[Reader-list] Marichjhapi and the Revenge of Bengali Bhadralok: The story of a Dalit Genocide that remains untold

Wed Dec 2 00:51:48 IST 2009

does these anywhere mean bengal politics, left-far left-centre-right, ever gave space to any caste/ethnic identity? the east pakistani, then usuallly hindu, first lot upper caste, subsequent lot lower castes, always held the popular basis of the left in the late forties-early fifties. the first meeting of refugee committee (UCRC) formed and led by the left, had no reference to any demand for population exchange like punjab, proper rehab, rather they had demands against any collaboration with imperialism etc!!!

so far, the only authentic history of the post-partition refugees, forming of refugee colonies etc, can be found in 'marginal men' by prafulla chakraborty (again a brahmin refugee and historian by profession, received Rabindra Puraskar (prize by the wb govt in the name of RNTagore, one of the most revered prizes in west bengal for his history of the french revolution in bengali) had no reference other than from newspapers. thus has been the extent of silence on refugees from east pakistan/ b'desh. does it not contain any caste aspect? thats why I find marichjhapi a continuation of that lack of concern and not (possibly merely) militancy neither lack of resources or mismanagement.

only now these aspects are being questioned. and namashudras have come into discussion because left-secular (incidentally brahmin) researchers like sekhar bandyopadhyay has worked on them and published them in the 'revered' journals!! again an amitav ghosh case!!

not only caste, ethnicity has received similar silence. there has been so much support for singur and nandigram, but comparatively little for lalgarh. may be the violence of non-state actors in lalgarh has a role to play in this mute response, even then, little space for any identity, gender, caste, ethnicity -- any dimension other than class has ever seemed politically correct in bengal!!!

best

saswati

> Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2009 21:49:03 +0530
> From: a.mani.cms at gmail.com
> To: reader-list at sarai.net; pragoti at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Marichjhapi and the Revenge of Bengali Bhadralok: The story of a Dalit Genocide that remains untold
> 
> (sorry for crossposting)
> 
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 9:57 AM, Sudeep K S <sudeep.ks at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 11:53 PM, A. Mani <a.mani.cms at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Caste is of little consequence in Left-Bengal.
> >
> >     You know what, CPM has been saying the same about Kerala also. What a
> > coincidence!
> 
> Caste is the business of a minority bourgeois. Within the party it is taboo.
> For the few religion-based clashes in the past, vested interests had
> to rely on very small
> groups of misguided people or hired goons. Caste-based clashes are
> relatively unknown in West Bengal. These are well documented.
> 
> >>
> >> There are two main
> >> aspects in the marichjhapi story:
> >>
> >> 1. Mismanagement of the refugee problem by the Left Government. Due to
> >> resource constraints, the Govt realised that they could not offer much
> >> support to the refugees in Dandakarnya.  But entry into the state was
> >> allowed  - this was a mistake (they were explicitly warned of 'no Govt
> >> support', though). Most of the village people in West Bengal resisted
> >> their entry and many violent incidents did take place.
> >>
> >> The police action was intended to evict the refugees from Marichjhapi
> >> and also to arrest particular merceneries.
> >>
> >> 2. The involvement of the CIA and related agencies (who apparently had
> >> infiltrated the refugee lines) in organising armed training camps was
> >> also a major reason for the police action. The CIA may never
> >> declassify documents relating to their involvement (and when they
> >> operate through other agencies, then it is not usually transparent).
> >>
> >> All decisions by the Left Government were taken on the basis of
> >> feedback from the ground level. Within the CPI(M) party all these
> >> aspects were debated in detail and
> >> many did not want a direct police action.
> >>
> >>  Direct casualties in action were limited. It is also true that most
> >> of the party people regard the forced eviction as the biggest mistake
> >> ever.
> >
> >     Could you substantiate the above two "main aspects" of your version of
> > the Marichjhapi story? Or shall we say this story of yours is completely
> > fictitious and biased, without any research going into it?
> 
> I checked up with party old-timers and former party members. "they
> were explicitly warned of 'no Govt support', though" was reported in
> the newspapers.
> 
> All these were debated extensively within the party at that time and
> quite a lot was reported.
> 
> 
> >     (The Kerala CPM also says "CIA" and 'foreign hand' whenever there is
> > anything spoken against them.).
> 
> CIA and foreign hand have been a problem even before
> http://www.firstministry.kerala.gov.in/articles.htm
> 
> 'CIA' and 'foreign hand' usually figure in accusations against others
> and their misdeeds (often of a violent nature). They heavily fund the
> Hindutva forces in Kerala in particular and there is plenty of
> evidence for the same. But the legal framework for dealing with this
> problem is not strong enough and is being persistently weakened
> through liberalisation.
> 
> You can find quantitative evidence in lots of places.
> 
> >> There are no parallels with any other later-day incident.
> >
> >     Ok -- drawing parallels is the job of those who get to hear stories. Let
> > them do it.
> >
> >> You can try claiming that the villagers in South Bengal were
> >> 'casteist', but it is not true.
> >
> >     Again, what is the basis of this claim?
> 
> Politics is far ahead of castes here (... if there is any). There
> should be some quantitative studies on this subject.
> 
> >     Going back to your allegation of the blog post being biased, what do you
> > say about the bias of the media and the academia who chose to remain silent
> > about it?
> 
> So much of violence had happened through out the seventies, first it
> was the Naxalites, then S.S. Ray. Over 1700 CPI(M) cadres, hundreds of
> SUCI cadres and lot more people were killed in the period. Even I
> remember seeing people breaking their heads and going to hospital in
> the most natural of ways.
> 
> I think people were just too numb to a problem of forced eviction and
> displacement. Most CPI(M) party members were very concerned and not
> just because of connections with East Bengal.
> 
> The media has always been biased towards the needs of the bourgeois
> and why should they focus on 'potential vote bank of the CPI(M)'? ...
> and displacement based politics is a very new thing
> 
> >     It was fun seeing you getting so touchy and trying to get away with huge
> > claims like "Caste is of little consequence in Left-Bengal". Let me repeat
> > my request once again: please do some rich research on this and tell us the
> > stories that still remain untold. I will be happy to hear that.
> >
> 
> There is nothing untold....if there is you need to come up with
> specific questions.
> Here is some interesting info:
> 
> According to data from the 2001 Census of India, the Namasudra is one
> of the main
> scheduled castes in West Bengal, with a population of 3,212,393
> people, or 17.4 percent of the Scheduled Caste population of West
> Bengal. It is second only to the Rajbanshi Scheduled Caste which has
> 3,386,617 people.
> 
> The Namashudra caste has the fourth-highest literacy rate of West
> Bengal Scheduled Castes: 71.9 percent, or 80.6 percent for males and
> 62.8 for females. The caste with the highest rate of literacy in West
> Bengal has 82.5 overall, while the national literacy average for
> Scheduled Castes is 54.7 percent (Office of the Registrar General,
> India (undated),‘West Bengal Data Highlights: The Scheduled Castes’,
> Census of India 2001
> http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Tables_Published/SCST/dh_sc_westbengal.pdf –
> 
> 
> Best
> 
> A. Mani
> 
> 
> -- 
> A. Mani
> ASL, CLC, AMS, CMS
> http://www.logicamani.co.cc
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