Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Uploads
Papers by Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury
Routledge eBooks, Jun 25, 2024
Routledge eBooks, May 19, 2023
Caste and Partition in Bengal
The period of study for this book ends in 1961, when the first phase of the Dandakaranya Project ... more The period of study for this book ends in 1961, when the first phase of the Dandakaranya Project was completed and the refugee movement against the dispersal policy was withdrawn. But the struggle of the Bengali Dalit refugees did not end there; nor could their leaders again curve out spaces for themselves in provincial politics in West Bengal. In the post-1961 period, they faced two crises that profoundly affected their lives and identity—the Hazratbal riot of 1964 and the Marichjhanpi massacre of 1978–79. This short epilogue examines these two episodes and their aftermath to provide further evidence of injustice. This epilogue also briefly comments on the subsequent recovery of Dalit selfhood by these displaced people through the spectacular rise of the Matua Mahasangha, a heterodox religious sect through which the Namasudra caste movement had originally emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through the efforts of its hereditary guru P.R. Thakur, in the 198...
Caste and Partition in Bengal
Chapter 2 explains why the Namasudra peasants of East Bengal did not migrate to India immediately... more Chapter 2 explains why the Namasudra peasants of East Bengal did not migrate to India immediately after the Partition in 1947. It looks at the role of Jogendranath Mandal and the Bengal branch of the All India Scheduled Castes Federation, which advocated a Dalit–Muslim alliance. It examines why and how that alliance broke down as a result of rising Islamic nationalism and an unusual scarcity of resources in the post-Partition East Bengal. The chapter looks critically at the riots of 1950, which triggered the great East Bengali Dalit peasant migration. It examines why the Delhi Pact of 1950 failed to stem the tide of this migration, which continued until the border was sealed in 1957. It also argues that the Dalit peasants migrated because they suffered from a profound sense of insecurity created by a pervasive environment of low-intensity violence. We call it post-Partition conjunctural violence with its own temporality, produced by the specific historical context of Partition, and ...
Caste and Partition in Bengal
The chapter begins with a brief description of how the autonomous Scheduled Caste (SC) movement d... more The chapter begins with a brief description of how the autonomous Scheduled Caste (SC) movement developed in colonial Bengal, spearheaded by two communities—the Rajbansis in the north and the Namasudras in the eastern districts. It looks critically at how space was important for their social mobilisation in the early twentieth century. When that cultural habitat was threatened by the Partition, they could hardly remain unaffected. It looks at how Partition politics affected and disrupted the organised SC movement in Bengal, taking the narrative through the election of 1946, the riots in Calcutta, Noakhali, and other parts of east Bengal, the Hindu mobilisation of the Dalit, and the Communist intervention through the Tebhaga movement. It looks critically at the question of Dalit identity on the eve of Partition and the division of Dalit leadership into two rival groups on the issue of Partition and alliance with the Muslim League. It concludes that we need to understand their partici...
Caste and Partition in Bengal
The chapter critically examines the roles of the United Central Refugee Council under the Communi... more The chapter critically examines the roles of the United Central Refugee Council under the Communist Party of India’s leadership and the Sara Bangla Bastuhara Sammelan under Praja Socialist Party’s leadership in the massive refugee satyagraha of March–April 1958. It looks at the forms of resistance and modes of mobilisation, and assesses their revolutionary potential. It also unpacks the contradictions between different layers of political leadership in this refugee movement, shows how the caste question was deliberately suppressed by the Leftist leadership, although it was very much present in the structure of the movement. It also looks at the movement led by Jogendranath Mandal’s East India Refugee Council that deliberately raised the caste issue and examines critically the consequences of its rightward political drift. Finally, it tries to explain why the Dalit refugees were ultimately abandoned by the bhadralok political elite, forcing them to go to Dandakaranya.
