Aim of the paper:
Relation of the Marginal castes with Religious Minorities: Scheduled Castes and Their Relation with Minority Communities, Or, Focus on Marginal Castes’ Fraternity with Religious Minorities in Bengal
The aim of this paper is to trace out the fraternal relationship of the marginal castes, particularly, scheduled castes of Bengal with the various religious minorities, particularly, Buddhists and Muslims of the same soil. We are very clear in this respect that in primitive Bengal there were no Muslims. The first Muslims in Bengal happened to come in 1202 A.D. from Benaras in the time while Lakshman Sena ruling Bengal. Malik Iktiyar-ud-din Muhammad Khalji brought with him only eighteen troopers and conquered Bengal to set up Muslim rules.
Hindu society comprises of the natural complexities with the caste-divisions at the core; and by nature, a vertical one with the caste structural conic pyramid having the Brahmins at the vertex of the cone. And thereafter comes Kshatriyas, Vaishyas , Shudras, serially all one after another down to the bottommost layer, known as Shudras, the suffering masses of the society. This is the design of the caste system , having the root in the Rik Vedas[ Rik:10/90/12] and the same was also reiterated and stipulated in the Gita [4/13] to justify and to strengthen it. Manu made the stringent stipulation throughout his “Samhita-Granrtha”.
In the post-Asokan days the subjugated castes of Bengal , on their own spring, took conversion to Buddhism. The Palas, the Buddhist kings ruled Bengal for about four hundred (750-1155) years. Undoubtedly the Hindu marginal castes have their good relation with the religious Buddhist minorities. Similarly, in Bengal, prior to partition, 55% of population were Muslims and 45% were the Hindus. Among the Muslims even today we can trace them to carry the surnames of the marginal castes of Bengal, such as, Naskar, Mandal, Biswas, Sarkar, Khan, etc. with their names. These populations are mostly of the conversion from the marginal castes of Bengal. This is what intended to say these Muslims have their blood-relation with the marginal castes of Bengal soil.
The fraternity shall be searched out from the writings available from some authors of reputation in this regards..
Relation of The Marginal castes with Religious Minorities in Bengal
In ancient Bengal while Asoka the Great was in power the Bengal was as a whole a Buddhist monarchy. They were the majorities in the whole of Bengal. Asoka the Great was the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya(322 B.C.-298 B.C.) who ruled India for twenty-four years and made India a strong nation. It’s a sarcasm to say he was the son of Mura, a maid-servant1 coming from the lowermost strata of society. The name of the dynasty, set up by Chandragupta came after his mother’s name Mura as Maurya dynasty(322 B.C.-185 B.C). In the initial days Asoka (273 B.C.-232 B.C.) the third emperor of this dynasty was a Jain and then an informal Buddhist by heart and after thirteen years of his ascending the throne, he embraced Buddhism formally in 260 B.C. and his conversion was done by Nigrodha.2 Brihadratha, the last king of the Maurya dynasty of Magadha was killed in about 185 B.C. by his Brahmin commander-in-chief, Pushyamitra Sunga. In ancient India he was the first Brahmin ruler and in pursuance of Brahmin tradition he celebrated the aswamedha (horse-sacrifice) twice in his reign under the priesthood of Patanjali, a Sanskrit Grammarian and a renowned paundit of that time.
This horse-sacrifices might have symbolized the Brahmins’ authority claimed in rule of the country. However, in spite of all, Asoka was an unparallel through all the times to come in the domain of world history because of his magnanimous heart and feeling for human kind and in Rock Edict VI he clearly said: “There is no higher duty than the welfare of the whole world.”3 Bengal had been under the rule of Buddhist kings of Pala dynasty from 750 A.D-1155 A. D. and they were the marginal caste people. The Charya poets of Bengali literature all came at that time and it is a glory for the downtrodden castes that out of eighty-four Sidda-poets of Bengali literature forty-three were of untouchable castes4 at that time. It is perhaps due to spread of Buddhism in Bengal the marginal community people of this soil got respect and dignity provided in equality and benignity along their opportunity to glitter up in the life of banal people socially, educationally and culturally.
Bengal had been again under the rule of Brahmins during the days of Senas who had hailed in Bengal from the soil of Karnataka. Ballal Sena stipulated all the divisions and subdivisions of caste system stringently along with hierarchies into the same in Bengal. He tried to undermine literary and cultural glory set up by the Buddhist rulers in Bengal. He patronized Sanskrit, the language of the Brahmins to again come to surface in place of the language common people of Bengal including what all the charya poets had used, to be in use. He had revived the orthodox Hindu rites. He was himself a learned scholar and wrote the Danasagara and the Adbhutasagara both in Sanskrit. He is the founder of Kulinism5 in Bengal society which destroyed the ideas of equality amongst humankind. The people coming from the lower strata had been put into the margins through their facing lot of caste dogmas and indigenous troubles. Untouchables had been into the sorrows and suffering under the caste stipulations he endorsed in society.
