders hs manager to sink the ship. This is a case of victimization of an disadvantaged member of society in the semblance of nationalism. Most of the champions of this kind of zealous nationalist ideal during Swadeshi movement were landlords, neighbourhood hoodlooms, officials or babus and impressionable students. Due to their class bias, these people never thought of the suffering of the poor; their luxury of following the idealism made them blind towards the causes that affected the poor. The idea of nation and the prescribed format of achieving it are being imposed without concerning the effects that it would leave.
All through his life Tagore has denounced religious bigotry, casteism and parochialism. He believed that the unity of a race is a very important binding force in a nation. For this he wanted the Swadeshi movement to work at the ground level, at the villages for their development, so that the villages stand emancipated, when the idea of nation would need not to be forced into people through speeches. As Tagore writes:
“We must realise that when the foreign king departs from this land it will not be our motherland. We must earn our country, through our efforts. We must be the mainstay to our country men by giving them food and shelter, health, happiness and education. We must learn to do the best for the country in times of sorrow and hardship. When we understand this truth in the innermost core of our hearts then we will also realise our country – there will not be any need to give speeches to make people understand the meaning of the word ‘desh’.” (Tagore, Rabindranath. A Centenary Volume, 1861-1961. Sahitya Akademi, 1961.)
It is the gap of education and that of compassionate understanding of the poorer sections of society that is present between the educated urban city men and illiterate peasants which hinder the unity of these two spheres into a single unit of nation. In spite of being brought into the fold of the nation through authoritative idealism, the illiterate, poor are unable to conform to those ideals instinctively.
“Today, when the English educated city men go to the illiterate peasant and announce ‘We are brothers’, then the poor man fails to grasp the meaning of the term. We have always called them ‘those peasant characters;’ their happiness and sorrow had no importance to us. When we wanted to know about their lives we resorted to Government census; today, the same people, whom we disdain and avoid, suddenly seem our brothers. We tell them to boycott cheap foreign cloth and get beaten up by the Gurkha brigade. Naturally, they are deeply suspicious of our motives […] When we wish to form a relationship from an ulterior motive, even an inferior person will have no liking for it, however important the motive may be: Boycott, or Swadeshi or the good of the country. If we had remained united respectfully and lovingly as fellow humans and countrymen, […] if we had worked tirelessly for their good, then we could have given a call to them in this day of danger and loss. That would have been truly appropriate.” (Tagore, Rabindranath. A Centenary Volume, 1861-1961. Sahitya Akademi, 1961.)
Tagore says that if the British were driven away, even then India would be victim to ignorance, disease and deprivation because the Swadeshi leaders were unwilling to devote time and energy to the things that really plagued the country. He made even more explicit criticism of the existing nationalist leaders in his lecture on ‘Nationalism in India’, whose ideals were based on Western history and warns of the dangers that lurks in the western imported nationalism, camouflaged as Swadeshi to the intrinsic Indian tradition of tolerance and peaceful coexistence.
This western imported nationalism is perpetuating the minds at the level where they were to grow in a liberal and all inclusive way but they possessed the exact opposite. This is seen in the part from the novel where we find the students are afflicted with the abstraction of nationalism and not the plight of the poor. For them the diktat of their brand of nationalism must be followed irrespective of their personal condition, for them the idea of nation is greater than the condition of people within the nation. The fact that people never thought of the suffering of the poor is indicated in the discussion that took place during the holidays between the students, Nikhil and Mastermoshai. When the students protested to Nikhil in demand of banishing foreign goods from Suksar market, Nikhil and Mastermoshai explain them that the nation is not just an abstraction, it means the people living on the soil. Nikhil’s master cautions the over-zealous students and says:
“Have you wasted so much as a glance as to what was happening to them (people of the soil)? But now you would dictate what salt they shall eat, what clothes they shall wear. Why should they put up with such tyranny and why should we let them?” (Tagore, Rabindranath. Home and the World. Penguin Books India, 2005.)