Caste and Partition in Bengal
After arriving in West Bengal, the Dalit peasant refugees were first taken to various refugee cam... more After arriving in West Bengal, the Dalit peasant refugees were first taken to various refugee camps scattered across the state. The chapter begins with a description of the refugee camps as ‘spaces of hospitality’ and as sites for renegotiating old identities and forming new ones. These were not ‘spaces of exception’ where refugees could be reduced to ‘bare life’, but rather locations where we observed remarkable signs of agency of these displaced people, and expressions of their righteous indignation against the failings of the state and its local functionaries. The chapter shows how their resistance was initiated at the grassroots level by Dalit camp leaders, who organised themselves into Bastuhara Samitis. A major feature of this refugee resistance was the leading role taken by the women residents of the camps. But the very logic of their movement also prevented them from raising the caste question, as they came under wider political influences. The major resistance of the Dalit ...
Caste and Partition in Bengal
Chapter 4 looks at the evolution of a state policy of rehabilitation for the post-1950 Dalit peas... more Chapter 4 looks at the evolution of a state policy of rehabilitation for the post-1950 Dalit peasant refugees in West Bengal. It critically examines the political debates which ultimately led to the evolution of a rehabilitation policy that was premised on an erroneous assumption of the paucity of reclaimable land in West Bengal. So, the refugees were to be dispersed, first to the neighbouring states of Bihar and Orissa, which were reluctant to accept them, and then to the Andaman Islands and Dandakaranya, where they were seen as units of productive labour required to implement developmental projects. It shows that the state government was reluctant about dispersal through coercion, but Union Ministers Morarji Desai and Mehr Chand Khanna did not want to wait, as the refugees were causing continuous drainage on the state exchequer. It examines the divergent positions of various political parties, as well as interactions between the state and central governments.
This book situates caste as a discursive category in the discussion of Partition in Bengal. In co... more This book situates caste as a discursive category in the discussion of Partition in Bengal. In conventional narratives of Partition, the role of the Dalit or the Scheduled Castes is either completely ignored or mentioned in passing. This book addresses this discursive absence and argues that in Bengal, the Dalits were neither passive onlookers nor accidental victims of Partition politics and violence, which ruptured their unity and weakened their political autonomy. Indeed, they were the worst victims of Partition. When the Dalit peasants of Eastern Bengal began to migrate to India after 1950, they were seen as a ‘burden’ for the frail economy of West Bengal, and the Indian state did not provide them with a proper rehabilitation package. They were first segregated into fenced refugee camps where life was unbearable, and then dispersed to other parts of India—first to the Andaman Islands and the neighbouring states, and then to the inhospitable terrains of Dandakaranya, where they co...
BCIM Economic Cooperation, 2018
India and Myanmar Borderlands, 2019
India and Myanmar Borderlands, 2019
The partition of the Indian sub-continent displaced a large number of people from East Pakistan (... more The partition of the Indian sub-continent displaced a large number of people from East Pakistan (or East Bengal as it was popularly known). Unlike the relatively well-off migrants, who could sometimes reconstruct their lives in newer pastures on the other side of the border, for those who were economically not affluent, this was almost an impossible feat. Many had to spend decades in refugee camps before embarking on the vision of a better life. Many could not return to their original occupations leading to a sense of alienation and irreparable occupational loss despite partial rehabilitation in jabar dakhal (squatters’) colonies. Refugees who have been surviving in the camps in West Bengal for over six decades and have not yet been rehabilitated are, in a sense, prisoners of the past. It seems that their life and time have been frozen within the boundaries of the camps (Basu Ray Chaudhury 2009: 2-4).
India and Myanmar Borderlands, 2019
Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, 2019
Studies in History, 2017
The essay introduces caste as a category for discussing the history of Partition of India, which ... more The essay introduces caste as a category for discussing the history of Partition of India, which until now has focused almost exclusively on the Hindus, Sikhs and the Muslims. The Dalit or the ‘untouchables’ of India are usually left out of this discussion, and whenever they are brought in, they are portrayed as either disinterested onlookers or accidental victims. On the contrary, as this essay will argue, the Dalit were deeply entangled in Partition politics, which threatened their natural habitat in eastern Bengal, where they had reclaimed land from marshes and forests, extended cultivation and set up human settlement. Their regional movement was gradually drawn into the broader subcontinental politics that led to Partition, and the movement as a result lost unity, autonomy and purpose. While one group of the Bengali Dalit leaders were opposed to Partition and believed that a Dalit–Muslim alliance was in the best interest of the Dalit, others got closer to Hindu nationalism and d...
