Essays in Historiography

ICBS PUBLICATION N O . 29

Bengal: Rethinking Histoiy

Essays in Historiography

Edited by SEKHAR

BANDYOPADHYAY

MANOHAR

INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR BENGAL STUDIES 2001

Peasant and Tribal Movements in Colonial Bengal: A Historiographic Overview Sanjukta D a s G u p t a

Colonial policies brought i n momentous changes i n Bengal's agrarian economy and rural society reeled under their destabilising impact. To maximise land revenue, experiments i n land tenure systems were undertaken w h i c h ultimately culminated i n the introduction of the Permanent Settlement i n 1793. Deteriorating land relations and recurrent famines throughout the period reveal the maladies i n the agrarian economy, despite apparent signs of prosperity such as increase i n cultivation, expansion of the market for agricultural produce, and rising agricultural prices. Rural Bengal, moreover, became subject to the fluctuations of a w i d e r capitalist economy. The colonial state initiated economie changes in the countryside both directly through redefining property rights and also indirectly through its effects o n the pace of monetisation of the indigenous economy and o n population growth. The settled raiyat, paying his rent i n cash, constituted the backbone of the agricultural p o p u l a t i o n , the peasant smallholding being the predominant f o r m of social organisation of production. Changes in the structure of traditional Industries increased the dependence of the rural population o n agriculture. Inheritance laws split u p zamindari property, w h i l e rack-renting and usury became the principal means of accumulation o f wealth. Increasing commercialisation of agriculture led to an increased dependence o n moneylenders and a consequent impoverishment of the small peasantry. These changes had an even greater impact o n the

* I am grateful to Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and Himadri Banerjee for their commenta on an earlier draft of this paper,

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BENGAL: RETHINKING HISTORY

tribal areas. British intervention brought these relatively secluded communities into contact w i t h the w i d e r polity and economy, and exposed them to n e w stresses and strains, w h i c h caused the disintegration of traditional social organisations and the demise of the o l d agrarian order. Against such a backdrop, rebellions o f the tribal and non-tribal peasantry occurred w i t h great frequency throughout the colonial period. This essay provides an overview of h o w these movements bave figured i n historical narratives. A n y discussion of peasant movements i n the colonial history of Bengal should start w i t h the important methodological debate regarding the distinction between tribal and non-tribal movements. Kathleen Gough and Ranajit Guha bave treated tribal movements as peasant movements, while K.S. Singh argues that such an approach tends to gloss over the 'diversities o f tribal social formations of w h i c h tribal movements are a part, b o t h being structurally related'.^ I n recent years the validity o f thè concept of 'tribe' itself has been questioned. Susana Devalle^ for instance, alleges that the tribe i n India is a colonial category constructed as a consequence of the European perception of the Indian reality and given administrative sanction by the colonial state i n order l o enirench itself i n India. It has also been demonstrated* that 'tribe' and 'peasantry' were hardly distinct structural types and that characteristics usually attributed t o 'peasantry' are also noticeable i n certain tribes: for instance, predominance o f settled agriculture, its subsistence orientation, 'household economy' i n the sense that the tribal family provides the required labour supply for agriculture, and the subordinate or 'underdog' position o f the peasantry and its domination by outsiders. However, w h i l e tribe and peasantry are not distinct structural types, they are historically determined social formations w i t h specificities and attributes that appeared over a l o n g historical lime. There seem to be less socio-economie differentiations w i t h i n ' K.S. Singh, Tribal Society in India: An Anthropo-historical Perspective (New Delhi, 1985), p. 119; ^ Susana B.C. Devalle, Discourses of Ethnicity: Culture and Protest in Jharkhand (New Delhi, 1992); also see Jagannath Pathy, Tribal Peasantry. Dynamics of Development (New Delhi, 1984). 'Andre Beteille, Six Essays in Comparative Sociology (Delhi, 1974).

PEASANT AND TRIBAL MOVEMENTS

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a tribe than are seen among caste H i n d u peasants. Unlike tribal societies, the highly stratified peasant society, composed of layers o f competing interests, could better absorb some of the pressures brought o n by economie changes. I n faci many o f the later n o n tribal movements arose not because o f the disruption of an existing order, but out o f perceptions o f a threat to o l d and n e w interests. Because o f the concentration of tribal people i n certain areas, their distinctive social and politicai organisation and their relative isolation from the mainstream imparted to their rebellions their particular flavour. Singh argues that 'while the peasant movements tend to remain purely agrarian as peasants lived off land, tribal movements were both agrarian and forest based because the tribals' dependence o n forests was as cruciai as their dependence o n land.'^ Exposure to British rule resulted i n different lines of development for tribes, i n contrast to those for the peasantry. I n this essay I shall, therefore, treat these t w o categories separately as the uprisings of these groups, despite similarities, occurred i n vastly differing contexts, each w i t h distinct characteristics. Further, I bave included w i t h i n the scope of this essay tribal rebellions o f the Chotanagpur region w h i c h , till the second decade o f the twentieth century, formed a part o f Bengal Presidency. As the term 'peasant' itself is ambiguous, it has been used to indicate b o t h l a n d - o w n i n g agriculturists as w e l l as those w h o depend o n land, such as landless labourers. I shall use the term non-tribal peasantry i n a broad sense to indicate different subordinate groups dependent o n land.

PEASANT MOVEMENTS

Serious studies o n peasant and tribal uprisings i n India are comparatively recent i n origin, mostly dating to the 1960s, although research i n these fields had begun m u c h earlier. Barrington Moore's provocative contention' that peasant rebellions i n preBritish India were rare and that Indian peasantry i n general lacked " K.S. Singh, 'Agrarian Dimension of Tribal Movements', in A.R. Desai (.ed.), Agrarian Struggles in India AfterIndêndence (.Delhi, 1986), p. lóó. ' Barrington Moore Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and

(Boston, 1966).

Democracy

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revolutionary potential triggered off a spate of writings o n peasant uprisings, as scholars challenged his conclusion that Indian society being 'highly fragmented', depended o n 'diffuse sanctions' for its coherence and for extracting surplus f r o m the peasantry and therefore, was almost i m m u n e to peasant r e b e l l i o n . M o o r e concluded that because of the docility of the Indian peasantry, peasant rebellions never assumed the significance i n India that they d i d i n China. However, as later researches bave shown, the existing social organisation, whatever its form, seldom put any decisive constraint o n collective peasant action. Refuting Barrington Moore's contention, Kathleen Gough^ e v o l v e d a t y p o l o g y o f peasant rebellion i n India under colonial rule, classifying such movements o n the basis of their goals, ideology and methods o f organisation. She identified five types of peasant revolt: restorative rebellions to drive out the British and restore earlier rulers and social relations, religious movements for the liberation of a region or an ethnic group under a n e w f o r m of government, social banditry, terrorist vengeance w i t h ideas of meting out collective justice, and mass insurrections for the redress o f particular grievances. Certain areas had a strong tradition of peasant movements and Gough observed, 'Bengal has been the hotbed of revolt, b o t h rural and urban, from the earliest days of British rule. Some districts i n particular, such as Mymensingh, Dinajpur, Rangpur and Pabna i n Bangladesh, and the Santhal regions o f Bihar and West Bengal, figure repeatedly i n peasant struggles and continue to do so.'^ However, even prior to Barrington Moore's study, some Marxist scholars i n Bengal, l i k e Suprakash Roy^—who was n o t a professional historian and had acquired his scholarly insight through his association w i t h the leftist movements—^had started l o o k i n g at the peasant revolts of this region, interpreting them ^ Kathleen Gough, 'Indian Peasant Uprising', Economie and Weekly, Voi. 9; 32-4, Special Number, August 1974. Îbid., p. 1406.