So the imposition of Swadeshi ideals results not only in the loss for small traders but also their poor customers. Thus a whole section of society is dispossessed of their existence and forced to conform to the ideals imposed by the upper section of people, who were incidentally the people of the same soil to which the poor belonged too. The students, in the novel, however remain unmoved, make sarcastic remarks that Nikhil is concerned about the decline in profits and leave the meeting with chants of Bande Mataram. The conflict between political freedom and the desire for basic necessities is presented through the debate between the idealist students and the practical Nikhil and Mastermoshai. The students are enthused by the abstraction of nationalism and remain nonchalant to the plight of the poor. The type of nationalism that captivated the students of Suksar is not economic and cultural nationalism but authoritarian. This brings me to the point where it links to the Harvest Song, describing the years leading to the Tebhaga movement. The movement of Tebhaga was emancipatory for the poor peasants. It was a movement where it rose from the lowest strata of society and which was not imposed on them. In comparison to the students of Suksar, who are seen to be enamoured by jingoistic nationalism, it can be seen during Tebhaga it is the city educated youths who devote their whole lives in the project of emancipation of the poor, through education and concentrating on the factors that would make their existence better against the oppression of the rulers. Thus it can be seen the main interest of Tagore in Swadeshi work which was education and village reconstruction by promoting village products (crops in case of Tebhaga) is seen during Tebhaga movement. Though, the educated class who were helping the movement of Tebhaga was not loyalist of Tagore, still, the course of looking at the rudimentary sections of society was similar to certain extent. Thus, when Nikhil states that, “It is my desire to plant something greater than Swadeshi. I am not after dead logs but living trees”, it becomes the ultimate ideal which is to be followed, by devoting life to humanity. ‘Something greater than Swadeshi’ can be the Tagore’s idea of internationalism, the coexistence of all cultures, in place of nationalism; and ‘not after dead logs nut living trees’ can be interpreted as, people who are not captivated by the over-zealous brand of nationalism are the people on whom Tagore would try to inscribe his ideals and not go after people who have become like ‘dead logs’ due to their adherence to over-zealous class specific nationalism.
Tebhaga movement
The Tebhaga movement is a product of the share cropping system prevailing over nineteen century Bengal. It used to be the jotedars, who were the new class of rich peasants dominated the Bengal area. They used to occupy huge tracts of land and turned out to be more impactful than the Zamindars. They controlled the local markets and money lending activities. The agricultural tracts under the jotedars were cultivated by the sharecroppers, also called the bhagadars, who in return would give half of the harvest to the jotedars. By late 1946, jotedars challenged the existing system of share cropping. They asserted to pay only one-third of the produce and not half of it. They also asserted that the harvest will be stored in their godowns known as khamars and not that of jotedars. Thus the movement reflected the development of the political consciousness among the poor peasants who were deprived by the power wielding sections of society. In the wake of the prevailing upheavals in the rural regions of Bengal, a draft bill was circulated by the then Muslim League Ministry of H.S. Subhrawardy, relating to the right of the bargadars, presumably it is the direct response to the Tebhaga movement, that covered large parts of rural Bengal. The draft bill suggested not half but one-third of the harvest to be given to the land owner. However, the draft bill was withdrawn due to the final transfer of power and the negotiations that that came into the forefront due to the partition coming to a crucial phase. The Bargadari Act of 1950 was to a large extent similar to the earlier draft bill of 1946-47.
The protest of the peasants during the Tebhaga movement was against the Zamindars or the jotedars, who were backed by the colonial power, before independence and by the Govt. of Bengal, which became representation of colonial power after independence. Their nation-state does comprise of the part of land they cultivate, concerned with clan, tribe, village or province, people rarely extended their interests nationwide. So, the struggle of the peasants against the zamindars can also be seen as a revolt against the colonial empire, which withdrew taxes from the zamindars and also supported the zamindars with their repressive state apparatus. In a few places the peasants declared their zones as Tebhaga areas and many Tebhaga committees were set up to govern the area locally. Such kinds of Tebhaga areas were established in the districts of Jessore, Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri. So, I consider Tebhaga as nationalism.
This is the movement which incorporated the lowest sections of society within the fold of revolt against the rule. The reason, I think it is not directly considered among the main stray of nation formation because the people involved, mainly the peasants were not demanding a nation of their own. But my point is, it is their way of resistance against the oppression of the rulers; first, the Zamindars or jotedars and second, the British, who back the ‘local elite’. Thus, the revolt against the jotedars or zamindars was their revolt against the imperialist force.
