Return of the bhadralok: Ecology and agrarian relations in eastern Bengal, c. 1905-1947

Modern Asian Studies

Volumn 43, Issue 6, 2009, Pages 1325-1353

  Iqbal, Iftekhar ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF DHAKA   (Bangladesh)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRARIAN CHANGE; AGRICULTURAL HISTORY; CLASS; COLONIALISM; MARXISM; PEASANT AGRICULTURE; RURAL HISTORY; SOCIAL STATUS;

BENGAL;

EID: 72449155622     PISSN: 0026749X     EISSN: 14698099     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X08003661     Document Type: Article

References (99)

1. In writing this article, I received most useful comments and suggestions from my doctoral supervisor Sir Christopher Bayly. Insightful observations of the late and lamented Rajnarayan Chandavarkar and Joya Chatterji were very helpful. An earlier version was presented at a SOAS seminar where David Arnold, Peter Robb and Jon Wilson helped by their fitting questions and comments to put the arguments into proper perspectives. All limitations of course are mine.
2. 'Preface' to S. C. Mitter, A recovery plan for Bengal (Book Company, Calcutta, 1934).
3. A common term in the historiography of modern India, 'bhadralok' refers to a category in colonial Bengal that represents a hybrid constellation of upper caste, English-educated, poorer to elite, salaried to rent-seeking, leftist to rightwing politician, world-class intellectual to mediocre and orthodox imperialist to perennial nationalists. For debates on the definition and scope of the term, see Editorial M. N. Roy, 'Bourgeois nationalism', Vanguard, 3, 1 (1923);
4. J. H. Broomfield, Elite conflict in a plural society. Twentieth-century Bengal (Berkeley, 1968), 5-13;
5. Gordon Johnson, 'Partition agitation and Congress: Bengal 1904-1908', Modern Asian Studies, 7, 3 (1973), 534-35;
6. Joya Chatterji, Bengal divided. Hindu communalism and partition, 1932- 1947 (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 3-7.
7. Partha Chatterjee, 'Agrarian relations and communalism in Bengal, 1926-35', in Ranajit Guha ed., Subaltern studies 1: writing on South Asian history and society (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1982), 18;
8. Partha Chatterjee's idea of peasant consciousness has found eloquent expression in Taj I. Hashmi's Pakistan as a peasant utopia (Westview, Boulder, 1992).
9. Sugata Bose, Agrarian Bengal. Economy, social structure and politics, 1919-1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 162-64;
10. see also Sugata Bose, Peasant labour and colonial capital: rural Bengal since 1770 [The New Cambridge History of India] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 89;
11. Similar argument is offered by Partha Chatterjee in The present history of West Bengal. Essays in political criticism (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1997), 59-64.
12. P. Chatterjee, 'The colonial state and peasant resistance in Bengal 1920-1947', Past and Present, 110 (1986), 183.
13. Sugata Bose, 'The roots of "communal" violence in Rural Bengal. A Study of the Kishoreganj riots, 1930', Modern Asian Studies, 16, 3 (1982), 491;
14. see also Bose, Peasant labour, 168.
15. The 'return of the peasant' to the historiography of Bengal appears to be influenced by the pioneering work of Eric Stokes on the subject of peasant as a significant agency of historical change in India; see Eric Stokes, The peasant and the Raj (Cambridge University Press, 1978).
16. Hamza Alavi, 'Peasants and revolution', Socialist Register (1965), 2: 261-77;
17. Eric Wolf, Peasants (Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1966).
18. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the prison notebooks, edited and translated by Q. Hoare and G. N. Smith (London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1971), 273-274
19. Binay Chaudhuri, 'Agricultural production in Bengal, 1850-1900: co-existence of decline and growth',Bengal Past and Present, 88,2 (1969), 184-185
20. For a description of relationship between ecology and upward mobility of Eastern Bengal peasantry in the nineteenth century, see Iftekhar Iqbal, 'Ecology, economy and society in the Eastern Bengal Delta, c. 1840-1943', Unpublished PhD thesis (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, 2005), 24-78.