Politicai

* Suprakash Roy, Bharater Krishak Bidroha O Ganatantrik Sangram (Calcutta, 1966); this book is now available in English translation as Peasant Revolts and Democratic Struggles in India, translated by Rita Banerjee

(Calcutta, 1999).

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p r i m a r i l y i n terms o f the class struggle o f peasants against zamindari oppression and imperialism. Roy considered these revolts to be relentless struggles for politicai freedom and believed that m o d e m politics i n India imbibed lessons i n freedom f r o m these expressions of peasant anger. According to Roy, British rule broke d o w n the traditional village communities and subjected the peasantry to an unprecedented degree o f exploitation, against w h i c h rebellions occurred. Nevertheless, Roy adheres to the classic Marxist position that peasant movements were limited by their very nature and could not transcend into a wider struggle involving ali oppressed classes. Peasant rebellions, he believed, w e r e spontaneous and unplanned and broke out without the assistance of any external elements or the leadership of a conscious politicai party. Thus Roy viewed peasant and tribal revolts i n Bengal as a phase i n the growing democratic movement i n India and the peasant rebel as a unique phenomenon was thus missing i n his narrative. Moreover he tended to ignore the elements o f religiosity in peasant movements and failed to comprehend the religious element i n rebel consciousness—a failure that has been criticised recently as a deliberate attempt to secularise the study o f peasant rebellions. Other Marxist scholars like Narahari Kabiraj^ also emphasised economie factors, denying the legitimacy of the cultural context. Kabiraj refuted M u i n u d d i n A h m e d Khan's^° conclusion that the Faraidi uprisings [of the Faraidi sect of Fast Bengal, founded around 1820 by Haji Shariatullah, w h o sought to Islamise the customs and practices of the Muslim peasantry] were i n essence nationalist Muslim peasant outbursts against a non-Muslim gentry. H e noted that neither the Barasat rising of Titu Mir of 1831-3 nor die Faraidi agitation was a communal outburst or cases o f Muslim fanaticism pitted against H i n d u orthodoxy. The targets were the zamindars, most of w h o m were H i n d u . Neither were the Muslim zamindars, w h o were f e w i n number, spared; the European planters, the w o r s t oppressors of the peasants, w e r e also ' Narahari Kabiraj, A Peasant Iprising in Bengal (New Delhi, 1972); Wahabi and Farazi Rebels of Bengal (Calcutta, 1982). ^"Muinuddin Ahmed Khan, History of the Faraidi Movement in Bengal, 1818-1906 (Kitachi, 19Ó5).

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indiscriminately attacked. Kabiraj therefore c o n c l u d e d that throughout the course o f the movement, 'its agrarian aspect t o o k precedence over the communal o n e ' . " The year i n w h i c h Suprakash Roy's book was published also saw the publication of another valuable study, from a very different standpoint, o f the indigo rebellion (the clash between the peasants and the indigo planters w h i c h took place i n Bengal between 1859 and 1862) by Kling.^^ I n his opinion, the indigo movement was a spontaneous national opposition of ali sections o f society— raiyats, village headmen, grain-dealing, money-lending landlords and the urban middle classes—ûnited by c o m m o n sufferings and sympathies against a common enemy; like the Marxist historians, K l i n g too asserted that the i n d i g o r e b e l l i o n was a secular movement. It had no politicai aims as it was directed not against the government, but against European planters. While studying the reaction of the Calcutta-based middle classes to this dispute, Kling asserted that b o t h the peasantry and their middle-class patrons had a supreme faith i n the righteousness of British rule and its justice system. This interpretation was to be challenged subsequently by scholars like Chittabrata Palit w h o argue that the landlords had engineered the indigo uprising against their bitterest enemies, the p l a n t e r s . M o r e o v e r , i n his account Kling tended to concentrate too m u c h o n the leading officials o f the Bengal government and not o n the peasantry and their resistance. The same indigo rebellion, however, appears i n a different bue i n the writings of Ranajit Guha, w h o i n his famous article o n Neel Darpav}^ severely castigated the middle-class intervention f r o m a Marxist standpoint. While Kling saw the indigo rebellion as a united movement o f the peasantry and the urban middle classes, G u h a emphasised the contradictory ambitions and interests w i t h i n the rebellion. While he celebrated 'the increasing "Narahari Kabiraj, A Peasant Uprising, pp. 110-11. Blair B. Kling, The Blue Mutiny. The Indigo Disturbances in Bengal 1859-1862 (Philadelphia, 1966). " Chittabrata Palit, Tensions in Bengal Rural Society (Calcutta, 1975), p. 141. "Ranajit Guha, 'Neel Darpan: The Image of a Peasant Revolt in a Liberal Mirror', Journal of Peasant Studies, 2: 1,1974, reprinted in David Hardiman (ed.), Peasant Resistance in India, 1885-1914 (Delhi, 1992).

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solidarity of the poorer section of the villagers', he described the participation o f the zamindars as 'opportunist' and that o f the richer peasants as 'defeatist'. Guha showed that the grievances o f the peasants were used by the various superordinate classes to press their o w n demands—^the richer peasants wanted to free themselves f r o m the oppression o f the planters so that they could operate their o w n mahajani (money lending and usury) freely. The zamindars were pleased t o see the power of the planters undermined. The intelligentsia sought to establish themselves as the true friends of the peasants and thus their legitimate politicai representatives. I n ali of this the peasant's o w n voice was largely ignored, and i n the end they gained very little from the struggle. To Guha, middle-class attitudes towards peasants were 'a curious concoction of an inherited, Indian-style paternalism and an acquired western-style humanism'.^' B.B. Chaudhuri's interpretation of the causation of peasant movements i n colonial Bengal as primarily rent disturbances^^ is another example of analytical emphasis o n the economie faeton Peasant unrest, he argued, was caused by a large and sudden increase i n rent and ics enforcement by various coercive methods. O f these movements, the Pabna uprising o f 1873 was the most significant because o f its spread, impact and intensity. Chaudhuri believed that the 'decisive particular moment' i n the Pabna uprising carne w h e n zamindars had abruptly increased rents and sought t o enforce them by dubious means. As this coincided w i t h an agricultural depression—a sharp fall i n the prices of jute and also a c o n s i d e r a l e fall i n the price of rice—the sudden and large increase i n the rent demand affected most of the peasants. Yet Chaudhuri was of the o p i n i o n that the question of status, i.e. the question whether a raiyat was an occupancy raiyat or not, was

"Ibid., pp. 64, 92. '^B.B. Chaudhuri, 'Agrarian Economy and Agrarian Relations in Bengal, 1859-1885', in N.K. Sinha (ed.). The History of Bengal, 1757-1905 iCdXcxMa, 1967); 'The story of a Peasant Revolt in a Bengal district', Bengal Past and Present, Voi. 92, July-December 1973; 'Peasant Movements in Bengal 18501900', Nineteenth Century Studies, Voi. 3, July 1973; 'Agrarian Movements in Bengal and Bihar 1919-1939', in A.R. Desai (ed.), Peasant Struggles in India (Delhi, 1979).