India had been to the pick of glory during the Asoka’s time. Why? He was the lover of equality amongst humankind. There were many kings who were great warriors or administrators like Asoka. What however, entitles Asoka to the world-wide and everlasting fame, is the temporal and material, lofty and laudable, indiscriminative and lovingly good of the people that he accomplished. “And no prince is worthy of being compared to Asoka unless he has shared and exhibited in some appreciable measure this special characteristic of the Buddhist monarch. The only other ruler, therefore, whose name is worth mentioning along with his is Akbar, the Mogul emperor.”6
Bengal, and India as a whole, witnessed a great revolution in the sixth century before Christ while Buddha was born in India. It was nothing but India’s ancient religion, which the Hindu Aryans had practiced and which was impregnated with graded inequality within the womb made the lower strata of caste system dissatisfied and unhappy. As soon as Buddha raised his voice against the system people at the lower strata of society showed their allegiance to Buddhism. “Such was the state of things in India in the sixth century before Christ. Religion in its true sense had been replaced by forms. Excellent social and moral rules disfigured by the unhealthy distinctions of caste, by exclusive privileges for Brahmans, by cruel laws for Sudras. Such exclusive caste privileges did not help to improve the Brahmans themselves.”7 This caste system rather badly eroded into society, dismantled the bondage of integrity in society, poisoned the holiness of human being. For the Sudras, who had been or rather came under the shelter of Aryan Vedic caste-divided disintegrations and stipulations there they started to be with not any kind of social respect. This had caused the lower strata to take shelter initially into Jainism and afterwards into Buddhism on their own will.
In Bengal there was no Muslim till 1202 A.D. The first Muslim had happened to come to Bengal while the fifth king of Sena dynasty, say, Lakshmana Sena was in power. Malik Iktiyar-ud-din Muhammad Khalji invaded his capital city of Nadiah only with eighteen troopers with him coming from northern part of India. Lakshman Sena in fear fled through the backdoor of house to save life. However Lakshmana Sena was a patron to learning and his court was adorned by two great poets, namely, Jaydeva, the author of the famous lyric Gita Givindam and Dhoyi, the author of Pavanadutam and also by the great Hindu jurist, Halayudha. None of Gita Govinda or Pavanadutam was written Bengali. They used Sanskrit, the language of Brahmins for the literary creation. On the other hand the charya poets during the time of Palas did not use the Brahmin language. The language they used was of common people and the same was from the days of immemorial past prevalent amongst the marginal society of the soil. However, to mention, though in fact, some scholars and analysts of modern Bengali literature have designated this language of common mass as ‘dark’ language.
In the modern history it is seen the British had ruled India for about two hundred years from 1757 to 1947. Initially, some European nations came to Bengal and in a greater view to mention it, India as a whole, in the name of trading and business purposes. The Dutch set up their business company in Chinsura in Bengal, the French set up their business company in Chandernagore in Bengal and the British set up their business in the name of East India Company under the leadership of Job Charnock in swampy lands on the Bhagirathi comprising the village of Sutanati to which were added in1698 the two adjoining villages of Kalikata and Gobindapur. Bengal, Bihar and Odisha lost the freedom in the battle of Plassey on 23rd June 1757. During the British rule in India they introduced missionary serviced to and for the spread of education, economic assistance and scientific knowledge amongst the poor masses and in consequences lot of people coming from the lower strata of society took conversion to the Christianity for getting material and educational benefit from them.
It appears to note and a mention-worthy-say is : “The policy of nonintervention was based on the specification of autonomous religious domains that could be preserved with particular sensitivity only if the delineation of customary practice and social predisposition could proceed at a much accelerated pace. The colonial state believed that the reasons behind the revolt were less political than they were anthropological, and that the primary basis of its rule had now to be found in a comprehensive ethnographic knowledge of custom, religion, caste, and character. Caste was converted into a primary concern of the colonial state, even as missionary discourse dropped out of both colonial and nationalist register. And the state took on an anthropological mission both as justification and as the basis of rule, in the conversion of the unruly rebels into loyal subjects of the Raj, though neither as Christians nor as ‘citizens’ of European rule.”8
It is now perhaps necessary to understand that the religious minorities in Bengal, in the name of whatsoever you say them either Jain, or Buddhist, or Muslims or Christian; all happen to be due to graded inequality prevailed in Hindu society. Nobody so far had come forward to mend this wounds of society in Bengal except a few had been worried about it. In the middle age of history, when large scale conversion of downtrodden castes to Islam stated to happen Chaitanya Deva became and was worried about and came forward to stop it by preaching the gospel of Vaishnavism of indiscriminating love and regard for all, irrespective of caste, creed, and religion. It gave a bit solace to the lower castes and even converted Muslims a number of whom took shelter under his gospel. Perhaps last solution was provided by Dr. B.R.Ambedkar in this effect through his writing the ‘annihilation of castes’.