Besides, I would like to draw the instance of Tebhaga from the novel Harvest Song by Sabitri Roy. This novel guides us through the tumultuous years leading to the Tebhaga movement. The novel shows the process of emancipation and the rise of political consciousness of the villagers. The suppressed sections of rural Bengal breaks out of the shackles of illiteracy and ignorance to exert its foot hold on the process of development. The novel shows two kinds of movement, one towards the villages from the cities, and another towards the cities from villages. The movement is in a cyclic order, which is denoted in the form of emancipating the souls from the villages and leading them to the city life, which is a marker of development. Also, the people who are devoted to the cause of the village people return in order to emancipate them. Thus one can compare this movement of people to Cave Allegory as mentioned in The Republic by Plato.
The villagers represent the people of cave who were ignorant of the life outside. It is through education, that the villagers are able to move out of the hold that they were in. Partha, the bright student of the village was able to go out of the cave and gather knowledge of the world outside and comes back to his village to free other people who are trapped in the detrimental condition of ignorance. Thus, the coming of Partha at the very beginning of the novel is the advent to the cave of the person who was freed earlier, thus liberating the lives of Ketaki, Debaki, Ali and Meghi. Though Partha is not present physically in the process of liberation of these people from their state of existence in the village but the ideals he represent were the agents of the liberation of these people.
The other thing that is seen in the eve of this movement is movement and during this movement of Tebhaga is that the emancipation of villagers through education and concentrating on the factors that would make their existence better against the oppression of the rulers, which was the main interest of Rabindranath Tagore in Swadeshi work, education and village reconstruction by promoting village products, crops in case of Tebhaga, is seen during Tebhaga movement. It is the movement which arose out of the one of the most under-privileged sections of society, the peasants. The specialty of this movement is that it was not imposed on the peasants by the privileged upper sections of society. So, it is opposite to that of Swadeshi movement in the direction of the flow of the movement. While Swadehi did not incorporate the voice of the poor and deprived sections of society, Tebhaga is the movement of that section of society who were not the concern of the elite and middle class of the society. The reason that I would consider behind not incorporating the Tebhaga movement as a part of the nationalist movement and considering it solely as a peasants rebellion is because the rebellion was against these elite section who in due course after the independence of India wrote the history. The history that is presented to us is the history re-presented by the elite, who are the dominant group in the society.
I do accept that the involvement of the communist party was there with in the rebellion, as Kisan Sabha, peasant’s wing of Communist Party of India, but it only guided and channelized the existing tension that was already present among the sharecroppers. To judge it in the language of Partha Chatterjee, ‘the emancipatory aspects of nationalism were undermined by countless revelations of […] and the cynical pursuit of private interests’ (Chatteijee, Partha. “Whose imagined community?.” The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. New Jersey: Princeton UP (1993): 3-13); it can be seen as a form of ‘private interest’ on the part of political party involved, as they might have the pursuit of increasing their acceptance among the lowest class of the society, but that does not demean the struggle of the peasants against the oppressive rulers and the support of ardent party workers who believed in the cause of the peasants even when the political party had withdrawn their allegiance from the peasants cause and shifted it to the British, supporting the WWII as “people’s war”.
The communal divide that was created during the Swadeshi movement due to the economic deprivation of the Muslims is still asserts its presence during Tebhaga, as a passage in the Novel says:
“The Muslim farmers need to understand that their interest is identical with the Hindus. It is natural that the stronger the movement becomes, the more determined the vested interests will be to try to break it. They will use their standard weapons of communalism, provincialism and racism in order to capitalize on the divisions among the farmers.” (Roy, Sabitri. Harvest Song: A Novel on the Tebhaga Movement, Kolkata: Stree, Jan 2006, p.195)
The participation of people from all the sectors of society, irrespective of the differences is being demanded so that the weapons commonly used against them do not find a loop hole to work its way through it. Thus the spontaneous participation of people from all the sections without any forceful imposing of ideals by another section is being wanted, which is the same to what Rabindranath Tagore wanted as mentioned earlier.
As opposed to the Swadeshi movement where the educated city students were moved by the over-zealous ideals of nationalism were not concerned about the perils of the poor, during the Tebhaga movement the educated students became an integral part of the process of unification of the peasants and in leading the struggle, as we find in Harvest Song the character of Partho does. The shift may be because of the political ideological affiliation of the students during these two movements were different. In a section police officers come to search Sulakshan’s house, while inspecting his table,
“Leafing through the books,, the officer said, ‘Seems to be an educated person. I don’t understand why such people have to waste their lives for a craze.’” (ibid. p.330)
It is the spirit of the well-directed educated youth that can guide a movement to its best possible position. It is duty of the educated youth to guide and emancipate the weakest and help him to become the strongest force against oppression. In the words of Kazi Nazrul Islam, “ke acho jowan hou agoan, dakiche bhobisot” (Who is young, come forward, future is calling) (Nazrul, Islam. Kandari Husiyar. Translated by Majumder, Biswajit.) so the youths of the society have to take responsibility of the future.