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only marginally relevant; while the increased rental demands o f the zamindars and the occasionai fluctuations i n the economy d i d adversely affect the peasants, it seldom resulted i n the disintegration of the peasantry. Agricultural resources h a d increased during the past t w o decades, and the peasants as a group o f small property holders had also a share i n this and by the time of the revolt they seemed to bave acquired a certain status i n the existing landed society. This was partly the reason w h y rebel peasants did not think i n terms of a radicai redistribution o f property, but were primarily concerned t o stem any encroachment o n their small properties and they l o o k e d for certain guarantees i n this.

was its legalistic approach. Sengupta accepted many facets o f the Marxist interpretation of peasant movements and believed that a link was established between urban and rural Bengal through a section of the Bengali salaried and professional middle classes of Calcutta w h o took u p the cause of the occupancy raiyats. However, they failed to establish any real and enduring links between rural and urban Bengal. He argued that it was essentially non-communal: the peasants were mostly converts from lower Hindu castes, 'most of w h o m were completely ignorant of even the elementary doctrines of the Koran'.^^ The importance of the middle-class intervention emphasised by Sengupta was reiterated i n yet another Marxist analysis b y Sunil Sen.^^ His account is unique i n the sense that as one o f the partcipants of the Tebhaga movement, he discussed its history i n the light of his o w n personal experiences as w e l l as available documentation and newspaper reports. Breaking out i n 1946, the Tebhaga struggle was the movement of the sharecroppers o f Bengal, particulariy north Bengal, where they demanded t w o thirds rather than half as their share of the produce. According to Sen, the educated class had a major role i n the mobilisation of the peasants through the Kisan Sabba. Sen discussed the growth of the Kisan Sabba and the changing attitude of the Comintern, w h i c h shaped the strategy of the Communists i n India w i t h regard to linking the peasant struggles w i t h larger national struggles. He presented an intimate picture of the background, the objective matrix, and the unfolding of the Tebhaga movement i n its t w o phases. The agitation, he pointed out, involved the lower stratum of tenants, such as bargadars, adhiars and others and was a struggle not merely against zamindars but also against a section of rich peasants, the jotedars (both n e w owners and permanent rich tenants) w h o benefited from legislation foUowing the Pabna revolt. Essentially an economie struggle, the movement, i n Sen's view, took a politicai form w h e n it had to confront the jotedars and the politicai apparatus of the state.

I n Kalyan Kumar Sengupta's analysis," however, the Pabna movement appeared as an uprising of the substantial peasantry eager to preserve the occupancy status they had acquired through the Bengal Rent Act X of 1859. Indeed, the Pabna uprising thus became a contested issue i n an interesting historiographic debate between Sengupta and Chaudhuri. Sengupta argued that the movement was not concerned merely w i t h high rents, but attacked ali forms o f zamindari oppression. The Pabna m o v e m e n t , according to h i m , was linked to the struggles o f tenants against h i g h landlordism, i n the p e r i o d immediately preceding the enactment of the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885. Conducted under the leadership of a powerful and effìcient agrarian league, the movement created the conditions for similar uprisings i n other parts of eastern and centrai Bengal w h i c h gradually developed into a widespread and popular protest against late nineteenth century forms of landlordism i n the cash crop producing areas of East Bengal. Other sections of the tenantry, non-occupancy raiyats, sharecroppers and agricultural labourers, participated i n the movement fairly willingly as the zamindar was the common enemy of ali, but their problems and grievances never came i n for serious consideration. A unique feature of the agrarian struggle i n Pabna "Kalyan Kumar Sengupta, 'Agrarian League of Pabna, 1873', The Indiati Economie and Social History Review, Voi. 7: 2, June 1970; Pabna Disturbances and the Politics o/Rent 1873-1885 (.New Deìhi, 1974); 'Peasant Struggles in Pabna, 1873', in A.R. Desai (ed.), Peasant Struggles in India (Delhi, 1979).

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Most studies o n peasant history that w e bave reviewed thus far argued that peasants were motivated to rebel because of Kalyan Kumar Sengupta, Pabna Disturbances, p. 52. " Sunil Sen, Agrarian Struggle in Bengal, 1946-47 (New Delhi, 1972).

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economie conditions. Rebellions were either a protest against rent or high landlordism or arose out of a concern for occupancy status or the share of the produce. Such studies also assumed that peasants had no politicai consciousness of their o w n ; it was developed by politicai parties and non-peasant leaders. Such interpretations, ironically, had points of commonality w i t h the colonial discourse, w h i c h viewed the peasantry as simple, poor and ignorant, unaware of the cause of their poverty, and always instigated by others. With the launch of the Subaltern Studies collective i n the early 1980s, significant advances bave, however, been made i n restoring the history of subaltern groups, disrupting both the nationalist narrative that considered ali colonial revolts as events i n the becoming o f the Indian nation, and contesting the older Marxist accounts of rebellions as preludes to the emergence of fuU-fledged class consciousness.

Guha delineated structural similarities between disparate movements and identified six different strands or 'elementary aspects' of rebel peasant consciousness: negation, m o d a l i t y ambiguity, solidarity, transmission, and territoriality. The insurgent consciousness was, i n the first place, a negative consciousness, as the rebel peasant learnt to recognise himself not through his o w n attributes, but through attributes of the dominant group that he lacked. During rebellion, this negative consciousness f o u n d expression through the peasants' attempt to appropriate for themselves the signs of authority of those w h o dominate them. Secondly, peasant rebellions i n their initial stage involved a degree of ambiguity; signs of rebellion were at first misinterpreted by the colonial authority as increases i n crime (rebellions differed from crime i n that they were invariably communal and public events), Guha identified certain modalities of insurgency, w h i c h once distinguished f r o m common crime exhibited its identity as violence that is public, collective, destructive and total. He further delineated four forms of struggle, wrecking, burning, eating and looting, as the most conspicuous and destructive. Fourth, the self-definition of the insurgent peasants lay i n their solidarity, usually expressed i n terms of ethnicity, kinship, religion and class awareness. The message of rebellion was disseminated for the dual purpose of informing and raobilising, through a variety o f verbal and non-verbal means, a process Guha termed transmission. Finally Guha showed that peasant rebellions were characterised by their inability t o spread b e y o n d a certain geographical space and remaining localised affairs. This was determined both negatively, by the rebel's perception of the geographical spread of the authority of the dominant group, and positively by the notion of ethnic space occupied by the insurgent community. Guha's approach undoubtedly a l l o w e d a richer understanding of peasant resistance. However, he d i d not attempt to trace the evolution of such resistance over time. The structure of domination and subordination is only marginally analysed, leaving unintelligible i n many cases the beginning of the i n surgence. Such an analysis moreover tends to reify the insurgent consciousness and ignore the elements o f temporality i n peasant consciousness and the emergence of new attributes i n it.

Ranajit Guha's Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India^° w a r n e d us against the tendency of treating peasant movements as only the prehistory of Indian nationalism. He rejected that point of v i e w w h i c h interpreted peasant movements as spontaneous uprisings and characterised them as prepoliticai; he asserted that peasant n o t i o n of domination was primarily of a politicai nature, economie exploitation being an issue among others. FoUowing Antonio Gramsci's ideas as set out i n his famous 'Notes o n Italian H i s t o r y ' G u h a and others of the Subalternist historians bave suggested that colonial and postcolonial South Asian society can be studied i n a framework of power relationships i n w h i c h the elite and subaltern classes inhabit t w o distinct and relatively autonomous domains of existence and consciousness. Peasants are thus seen i n these narratives as makers of their o w n rebellion, having their o w n politicai consciousness d e r i v e d f r o m their o w n traditions, independent of outside leadership. Resistance was that aspect of power relations through w h i c h the peasantry expressed its distinct and autonomous identity. 2» (Delhi, 1983). ^'Antonio Gramsci, SelecUons from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (London, 1971), pp. 52-120.

