SWAP AN DAS' GUPTA LOCAL POLITICS IN BENGAL; MIDNAPUR DISTRICT 1907-1934 Theses submitted in fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy degree, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1980, ProQuest Number: 11015890 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11015890 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract This thesis studies the development and social character of Indian nationalism in the Midnapur district of Bengal* It begins by showing the Government of Bengal in 1907 in a deepening political crisis. The structural imbalances caused by the policy of active intervention in the localities could not be offset by the ’paternalistic* and personalised district administration. In Midnapur, the situation was compounded by the inability of government to secure its traditional political base based on zamindars. Real power in the countryside lay in the hands of petty landlords and intermediaries who consolidated their hold in the economic environment of growing commercialisation in agriculture. This was reinforced by a caste movement of the Mahishyas which injected the district with its own version of 'peasant-pride'. The thesis also argues that till 1921, the nationalist movement failed to involve the rural activists. Urban and rural political activity developed autonomously and without mutual reference. The radical change in nationalist politics in 1921 enabled some politicians to make the connection between these two currents. During the Non Co-operation movement, Midnapur witnessed a successful movement against additional rural taxation. It has also been contended that after 1922 the district Congress consciously strove to articulate the interests of 'well-to-do cultivators', especially the jotedars and tenure-holding ryots, and established its political hegemony on that basis. This was put to the test during the Civil Disobedience movement, when Midnapur, almost alone in all Bengal, was able to put up a formidable challenge to British rule. The thesis concludes that given the seemingly 'non-antagonistic' strategy employed by Congress in its relations with indigenous society, the social character of the nationalist movement was determined by the existing hierarchical patterns of class domination. In Midnapur, this found expression in the aggressive, but ideologically conservative, movement of the rural rich led by the intermediary jotedars. CONTENTS Acknowledgments 1 Abbreviations 2 1. Introduction. 3 2. Government in Midnapur 1907-1920. 8 3. Land and Caste in Midnapur. 4 2 4. Political Change in Midnapur 1907-1919. 5. The Non-Cooperation Movement. 6 . Congress and Midnapur Politics 1922-1930. ^7 Appendix 1. B. N. Sasmal on Terrorism. 7. The Civil Disobedience Movement 1930-1934. 197- Appendix 2. A note on Terrorism in Midnapur 1930-1934. 2 2 8 8 . Conclusion. 234 Bibliography. 2 ^ 8 List of Tables 2 : 1 Litigation in the Burdwan Division of Bengal 1902-1903. 17 2:2 Population of Towns in Midnapur District 1901-1931. 27 2:3 Municipalities in Midnapur 1911-1912. 28 2:4 Financial Position of Municipalities in Midnapur. 29 2:5 Average Income and Expenditure of Union Committees 1908-1911 36 3:1 Average Prices of Rice in Midnapur Markets 1887-1921. 51 3:2 Mahishya Population in Midnapur. 60 4:1 Government Estates in Midnapur District 1912. 85 5:1 Election Results of Midnapur South Constituency 1920. 101 5:2 Price of Rice in the Markets of Midnapur District. 105 5:3 Prices in India 1913-1923. 106 6 : 1 Results of the Contai Local Board Election 1925. 161 6:2 Local Rates Levied by the Midnapur District Board 1921-22 to 1929-30. 168 6:3 Results of the 1926 Elections to the Bengal Legislative Council 194 7:1 Index of Wholesale Prices in Bengal 199 7:2 Resignations of Chaukidars in Midnapur District during the Civil Disobedience Movement. 215 Acknowledgments . I am grateful to the British Council and the Governing Body of the School of Oriental and African Studies for financing this research, I wish to thank the staff of the India Office Library, SOAS Library, National Library, Calcutta, West Bengal State Archives, Midnapur Records Room, Midnapur Zilla Parishad, National Archives of India and Nehru Memorial Museum and Library for all their help. In particular I want to acknowledge my gratitude to Ashok Sen and S.Samajpati of the West Bengal State Archives and Basudev Maulik of the Midnapur Records Room for guiding me to the relevant records. Mr Jamini Kumar Bose and Mr Jatindra Nath Jana were kind enough to allow me to consult their collections of Hijli Hitaishi and Nihar respectively. I am also indebted to Mr Saibal Gupta, Mrs Anjali Khan and Dr Bimalananda Sasmal for granting me interviews. Various colleagues have helped in the preperation of this thesis. I especially want to thank Peter Alexander, Sanjib Barua, Phil