Even after independence the picture of the sharecroppers did not improve. India is established as a free nation but the sharecroppers are not free from the old rule of the sharecropping which was monopolized by the class of wealthy land owners. Thus, the condition of the sharecroppers remain same even after the independence, so the nation is formed by the process of exclusion, the demands of the peasants are excluded. To answer directly the question, whether the Tebhaga movement still remained the same in spirit after independence of India or to speak it more precisely have not the movement become more in aligned with the party lines of CPI?, I would agree that the protest not remained a protest from below, as it was in initial days. The movement has changed from being a peasants’ protest to an armed struggle. No doubt, the CPI had ‘cynical pursuit of private interests’ in getting involved in the movement, but if we look it from the perspective of the peasants, it still remains the story of them being oppressed by those who were in power, and their armed rebellion against the government and declaring some areas as Tebhaga areas and many Tebhaga committees were set up to govern the area locally, that is freeing themselves from the law of the government of the nation becomes the last resort to establish their presence with their demands, within the newly formed nation, where the laws should be similar to the laws of Tebhaga areas. Thus, I consider an armed freedom struggle leading to the formation of a nation is similar to the armed rebellion of the peasants leading to the formation of a Tebhaga area or a peasants’ nation, where they are the dominating group. So, in the case of Tebhaga movement, it is a politically motivated nationalism of the economically oppressed section of society.
Partition of India
The brand of nationalism that led to the partition of India in 1947 and thus the second partition of Bengal remains the most impactful and severe on the lives of the people affected by it. The focus of the nationalistic ideals and the roles played by Hindu bhadralok – the ‘respectable people’ takes a dramatic change from the first partition of Bengal in 1905 to the second partition. The Hindu bhadralok community who were nationalist opponents of the 1905 partition became the nationalist proponents of the second partition during 1940s. This shift is not a product of a few years but decades of growing disparity between two communities both culturally and economically. It can be traced back to the decade of first partition of Bengal, when the poor were forced to the ideals of Swadeshi and Muslims being economically weaker were at the receiving end of the over-zealous Swadeshi ideals. Following this there was the rejection of Congress leaders who supported the reform of rural economy, which led to the increase in the rift disastrously in the 1930s between the Muslim peasant majority and the Hindu landowners and moneylenders. Adding to that there was the flow of bhadralok elitism, which ever more “”promoted a powerful sense of cultural superiority over the Muslims of Bengal” (Chatterji, Joya. Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932 -1947. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)
There was considerable influence of the Hindu renaissance movements over the revolutionary -movements against the despotic British rule and helped in the formation of the philosophical basis for the struggles and political movements that originated in the first decade of the twentieth century. The Hindu ideals were thoroughly present in the nationalist struggle, like the Anushilan Samiti which was started as cultural society in1902 to propagate the teachings of Bhagavad Gita but it soon changed its goal to overthrow the British rule. Similarly, though Gandhiji never considered himself as a “Hindu nationalist” but in his description of the rule that he wants for India, he uses the term “Rama Rajya”, thus leaving reference to the Hindu god Rama. Gandhi said:
“By political independence I do not mean an imitation to the British House of commons, or the soviet rule of Russia or the Fascist rule of Italy or the Nazi rule of Germany. They have systems suited to their genius. We must have ours suited to ours. What that can be is more than I can tell. I have described it as Ramarajya i.e., sovereignty of the people based on pure moral authority.” (Puri, Bindu. “Understanding Swaraj: Tagore and Gandhi.” The Tagore-Gandhi Debate on Matters of Truth and Untruth. Springer India, 2015. 137-167.)