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Partha Chatterjee, another scholar of the Subaltern collective.



similarly refutes that politicai actions o f the peasantry w e r e 'primordial', 'pre-politicai', irrational or spontaneous. He believes it is necessary to look o n peasant rebellion as '. . . informed by its o w n consciousness, shaped by centuries o f its o w n politicai historyj structured by distinct conceptions of power and morality, and attempting to come to terms w i t h and act w i t h i n whoUy n e w contexts of class struggle.'^^ While Guha asserted that the strucmre o f peasant consciousness was b o u n d together b y the sense o f community, he d i d not provide, as Chatterjee points out, a theoretical conceptualisation o f the c o m m u n i t y as a f o r m a i construct." Challenging earlier attempts to explain ali peasant resistance i n terms of 'essential class interest', Chatterjee asserts that the Indian peasantry generally conceptualised relationships o f p o w e r i n terms of the idea o f community. There was a consciousness o f communal rights and communal solidarity among the members. I n such a community, 'each individuai conducts himself only as a link, as a member o f the community proprietor or possessor'.^'' Politicai power is organised as the authority o f the entire coUectivity. Chatterjee uses the concept 'communal mode of power' to explain communal solidarity and the politically autonomous character of the agricultural community where differentiations were not sharp. The tension between the peasant community o f East Bengal, predominantly comprising Muslims, and the state, dominated by landlords, moneylenders and urban traders led to riots between 1926 and 1935. I n such riots

an ontology, an epistemology as well as practical code of ethics, including politicai ethics. When this community acts politically, the symbolic meaning of particular acts—their significance—^must be found in rleigious terms.

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the ideology which shaped and gave meaning to the various collective acts of the peasantry was fundamentally religious. The very nature of peasant consciousness, the apparently consistent unification of an entire set of beliefs about nature and about men in the collective and active mind of the peasantry, is religious. Religion to such a community provides

"Partha Chatterjee, 'The Colonial State and Peasant Resistance in Bengal 1920-1947', Past and Present, Voi. 110, February 1986, p. 202. " Partha Chatterjee, 'For an Indian History of Peasant Struggles', Social Sdentisi, Voi. 16: 11, November 1988, p. 12. " Partha Chatterjee, 'Agrarian Relations and Communalism in Bengal, 1926-1935', in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies L Writings on South Asian History and Society (Delhi, 1982), p. 12.

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T h i s emphasis o n the r e b e l peasant's o w n c o n s c i o u s n e s s is

reiterated b y Gautam Bhadra^^ w h o focuses o n different facets of the subaltern mentality, that is, the balance of defiance and submissiveness to authority, e n c o d e d i n a long p o e m written by a peasant headman of the Dinajpur district i n colonial Bengal i n the mid-nineteenth cenmry, the Kantanama or Rajdharma. H i s essay locates the text w i t h i n orai and literary traditions, and more generally w i t h i n its cultural context. Through an analysis of this text h e highlights the fact that the i d i o m s o f d o m i n a t i o n , subordination and revolt are often inextricably l i n k e d together and that subordination or domination is seldom, if ever, complete. Subordination, moreover, was n o t a static p r o p e r t y o f any particular class, but a relationship 'which people could enter into or r e p r o d u c e i n different contexts o f h i e r a r c h y ' a n d 'collaboration and resistance, the t w o elements i n the mentality of subalternity, merge and coalesce to make u p a complex and contradictory consciousness'." Rejecting attempts by Marxists to secularise peasant uprisings, i n essays dealing w i t h the movement of the Paglapanthis of Mymensingh and Titu Mir's Jung, Bhadra too lays stress o n religiosity and its influence i n determining the rebel peasant consciousness. H e is criticai of Schendel's attempt^^ to e x p l a i n the Mymensingh uprising i n terms o f economie exploitation. Bhadra feels that to categorise Titu's rebellion as

" I b i d . , p. 31, italics originai; also see his Bengal 1920-1947: The Land Question (Calcutta, 1984). Gautam Bhadra, 'Paglai Dhum: Mymensigher Krishak Bidroha' (Paglai Dhum: A Peasant Revolt in Mymensingh), Anustup Saradiya, 198Ó-7; 'The Mentality of Subalternity: Kantanama or Rajdharma', in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies VI: Writings on South Asian History and Society (Delhi, 1989); Iman O Nishan (Calcutta, 1994). Gautam Bhadra, 'The Mentality of Subalternity', p. 91. ^* William Van Schendel, 'Madmen of Mymensingh: Peasant Resistance and the Colonial Process in Eastern India, 1824-1833', The Indian Economie and Social History Review, Voi. 22: 2, April-June 1985.

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either a Hindu-Muslim riot or as a class struggle is to deny the complexities relating to identity and power structure. Religiosity has to be judged o n the basis of everyday usage i n folk culture and the language of protest may be understood through the medium of religion. Outside the orthodox Marxist and Subaltern Studies models, another significant attempt to analyse and understand peasant movements comes through the writings of Sugata Bose. I n his earlier attempt^^ to understand the rural social structure and the dynamics of peasant politics i n the early twentieth century, he had emphasised economie factors and argued that conflict became inevitable i n Bengal agrarian society through a rupture i n the credit nexus, particulariy the non-availability of credit after 1930. The conflicts, however, took different forms i n different regions. Although he conceded that religion played a large part i n the consciousness of the Muslim peasantry, he stressed mainly the class factor. I n his second book, Bose recognises the importance of what he calls 'communitarian resistance . . . inspired by a religious ideology'. But this was, i n his o p i n i o n , mainly a phenomenon o f the early nineteenth century; i n the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries class identities were being formed and what w e come across i n this period is 'combination of class and community concerns'. However, from 1930 onwards, Bose finds 'primarily economie' factors and class concerns about individuai rights under colonial law.providing the main motivation for peasant resistance.^°

mentalities from the distant past'. It was 'not solely determined by the pre-existing bonds of community, but was constantly reformulated i n response to changing historical contexts . . .'.^^

Since the Subalternist intervention, it is n o longer possible to analyse peasant movements w i t h i n a simplistic structuralist framework; the present discursive turn i n history has shifted the focus decisively o n to the peasant mentalities, peasant religious discourse, and the politicai consciousness of peasants—in short, their perceptions of the relations of power. But this consciousness, as Bose warns us, should not be 'misconstrued as static collective ^ Sugata Bose, Agrarian Bengal; Economy, Social Structure and Politics 1919-1947 (Cambridge, 1986). ^Sugata Bose, TheNewCambridgeHistoryofIndia, III 2, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal since 1770 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 151, 164.and passim.

TRIBAL MOVEMENTS

The earliest writings o n tribes i n India were those of nineteenthcentury British administrators whose attention was drawn to tribal societies by the recurring tribal revolts. W h i l e these d i d not threaten the politicai stability of the Raj, such disturbances were interpreted as improper defiance of the state's legitimate authority. The tribal w o r l d , therefore, figured i n officiai perceptions mainly as an adjunct to the counter-insurgency measures of the state. Over the years, the state's perception of the tribal w o r l d changed due to an iraproved understanding of tribal society. Tribes were then recognised as a worthwhile subject of study. Inquiries into the origins of the tribal rebellions convinced the government of the distinctiveness o f the tribal regions, w h i c h made t h e m vulnerable to the activities of powerful adversaries, particulariy o f alien outsiders and necessitated protection by government.'^ Several studies o n t r i b a l societies w e r e u n d e r t a k e n b y anthropologically inclined administrators; the influence of the discipline o n their general design and methods o f investigation is clearly discernible.'^ The administrative relevance of such anthropological enterprises was that they sought the roots of endemie unrest i n tribal regions, w h i c h the government had failed to fully comprehend. Rebellion among Santais, for instance, was traced to primarily four causes—^rapacious moneylenders, the increasing misery caused by the system of personal and hereditary bondage for debt, c o r r u p t i o n and extortions o f the police, and the impossibility of the Santais obtaining redress i n the courts, A n endogenous factor that c o n t r i b u t e d to distress was Santal

^'Ibid., pp. 161-2. 32 W.W. Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal (London, 1868). 3*E.T. Dalton, DescriptiveEtbnologyof Bengal (Calcutta, 1872); H.H. Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Vols. 1 & 2 (Calcutta, 1891); G. Archer, 'The Santhal Rebellion', Man in India, Voi. 25: 4, December 1945.

