Namasudra

Colonial ethnographers such as Herbert Hope Risley believed that the Chandals of their time were related to a tribe of the same name that existed in the Vedic Period. However, modern research disputes their opinion for a variety of reasons, including that the main habitat of the modern community in Eastern Bengal was largely outside the core region of Brahmanical civilisation, that regional texts did not refer to them as untouchables and indeed nor was untouchability rigidly practised in Bengal. Furthermore, the modern community does not occupy the extreme lowest tier of the society, unlike the historical tribe, and their social status varied widely from region to region, especially with regard to their material wealth.[8]

The more modern community comprises around twelve endogamous sub-castes, most of whom were derived from the occupational traits of the members and was entitled to differential social-status.[9] But the colonial ethnographers choose to coalesce several such low-ranking occupational sub-castes into one caste, without taking the regional variations into account and assigned a fixed social rank to of all Namasudra-Chandals, (something which Bernard Cohn later described as the "objectification" of colonial culture) and falsely stereotyped the entire community as universally despised.[10]

Overall, the term Chandal was a generic term that was initially used to refer to broad groups of people belonging to diverse endogamous communities of similarly despised social position[11] but which later transformed into a caste name and was soon synomously used with the Namasudras.[12]

Niharranjan Ray, a historian, believed that they have a closer relation with north Indian Brahmins, saying "they are of the same line as the Brahmans of north India; indeed there is a closer relation between the north Indian Brahmans and the Bengali Namahśūdras than between the north Indian Brahmans and the Bengali Brahmans, Kayasthas and Vaidyas."[13]

The creation of a single caste-cluster led to the beginning of the Namasudra Movement. It emphasised the commonality of low social status and that of being subject to oppression, among all the sub-castes and impressed upon them to stand up to the social  authority of the high caste bhadraloks, a perceived common enemy, who were largely responsible for their poor conditions.[14]

Libertarian social influences that were prevalent in the region across the eighteenth and nineteenth century are believed to have imparted a major impetus to the Namasudras, against social oppression. Islam followed by Christianity (which was widely prevalent in the Namasudra-belts, courtesy the missionaries) was majorly responsible for granting them a newer dimension of self-respect. The non-orthodox variants of the Bhakti movement, that aligned with the Sahajiya tradition and sought to encompass the downtrodden sections into the society, also catalysed the Namasudras, as a guiding faith.[15]

Various local socio-religious figureheads (Kalachand Vidyalankar, Sahlal Pir, Keshab Pagal et al.), who sought to repudiate the caste(varna) system, further impressed upon large sections of the Namasudra population.[16]

The Namasudras, thus, successfully strived to carve out an autonomous niche in the social fabric of Bengal, where the distinction of caste was obliterated but that none from the Hindu bhadralok community did identify themselves with those sects, they were branded as exotic and subsequently came to be rejected by other sections of the society.[17]

In the 1870s, the Chandals of Bakarganj and Faridpur started a boycott of caste Hindus, (apart from Brahmins), as a form of social-protest, when their higher caste neighbours refused to accept an invitation to dine from a Chandal headman.[18][19][20] They passed a resolution that also called for prohibition against default-employment of Chandals in menial duties in state-jails and together, the call for boycott was spread in the name of an order from the government. Further that, any Chandal who did not abide by it was threatened with intra-community ostracism, the movement gained huge support across a wide region.[20]

This first rebellion in the community in a bid to redefine the local power structure failed to garner much because the poorer Chandals had to return to their previous employers after a few months, often agreeing to more harrowing work conditions. The social discrimination continued.[20] Joya Chatterjee says that henceforth they "battled continuously to improve their ritual position" in society and later claimed the "more respectable title of 'Namasudra' and Brahmin status".[19]

It was within this context, that they underwent a transition from the Chandala to Namasudra identity. In 1891, the term Namasudras was recorded in the official census as a synonym for the Chandala(s) and by 1900, it had assumed immense social recognition, as people of the community clung to the new identity and tried to distance themselves from the imagery of the Chandals.[21]

In the very-initial stages, the elimination of differences across various sub-castes and the creation of lateral solidarity was one of the primary goals of the movement.[14]