In Bengal society, no other castes but Brahmins and Sudras and Ati-sudras only, there were they living together as seminal inhabitants of the soil. Can you tell what a larger size of population from Sudras and Ati-sudras, I mean to say them as populace of Bengal soil, as well as, I mean to say them to be domesticated revolutionary castes, have undergone conversion to Islam from period of Khalji to British coming over to this soil? The answer is very simple. Anyone can understand it. The ground reality highlights the fact of that can be very doggedly and pervasively taken into apprehension, if the figure that at time of partition of Bengal in 1947 there were about 55% of the population belonged to Islam, and, if we consider West Bengal after partition where there were about one-fourth of population belonged to the Muslim minority in the state9, are both taken into perception and account.
The people known as Panchamas (fifth class/group of castes) who were not included in four Varnas of Brahmin, Kshatria, Vaishya and Sudras were of about thirty percent of Bengal population. “Although the restrictions and prohibitions of the untouchable castes look like the restrictions on the Sudras, yet all the Sudras were not untouchables, only few of them were untouchables. For example, Sudras in West Bengal by and large are touchables.”10 The Kaysthas and the Baidyas, though they belong to Sudras flourished up like the Brahmins through social upward mobility movement they organized for more than few centuries. Perhaps, from the time of Ballal Sena, Bengal has noticed a scene of trio-caste (Brahmin, Baidya, Kayastha) domination in the field of administration, art, culture and literature in Bengal.
While anthropological identification of the population in Bengal was undertaken by Atul Sur, a renowned researcher and anthropologist he made the list of the marginal castes, and particularly , scheduled castes in Bengal were the following: Bauri, Chamar, Dhoba/Rajak, Dom, Dosad, Ghasi, Lalbegi, Musahar, Pan, Pashi, Rajwar, Turi, Bagdi/Dule, Bahelia, Baiti, Bedia, Beldar, Bhuimali, Tuia, Bindh, Damai, Doai, Gonri, Hadi, Jele Kaibarta, Malo/Jhalomalo, Kadar, Kami, Kondra, Keora, Karenga, Kaur, Keyot, Khatik, Koch, Konai, Kowar, Kotal, Lohar, Mahar, Mal/Mollo, Malla, Methor, Namasudra, Nunia, Palia, Patni, Pod/Poundra, Rajbanshi, Sarki, Suri, Tiyor, Bantar, Choupal, Bhogta, Dabgar, Halalkhor, Kanjar, Kurariar, Not/Notyo, Bhumij, Bhangi, Khaira and Chai.
There are the total sixty four sub-castes among the scheduled castes of Bengal. And amongst non-scheduled castes there are thirty sub-castes, such as, Brahmin, Baidya, Kayastha, Sadgop, Tili, Malakar, Tanti, Napit, Barui, Kamar, Kumbhakar, Gandha Banik, Moyra/Modok, Subarna Banik, Aaguri, Aghori, Chasa Dhoba, Goyala, Kaibartya, Mahishya, Agrodani Brahman, Bagal, Jugi, Kansari/Kansa Banik, Tamboli, Swarnakar, Sutradhar, Gandha Banik/Shaha Banik, Sankhari and Baishnab.
And if the population of the tribes in West Bengal are talked of, there are fourteen of such who are known as Santhal, Onrao, Munda, Bhumij, Kora, Lodha/Kheria, Hoe, Bhutia, Lepcha, Shabar, Mohali, Mechh, Nogesia and Rabha.
The aforesaid population consists of the whole of caste and tribe identity in Bengal in its rudimentary and insistent insobriety maintaining individually separate cultural and institutional alienations. One does not locate any oneness and kinship with other. I do have little doubt in my mind to say caste is such one that maintains ‘a nation within a nation’. And India does not come into one candid catalytic nationhood. One does not go ahead to analyze anything inhuman into the system prevalent in Indian society centuries after centuries. Nothing desire in mind for reformation. Nothing desire in mind for eradication of illogic into system. Same human kind maintains difference in attitude and understanding. Expectation to finding out a proximity in love and marriage, and also blood relationship of one with other is, of course, a furthering into it. Nothing is unbound and easygoing.