Cordriell, Keith Bennett, Anna Clarke, Peter Feulherade, Vasudha Joshi, Naren Morar and Sunil Khanna. Gita Sahgal must be thanked for braving dust, floods and D.D.T. and helping me plough through a mountain of files and news­ papers. Chandan Mitra, P.K.Dutta, Paronjoy Guha Thakurta and Bobby Banerji were of great help in India. Patricia Ford very kindly agreed to do the typing. Lastly, I want to thank my supervisor Dr Peter Robb for his critical comments and helpful suggestions. Abbreviations ADM Additional District Magistrate., AICC All India Congress Committee BLC Bengal Legislative Council BPCC Bengal Provincial Congress Committee 8 VSG Bengal Village Self Government Act DB District Board DCC District Congress Committee DCR Report of the Royal Commission on Decentralisation DM District Magistrate EPW Economic and Political Weekly GOB Government of Bengal GOI Government of India H.Poll Home Political IESHR Indian Economic and Social History Review IOL India Office Library* London LSG Local Self Government MAS Modern Asian Studies MLC Member of Legislative Council MRR Midnapur Records Room, Midnapur Collectorate, Midnapur MZC Midnapur Zamindari Company NAI National Archives of India, New Delhi NMML Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi PCC Pradesh Congress Committee Progs Proceedings PWD Public Works Department Rev-Gen Revenue-General SDO Subdivisional Officer SP Superintendent of Police WBSA West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta Chapter 1 3 Introduction "(w)hose freedom are we particularly striving for, for nationalism 1 covers many sins and includes many conflicting elements?" Mors than three decades after India kept her initial * tryst with destiny* this problem posed by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1933 remains unambiguously unanswered. Perhaps the problem lies in the phenomenon of nationalism itself, which as historians have discovered, constitutes an enigma. Though in the colonial world nationalism has generally been equated with the struggle against European domination, the political identities of the various nationalist movements have been by no means uniform. In Asia for example, there was little similarity between the Vietnamese nationalism of Chi Minh on one hand, and the non-violent A Gandhian nationalism on the other. The phenomenon of nationalism as such, defies definition, except in the most general sense. In the words of Eric Hobsbawm, "Nationalism has been a great puzzle..., not only because it is both powerful and devoid of any discernable rational theory but also because its shape and functions ere constantly changing. Like the cloud with which Hamlet taunted Polonius, it can be interpreted according to taste as a camel, a weasel or a whale, though it is none of these" 2 Notwithstanding these obvious hazards, historians, ever since the process of decolonisation began, have increasingly focused their attention on the problem of nationalism, whether as a separate entity, or as an element of overall 'politics’. There is a general recognition that barring radical discontinuities, the course of politics in the Third World after 'independence* have been determined considerably by the nature and social character of their various nationalisms. In India, the nature and course of post independence political and economic development has been determined by the political legacy of the freedom struggle coupled with later structural changes in society. It is for these reasons that the study of Indian nationalism has acquired a direct contemporary relevance. This thesis charts the particular course and political identity of Indian nationalism as it existed in Midnapur, a district in South-West Bengal. 1. Quoted in Gyanendra Psndey, ’Review Article', IESHR, XI, 2-3 1974, p.328. 2. E. Hobsbawm, 'Some Reflections on 'The Break-Up of Britain', New Left Review, 105, 1977, p.3. 4 Bengal has received some attention from historians by virtue of being a birth-place of modern nationalism in India. Anil Seal argued that it was the frustrations caused by the diminishing opportunities within the colonial state that channelled the energies of the educated Bengali 3 in the direction of nationalism. Indian nationalism was therefore ’’born in frustrated bastardy out of the miscegnation of imperial 4 education and the diverse forces of elitism and social factionalism" • John Broomfield, like Seal, emphasised the elitist character of bhadrolok-dominated Bengali nationalist politics, especially the growing estrangement with the substantial Muslim population in East 5 Bengal. In an attempt to rehabilitate the bhadrolok, Sumit Sarkar placed them in the category of Gramsci's concept of 'traditional intellectuals', displaced from their immediate class backgrounds and responsive to intellectual currents, nationally and internationally.