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improvidence.^'' Liberal critics of the British government also laid emphasis o n other destabilising changes introduced by British rule, such as forest regulations w h i c h curtailed the customary rights of tribals in forests. A significant trend i n the recent historiography of agrarian change i n British India is the increasing interest i n tribal societies that had for long been primarily the anthropologist's domain. Most of these studies deal w i t h tribal revolts. The disintegration of relatively isolated traditional tribal structures as a result o f the colonial encounter is a common theme. Tribal conflicts, resulting from the infiltration of non-tribals into tribal territory, bave been interpreted as the resistance of tribals against exploitative alien outsiders, the dikus, whose influx into the tribal region increased w i t h the new economie opportunities ushered i n by British rule, These studies, further, perceive tribal communities as h o m o geneous units and therefore, united i n their opposition to the alien and unacceptable intruders into their realms.

the Santal rebellion to be anti-mahajan and trader rather than anti-British. To Baske, the K o l and Santal rebellions were i n a sense politicai movements, as their objective was to establish their o w n raj, expelling outsiders, Indians as w e l l as British. FoUowing i n Datta's footsteps, three of his students, J.C. Jha,^^ S.P. Sinha''^ and K,S. Singh"* published monographs o n similar movements i n Chotanagpur, I n his pioneering study of the K o l rebeUion, Jha reiterated the argument that tribal people, already feeling the unhappy effects of Hinduisation and alienation of tribal rajas a n d zamindars, faced economie r u i n w i t h the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f f o r e i g n n o t i o n s a n d f o r e i g n p e o p l e as a consequence of British rule. I n his o p i n i o n the tribal unrest of 1831-2 was 'a crude form of protest against these changes and these outside influences—a gesture of despair."'^ To Jha, however, diese movements of 'peasant protestants' were 'blind and groping' as the rebels, being extremely inarticulate, d i d not k n o w h o w to express their legitimate grievances. Jha also believed, some what erroneously, that the consequence of the revolt was the introduction of relief measures through Regulation X I I I of 1833 whereby special rules were framed for the area w h i c h eased conflicts w i t h i n tribal society. Similarly, the Bhumij revolt was 'a miUenary or populist movement aimed at creating an ideal w o r i d ' in w h i c h men w o u l d receive justice."*'

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Kali Kinkar Datta's Santal Insurrection^ was one of the eariiest discussions o n tribal uprisings. Datta considered the chief reason behind the rebellion to be the economie grievances o f the people against their oppression and exploitation by the Bengali and upcountry merchants and moneylenders w h o had flocked to Damin-i-Koh, attracted by the facilities available there for business. I n a later volume dealing w i t h the nationalist reconstruction o f the freedom struggle, Datta included tribal rebellions such as the Kol (that is the Munda and Larka H o ) uprising of 1831, the Santal bui o f 1855 and Birsa Munda's ulgulan (1898-9) i n a medley o f discrete rebellions,^^ Dhirendranath Baske'» likewise perceived the Santal rebellion as primarily a conscious politicai movement against colonial rule, challenging the point of view that considered ^ E . G . Man, Sonthalia and the Sonthals (Calcutta, 1867); W.J. Culshaw and W G . Archer, 'The Santhal Rebellion', Man in India, Voi. 25: 4, December 1945. "Verrier Elwin, 'Saora ?ìiuns\ in India, Voi. 25: 4, December 1945. ^ K a l i Kinkar Datta, Santal Insurrection (Calcutta, 1940). " Kali Kinkar Datta, 'The Birsa Movement in Chota Nagpur', in K.K. Datta (ed.), History of the Freedom Movement in Bihar (Patna, 1957). "Dhirendranath Baske, Saontal GanasangramerItihas (Calcutta, 1976).

S.P. Sinha'" considered the Birsaite movement to be b o t h a religious and politicai movement. To h i m , alien culture played the cruciai role i n the disintegration of tribal society. Sinha argued that the tribal w o r l d , economically subordinate, was culturally inferior to that of the Hindus and Christians. Birsa Munda therefore had to b o r r o w elements of the dominant culture to raise the

^'J.e. Jha, The Kol Insurrectton in Chotanagpur (Calcutta, 1964); The Bhumij Revolt 1832-33 (New Delhi, 1967); 'The Nature of the Tribal Unrest on the Chotanagpur Plateau, 1831-1833', Revolt Studies, Voi. 1; 1, June 1985. ^"S.P. Sinha, Life and Times of Birsa Bhagwan (Ranchi, 1964). K.S. Singh, The Dust Storm and the Hanging Misi: A Study of Birsa Munda and his movement in Chota Nagpur, 1874-1901 (Calcutta, 1966). «J.C. Jha, The Kol Insurrection, p. 1. ^'J.C. Jha, The Bhumij Revolt, p. 187. S.P. Sinha, Life and Times of Birsa Bhagwan.

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Status o f the subordinate group. K.S. Singh, o n the other band, laid emphasis o n economie issues, w h i c h u n d e r m i n e d tribal agrarian structure. He observed, 'the transformation of the Mundari agrarian system i n t o n o n - c o m m u n a l , feudal, z a m i n d a r i or individuai tenures was the key to agrarian disorders that climaxed into religious-political movements of Birsa'.''^ I n many tribal villages of Bengal Presidency, tribals slowly lost their lands to non-tribal moneylenders and landlords, reducing their status to that o f tenants or labourers. I n regions where the tribal chieftains had become Hinduised, they themselves invited non-tribal peasants to settle i n tribal areas. The latter being experienced farmers c o u l d easily seize the land o f the tribals. Government officials, particulariy revenue and police officials, moreover, used their authority to enslave the tribals. Furthermore the courts were indifferent to the plight o f the tribals as they were ignorant of tribal agrarian systems and customs. Another common theme that figures i n most studies o n tribal revolts is the role o f the 'rebellions prophets' w h o launched 'messianic movements', promising their followers fo drive out the outsiders and bring back a golden age.''^ Once the 'lost kingdom' was recovered, 'there w i l l be enough to eat, n o famine, the people w i l l live together i n love'.^"^ B.B. Chaudhuri, however, has put forward a n e w explanation of millenarianism among tribals. While economie grievances u n d o u b t e d l y underlay m a n y o f the rebellions o f the tribal peasantry, the rise o f such movements, he believes, cannot be related solely to economie factors, i.e. to the immiserisation o f the tribals or to the increasing domination o f aliens or dikus over K.S. Singh, The Dust Storm and the Hanging Misi, p. 1. Martin Orans, The Santal, A Tribe in Search of Great Tradition (Detroit, 1965); S.P. Sinha, Life and Times of Birsa Bhagwan- K.S. Singh, The Dust Storm and the Hanging Mist; Stephen Fuchs, 'Messianic Movements in Tribal lndia',foumal of the Asiatic Society of Bombay, Voi. 20:1, 2, \%l;Rebellious prophets (Delhi, 1980); J. Troisi, 'Social Movements among the Santais', Social Action, Voi. 26; 3, July-September 1976; Surajit Sinha, 'Tribal Solidarity and Messianic Movement: Review Artide', Contributions to Indian Sociology (New Series), Voi. 2, 1968; 'Tribal Solidarity Movements in India: A Review', in K.S. Singh (ed.), Tribal Situation In India (Shimla, 1972). K.S. Singh, The Dust Storm and the Hanging Mist, p. 193.