21. On the suggestion that 'time to return has arrived', see Sri Baidyanath's introductory remarks to Ramhari Bhatcharya, Banchibar upay [Essays on the bread problem and other economic matters] (Jessore, 1332 Bangla year, 1925 AD).
22. Baden-Powell noted in the late nineteenth century that agriculture was 'positively abhorred' by the Brahmans and Kshatriyas, who comprised bulk of the bhadralok, although the third castes or Vaisya (common people) became 'to some extent an agricultural class'. See B. H. Baden-Powell, The origin and growth of village communities in India (London: Sonnenschein & Co., 1899), 52.
23. Ramhari Bhatcharya, Banchibar upay, 20-25.
24. Biseshwar Bhatcharya, 'Gramer Kotha' [Thoughts on the village], Bangabani, 4 (Baishakh 1332 Bangla year (1925)), 270-271
25. Rishikesh Sen, Bekar samasya [An essay on the causes and cure of unemployment] (Chandannagor: Rameshwar & Co., 1934 Bangla year (1934)), 83-85, 152-154
26. Report on the census of India, 1901, vol.6: Bengal, part 1 (Calcutta: Government of Bengal, 1902), 351.
27. Report of the census of India, 1931, vol.5: Bengal, part 1 (Calcutta: Government of India, 1933), 454.
28. M. K. U. Molla, The new province of Eastern Bengal & Assam, 1905-1911 (Rajshahi: Institute of Bangladesh Studies, 1981).
29. Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol.5 (Delhi: Government of India, 1984), 121.
30. Centre of South Asian Studies (CSAS), Cambridge, Pinnell Papers: 'With the sanction of government', Memoir of L. G. Pinnell (published privately by M. C. Pinnell in 2002), 63.
31. Bengal Legislative Council Proceedings (hereafter BLCP), 35, 3 (1930), 468.
32. National Archives of Bangladesh, Dhaka (hereafter NAB), Proceedings [hereafter Progs] of Government of Bengal, Revenue Dept (Land), nos. 19-20, Mar. 1922, 16.
33. NAB, Government of Bengal, Rev Dept (Land), no.6, Apr. 1922, 6; coincidentally, in a famous Bangla novel, there is such a character, Balaram Kaviraj, who was settled in a coastal island. He was depicted in the novel in the following words: 'In this . . . char, he has created his own world. There is not much anxiety for patients. There are plenty of lands in the char. There are ponds of saline water as well as gardens of betel nuts. He also owns about fifty buffalos-he can be regarded as a little zamindar. Therefore, Kaviraji (medical practice) may be regarded as his nesha (obsession) rather than pesha(profession)'. See Narayan Gangopadhaya, 'Narayan Gangopadhaya Rachanabali: Upanibesh (The Colony)', vol.2, 2nd edn. (Calcutta: Mitra and Ghose Publishers, 1386 Bangla year (1979)), 227.
34. Report of the Bengal provincial banking enquiry committee (hereafter BPBEC) (1929- 1930), vol.2, Evidence, part 1 (Calcutta, 1930), 248.
35. BLCP, 41, 3 (1933), 63-64.
36. Annual report on the working of co-operative societies in the Presidency of Bengal (hereafter, RWCSB) (1912-13), 20;
37. see also RWCSB (1924-25), 21.
38. NAB, 'Settlement of Khas Mahal land in Faridpur with young men of the bhadralok class', Progs of Rev Dept (Land), nos. 1-2, Jan. 1928, in Jan.-Mar. 1928.
39. Rajshahi, Rajshahi Commissioner's Library, 16(A)-42: 'Settlement of Khasmahal land with "Bhadraloke" youths in Faridpur', 1933.
40. The Bengal waste lands manual 1919 (Calcutta: Government of Bengal, 1919), 2.
41. The Bengal government estates manual, 1932 (Calcutta: Government of Bengal, 1933), 19;
42. see also the case of Rajani Kantha v. Yusuf Ali, referred to in Rai Surendra Chandra Sen Bahadur, The Bengal Tenancy Act, 5th edn. (Calcutta: Government of Bengal, 1925), 76.
43. The Bengal waste lands manual 1936 (Calcutta: Government of Bengal, 1936), 1.
44. Bengal Legislative Assembly Proceedings (henceforth BLAP), 54, 2 (Calcutta: Government of Bengal, 1940), 131.
45. Pomode Ranjan Das Gupta, Faridpur revisional settlement final report, part-1-survey and settlement operations 1940-4 (Dacca: Government of East Bengal, 1954), 5.
46. Quoted in Radharomon Mookerjee, History and incidents of occupancy right (Delhi: Neeraj Publishing House, 1919, reprinted 1984), 10.
47. Krishnakali Mukeerji, 'The transferability of occupancy holding in Bengal', part I, The Bengal Economic Journal, 1, 3 (1917), 263.
48. Peter Marshall, Bengal. The British bridgehead 1740-1828 (Cambridge University Press, 1987, reprinted 1990), 22-23. This was mainly because Eastern Bengal was a largely fluid and forest ecological zone which could not have been reclaimed for commercial cultivation without giving concessions to the actual cultivators.