What I meant to say is that the Hindu ideologies are ingrained with the political movements against the British rule, because of the majority status of Hindus in India and also in the movement against the British. This led to the feeling of more alienation for the Muslims. With the progress of time the emphasis of nationalist ideas in Bengal shifted from being anti-British to anti-Muslim. There was a considerable effort in achieving Hindu unity against the rule of Muslims in Bengal, but it is ultimately the outlook of Bengal’s inclusion in an Islamic Pakistan acted as a more powerful imperative towards Hindu unity. The cry was for the creation of a “Hindu homeland” through the partition of Bengal. The Hindu bhadralok community appropriated themselves with religiosity through Ramakrisna, a rustic, anti elitist personality popular with the Bengali ‘masses’, so that they can mediate between the bhadralok’s own identity of a secular and elitist, and the worldview of the common religious classes. Thus bhadralok religiosity is the idea of balancing between the two in order to unite the Hindu community, irrespective of their social position; the religious identity becomes the main uniting factor for the creation of “Hindu Homeland”. What is created in the process of the creation of Hindu and Muslim homeland by the partition of Bengal for the second time is the formation of refugees and minorities on both side of the newly formed border. As Sohorab Ali says in the novel Japito Jobon by Selina Hossain:
“Understood. We are refugees and they are minorities. India’s independence has created these two types of people. Human with in human.” (Hossain, Selina. Japito Jibon, Dhaka Biddyaprokash, November 1999.translated from Bengali by Majumder, Biswajit. 2016. p.13)
Thus, nationalism may lead to the formation of nation but it is still the process of alienation. The alienated selves are created where one gets to live as their new home but cannot connect with the place, does not feel at home in their new nation where as people who had born in the land and spent their lives here, “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps” (Collins, Larry, and Dominique Lapierre. Freedom at midnight. HarperCollins, 1975) are turned into minorities. This is true for both India and Pakistan.
In the process of jingoistic nationalism both the religious communities have drifted apart to the extent from where there was no return. The fears that were expressed by Rabindranath Tagore in the imitation western nationalism lay its full fledged existence in the nationalistic process leading to the partition of India. He writes in Nationalism,
“where the spirit of western nationalism prevails, the whole people in being taught from boyhood to foster hatred and ambition by all kinds of means – by the manufacture of half- truths and untruths in history by persistent misrepresentation of other races…” (Tagore, Rabindranath. Nationalism. Pengiun Books India, 2009)
The idea of nationalism is interpreted differently by different people. As in The Home and the World, Sandip goes for the extreme view that, “we shall never be able to bring them [the Muslims] wholly around to our side. So they must be suppressed altogether and made to understand that we are the masters” (Tagore, Rabindranath. Home and the World. Penguin Books India, 2005. ). This kind of jingoist nationalism was still present during the final years leading to partition of India. Sandip proclaims a type of nationalism which equates the country with the God, such depictions arouses feelings of jingoism and intolerance. Such type of nationalism thus, incorporated intolerance between people of two religious communities leading to massacre of human lives in riots and partition of the nation.
There is respect for each other’s traditions even in the midst of tumultuous conditions are quite deftly portrayed in the short story “Ekti Tulsi Gacher Kahini” (The tale of a Tulsi plant) by Syed Waliullah. The story describes the focefull occupying of a house by some Muslim men. Description of the house, especially the presence of the Tulsi plant in the house, makes us realize that it is a Hindu house that they have occupied. The tulsi plant has almost dried up when they have arrived, but somehow it had gained back its greener form, possibly the Muslim men must have watered it. But at the end police arrives and orders them to leave the house as the house is requisitioned by the government. They leave the house after ten days. The narrator tells us, from the day police arrived; no one watered the tulsi plant. Waliullah ends the story with the line,
“why water was not showered is not to be known by the Tulsi plant, should be known to humans” (Waliullah, Syed. Ekti Tulsi Gacher Kahini. Posted on 2015/02/01)
But the mutual respect is interrupted or hampered by the ideals presented from the authoritative sections of society. Once the people are able to assign to the idea that the ideals of humanity is greater than the country as is categorically stated by Tagore, only then people will be able to avoid the fanaticism involved with nationalism.
Formation of Bangladesh
Many complex forces strand together to form the nationalism of Bengali Muslim. Several secular and non-secular nationalisms found its place in the demography of the newly independent nations and would be independent nations of South Asia. This led to many intra-national and international conflicts. Nationalism in any of the above mentioned form leads to the assertion of the identity, inspirational and integrative elements of a culture. Different aspects of nationalism, linguistic, religious, economic and political are all used by the nationalists to raise, systematize, and direct nationalism for the implementation of elite ambitions or public aspirations to be independent. The nationalism of the Bengali Muslims gradually became more religio-ethno-linguistic, first due to economic pressure from non-Muslims and later under the pressure from non-Bengalis.
