Rising Caste Politics: a Contested Hypothesis
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ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Is There A Second Wave of Dalit Upsurge in West Bengal? AYAN GUHA Ayan Guha ([email protected]) is at Hamdard Institute of Legal Studies and Research, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi. Vol. 54, Issue No. 2, 12 Jan, 2019 The Matua movement that lost momentum after raising hopes of Dalit awakening in West Bengal appears to have received fresh impetus again. But is it too early to pass verdict on the future trajectory of the movement and Dalit politics in general? Is West Bengal witnessing renewed political mobilisation along the lines of caste? This question was exhaustively debated in the pages of Economic & Political Weekly a few years ago. [Click here to read excerpts from this debate.] The electoral decline of the organised left provided the vantage point from which the relationship between politics and community in West Bengal came to be re-examined. Since then, there has been a growing interest in the politics of caste in West Bengal and it has grown proportionally to the steady electoral decline of the left front since 2009. Rising Caste Politics: A Contested Hypothesis The decline of the organised left wing in West Bengal politics has inspired renewed debates about many of the taken-for-granted assumptions about the political role of caste. The initial optimism about the enhanced role of caste in politics was based upon the political ascendancy of the Matua Mahasangha (MM). Matua is a Hindu religious sect founded by Harichand Thakur at Orakhandi in Faridpur district of present-day Bangladesh. After ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 independence, Harichand’s grandson, P R Thakur, established the sect’s headquarters at Thakurnagar in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal. The Matuas, belonging mainly to the lower-caste Namasudra community, migrated to India as refugees in successive phases after partition. MM is a religious organisation of the Matuas as well as their political mouthpiece. According to official estimates, there are two crore Matuas in India, but as per the estimate of the MM, there are almost five crore Matuas, mostly outside the electoral rolls. This is due to the fact that those who migrated to India from Bangladesh after 25 March 1971 have been denied citizenship in accordance with the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003. The main demand of the MM is, therefore, citizenship for all the Matuas. With this demand, the MM burst onto the political scene before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, leading to the anticipation that such developments would ultimately pave the way for the emergence of caste-based identity politics in the state. The main advocate of the view that caste politics had finally arrived in West Bengal was Sinharay (2012). While Sinharay was confident about the beginning of a “new politics of caste” in West Bengal, other scholars appeared to be more cautious in endorsing the “rise of caste” thesis. One viewpoint has tended to suggest that the upper-caste parties dominating the political scene of West Bengal still have vested interests in making the language of caste irrelevant and therefore, they will continue to work towards sustaining an order of hegemonic control of the upper castes (Bandyopadhyay 2012; Sen 2016). Another powerful perspective has pointed out that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has more or less co-opted the left’s mode of functioning, leading to the continuing marginalisation of social identities like caste in mainstream party politics. Bhattacharyya (2016: 148–49) has observed that the end of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] rule has not resulted in the termination of the coercive structure of “party society;” it has only passed into the hands of the TMC, which has exhibited utter ruthlessness in marginalising autonomous voices of dissent in rural localities. According to Chatterjee (2016: 96) “the recent political transition has not or not as yet meant a reassertion of the autonomy of local social institutions. Rather, the Trinamool Congress, in the districts of Southern Bengal, where it is now dominant, appears to be keen to adopt the left front model of the dominance of the political over the social and exclude the Communist Party of India- (Marxist)- CPI(M) from local power.” The resulting scenario is that of continuing inconsequentiality of caste in mainstream party politics. Thus, these critiques did not go to the extent of proclaiming a radical break from the past while engaging with the nature of post-left politics. Their scepticism of the “rise of caste” thesis was somehow vindicated by subsequent developments. Caste-based identity politics, despite its initial promise in the post-left era, failed to make any real impact on the organised politics of the state. Both TMC and CPI(M) before the 2011 assembly elections, reached out to the MM hoping that it could ensure en bloc support of ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 