49. See Iqbal, 'Ecology, economy and society', 24-40.
50. Mukeerji, 'The transferability of occupancy holding', 266.
51. NAB, Rev(Land) 'A'Progs (confidential), bundle 1, list124D, 1939,2:'Memorial of landholders in the matter of the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1938'.
52. NAB, 'A' Progs, wooden bundle 26, list 17, Mis-Collection, XIV, no., Aug. 1889: C.E. Buckland, offg Secy to BoR, Lower Provinces. to Secy to GoB, no. 5414, 3 Jul. 1889.
53. NAB, Progs of the Rev Dept (Land) for May 1927 (Bengal Tenancy Act Amendment Bill), 218-19: A. Chaudhuri and B. Chakravarti, Honorary Secretaries, Bengal Landholder's Association,toSecy, GoB,2Jul. 1923;For the view that there was no 'surer mode of exterminating occupancy raiyats as a class than by permitting them to transfer their tenures'; see Report of the Land Revenue Commission (henceforth LRC), 6 (1941), 542-543
54. NAB, Progs of Rev Dept (Land), Apr.-Jun. 1916, 96: Babu Ambica Charan Mazumdar, Pleader of Faridpur to Collector of Fardipur, 14 Nov. 1914.
55. NAB, 'A' Progs, wooden bundle no. 26, list 17, Mis-Collection, XIV, no. N100-101, Aug. 1889: C.E. Buckland, Offg Secy to BoR, Lower Provinces, to Secy to GoB, R.D., no. 5414, 3 Jul. 1889.
56. NAB, Rev Dept (Land), 'A' Progs, bundle 76, list 17, Jun. 1921, file L.R. 2-A-4(1) of 1925, in Progs nos. 7-8, 64;
57. see also NAB, Government of East Bengal (Land Rev), confidential, 'A' Progs, bundle I, list 124, file no. L.R. 1-A-54, serial 1, Rev Dept (Land) 1938.
58. Bose, Peasant labour, 124.
59. NAB, Government of East Bengal (Land Rev), confidential, 'A' Progs, bundle 1, list 124B: Note by Sir F. Sachse on the 'Report of the rent law commission, 1880, and its draft bill section 20 recommended transferability for raiyats', p. 5 in confidential file no. L.R. 1-A-54, serial 1, GoB, Rev Dept (Land) 1938.
60. Bengal Tenancy Act of 1939 'facilitated the transfer of under-raiyati holdings and enabled these rights also to be purchased by non-agriculturists'; see Adrienne Cooper, Sharecropping and sharecroppers' struggles in Bengal 1930-1950 (Calcutta: KP Bagchi & Company, 1988), 47.
61. Chatterjee, The present history of West Bengal, 62. It is no wonder that while in the nineteenth century the dominant subject of legal disputes were the accrual of occupancy rights, in the twentieth century one of the most fruitful sources of litigation was the case of 'transfer of occupancy holdings by involuntary sales'.
62. See NAB, Babu M.M. Deb, Secy, Tippera People's Association, to Secy to GoB, Rev Dept, 8 Jan. 1915, in Progs of GoB, Rev Dept (Land), Jun. 1916.
63. Cooper, Sharecropping and sharecroppers' struggles, 46-48.
64. NAB, Progs of GoB, Rev Dept (Land), FQE, Jun. 1927, 359-60: The second part (paragraphs 11 to 20) of the opinions of the Cultivators Association, Lakhipur and Raipur (Noakhali) on the Preliminary draft of the Bengal Tenancy (Amendment) Bill, nos. 92-93, file: 2-A-1(67) of 1923.
65. NAB, Rev Dept (Land), Progs 'A', Jun. 1916, 115: Maulvi Wasimuddin Ahmed, Secy, Anjuman-I-Islamia to Chief Secy to GoB, 9 Jan. 1914.
66. NAB, Progs of Rev Dept (Land), Apr.-Jun. 1916, 89: F. C. French, Offg Comm of Dacca Div, to Secy to GoB, Rev Dept, 4 Jan. 1915.
67. NAB, Progs of Rev Dept (Land), Apr.-Jun. 1916, 92: F. W. Strong, Collector of Bakarganj to Comm of Dacca Div, 3 Dec. 1914.
68. B. C. Prance, Final report on the survey and settlement operations in the riparian area of district Tippera conducted with the Faridpur district settlement 1909 to 1915 (Calcutta: Government of Bengal, 1916), 25.
69. NAB, Judicial Dept, list 114, bundle 2, no. 1-8-2642. File 55C-13/33(1), 1-3: Rai R. C. Sen Bahadur, Land Rev Settlement Officer, Chittagong, to Director of Land Records, Bengal, 2 Aug. 1933.
70. For an important discussion, although with a somewhat different focus, on 'depeasantization' in Bengal and Bihar since late nineteenth century; see Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri, 'The Process of Depeasantization in Bengal and Bihar, 1885-1947', Indian Historical Review, 21, 1 (1975), 105-165
71. NAB, Progs of Rev Dept (Land) for May 1927 (Bengal Tenancy Act Amendment Bill, 1923): S. C. Chakraverty, Attorney-At-Law, Joint Secy, Bengal Mahajan Sabha to Secy, GoB, Legislative Dept, 23 May 1923