The process of emancipation of Bengali Muslims started with the process of partition of Bengal in 1905, where the Muslims of Bengal hoped for their development under the new set up but with the revoking of the partition in 1911, under the pressure of Congress Party, led the Bengali Muslims to feel that this to a conspiracy to Muslims from the opportunities of advancement. These feelings led to the increase of the gap between two religious communities. The formation of a Muslim nation was accepted by the Bengali Muslims as the opportunity of their process of development but that was also hindered when it was decided Urdu would be chosen as the official language. The marker of identity which some thirty years back based on common religion, shifted to marker of common language, Bengali. Thus the language is agent in the formation of the nation. Benedict Anderson defines nation as “an imagined political community” (Anderson,) He further states:
“It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson, Benedict. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso Books, 2006.)
Thus in the case of the formation of the nation that is being talked about here, the answer remains the same. They may feel belonging to a same community but that is an imagined construct based on a marker of unity of Bengali Language.
But here I would like to confer that within the Bengali language itself there are several kinds of Bengali accents depending on the place. So, the Bengali spoken in Dhaka, Sylet, Chattagram or Borisal will be completely different from each other despite being all different versions of Bengali language. This brings me to the word ‘political’ as mentioned by Anderson. The politicization starts from the point of giving the urban Bengali language of the capital the main preference. Besides, language acts as an agent, political tool of the political party to unify the community.
The novel Japito Jibon, by Selina Hossain is written on the backdrop of the language movement in East Pakistan. The novel shows through one generation the lives after partition of a Bengali Muslim family who have shifted to East Pakistan after partition and through another generation the language movement. The constant anxiety in the mind of Sohrab Ali whether he has to leave this country again. The idea of nation becomes volatile for Sohrab, he, despite being a Muslim was unable to connect with the land that he had to relocate. Before he could complete adapt with the land the news of another turmoil filters in. The identity of being a Muslim shifts to the identity of being a Bengali Muslim. When Jafar, Sohrab’s university going middle son asks him
“Father, if pressure comes on us so shall we resist?
Obviously! In no way should we compromise. Compromising means leaving one’s right.” (Hossain, Selina. Japito Jibon, Dhaka Biddyaprokash, November 1999.translated from Bengali by Majumder, Biswajit. 2016. p 51)
The reply of Sohrab Ali, shows the trauma that he goes through in his mind for leaving his house in Behrampore (a city in present state of West Bengal). It is because of his compromising in the fear of the riots taking he has lost the right to his birth place. If he would have stayed, he might have been killed, but if he could have survived he would have turned into a minority but would not have lost his right to his birth place. So, again, when another situation arises, where a part of his identity, his language, is in a state of being jeopardized, he retaliates. He is not a fanatic Muslim, so his existence within a Muslim nation is never close to his heart, but when crisis comes down on his mother tongue, he his unwilling to compromise. He says
“…For this (establishing a country based on language) political movement is needed. Leadership is needed. People need to be aroused…”( Hossain, Selina. Japito Jibon, Dhaka Biddyaprokash, November 1999.translated from Bengali by Majumder, Biswajit. 2016. pg 99)
Thus, these lines establish the definition of nation by Anderson. The nation which is an ‘imagined political community’ needs the political involvement to guide the agent of union through the people involved in order to tie them with the cause, thus establishing the nation.
The subjugation of the people of East Pakistan was double, first, the geographical position being far from the centre of power, there was tendency of laws being forced down on them and second, because of the difference of the language. The aspect of nationalism that steered the Bengali Muslims into one community is the common language. The decision of selecting Urdu as the official language of both East and West Pakistan sparked the difference that lay among the people who are bound within one nation by religious identity. Thus, we can see over the years, the idea of nationalism changes according to the demands of the time. The construct of nationalism, the ideals depended on economic condition, religious identity or common language. There is no single condition on which nationalism remains dependent, so, with the change of the aspect of nationalism on which it is based the idea of nation also changes. The present nation of Bangladesh is the greatest example of such kind change. First, the idea of common religious identity led to the formation of East Pakistan, a land for the Muslims and second, this religious identity is changed religio-ethno-linguistic identity, which led to the formation of Bangladesh, a land of Bengali Muslims.