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them. 'The cruciai factor i n the emergence o f a movement, often after a prolonged period o f stresses o n tribal societies, was an altogether n e w perception, i n the context of a sharp aggravation of the stresses, that the existing politicai authority, i.e., the colonial state, had utterly failed to protect them, and indeed had sided w i t h their mighty adversaries. '^* The collapse o f their faith i n this authority and i n its legitimacy was deeply unsettling for the rebels who, lacking any other reliable authority structure, had accepted it for so long. Hence came their search for an independent politicai power of their o w n , w h i c h was a millenarian goal. The alternative politicai authority, w h i c h the millenarian rebels had i n m i n d was therefore as comprehensive as the one it w o u l d supplant. Chaudhuri also shows h o w the occurrence o f a millenarian type movement i n one part of the tribal w o r l d greatly facilitated its emergence i n others. Thus the Tana Bhagat movement among the Oraons, originating and developing i n the first three decades of the twentieth century, heavily drew o n earlier models, that of the Santal and the JVlunda uprisings. It could therefore be inferred that the different ethnic groups at that time had nearly ceased to be culturally segregated entities. Ali such millenarian movements called for a complete replacement o f the existing structure o f politicai authority w i t h an independent tribal polity. This emphasis o n the supra village cultural identity distinguished millenarian movements from other types of tribal protests, according to Chaudhuri. The leadership o f the Santal, Kol, and Munda rebellions came from religious leaders like Birsa Munda w h o claimed to be the incarnations of God, or from Sidhu and Kanu, the leaders o f the Santal b u i , w h o asserted that they received messages f r o m

••^B.B. Chaudhuri, 'The Story of a Tribal Revolt in the Bengal Presidency: the Religion and Politics of the Oraons, 1900-1926', in Adhir Chakraborty (ed), Aspects of Socio Economie Changes and Politicai Awakening inBengal (Calcutta, 1989), p. I6O; also see his 'Tribal Society in Transition: Eastern India, 1757-1920', in Mushirul Hasan and Narayani Gupta (eds.), India's Colonial Encounter (New Delhi, 1993); 'Ideology and Organisation of Millenarian Protest Movements in the Tribal World of Colonial Eastern India', in J.T. O'Connell (ed.), Religious Movements and Institutions in Modem India (New Delhi, 1999).

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supernatural powers. T h e leader generally claimed that the message he proclaimed was n o t a p r o d u c i o f his individuai reasoning, but was divinely ordained, and therefore, infallible. Yet, Chaudhuri argues, a leader's faith i n supernatural intervention d i d n o t preclude human agency. He d i d k n o w o f the might o f his enemies, a n d utmost stress was laid o n the adequate preparation for armed offensive against them. Thus Chaudhuri distinguishes these nineteenth century movements i n the tribal regions o f Bengal Presidency f r o m t h e t y p i c a l m i l l e n a r i a n movement called 'pure' b y Hobsbawm''' a n d characterised b y the fact that its followers were not the makers o f r e v o l u t i o n — revolts were expeeted to occur by divine revelation or by a miracle. Economie change and its impact continued to dominate further studies o n tribal movements. Increasingly, however, attempts were made to analyse differences i n the forms of rebellion o f different tribal groups over time. I n an interesting comparative analysis o f the Sardar and Kherwar movements o f the Santais between 1858 and 1898, John MacDougall'° showed that the nature o f the m o v e m e n t s v a r i e d as a consequence o f variations i n t h e 'peasantisation o f adivasi society'. The Sardar movement was an attempt to mobilise organisational resources provided b y the missionaries and by Mundas and Oraons i n order to induce state authorities t o carry o u t agrarian reforms, as peasantisation h a d led t o arbitrary treatment o f adivasis b y diku landowners a n d moneylenders. The difference between the Sardar and Kherwar movements, according to MacDougall, was primarily differences in processes o f resource mobilisation and peasantisation. The Kherwar movement had been organised less around agrarian issues as the state had been more successful there i n protecting

^«EJ. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels (New York, 1965). '"John MacDougall, landorReligionF The Sardar and Kherwar Movements in Bihar 1858-95 (New Delhi, 1985); also see his 'Religious Revitalization vs. Agrarian Reform: Collective Resistance to Peasantisation among the Mundas, Oraons and Santais, 1858-95', Contributions to Indian Sociology (New Series), Voi, 11: 2, 1977; 'Participation in late 19th centun' Adivasi Movements: Variations within Two Districts of Bihar', in Rupert R. Moser et al. (eds.), Aspects of Tribal Life in South Asia: Strategy and Suruival (Berne, 1978).


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adivasi lands. I n the Sardar movement, there were cleavages between the Christian and non-Christian tribals, causing a break in tribal solidarity. I n the Kherwar movement, however, the H i n d u influence was stronger. While B.B. Chaudhuri only identitifies the economie basis o f the 'rebel tribal consciousness', Prabhu Prasad Mohapatra sees i n the 'agrarian regimes i n Chotanagpur . . . a continuous conflict between landlords and tenants', a 'class s t r u g g l e ' . M o h a p a t r a studies a series o f rent disturbances i n tribal Chotanagpur and explores the interrelationship between class structure, class conflict and surplus extraction. H e adheres t o a binary division o f Chotanagpur rural society into peasants and landlords, B y the time o f colonial rule, most landlords had n o historical or kinship ties w i t h the locai population and were mostly outsiders f r o m the plains o f Bihar, They were less subject to customary checks and social pressures i n their relationship w i t h the tenant class and more prone to transgress limits o f exploitation and destroy customary barriers t o surplus e x t r a c t i o n p o s e d b y v i l l a g e communities. Mohapatra ascribes the muted levels o f resistance to the demands o f the landlords to the weakening o f the village c o m m u n i t y organisation. Pockets o f resistance i n south-east Hazaribagh, Mahuadanr i n Palamau and also M a n b h u m district were mostly populated by tribals w h o had retained their customary village organisation and ethnic homogeneity, facilitating resistance t o landlords. Mohapatra explains the strong peasant resistance there i n terms o f ethnic homogeneity through survival o f various forms o f village community. Moreover, the process o f expansion of arable land tended to weaken the power o f the landlords and strengthen the class o f reclaiming headmen a n d substantial peasants. Mohapatra also lays stress o n the differential impact of differing revenue practices o n the life o f the tribals. I n Ranchi, the survival of village communities like the bhuinhari system (whereby land was held rent free b y descendants o f village founders) created different problems. To increase control, landlords attempted t o " Prabhu Prasad Mohapatra, 'Class Conflict and Agrarian Regimes in Chota Nagpur, 1860-1950', The Indian Economie and Social History Review, Voi. 28: 1, 1991, p. 2.

