Rakesh Batabyal. Communalism in Bengal: from Famine to Noakhali, 1943-1947
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Rakesh Batabyal. Communalism in Bengal: From Famine to Noakhali, 1943-1947. Sage Series in Modern Indian History. London: Thousand Oaks, 2005. 428 pp. Index. $97.95 (cloth), ISBN 9780761933359. Reviewed by Anirudh Deshpande, Motilal Nehru College (E), University of Delhi. Published on H-Asia (July, 2007) Colonial Cousins: Communalism and Nationalism in Modern India For readers unfamiliar with the terms in which modern to the creation of Pakistan on the basis of a mythical and Indian history is usually written, communalism should be monolithic Muslim nation in 1947 and the growth of Hin- described before the review of the book is presented. The dutva in the 1980s and 1990s were the most important word communalism obviously comes from community achievements of communalism in twentieth-century In- and communal which may mean entirely different things dia. The book under review should be read in this context to people in the West. The closest parallels of commu- of communalism in modern and contemporay India. nalism in India are racism and anti-Semitism, etc. in the This book narrates the rise of communalism in Bengal West; while in India communalism makes a person prefer in the short term and tries to define communalism as an a certain communal identity over other secular identities. ideology. Throughoutthe volume both Muslim and Hindu In many parts of the West a position of racial superiority communalism is theorized in opposition to a secular In- is assumed by many individuals and social groups over dian nationalism of which the Indian National Congress people of non-European extraction. In both instances re- (in Rakesh Batabyal’s view) appears as the greatest expo- ligious or race identities are internalized and displayed by nent. Politics in Bengal during the 1940s came to be in- individuals who believe in myths, which constitute an ide- fluenced by the Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha, and ology. The modern systematic articulation of such myths the Communists at the expense of an ineffective Congress is called communal ideology in the Indian sub-continent. which, mainly due to the rise of Subhas Bose, had split Selective history, carefully constructed memories of in- into the pro- and anti-Bose factions. While communal- justices, a variety of myths, the role of the state, and vi- ism is defined as an ideology, nationalism in the colo- olence in multiple forms are the foundations of commu- nial period cannot be defined easily as its opposite. The nalism. Social exclusion and communal violence ranging author has conceived the entire project on the basis of from carefully organized riots by political formations to drawing a neat line of demarcation between communal- pogroms,such as the onewitnessed in Gujarat in 2002, are ism and nationalism. The book gives us a good idea of integral to communalism in India. Readers who have not what communalism meant in Bengal during the 1940s, read much of Indian history but are well versed in Euro- which was dominated by the Great Famine of 1943 and pean and American history can easily understand “Indian conditionsarising from the Second World War. But it does communalism” with reference to similar developments in not say much about nationalism as an ideology. Since the the context of many European and American countries. volume eschews a long-term perspective on nationalism Although there is another form in which communalism and its complex relationship with communalism, it fails manifests itself in India, called “casteism,” communalism to answer some important questions. For instance, was in general refers to religious communalism. India, like Indian nationalism something much more than a striv- most other countries, has a history of religious conflict go- ing for national unity against imperialism? What were ing back to the ancient period, but communalism refers to its long-term weaknesses which created the space for the a modern consolidation of religious groups and identities growth of communal ideologies and the two nation the- and the politicization of religious organization and con- ory in India? Why did communalism replace nationalism flict which began during the colonial period, especially in as the stronger force of the two in people’s lives during the nineteenth century. While Indians contend with com- the 1940s? This volume is not designed to answer these munalism in their everyday lives, it must be remembered questions, important as they are in the context of rising that the development of the “two nation theory” leading communalism in India during the last quarter of the nine- 1 H-Net Reviews teenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Instead, af- Congress from the center stage of Indian politics during ter repeatedly underlining Congress’s helplessness