Naxalite movement in Bengal during early 1970s
Nationalism is a movement in which the nation-state is regarded as paramount for the realization of social, economic, and cultural aspirations of people. But during Naxalite movement, during the first two years of 1970s, the nation-state was not able to provide for the needs of the weakest sections of society. The social and economic aspirations of the people were not fulfilled by the government. During those two years, though they were not trying to form a new nation, they were trying to establish a society according to their ideals by replacing the govt. Nationalism is characterized principally by a feeling of community among people based on common descent, language or religion. Thus it is an attempt of forming an area based on leftist ideologies by a community who believes in those ideals. I considered Naxalite movement within nationalism because it is the new form of muscular nationalism that exist highlighting how the government has failed to include some voices of the deprived sections of society and makes an attempt to establish which is not a replica of the imperialist forces that from which power has been transferred to the section of elites of the society.
If we look at the movements which are considered as nationalist movements we would see they are the movement which have got the sanction from the elite sections of society, even if the struggle is a mass struggle it is seen the presence of the elite class. If the movement is against the elite class, who replicate the imperialist forces preceding them, then it is considered to be a class struggle. Such is the case for Naxalite movement during 1970s in West Bengal. The state represented a semi-colony, where the privileged sections of society, the upper and middle class are concerned with their own development, while the lowest sections are deprived in every spheres of life. The Naxalite movement turned from being a peasant’s revolt supported by the communists to being a student’s revolt against the bourgeois values. Every time I mention Naxalite movement, it would mean I am referring to this student’s revolt. I would like to focus on the aspect of Naxalite movement during this period where the educated youths took their plunge into the movement in hope of reforming the social condition, through Mahaswets Devi’s novel Mother Of 1084 and Styajit Ray’s fim Seemabadha.
In Mother of 1084, Mahasweta Devi presents the quest of an apolitical mother to know what led to the death of her son, what her martyred Naxalite son stood for. In the course of her journey she is able to know Brati, whom he didn’t knew when he was alive, thus death brought them closer. It is said in the novel
“All that Brati could have been charged with was that he had lost his faith in the social system itself. Brati had decided for himself that freedom could not come from the path society and state followed” (Devi, Mahasweta. Mother of 1084. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1997, 2008. p 17-18)
Yes, like Brati several others have lost faith in the system of society. It has been the society where the ruler represents the colonizers who preceded them. During the colonial rule the elites were benefited at the cost of the subjugation of the poor. The poor were doubly oppressed. The same process continued after independence of India too. The poor are always being used for their benefit. If the poor conform their allegiance to the controllers of society then there remains a chance of token of benefit in return. The description of the area where Somu, Brati’s comrade, who was killed with Brati, once lived says the condition of the poor.
“The opposition had always polled a majority in the region [refugee colony]. And the Government had taken its revenge by denying the region the simple comforts of a decent road, a health care, an adequate number of tubewells or a bus route. Those who had grown rich in the last two decades in the region itself had not cared to do anything for the area” (ibid. pg 33)
Thus the indifferent attitude of the government led to this uprising, where the birth of “new men” is wished for who would be able to dissolute these difference.
“The Struggle of ours is not [for] a seizure of power. Comrade Charu Mazumder has said that we must become new men. This is a struggle for the birth of new men. – West Bengal Bihar Border Region Committee, July 1971 – Janauary 1972” (Dasgupta, Rajeshwari. “Towards the’New Man’: Revolutionary Youth and Rural Agency in the Naxalite Movement.” Economic and Political Weekly (2006): 1920-1927.)
Brati stands for the “new men” who would leave his upper-middle class social life, a career full of opportunities of personal growth to devote it to the cause for the development of the deprived by acting against the class to which he himself belongs to.