Gradually, by the late nineteenth century, they came to constitute an organised middle peasantry community, with definite leaders and goals. These movements helped them seek upward mobility by infusing a sense of self-respect. They gradually demanded elevated social status, including a right of entry to Kayastha-organised pujas and a two-thirds share of the crops grown. They began to refuse to work for lower-caste Hindu and Muslim landlords and also boycotted the upper caste Hindus.[22] Overall, Sekhara Bandyopadhyay has noted a distinct theme of sanskritisation in the dynamics of the caste.[23]

Meanwhile, the Matua sect, which was established by Harichand Thakur in the late nineteenth century among the community in the eastern India (and later organised by his son)[24] played a major role in bringing cohesion to the Namasudra community, in terms of faith.[25] Born to a devout Vaishnava family, he gained initial reputation as a spiritual healer and later claimed to be a reincarnation of God, with a duty to ensure salvation of the downtrodden.[26] A cult was gradually developed, which opposed the idea of social hierarchy along with several other Hindu religio-cultural aspects (Gurubad, mantras, idol-worship etc.)[27]. Instead, a theme of social equality denouncing untouchability and gender discrimination was put forward.[28] The devotional songs, that were sung in form of Kirtans and namgaan, also helped to collectively reinforce a common congregational identity among themselves.[29]

Whilst the sect did play an important role in organising and propagating the social protests,[24] the efforts to entirely subvert the Hindu society failed and the broader community soon returned to the theme of sanskritisation, whilst still ascribing to the other ideals of the sect.[30]

Whilst an assemblage of relatively well-off Namasudras immediately migrated to India, using their resources of property, the poorer community members stayed. Sekhar Bandyopadhyay notes that despite Jinnah's promise of equality for all, they were soon subjected to "a process of 'Othering'" as the state sought for "greater Islamisation of the polity"[24] and that the upper-caste-Hindus had almost all left East Bengal, the communal agitation was now solely directed against the lower-caste and untouchable Hindus.[68] An acute economic crisis in some districts, coinciding with a labour-surplus market and the Muslim landlords preferring to employ coreligionists, was another mitigating factor. All these, coupled with numerous provocations ranging from unlawful occupation of land to public humiliation of women and direct instruction to leave the country, led to a build-up of insecurity among the Namasudras.[24]

From around January 1950, the Namasudra peasants decided to migrate to India[69] in large numbers and this continued until 1956, with about 10,000 refugees entering every month. Retaliatory communal violence across both sides of the border also contributed to the cause. There was again a mass migration after the Hazratbal riot in 1964. A police intelligence report in June 1952 reported that "About 95 per cent of the refugees are Namasudras".[24]

Whilst most of the Namasudra refugees who arrived after 1950, were automatically designated as cultivators without any means for survival and were thus dispatched to official refugee camps, some did independently settle across villages in Nadia, Basirhat et al. The latter were often involved in violent fracases with the local Muslims and cross-border communal rivalries, in search of land and livestock, were reported too. That they had to also contend with the local Hindu upper castes, made the situation worse.[24]

Those who were dispatched to the refugee camps spend months in imposed idleness whilst being rewarded with a meager cash dole and weekly ration. They were restricted from going out of the camps, look for jobs or interact with the local population, who were often deeply suspicious of the refugees. Thereafter, they started mobilising themselves under the umbrage of Bastuhara Samitis (refugee associations) and other leaders like Ramendra Kishor Mullick, who claimed to be close to P. R. Thakur and Manohar Roy, who claimed himself to be a right-hand man of Jogen Mandal to protest against the camp administration in a variety of forms.[24]

Finally, the government, in early 1956 announced the Dandakaranya Scheme of rehabilitating them in a region consisting of 78,000 square miles of inhospitable unirrigated land in the tribal areas of Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. The scheme was compulsory, pending which the refugee camps were to be closed down. Some were also rehabilitated to neighbouring provinces of Assam, Bihar, Orissa and the Andaman Islands.[24]

The schemes were heavily protested and in March–April 1958, umbrella-refugee-organisations [United Central Refugee Council (UCRC) and the Sara Bangla Bastuhara Samiti (SBBS)]organised satyagraha campaigns, with political patronage, that lasted for about a month and resulted in the arrests of 30,000 refugees. Most were camp-refugees and 70 per cent of them were Namasudras.[24] Gradually, the campaign, as to an acceptable solution of the refugee issues began to lose momentum as the organisations were more interested in exploiting the refugee-base, as an exercise in electoral constituency building for the political parties.[24]

