Abstract
In Caste, Religion and Politics Indian Perspectives, published in 2022, the authors, twenty- four in number, have looked at caste, religion and politics, which in itself are terms liable to be related or reconstructed from multiple perspectives and theoretical approaches. The Edited Volume with an Introduction written by Dr Kartik Chandra Sutradhar is for non-specialists and is thereby useful for the general reader to read and understand issues of cultural identity, identity politics and the issues of refugee rehabilitation.
Chapter 1 by Shiraz Ahmad Dar and Adil Umar Lone discusses the trend of empowerment of women and supports it with data on the sex ratio since 1901, the literacy rate 1961 onwards from the Census of India, Jammu and Kashmir (2011) and the gender-wise growth of primary schools (Digest of Statistics, Department of Economics and Statistics, Government of Jammu and Kashmir, 1992–1993; p. 37). Chapter 16 by Asif Ahmad Bhat is also on Kashmir; this is on the study of Mission schools in Kashmir (1890–1920). The author discusses Tyndale Biscoe School as a case study and tells the reader about the growth of the Christian mission school to several new branches in Rainawari and other areas in Srinagar. The mission schools at Anantnag were seen to be fully dominated by the Kashmiri Pundits, which is the real contention of the author. The reason given for this pre-dominance as concluded in a quote by Tyndale Biscoe was economic (p. 292). Missionary education in colonial Andhra is the theme of Chapter 9 by Dr Vulli Dhanaraju, which concludes that missionary education seemed to play a regenerative role in nineteenth-century colonial Andhra. A comparative analysis of the number of public institutions in the Madras Presidency of different grades and classes that were under the mission and private management is part of the chapter as the author comments that missionary efforts were present in almost all the districts of Andhra, which helped in spreading the education in the Telugu areas of Madras Presidency (p. 188). Chapters 12 and 13 by Sudipta Mondal and Deep Dulal Barman are on the issues of partition, migration and resettlement and deal with the problem of refugee rehabilitation. Both authors feel that more emphasis should have been given to the issue of the refugee resettlement programme at the eastern borders after the influx of Hindu refugees especially to the states of West Bengal and Assam from East Pakistan and later in 1971 (pp. 248, 262–263). The biggest problem in North Bengal after Partition was the arrival of refugees, as the city of Siliguri had, due to its geographical location, attracted a large number of refugees. Chapter 19 by Kalikrishna Sutradhar discusses the activities of the Uttarakhanda Dal in the plains of the Darjeeling district (p. 320). Chapter 21 by Sri Avijit Roy (SACT) is also on North Bengal and the plight of tea labourers and the role of the trade unions in post-independent India. Identity politics and the creation of Pakistan have been dealt with in Chapters 5 and 6. In Chapter 5, Sailen Debnath mentions that out of the seventy-two delegates attending the First Conference of the Indian National Congress held in then Bombay (1885), not more than two were Muslims (p. 110). The author quotes K. M. Munshi who rightly observes that ‘the seeds of Pakistan was sown’ (p. 115) by the Morley–Minto reforms of 1909. Chapter 6 by Dr Madhab Chandra Adhikary discusses the Rajbhanshis of North Bengal and their demand for the recognition of the Rajbanshi/Kumatapuri language. It emphasises the determinant of a cultural identity, rather than a caste identity, in terms of the region, its language and its culture (pp. 146–147).
The issue of tribal identity, a pertinent theme in colonial and post-colonial India is discussed in Chapter 18 which deals with the origin, development and politics of the Jalpaiguri tribes since colonial times (pp. 310–312). Chapter 3 by Dr Sagar Boruah is on the language politics in Assam. Language encodes culture and provides a meaning through which culture is shared from one generation to the other, thus preserving the culture of the community, writes the author (p. 61). The language debate in Assam began after the introduction of Bengali in Assam as the medium of instruction in schools and in the offices of the provinces that would suit the Bengali-speaking amulas. The author does not support the view of the clerk conspiracy theory as propounded by a section of scholars for this change (pp. 63–67).
In Chapter 10, written by Dr Kartik Chandra Sutradhar, an emphasis is placed on the social reform movements of Bengal, which according to the author had a positive role to play in the history of Bengal (p. 209). Studies based on empirical sociological criteria have shown trends towards modernisation of tradition, and the constitutional abolition of caste-based discrimination has led social scientists to hold the view that ‘caste is an anachronism in modern India and caste-based quotas are a legacy of colonial policies of divide and rule’ (p. 215). The Vaisnanite institution of the Satra is the focus of Chapter 2 by Dr Dwijendra Nath Bhakat having been founded by Vaishnava Saint Sri Shankadeva. This chapter mentions how the Satras of North Bengal have lost their identity and how several Satras have decayed. It also discusses the Satras that are still in existence in North Bengal (pp. 45–60). It is believed by some that science and technology were not given due importance in ancient times, however, this was not the case as is seen in a reading of Chapter 8 by Professor Projit Kumar Palit on ‘Manuscripts and Science: A Link with Society and Religion in Early India’ (pp. 172–182). Women, however, as seen from the prism of the books of Mulk Raj Anand, were ‘subaltern’, as compared with men in both pre- and post-independence Indian society, as suggested by the author Rimpa Khatun in Chapter 14 (pp. 266–271). It is the contention of Sumantra Chanda that the idea of the history of the Bengalis which was crucial to their construction as a community was constrained by two factors: the first being the absence of a history of Bengal and the second of the persistence of the ideas of the ‘effeminate’ Bengali. The author writes that it was the conception of the ‘heroic’, as portrayed in the Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan by Lt. Col Tod, that appealed to Bengal’s intelligentsia which led to a prolific use of both the original and the translations to write Rajput history as constructed by Tod into the Bengali consciousness (pp. 300–303). Repetitive sentences, however, were to be seen in certain parts of Chapter 20 (p. 332). To my surprise, the edited volume titled ‘Indian Perspectives’ even has a chapter titled the ‘Earth Architecture of Belabo of Bangladesh’ (pp. 155–171).