It is perhaps due to the mechanism and design within the system. Some Brahmin rulers in Bengal tried to make system stringent and permanent in Bengal. “Of the four castes Kshatria and Vaishya were not living in Bengal at anytime. How this has been ascertained? In stone-Lipis available during the time of Gupta dynasty in Bengal the existence of Brahmin and some other castes except Kshatria and Vaishya could have been traced out. But in their place there were, however, a group of castes in Bengal, known as Nabashakh. These are some castes to whom the Brahmins would not have any kind of objection to take drinking water. These people are Tili, Tanti, Malakar, Sadgop, Napit, Barui, Kamar, Kumbhakar, Gandha Banik and Modak. Subarno Banik was also initially in the ‘Nabashakh group’ but Ballal Sena excluded them from list as a punishment of their not paying tax to him.”11
Marginal castes of Bengal, as a whole, have their fraternal kinship with the religious minorities, such as Jain, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim from the days of immemorial past. They know it very well that the converted are their own brethren. Sometimes the acrimonies whatever were or are noticed here and there between Hindu marginal castes and other religious minorities were or are, perhaps, due to some other reasons beyond their religious battle, and it because of the fact the Hindu marginal castes do not enjoy much of free and expanded mind and ecstasy from the core of heart in their own religion. They get hatred and neglect and material deprivation from the superior castes as an unbecoming effect of natural discourse of caste system. “In the political stand of the Namasudra leadership during early years of swadeshi movement, we can, therefore, identify two basic features—alignment with the Muslims and attachment to the British. Material calculations no doubt promoted such a course of action, the educated Namasudras now were looking for ‘proportional representation in public employment’, so that they could get jobs with less qualification than the higher caste Hindus.”12
Political power is the master-key of obtaining everything whatever necessary to uplift the marginal castes themselves. This sense of realization is understood as the modernity is seen advancing in postcolonial days. “The caste question in recent years has once again been prominently repositioned in India’s national political agenda. The publication of the Mandal Commission Report and the subsequent adoption of its recommendations by the central and various state governments, causing a violent Hindu caste backlash, have raised serious questions about the implications of caste consciousness for secular nature of Indian society and polity.”13
The love for the people should be impartial, irrespective of caste and creed, irrespective of any non-sense principle and ideas of past. “The hostility and suspicion with which the bhadralok press greeted the activities of the emerging caste associations of the lower orders suggests an underlying anxiety that low caste leaders might follow the same route towards ‘minority’ or separatist politics pursued by Muslim leaders. Even more worrying were the incidents of rural conflict involving Namasudra share-cropers who joined together with their Muslim fellows against the Hindu landlords. In February 1928, for instance, Muslim and Namasudra bargadars of Jessore went on strike against high caste Hindu landlords, refusing to cultivate their lands unless they were offered better terms of remuneration.”14
The Hindu religious scriptures from the time of Vedic days institutionalized this derogatory system as a must-one-to-obey by the Hindus. Whenever the Brahmins have been in the political power they have enforced and sometimes re-enforced it. In the name of God some human beings such as Manu, Brihaspati, Jajnavolkyo etc supported the caste-division and the same was justified in their way of writing. The Rik-Veda made the initial design in the Rik 10/90/12 where the birth of the system told. The Brahmin is said to be born from the head of Brahma. They should enjoy all the supremacy in society. “Of the created beings the most excellent are said to be those which are animated, of the animated those who subsist by intelligence; of the intelligent mankind, and of the men Brahmins.”15
Besides the reason given by Manu the Brahmin is first in rank because he was produced by God from the mouth, in order that offerings might be conveyed to the God and manes. Manu gives another reason for the supremacy of the Brahman. He says, “The very birth of a Brahman is an eternal incarnation of the sacred laws (Veda) for he is born to (fulfil) the sacred law, and becomes one with Brahman(God).”16 This kind of supremacy many a time has tuned the ground reality of the society for being oppressive and suppressive in manner and practice in such a way the marginal castes might have undergone more and more marginalization.