By 1965, 7,500 refugee families were forcibly settled there and because of their dispersal, the Namasudras, who were till-then a closely knit community, as to local-geography, lost their capacity to organise powerful protest movements. The conditions across Dandakaranya camps were extremely poor and that the refugees not only failed to integrate with the native Adivasis but also had to deal with a corrupt government mechanism made survival more difficult.[24][68]

Bandyopadhyay has noted that throughout the times, the Namasudras whilst existing in the refugee camps, did not articulate their caste identity; they along with all others shared the common tag of refugees. And that this led a large section of the Dalit community to lose their distinctive and autonomous political voice.[24] But, nevertheless some means (following different rituals et al.) were adopted by them to distinguish from other castes and maintain a conscious identity of their original identity.[70]

A prominent Namasudra leader, Pramatha Ranjan Thakur, who was once elected to the Constituent Assembly with Congress support and opposed reservation for the Scheduled Castes whilst advocating drastic social reforms, emerged as a political and spiritual figure-head during the refugee crisis. He was the guru of the Matua Mahasangha (MM), which his great-grandfather had established, and thus had a huge following among the Namasudras. In December 1947, he purchased a piece of land in North 24-Parganas, about 63 km (39 mi) from Kolkata, between Chandpara and Gobordanga, and started a venture for purposes of refugee rehabilitation. This led to the establishment of Thakurnagar, the first Dalit-refugee colony in India started by Dalits themselves. The locality grew in size and within the next ten years, more than 50,000 Dalit refugees, mostly Namasudras, had settled in what became a major cultural centre for them.[24]

The Congress government of West Bengal during the refugee crisis was widely perceived as anti-refugee because of its position regarding rehabilitation. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)), as the main opposition party, opposed the government's dispersal policy and demanded rehabilitation of refugees in the uninhabited islands of Sunderban, thus gaining a following among the Namasudra refugees.[71]

In 1977, as CPI(M) became the governing party, almost 150,000 refugees returned to West Bengal from Dandakaranya. By now, the economy was in a poor state and the CPIM arranged deportation of many of them back to Dandakaranya. However, a group of about 30,000 refugees managed to infiltrate the Sunderbans and establish a settlement at Marichjhapi, which included such things as schools, health centres, and fishing industries. The government declared the establishment to be illegal, as a contravention of the prohibitions on permanent settlement in the Forest Acts, and asked them to abandon the settlement to protect the ecological diversity of the region.[72]

As the persuasion failed to convince them, beginning 26 January 1979, the local police, on the behest of the government, undertook drastic measures which included razing the dwellings of the islanders, destroying fisheries, tube-wells et al. and complete-blockading of the island. despite considerable criticism from the press and a restraining order from the High Court. Boats of escaping refugees were sunk, and mass-firings were also reported, which led to numerous casualties over the course of next few days.[73]

Finally, as the efforts by the local-police-machinery failed to address the issue in its entirety, the Government ordered a forcible evacuation of the refugees in a 48-hour span from 14 May 1979 to 16 May 1979, in what was called the Marichjhapi Massacre by the scholarly community. Several hundred refugees died in numerous police-firings whilst many more perished as a result of starvation, exhaustion et al.[73] Usage of mercenaries and mass-rapes were also reported. No criminal charges were laid against anyone and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes Commission, in its annual report denied the happening of any atrocity on the Untouchables in Bengal.[68]

Matua Mahasangha has transformed itself into a major socio-religious organisation and has one of its major aims as to mobilisation of the dispersed Namasudra community and to convert Thakurnagar into a new cultural and spiritual hub for a Namasudra renaissance. In 2010, it claimed to have nearly 50 million members, belonging to 100 to 120 thousand families.[24]

On the occasion of baruni mela – the major festival of the sect – lakhs of devotees from all over India were reported to visit Thakurnagar, in the sort of an annual pilgrimage.[24]

The members of the community have been reported to have fared quite well, post 1980 but despite their educational and social progress, the class remained politically marginal for a long span of time but have often actively negotiated with mainstream political parties for political empowerment.[24]

Beginning the utilisation of the network of the MMS, by All India Trinamool Congress, (which included nominating family members of PR Thakur as MLAs), the group managed to establish an independent identity in politics. TMC did succeed in consolidating Matua votes in its favour in the 2011 state-elections and the consolidation has been attributed to be a cause behind its decisive victory in the South Bengal seats.[74]

The BJP converted the Namasudra community into their voter base in West Bengal through the promise of granting citizenship via the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.[75]