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BENGAL; RETHINKING HISTORY

restrict bhuinhari tenure and increase the area o f ordinary rent paying land. Already i n 1822 the introduction o f thikadari or rent farming had seen the entry of a new set o f m i d d l e m e n like Muslims, Sikhs and others, leading to the dispossession o f K o l headmen. The Sardari lavai (a petition movement among Oraons against landlord exactions i n the second half of the nineteenth century), therefore, started as a p e t i t i o n movement against landlords' bethbegari (labour demands) and encroachments o n bhuinhari lands; tìie sardars demanded diat they pay rent directly to Government. Mohapatra argues that the Sardari lavai was the first serious challenge to the concept of landlord property, w h i c h was at the basis o f the Permanent Settlement. There were t w o levels at w h i c h the struggle took place. At the locai agrarian and economie level w i t h i n the village the revolt was led by either bhuinhars or Christian converts. At an overtly politicai level, it amounted to a struggle for the 'establishment o f an alternative n o t i o n o f p o w e r ' , 'the restoration o f collective c o m m u n i t y property' and the 'negation of the landlord's claims of absolute property right'.'^ Thus there was no strict distinction between agrarian and economie level of conflict and politicai struggle, rather a complementarity. The underlying assumption of most studies o n tribal revolts that w e bave surveyed so far is that despite occasionai cultural interactions and b o r r o w i n g o f non-tribal religious and cultural symbols by tribals, the economie interests of these t w o groups bave been inherently antagonistic, and herein lay the roots o f c o n f l i c t . I n a recent essay, Sangeeta Dasgupta presents a refreshingly different v i e w of tribal rebellions.'' I n ber study o f the Tana Bhagat movement among the Oraons ( w h i c h started around 1914), while recognising the importance o f the Oraon and Tana opposition to the zamindars, banias and the British state, she suggests that conflict must also be located w i t h i n the internai hierarchy of the community. She believes that the Tana Bhagat movement, w h i c h challenged the entire order o f settled agriculture, denoted the efforts of a less-privileged section of «Ibid., p. 36. Sangeeta Dasgupta, 'Reordering a World: The Tanabhagat Movement, 1914-1919', Studies in History (New Series), Voi. 15: 1, 1999.


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Oraons to redefìne their identity. I n the Oraon social structure the originai reclaimers or bhuinhars enjoyed b o t h privileged tenures and could dominate traditional village offìces o f the pahan (priest) and mahto (headman). The bhuinhar stranglehold was strengthened through British intervention i n Chotanagpur. The n e w administrative arrangements and agrarian legislations proved beneficiai for the bhuinhars w h o , at one level, appropriated land for themselves, and o n the other practised baniagiri. It was the special position of these bhuinhars that the Tanas also challenged through their movement. Dasgupta writes: 'The t w o seemingly disparate realms of Tana protest—an opposition to the pahan, mahto and to the w o r l d o f spirits and ritual celebrations, and a resistance to the landlords, banias and the Raj—were thus interlinked.'^'' The Tanas, therefore, articulated the ideology of a marginai g r o u p w i t h i n O r a o n society and challenged those elements, t r i b a l a n d n o n - t r i b a l , that h a d forced t h e m i n t o dependence and subordination. Another theme i n the analysis of tribal rebellions relates to their links w i t h the wider national movement against colonial rule. K.S. Singh,'' attempting a characterisation of the changing nature of tribal revolts i n the Bengal Presidency over a l o n g period of time, identifies three major phases of the revolts. The first phase, f r o m 1795 to 1860, he calls primary resistance, a concept he does not precisely define. He notes some important features of the revolts of this phase: participation of groups other than tribes; leadership o f the traditional chiefs and their subordinates w h o had been dispossessed of their property, a n d spontaneity o f the revolts against the 'new system', and the 'new classes o f people' w h o were inducted by it. The second phase of the revolts occurring i n the context of the worsening material condition o f the tribes was more complex i n nature. We come across bere a curious mix of agrarian, religious and politicai issues. The leadership was mosdy non-traditional. I t came from the ranks o f the peasants or educated tribals or was offered b y those outsiders w h o had gained a footing among the tribes. The third phase, 1920-47, according to Singh, saw the rise of the movement 5^lbid., p. 2. K.S. Singh, Tribal Society in India: An Anthropo-historical Perspective.

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BENGAL- RETHINKING HISTORY


of a secular or politicai nature. Its distinctive features were the involvement of the tribals i n the nationalist movement, their enthusiastic response t o Gandhi's message, and the emergence later o f a regionally oriented separatisi agitation, the Jharkhand movement. Singh therefore takes 1920 or the Non-cooperation movement as the great divide between the t w o phases of tribal revolts. This distinction between the pre and post 1920 revolts i n terms of organisation does not always h o l d good; not ali pre1920 revolts were 'sporadic, isolated and spontaneous.' Equally questionable is the view that the post-1920 phase of tribal politics 'was marked by movements w h i c h could be sustained only by organisation and through external stimuli','^ that is through the message and personality of Mahatma Gandhi.

and marked by Congress participation. The second phase, an exiension and logicai culmination of the struggle initiated i n 1921, was conducted i n the period foUowing Gandhi's arresi and saw n o organised Congress participation. Dasgupta thus unravels the complexities of the adivasi encounter and their alliance w i t h the nationalist organisations and the autonomy of subaltern politics. While the Congress took the initiative i n extending the scope of the movement, o n occasions its role suggests a conscious subversion of autonomous adivasi initiative. However, once the initial spark had been l i l , the Congress became progressively redundant. The movement acquired its o w n dynamism and its a u t o n o m y became explicit by January 1922. Dasgupta thus concludes: 'Elite politics i n Midnapur had thus only a very tenuous connection w i t h the autonomous mobilisation o f this particular section of the subaltern. Adivasi insurgency belonged o n the w h o l e to another domain of politics.''^

I n reality, contaets w i t h the nationalist movement could not p r o v i d e any n e w organisation for rebel tribals. Some locai Congressmen only occasionally came i n contact w i t h tribes, but they had their o w n agenda; and the provincial Congress was normally very lukewarm i n its support for any agrarian movement, tribal or peasant. This point has been discussed by Subalternist scholars w h o argue that the subaltern classes, i n this case the tribal peasants, had a substantial degree o f cultural and politicai autonomy vis-a-vis the statisi politics and project of the nationalist elites. Emphasis o n the rebel's o w n consciousness is certainly a n e w trend i n the study of tribal movements i n colonial Bengal. Swapan Dasgupta" and Tanika Sarkar'^ bave discussed the initiative of the tribal people i n their social actions. Dasgupta discusses the turmoil between 1921 and 1923 i n the Jungle Mahals w h e n adivasi peasants rose against landlordism of the Midnapur Zamindari Company. This movement h a d t w o b r o a d phases, the first coinciding w i t h the p e r i o d o f the Non-cooperation movement ^^bid., p. 158. "Swapan Dasgupta, 'Adivasi Politics in Midnapur, c. 1760-1921, in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies IV: Writings on South Asian History and Society (Delhi, 1985). ^Tanika Sarkar, Jitu Santal's Movement in Malda, 1924-1932: A Study in Tribal Protest', in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern StudiesIV: Writings on South Asian History and Society (Delhi, 1985).