“… when Brati began to change it was not due only to book or political lectures; that Brati had felt the anguish of men like Somu, son of poor parents, or those like Laltu, humiliated by fate and life, and other men like them, as keenly as if it was his own, and that had caused him to change.” (Devi, Mahasweta. Mother of 1084. Calcutta: Seagull Books.. 1997, 2008. p. 68)
Mahasweta Devi unmasks the bourgeois community who can go to any extent to save their honour. This is shown in Brati’s father and brother pulling every string to stop the name of Brati being printed in the list of killed naxalites. Such shrewdness is also depicted in the film “Seemabadha” where a sales manager makes a false incident of Naxalite activity, in order to save the reputation of himself and his company. Eventually due to his shrewd presence of mind of tackling the situation he gets promotion. The brilliance of Satyajit Ray lies in his setting the story about an upper class family during the time and against the backdrop when West Bengal is afflicted with severe form of Naxalite movement, but not showing a single naxal. Their lives are hardly affected by the revolution of the naxals. The only place the topic of naxals get place is when the upper class people get together to chat. Talking about them and taking advantage about in the name of the movement for their own benefit is what they can do. The male lead says during one discussions says “Are they [naxals] speaking about jobs? They are saying that the whole system has rotten. I don’t think they want jobs!” (Ray, Satyajit. Seemabadha). Yes, they do not wanted jobs only for themselves under the ‘rotten’ system, but want to change the system and make jobs available for everyone. If they would have wanted jobs for themselves then people like Brati would not have entered in the movement, as many meritorious students with bright career ahead choose the path of revolution for the betterment of society. But they were considered anti-socials and murdered. If demanding and attempting to establish a better society is a crime then the people whom we now call freedom fighters are also anti-socials, as they too wanted and strived to make a better India by freeing the people from the clutches of British. Similarly, the students who became naxals wanted to free the deprived sections from the clutches of those rulers who are imitators of the rulers from imperialist regime. So, if the activities of the freedom fighters are considered nationalism then the movement of the naxals is also nationalism, a new form of nationalism, muscular nationalism, because they depended and wielded the power of their muscles, to free the nation from the clutches of evils that hamper the development of every section of society even after independence from colonized rule.
Conclusion
In the course of analyzing the five historical events of Bengal from 1906 till 1970s we can locate that there has been shift in the idea of nationalism with the progress of time. In the partition of Bengal, 1905, nationalism is inflicted with the ideals of the upper class people, who were more or less associated with the Indian National Congress. In the case of Tebhaga movement, it is a politically motivated nationalism of the economically oppressed section of society. During the partition of India, thus partition of Bengal for the second time nationalism takes the form of politically motivated religious nationalism. The formation of Bangladesh is based on the religio-ethno-linguistic nationalism with main focus towards common language and during the Naxalite movement of students, the cause of deprivation of lower class and inequality present in society leads to politically involved muscular nationalism. Thus, it can be said, nationalism is not depended on a single line of thought of a particular section of society. Nationalism has multi-dimensions and it gets fractured to hide the other facets or moulds itself to show only one facet at a time, that one facet is strived through the community to form a nation. The idea of nationalism and nation formation is a political construct. The political community superseded the religious, economic and linguistic identities and politics puts these identities into the mould of nationalism. Thus the transition of Bengali nationalism is from being confined to the ‘bhadralok’ community in 1905 to a classless nationalism by the students for the development of the deprived sections of society in 1970s, classless because students from every section of society participated in it.
Bibliography
- Hobsbawm, Eric J. Nations and nationalism since 1780: Programme, myth, reality. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
- Chatterjee, Partha. Empire and Nation: selected essays. Columbia University Press, 2010
- Chatteijee, Partha. “Whose imagined community?.” The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. New Jersey: Princeton UP(1993): 3-13.
- Tagore, Rabindranath. Home and the World. Penguin Books India, 2005.
- Tagore, Rabindranath. A Centenary Volume, 1861-1961. Sahitya Akademi, 1961.
- Roy, Sabitri. Harvest Song: A Novel on the Tebhaga Movement, Kolkata: Stree, Jan 2006
- Hossain, Selina. Japito Jibon, Dhaka Biddyaprokash, November 1999.translated from Bengali by Majumder, Biswajit. 2016
- Collins, Larry, and Dominique Lapierre. Freedom at midnight. HarperCollins, 1975.
- Tagore, Rabindranath. Pengiun Books India, 2009
- Waliullah, Syed. Ekti Tulsi Gacher Kahini. Posted on 2015/02/01. https://jyotirjagat.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/%E0%A6%9B%E0%A7%8B%E0%A6%9F%E0%A6%97%E0%A6%B2%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AA-%E0%A7%AB%E0%A7%A6-%E0%A6%8F%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%9F%E0%A6%BF-%E0%A6%A4%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%B8%E0%A7%80-%E0%A6%97%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%9B/
- Anderson, Benedict. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso Books, 2006.
- Devi, Mahasweta. Mother of 1084. Calcutta: Seagull Books.. 1997, 2008.
- Seemabaddha (film) Satyajit Ray. Initial release:November 22, 1974
biswajitabsolved 