72. NAB, Progs of GoB, Rev Dept (Land), Apr. 1923, 54: Babu Kshetra Mohan Roy, Pleader and Zamindar, Comilla to Collector of Comilla.
73. NAB, Progs of the GoB, Rev Dept (Land), 155: Babu Sarat Chandra Ray, Senior Government Pleader, Rajshahi to District Judge of Rajshahi, 12 Feb. 1923.
74. NAB, Progs of GoB, Rev Dept (Land), Apr.-Jun. 1927, 234: Babu Kaliparasanna Guha Chowdhury, Pleader and Zamindar, Honorary Secy, Bakarganj Land Holders' Association, to Secy to GoB, Rev Dept, no.53, 18 Apr. 1923.
75. NAB, Progs of GoB, Rev Dept (Land), May 1927, 58: 'Opinion on the Bill for the amendment of the Bengal Tenancy Act' by Rai Satish Chandra Sen Bahadur, Senior Government Pleader, Chittagong.
76. NAB, Progs of GoB, Rev Dept (Land), May 1927: J.F. Graham, District Judge Dacca to Assistant Secy, GoB, Rev Dept, 15 May 1923
77. NAB, Progs of GoB, Rev Dept (Land), Apr.-Jun. 1927, 158: Babu Birendar Chnandra Sen-Gupta, Munsif of Rampur-Boalia to District Judge, Rajshahi, 10 Apr. 1923;
78. On this point, see also Mohiuddin Mondal, President of a meeting of 'Jotedars and raiyats' of Rajshahi to Secy to GoB, Rev Dept, no.77, 16 Apr. 1923, NAB, Progs of GoB, Rev Dept (Land), Apr.-Jun. 1927, 320.
79. Amartya Sen, An essay on entitlement and deprivation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981, reprinted 1988), 70-75.
80. LRC, 6 (1941), 33.
81. Ibid. LRC, 46.
82. Ibid. LRC, 33.
83. LRC, 1 (1934), 37.
84. NAB, Progs of the cooperative credit and rural indebtedness (CCRI) Dept (Rural Indebtedness), file 2M/40 in , 'B' Progs, bundle 1, list 36: E.W. Holland, Office of the Director, Debt Conciliation, Western Circle (p. 2), 12 Jun. 1937;
85. BLCP, 48th session, 1936, vol.XLVIII, no.2, 17.
86. F. C. French, Offg Comm of Dacca Div, to Secy to GoB, Rev Dept, 4 Jan. 1915 in Progs of Rev Dept (Land), FQE Jun. 1916.
87. Chatterjee, Present history of West Bengal, 61-64.
88. Sen, Poverty and famines, 70-75.
89. This argument is heavily drawn from CSAS (John) Bell Papers, box V, no.37: 'The Bengal Famine. 1942-1943', 25;
90. On land-holder's preference to pay in cash instead of kind during the rise of price of rice, see also LRC, 6 (1941), 46.
91. For sharecropping in Bengal was 'a stage in between landholding and landlessness'. See Cooper, Sharecropping and sharecroppers' struggles, 91.
92. P. C. Mahalanobis, 'The Bengal Famine: the background and basic facts', The Asiatic Review, 42 (1946), 313.
93. Ibid. P. C. Mahalanobis, The Asiatic Review; Starting by the turn of the century, the draining of resources of Eastern Bengal culminated through the fateful years of the great Bengal famine. As David Ludden has observed, between 1905 and 1944, 'private capital drained steadily from east to west, following bhadralok interests that moved wealth from eastern low lands to Calcutta; while in the east, peasants used capital for basic needs, including rental payments to bhadralok landlords and interest payment to moneylenders to secure peasant property and family survival'.
94. See 'preface' to David Ludden ed., Agricultural production, South Asian history, and development studies (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005).
95. The Times, 3 Nov. 1943, Letters to the Editor, 5.
96. Tithi Bhattacharya, The sentinels of culture: class, education, and the colonial intellectual in Bengal (1848-1885) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
97. For a detailed discussion of socio-economic predicaments of the bhadralok and their political response to these until the partition in 1947, see Chatterji, Bengal Divided, 55-102.
98. This was also a time when colonization reached the last edge of frontier all over the world, as exemplified in Turner's announcement that American frontier had 'closed'. Michael Williams observes in this context, 'The phrase fin de sìecle was coined; more than a reference to the last decade, it (the 1890s) resonated: decade, decayed, decadence'. See Michael Williams, Deforesting the earth. From prehistory to global crisis. An abridgment (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2006), 359.
99. For the debates, see Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided, and Joya Chatterjee, 'On religious and linguistic nationalisms: the second partition of Bengal', in Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann eds., Nation and religion: perspectives on Europe and Asia (Princeton University Press, 1999), 116-126