DISCUSSION Economic & Political Weekly EPW DECEMBER 15, 2012 vol xlvii no 50 71 I would like to thank Kushal Deb, Rowena Robinson, D Parthasarathy, Manabi Mazumdar and Shoma Choudhury Lahiri for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Sarbani Bandyopadhyay (sarbani.bandyopadhyay @gmail.com) teaches sociology at St Xavier’s College, Kolkata. Caste and Politics in Bengal Sarbani Bandyopadhyay Any attempt at understanding the presence or absence of caste in West Bengal today calls for a contextualisation of the problem by studying the history of caste politics in pre-Independence united Bengal. A response to Praskanva Sinharay (“A New Politics of Caste”, EPW, 25 August 2012) and Uday Chandra and Kenneth Bo Nielsen (“The Importance of Caste in Bengal”, EPW, 3 November 2012). P raskanva Sinharay has argued that caste has never been important or relevant category in the electoral process in West Bengal and that the situ- ation has now changed with the political assertion of the Matua Mahasangha. Chandra and Nielsen have referred to Chatterjee’s (1997) argument that in everyday village life and popular con- sciousness caste remained important to underscore their point that caste has always been a relevant category in Bengal, including Bengal politics. While agreeing with much of what they argued in that discussion I intend to point out through this article that caste was not only rele- vant in everyday life and “the apparently uninstitutionalised world of what may be called politics among the people” (Chandra and Nielsen 2012: 59) but very importantly in the world of institution- alised, formal politics. My argument is that because assertive “lower” caste politics made its presence well felt in the domain of formal politics, it became necessary for the bhadralok to resist it. This article seeks to ground the question of caste in present-day West Bengal in the history of caste movements and politics in late 19th and 20th centuries of undivided Bengal. A history of lower caste assertions in Bengal is likely to help us locate the promi- nence or lack of caste in Bengal today. Hyper-Visibility of Caste If one looks at histories and literatures of caste mobilisations during the colonial period in Bengal one would be obliged to confront and rethink the alleged lack of significance of caste in Bengal. In this period we find a hyper-visibility of caste. Although these movements began seek- ing higher varna status for their respective castes they soon began to claim special treatment from the colonial government arguing that their current economic and political oppression was inseparable from their caste oppression. 1 That caste was marginal to Bengal politics was a nation- alist/bhadralok myth but the sustenance of this myth was becoming increasingly difficult as the swadeshi movement began to show not only a clear lack of interest of the so-called lower castes but also their active resistance to it (Bandyopadhyay 2011). Around the early decades of the 20th century Manindranath Mandal a Poundra- kshatriya 2 leader was making strenuous efforts to build a counter-hegemony to (brahminical) bhadralok politics and dominance. The result was the formation of the Bangiya Jana Sangha ( BJS ) (Bengal People’s Association) in 1922, an umbrella organisation of many oppressed castes. Though short-lived, the BJS was an im- portant move in the history of dalit politics in Bengal. It seems to have crossed the “limits” when it threatened to “launch agitations along the lines of the Muslim League if its demands were not met” (M Mandal 1922: 10). It meant pursuing a separatist agenda that could have further jeopardised Hindu bhadralok politics. The significance of the BJS could be well grasped when in 1926 the All Bengal Depressed Classes Association was formed which supported the system of separate electorates. However it may be more sig- nificant in our context to note that when a section of the All India Depressed Classes Association led by M C Rajah was opposing the separate electorates stand and entered into a pact with the Hindu Mahasabha, the Bengal Association stood firmly by Ambedkar (Bandyopadhyay 1990: 165-66). Although fraught with disunity 3 the dalit castes and their poli- tics had entered the forbidden stage: that of institutionalised formal politics. One of the planks on which these castes claimed higher varna status was their “authentic Hinduness” that was shown to be clearly established in their ritual and social practices (Ray 1916). Attempts were made by the Congress and Hindu organisations, like the Hindu Mahasabha and the Hindu Mission, to co-opt the different caste movements, especially when their demands for high ritual status got combined with their efforts to seek benefits in the secular field of politics, education and employment. Some recent dalit activists and scholars 4 think that this claim of Hindu-ness created and in many ways weakened the caste movements but it also could not be denied