in the the war, while the talks with the “sole spokesman” ended face of growing communal frenzy in Bengal in a chap- up enhancing Jinnah’s stature and legitimizing his com- ter on the Noakhali riots, the author deflects the reader’s munal claims even amongst several Muslims who could attention to Gandhi’s highly personalized and greatly pub- still be called Congress supportersin 1944. Both instances licized struggle against communal violence. demonstrated serious flaws in a movement over which a Towards the end of the volume, in chapter 8, Gandhi’s single and often momentarily ill-informed patriarch had only too well-known sojourn in Noakhali is highlighted so much influence. In the ultimate analysis Gandhi’s in an attempt to capture the Mahatma’s rather touching moral authority could neither substitute nor overcome the finest hour. This is done to offer an alternative to the com- collective failure of the Congress leadership in dealing munalization of popular psyche in India. However, as the with the communal question. facts marshaled by Batabyal inadvertently tell us, by 1946 Coming to Bengal it is not difficult to observe that Gandhi was a spent force in Indian politics. Although his Gandhi was instrumental in getting Bose ousted from the moral message would live on in a tiny section of inspired Congress and thereby mortally wounding it. A Congress Indians, the somewhat baffling and ill-conceived Quit In- in disarray, or whatever remained of it after the impor- dia movementof 1942 and his recognitionof Jinnah as the tant leaders had been jailed in 1942, was hardly in a po- most important representative of Indian Muslims in 1944 sition to combat the kind of communalism which began most certainly helped the rise of communalism in India in to sweep the Bengal social landscape from 1943 onwards. the 1940s. These are the importantfacts informing the rise The book presents an excellent survey of how the absence of Jinnah and the demand for Pakistan which readers can of viable alternatives helped communalism grow in Ben- easily glean from Batabyal’s meticulous research. But the gal during the 1940s. The colonial state, Muslim League, problem of dealing with Gandhi’s approach to the com- and Hindu Mahasabha are rightly implicated in the growth munal question remains unaddressed. According to this of the communal project. At this time the interests of reviewer the distinction between Gandhi as a person and Moscow guided the Communists and even they upheld the Gandhi as the unquestioned moral leader of the Congress claims of the Muslim League. is more important to the historian. It is nobody’s argu- Important as these findings are, the volume fails to ad- ment that Gandhi did not oppose communalism as best dress some important questions. It doesnot tell us why the as he could within the limits of his world view. Unfortu- Congresswas not a forceto reckonwith amongthe masses nately for the people of Bengal and many other parts of of Bengal in the 1940s. Why was the peasantry of Bengal India, which suffered the consequences of partition this alienated from the Congress that had organized mass anti- kind of moral opposition, in the absence of an organized imperialist movements across the country in 1905, 1921- cadre based fight against communalism, simply was not 22 and 1930-32? Unless the story of this mass alienation enough to save them from the horrorsof communal hatred from the Congress in Bengal is recounted, it is impossible and violence. After the die was cast and partition became to fully comprehend how the Muslim League emerged as a ground reality, Gandhi emerged as a symbol of peace. the most important party of the Bengali Muslims in the His removal of himself from the ideological site of parti- space of a few years. If peasant unrest was ultimately ar- tion could do little to address the causes of communalism ticulated in communal ideology, as the author concedes in India. Indeed his moral leadership of the Congress na- in a short conclusion (p. 383), why did the Congress fail tionalist movement had also undoubtedly contributed to to address and utilize this unrest in the 1930s and 1940s it. Ultimately he could neither arrest the decline of secu- ? The election results of 1946 in Bengal (p.218) only ex- lar nationalism nor take the majority of the Congress with pressed the communal polarization of the Bengalis which him. took place during the Second World War–the Congress Ironically, in his finest hour Gandhi had already be- polled only 0.5 percent of Muslim votes in comparison come irrelevant to the vast majority of Indians (and Pak- with the League which got 89.6 percent of Muslim votes. istanis, it may always be added as an afterthought) in Pakistan had been created. Obviously, given the devel- 1946-47. Quit India in 1942 and the sterile belated talks opments during the war years, by 1946 all “memories of with Jinnah in 1944 were Gandhi’s individual decisions.