Routledge eBooks, Jun 25, 2024
Routledge eBooks, May 19, 2023
Caste and Partition in Bengal
The period of study for this book ends in 1961, when the first phase of the Dandakaranya Project ... more The period of study for this book ends in 1961, when the first phase of the Dandakaranya Project was completed and the refugee movement against the dispersal policy was withdrawn. But the struggle of the Bengali Dalit refugees did not end there; nor could their leaders again curve out spaces for themselves in provincial politics in West Bengal. In the post-1961 period, they faced two crises that profoundly affected their lives and identity—the Hazratbal riot of 1964 and the Marichjhanpi massacre of 1978–79. This short epilogue examines these two episodes and their aftermath to provide further evidence of injustice. This epilogue also briefly comments on the subsequent recovery of Dalit selfhood by these displaced people through the spectacular rise of the Matua Mahasangha, a heterodox religious sect through which the Namasudra caste movement had originally emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through the efforts of its hereditary guru P.R. Thakur, in the 198...
Caste and Partition in Bengal
Chapter 2 explains why the Namasudra peasants of East Bengal did not migrate to India immediately... more Chapter 2 explains why the Namasudra peasants of East Bengal did not migrate to India immediately after the Partition in 1947. It looks at the role of Jogendranath Mandal and the Bengal branch of the All India Scheduled Castes Federation, which advocated a Dalit–Muslim alliance. It examines why and how that alliance broke down as a result of rising Islamic nationalism and an unusual scarcity of resources in the post-Partition East Bengal. The chapter looks critically at the riots of 1950, which triggered the great East Bengali Dalit peasant migration. It examines why the Delhi Pact of 1950 failed to stem the tide of this migration, which continued until the border was sealed in 1957. It also argues that the Dalit peasants migrated because they suffered from a profound sense of insecurity created by a pervasive environment of low-intensity violence. We call it post-Partition conjunctural violence with its own temporality, produced by the specific historical context of Partition, and ...
Caste and Partition in Bengal
The chapter begins with a brief description of how the autonomous Scheduled Caste (SC) movement d... more The chapter begins with a brief description of how the autonomous Scheduled Caste (SC) movement developed in colonial Bengal, spearheaded by two communities—the Rajbansis in the north and the Namasudras in the eastern districts. It looks critically at how space was important for their social mobilisation in the early twentieth century. When that cultural habitat was threatened by the Partition, they could hardly remain unaffected. It looks at how Partition politics affected and disrupted the organised SC movement in Bengal, taking the narrative through the election of 1946, the riots in Calcutta, Noakhali, and other parts of east Bengal, the Hindu mobilisation of the Dalit, and the Communist intervention through the Tebhaga movement. It looks critically at the question of Dalit identity on the eve of Partition and the division of Dalit leadership into two rival groups on the issue of Partition and alliance with the Muslim League. It concludes that we need to understand their partici...
Caste and Partition in Bengal
The chapter critically examines the roles of the United Central Refugee Council under the Communi... more The chapter critically examines the roles of the United Central Refugee Council under the Communist Party of India’s leadership and the Sara Bangla Bastuhara Sammelan under Praja Socialist Party’s leadership in the massive refugee satyagraha of March–April 1958. It looks at the forms of resistance and modes of mobilisation, and assesses their revolutionary potential. It also unpacks the contradictions between different layers of political leadership in this refugee movement, shows how the caste question was deliberately suppressed by the Leftist leadership, although it was very much present in the structure of the movement. It also looks at the movement led by Jogendranath Mandal’s East India Refugee Council that deliberately raised the caste issue and examines critically the consequences of its rightward political drift. Finally, it tries to explain why the Dalit refugees were ultimately abandoned by the bhadralok political elite, forcing them to go to Dandakaranya.