Tanika Sarkar discusses Jitu Santal's widespread movement i n Malda that aimed at raising the status of the Santais o f the region to that of jal chat Hindus, from w h o m higher castes could accept water w i t h o u t fear of poUution. Jitu's group prided themselves as Hindus and held l o w caste H i n d u groups and Muslims i n aversion, However, as Tanika Sarkar shows, there were some ambiguities i n their actions w h i c h indicate the persistence of their Santal mentality. For instance they d i d not discontinue the worship o f Santal spirits and gods or the celebration o f Santal soil festivals; their perception of the n e w society and their concept of 'desh', w h i c h referred to a deeply rooted idea of a lost golden age, were also expressive of that autonomous mentality. The actual confrontation, however, took the f o r m of an attack o n the Adina Mosque—ân act that showed the h o l d of the H i n d u Sabba o n the tribal movement. Most discussions o n tribal rebellions deal w i t h tribal groups as isolates whose traditional social organisation collapsed under the pressure o f n e w economie and politicai forces unleashed under colonial rule. Nationalist and Marxist interpretations i n fact bear a d o s e similarity to the colonial stereotype w h i c h perpetuated

Swapan Dasgupta, 'Adivasi Politics in Midnapur', p. 135.

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the myth of an undifferentiated tribal mass needing protection against exploitative outsiders. While it is true that tribal society, largely unused to the market forces operating i n the w i d e r polity, f o u n d it difficult to adjust to the n e w circumstances and thereby took recourse to rebellion i n an attempt to preserve their traditional way of life, there is also a tendency to romanticise tribal people as noble savages living i n a state of Arcadian simplicity. Fractures and cleavages w i t h i n any tribal community bave not received m u c h attention other than being treated as the effects of the penetration of H i n d u cultural influence or Sanskritisation movements of semi-tribal chiefs.^ I n recent years, research focusing attention o n the tribal peasantry has introduced a n e w theme, uncovering complex facets of rebellious consciousness and the differences that undoubtedly existed w i t h i n the non-hierarchical and relatively egalitarian tribal social structures.

attention o n the historical roots of this class.^* Such generalisations, however, w o u l d not h o l d true i n the case of Bengal. Although through a struggle for occupancy rights i n the 1860s and 1870s, a section of the substantial peasantry had succeeded i n gaining an effective right of ownership, the rural scenario i n Bengal had remained bleak i n the 1960s. Rather, the interest i n the past struggles of the peasantry was kindled by an articulate movement o f the left i n this period. A m o n g the early writers o n peasant movements i n India there was a preponderance of the veterans of left w i n g politics whose personal experience largely influenced their views. Another development that refocused the attention of leftist historians o n peasant movements was the Vietnam war and its fallout w h i c h gripped the imagination of the Calcutta middle classes. Not only d i d these intellectuals attempt to l o o k for historical antecedents of peasant struggles i n their o w n past, but m u c h of the contemporary cultural discourse of the left was itself informed by such research. Partha Chatterjee observes i n his 'Forward' to the English translation of Suprakash Roy's book: 'It w o u l d be a study i n itself to determine h o w many w o r k s of poetry, fiction, drama and cinema were directly influenced by a reading of this book.'^^ The Naxalite upsurge l e d to a reexamination of this history of peasant resistance i n nineteenthc e n t u r y I n d i a . T h e personal i n v o l v e m e n t o f some o f the Subalternist scholars i n radicai left politics of the late 1960s and early 1970s and the frustration generated by the ultimate failure of the Naxalite movement may explain to a large extent their eagerness to restore the agency of the peasantry as conscious subjects of their history.

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CONCLUSION

Recent research i n colonial Bengal dispels the notion that peasant and tribal revolts i n India were insignificant or localised and brief, i n comparison w i t h the experience of medieval Europe and China. These studies, using b o t h conventional archival documents and non-traditional source materials like literature, orai testimonies and folklore, bave highlighted various facets o f peasant insurgency such as the changing nature of the issues involved, participation, leadership, and organisation. W h i l e nationalist and Marxist interpretations tend to place peasant movements w i t h i n the context o f the anti-colonial f r e e d o m struggle, the Subalternist historians bave given these studies a n e w direction through their attempts to understand the rebel peasant consciousness. D a v i d H a r d i m a n has e x p l a i n e d the academic interest i n nineteenth-century Indian peasantry that developed since the I96OS onwards i n terms of the rise of a class of rich peasants i n independent India and the green revolution, w h i c h focused *"P.O. Bodding, "The Kharwar Movement among the Santhals', Man in India, Voi. 3: 1, September 1921; Martin Orans, We Santal, A Tribe in Search of Great Tradition; Stephen Fuchs, 'Messianic Movements in Tribal India'.

I n more recent volumes of Subaltern Studies, however, peasant movements bave been put i n the backburner. This has prompted Sumit Sarkar, a one-time stalwart of this school, to raise the complaint about the retreat of subalterns from Subaltern Studies. H e also does not l i k e its overemphasis o n c o m m u n i t y consciousness and the neglect of class factors i n the history of

David Hardiman (ed.), Peasant Resistance in India (Delhi, 1992), p. 2. *2 Partha Chatterjee, 'Forward', in Suprakash Roy, Peasant Revolts and Democratic Struggles in India, p. 8.

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peasant resistance/' But s u d i criticism notwithstanding, tlie historiographical significance o f the Subalternist intervention is that it has brought focus o n peasant consciousness and has established the peasantry as politically aware makers o f their o w n destiny. Nevertheless, the complexities of the peasant w o r l d h o l d scope for further research w h i c h is necessary f o r an understanding o f the social relations w i t h i n the peasantry, their interconnections, the ideological forms of identity and difference, and their historical evolution. Historians also bave, till recently, neglected the tribal peasantry as a subject o f study. Further, tribal studies so far bave tended to lay emphasis o n the actual event o f the revolt and studies o n changing social formations bave been comparatively few i n number. Tribal societies and uprisings i n Bengal, therefore, h o l d out real possibilities o f interesting future research.

Bengal Fishers and Fisheries: A Historiographic Essay Bob Pokrant, Peter Reeves and John McGuire

Despite the centrai importance o f fish and fishing i n the lives of Bengali people, there is no long-established tradition of historical and historical anthropological research i n either wings of Bengal o n the history and historical ethnography* of fishing and fishing peoples. This paper is an attempt to sketch what is k n o w n o f the patterns of change i n the fisheries of the Bengal region i n colonial and post-colonial times; the nature and position of the fishing people of the region over that period; and the materials for further study w h i c h w e bave identified. It is important to make the point at the outset that w o r k i n this area is very much i n an initial stage because that w i l l explain w h y it is not possible bere to discuss 'on-going debates' or to critique the secondary literature as is possible i n other, more established areas o f research.^ Our o w n

' By historical ethnography we mean '. . . a description and analysis of a past era of the people of some particular, identifiable locality, using archival sources and, if relevant, locai orai historical sources', M. Silverman and P.H. GuUiver (eds.), Approaching the Past: Historical Anthropology through Irish Case Studies (New York, 1992), p. ló.

Sumit Sarkar, Writing Social History (Delhi, 1997), pp. 82-108.

^The most important exception is Nariaki Nakazato, Agrarian System in Eastern Bengal, c. 1870-1910 (Calcutta, 1994) who deals with fisheries. There is also a recognition of the historical background in Mahbub UUah, 'Fishing rights, production relations, and profitability: a case study of Jamuna fishermen in Bangladesh', in T. Panayotou (ed.), Small-Scale Fisheries in Asia: Socioeconomic Analysis and Policy (Ottawa, 1985). K.T. Achaya, The Food Industries of British India (Delhi, 1994), pp. 91-108 provides a brief overview of fisheries and fìsh production for British India as a whole. In the Cambridge Economie History of India, Voi. II, ed. D. Kumar (Cambridge, 1982), fishing is mentioned on 5 occasions, with the longest entry taking a mere two lines; even the classic three volume study of the Economie History