‘ Dalitatity’, at this moment, under marginalization process of caste system, has newly coined a ‘term’ in the field of terminology which tells nothing but to perceptually consider an unbreakable and uncongenial attachment of society. It is what tells of the social engineering process, prevailed in the Indian society from the days of immemorial past. Where we do find larger section of the societal goes underprivileged in education, culture, economy and honor. These people are sunk into deplorable life. Suraj Yengde, a post doctoral research-scholar in the department of African and Afro-American studies of Harvart University says: “This is our time. I want us to believe us in the fate of history and its important efforts in shaping our lives. The uncompromising work of the great people that remain steadfast in the midst of callous atrocities and unrelenting attacks on their dignity and stature has much to offer to our burnt souls. The time we are bearing witness to is an assault on that hope. I want us to look at the most vulnerable bodied living in these pessimist times.”
The people, made outcastes by the Hindu religious orders are the worst sufferers in public life in a number of ways. The tradition in making them inferior in the conceptual beliefs of the upper caste is a natural prevalence. Only a few people are seen themselves to relent to them. “In India, casteism touches 1.35 billion people. It affects 1 billion people. It affects 800 million people badly. It enslaves the human dignity of 500 million people. It is a measure of destruction, pillage, drudgery, servitude, bondage, unaccounted rape, massacre, arson, incarceration, police brutality and moral virtuosity for 300 million Indian Untouchables.”17 The people thus banned out in the social spectrum has to face all sorts of inconvenience to be known as human beings. The Beingness of the being in human society is shattered.
Caste and gender largely matter in our daily life. The more the state socialism which is not very critical and committed to do good to these people, tries to do good, the more persecutions and atrocities are visited here and there. In spite of all, they keep pace with the running of the love and peace. “Dalit love is our project—a common and harmoniously created experience. It is so powerful that it is an effective antidote to the malady of caste. It is an intense force of fraternity. Dalit love is the only force in India that can accommodate the ignorant and uphold the virtues of compassion. It can easily offset the negativity of caste bias. Dalit love is so exceptional that its adaptability to thrive in the mist of annihilation makes it feared by malevolent groups”18 Its resultant allows us to see the fraternity of the marginal caste people with all religious minorities in the country, particularly, in the state of West Bengal.
Abot the author:
Manohar Mouli Biswas
President, Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha.
Manohar Mouli Biswas is the pseudo name of Manohar Biswas, born on 3rd October, 1943, in the village of Matiargati in the district of Khulna. He is a bilingual writer, writes in English and Bengal. He is the writer of more than one and a half dozen of books in English and Bengali. His autobiographical narrative “Surviving in My World :Growing Up Dalit In Bengal” is taught in Post Graduation in English in about half dozen Indian Universities. His book of essays “Dalit Sahityer Digboloy “ and book of short stories “Deshbhag O Biswayan : Parajito Manusher Galpo” are also taught in some Universities of Bengal.
Books to consult:
B. Dirks : Castes of Minds, Sekhar Bandyopadhyay : Caste, Protest and Identity, Bhandarkar : Asoka , Kamble : Deprived Castes, Gail Omvedt : Dalits and The Democratic Revolution, Joya Chatterji : Bengal Divided, Jahirul Hasan : Muslims in Bengal, etc.
References:
1.Bhattacharya, Sachchindranath: A Dictionary of Indian History, University of Calcutta, 1972, pp223.
2.Bhanderkar, D.R: Asoka, University of Calcutta, 1969,pp74.
3. ibid,pp199
4.Chattopadhyay, Aloka: Churashi Siddhar Kahini, Papiras, Kolkata -4,1988, pp10-18
5.Bhattacharya, Sachchindranath, pp111.
6.Bhanderkar, D.R: pp211.
7.Dutt, C. Ramesh : Civilization in the Buddhist Age B.C. 320- A.D. 500, Delhi, 1993 print, pp2
8. Dirks B. Nicholas: Castes of Mind : Colonialism and the Making of Modern India, Permanent Black, Fourth Impression,2008, pp148
9. Hasan, Jahirul: Banglaye Musalmaner Atshobachar, Kolkata, 2011, pp17
10. Kamble, N.D: Deprived Castes and Their Struggle for Equality, Ashish Publishing House, 1983, pp145
11. Sur, Atul : Bangalir Nritattwik Parichay, Jijnasa, Kolkata, 1986, pp 41
12.Bondyopadhayay, Sekhar: Caste, Protest and Identity in Colonial India, Oxford, 2013, pp65.
13. ibid, pp1
14. Chatterjee, Joya : Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp39.
15. Manusmriti : 1.96 ( Translation by Dr B. R. Ambedkar.)
16. Manusmriti : 1: 98 (Translation by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.)
17.Yengde, Suraj : Caste Matters :Penguin, 2019, pp2
18. ibid 50.