Caste and Partition in Bengal
After arriving in West Bengal, the Dalit peasant refugees were first taken to various refugee cam... more After arriving in West Bengal, the Dalit peasant refugees were first taken to various refugee camps scattered across the state. The chapter begins with a description of the refugee camps as ‘spaces of hospitality’ and as sites for renegotiating old identities and forming new ones. These were not ‘spaces of exception’ where refugees could be reduced to ‘bare life’, but rather locations where we observed remarkable signs of agency of these displaced people, and expressions of their righteous indignation against the failings of the state and its local functionaries. The chapter shows how their resistance was initiated at the grassroots level by Dalit camp leaders, who organised themselves into Bastuhara Samitis. A major feature of this refugee resistance was the leading role taken by the women residents of the camps. But the very logic of their movement also prevented them from raising the caste question, as they came under wider political influences. The major resistance of the Dalit ...
Caste and Partition in Bengal
Chapter 4 looks at the evolution of a state policy of rehabilitation for the post-1950 Dalit peas... more Chapter 4 looks at the evolution of a state policy of rehabilitation for the post-1950 Dalit peasant refugees in West Bengal. It critically examines the political debates which ultimately led to the evolution of a rehabilitation policy that was premised on an erroneous assumption of the paucity of reclaimable land in West Bengal. So, the refugees were to be dispersed, first to the neighbouring states of Bihar and Orissa, which were reluctant to accept them, and then to the Andaman Islands and Dandakaranya, where they were seen as units of productive labour required to implement developmental projects. It shows that the state government was reluctant about dispersal through coercion, but Union Ministers Morarji Desai and Mehr Chand Khanna did not want to wait, as the refugees were causing continuous drainage on the state exchequer. It examines the divergent positions of various political parties, as well as interactions between the state and central governments.
This book situates caste as a discursive category in the discussion of Partition in Bengal. In co... more This book situates caste as a discursive category in the discussion of Partition in Bengal. In conventional narratives of Partition, the role of the Dalit or the Scheduled Castes is either completely ignored or mentioned in passing. This book addresses this discursive absence and argues that in Bengal, the Dalits were neither passive onlookers nor accidental victims of Partition politics and violence, which ruptured their unity and weakened their political autonomy. Indeed, they were the worst victims of Partition. When the Dalit peasants of Eastern Bengal began to migrate to India after 1950, they were seen as a ‘burden’ for the frail economy of West Bengal, and the Indian state did not provide them with a proper rehabilitation package. They were first segregated into fenced refugee camps where life was unbearable, and then dispersed to other parts of India—first to the Andaman Islands and the neighbouring states, and then to the inhospitable terrains of Dandakaranya, where they co...
BCIM Economic Cooperation, 2018
India and Myanmar Borderlands, 2019
India and Myanmar Borderlands, 2019
The partition of the Indian sub-continent displaced a large number of people from East Pakistan (... more The partition of the Indian sub-continent displaced a large number of people from East Pakistan (or East Bengal as it was popularly known). Unlike the relatively well-off migrants, who could sometimes reconstruct their lives in newer pastures on the other side of the border, for those who were economically not affluent, this was almost an impossible feat. Many had to spend decades in refugee camps before embarking on the vision of a better life. Many could not return to their original occupations leading to a sense of alienation and irreparable occupational loss despite partial rehabilitation in jabar dakhal (squatters’) colonies. Refugees who have been surviving in the camps in West Bengal for over six decades and have not yet been rehabilitated are, in a sense, prisoners of the past. It seems that their life and time have been frozen within the boundaries of the camps (Basu Ray Chaudhury 2009: 2-4).
India and Myanmar Borderlands, 2019
Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, 2019
Studies in History, 2017
The essay introduces caste as a category for discussing the history of Partition of India, which ... more The essay introduces caste as a category for discussing the history of Partition of India, which until now has focused almost exclusively on the Hindus, Sikhs and the Muslims. The Dalit or the ‘untouchables’ of India are usually left out of this discussion, and whenever they are brought in, they are portrayed as either disinterested onlookers or accidental victims. On the contrary, as this essay will argue, the Dalit were deeply entangled in Partition politics, which threatened their natural habitat in eastern Bengal, where they had reclaimed land from marshes and forests, extended cultivation and set up human settlement. Their regional movement was gradually drawn into the broader subcontinental politics that led to Partition, and the movement as a result lost unity, autonomy and purpose. While one group of the Bengali Dalit leaders were opposed to Partition and believed that a Dalit–Muslim alliance was in the best interest of the Dalit, others got closer to Hindu nationalism and d...