the entire Namasudra community. The TMC succeeded in gaining the backing of the MM and after winning the 2011 assembly elections, the TMC chief, Mamata Banerjee, reciprocated by appointing Manjul Krishna Thakur, the Saha-Sanghadhipati (vice chief) of the MM, as the Minister of State for Refugee Rehabilitation and Relief. Thus, the MM attained some political prominence as it showed the potential of developing the clout to mobilise the support of the entire Namasudra community in favour of a single political party. However, it gradually became evident that the organisation, beset with internal bickering, was in no position to guarantee the support of the entire community. Accordingly, its political significance also declined. The Matuas are generally expected to vote according to the wishes of "Baroma" or Binapani Devi, who is the spiritual leader of the sect, if she decides to hold before them a clear-cut political choice. Baroma put her weight behind Mamata Banerjee before the 2011 elections. Thereafter, the movement became afflicted with internal feuds with the MM unable to give clear political directions. Manjul Krishna Thakur, the son of Baroma, and Subrata Thakur, the son of Manjul Krishna Thakur, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) just before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Subrata Thakur contested elections on a BJP ticket from the Bongaon constituency against his aunt and TMC candidate, Mamatabala Devi, the wife of late Kapil Krishna Thakur, Baroma’s elder son. After the defeat of Subrata Thakur, his father Manjul Krishna Thakur passed into political oblivion, losing his ministerial position and previous political prominence. However, the entire episode sent the wrong political signals. It divulged the inability of the MM to mobilise the support of the entire Matua or Namasudra community in favour of a single party. In the 2016 assembly elections too, the internal feud prevented the emergence of a clear-cut political choice equipped with the backing of all sections of the Thakur family. Accordingly, the entire community became subject to the debilitating experience of political fragmentation. As a result, the MM steadily became isolated from mainstream politics. All political parties appeared to be losing interest in the MM and turned non-committal on the citizenship demand of the Matuas. While the pre- election rally organised by the community before the 2011 assembly elections had seen the participation of high profile political leaders like the CPI(M)’s Gautam Deb and TMC’s Mukul Roy, the pre-election rally organised by the community in Kolkata before the 2016 assembly elections did not generate any political interest with even the mainstream media skipping the coverage of the event. Recent Developments After being politically dormant for some time, the Matuas have, very recently, started to make political headlines again. The issue of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) appears to be aiding the revival of political relevance of the MM. More than 40 lakh of the 3.29 crore applicants in BJP-ruled Assam have been left out of the NRC. This 40 lakh is largely comprised of Muslims, but, reportedly around 10 to 12 lakh Bengali Hindus have also been excluded from the draft list. A vast majority of them are Namasudras. According to the MM, nearly 6 lakh persons among the excluded belong to the Matua sect. The BJP has also made ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 clear its intention to implement the NRC in West Bengal. The BJP’s stance on the NRC has become a cause of concern for the Namasudras in West Bengal. Many belonging to the Namasudra community have migrated to India after 1971 and hence, they are afraid that their names might not appear in NRC list if a similar exercise is also undertaken in West Bengal. This apprehension has led many community leaders to speak out against the BJP. Protests are also being organised against the NRC across West Bengal. In August 2018, the All India Namasudra Vikas Parishad (AINVP) staged large protests against the NRC by organising blockades at railway and road junctions in various parts of North 24 Parganas and Nadia districts and held up Assam-bound trains (Hindu 2018; Chandra 2018). The representatives of the organisation also met Mamata Banerjee at Uttar Kanya (branch secretariat) in Siliguri asking for her help (Indian Express 2018a). As a result, the NRC issue has opened up opportunities for the TMC to consolidate the support of the Namasudras and the party seems to have promptly seized this opportunity by positioning itself as the saviour of the Namasudras. The TMC government has recently also announced a number of development measures for the Matua community (Indian Express 2018b; Firstpost 2018). In early November 2018, the West Bengal government declared its plan to set up development boards for the welfare of the Namasudras and Matuas (Statesman 2018). Most importantly, Mamata Banerjee paid a visit to the MM headquarters at Thakurnagar on 15 November 2018 to attend an event held for the commencement of year-long celebrations of the birth centenary of Binapani Devi.