An Intimate History of Bengal

BOOK 19

The Debate on Lebensraum – The Land of Bengal

[Note : Just a passing reference of dates, In 1904, রামতনু লাহিড়ী ও ততকালীন বংগসমাজ[1] was first published. In 2002, the first draft of An Intimate History of Bengal (AIHB) was released while I came to Calcutta to live as a resident from distant Malabar. With due humility while comparing AIHB with the monumental work, there is a fundamental working similarity. Both of them were designed not to be a standard historical treatise. The former has been a semi-biographical record and the latter is an intimate record of Bengal. Both the works did not hesitate to mix historical with personal. Finally, the author of the first and the Editor of the second came to Calcutta, while as a boy and could never fully come out of the charm of this city.

In this BOOK-19, we would enter into the explosive, violent and quite significant debate, hyphenated by a village called Nandigram (in a cabbalistic connection of names – Nakshalbari and both starting with Na prefix – meaning – No – a disagreement, a dissent ), formulate two questions which call for historical scrutiny. In the search for historical scrutiny, we would take up a deliberately designed semi biographical record of a century back dealing with Contemporary Bengali Society, cited previously.

The objective of this BOOK is an open-ended one. It is to lay bare certain self-evident facts with brutal objectivity. It is also be aware of the historian’s (or writer’s in a modest sense) co-ordinate and relationship with the subject-matter. First of all, the writer in this case is not one of the people who lost (land and livelihood also for time being ) or gained (by those whose livelihood does not depend on the produce of the land but they are legal or illegal owner of the land ) in the process. I am not here to justify the acquisition process for some ideological, material, emotional reasons or due to simple reason of having an atrophied and/or lobotomized cerebral apparatus. Nor I am here to put up a savage, sentimental and a-historical attack on the acquisition process. My idea or rather ambition is to connect these happenings to the larger canvass of Bengal’s history. Not being a professional historian provides me with a rare autonomy to look into the issues with an outlook which is not prejudiced, a necessary and harmful effect of erudition, except few rare exceptions. I also enjoy another power which I was not aware of. Quite recently, while reading Edward’s Said’s Orientalism, I became more acutely and directly aware of the critical nature of the relationship between the historian and his subject and also the critical importance of being always aware and critical of methodological development of the thesis.

I am not an Orientalist; at least not of the type about whom Said has told so consistently and perhaps conclusively. I am not a Bengali for that matter either. Hence, I am not sure to lay all the reasons at the door of discriminatory Policies of the Centre [whatever that Centre is and whoever in this Centre sits now] or to some ideological stereotype called Imperialism, Capitalism. I am not a patriot either for whom nationalism is the road to suppress all the disturbing complexities of being human. My allegiance lies to Civilization alone and in case of Bengal, banal as though it may seem – to the decaying and depreciated legacy of Rabindranath’s ভুবনডাঙ্গার মাঠ ।[2]

The Missing Commentators

I have also spent half a decade in Calcutta by now, witnessing the unfolding of two issues – Call for Capital of the allurance of a siren and Reaction to it. Both the processes did not proceed independently and they are not disconnected either. It is dialectic but not a general or unqualified one. It will not stand to reason that to argue that Nandigram issue is only an immediate reaction to the present Policy of acquisitioning land (i.e. agricultural land) for industrial purposes, notably chemical, car industry and steel making. I shall start this essay by asking myself two questions – a) Do we have any historical parallel / seed of the events in Nandigram in Bengal’s history ? and

b) If yes, what was the response of the leaders to those events / processes?

An attempt to answer these questions might, I say might quite carefully lead us to map the solution using present variables.

It has been a serious irritation and pain to watch the fury of the semi-literate journalistic hordes on the issue. Although there comes occasional reportage of thoughtful and sober kind but the majority falls in the category of chandimantap culture of Bengal which is intense and loud enough to cause inconvenience but lacking passion to achieve anything substantial. The undeniable fact is this: The debate on the issue lacks richness, insight and variety because of the fact that people who are capable of rendering significance to the debate do not live in the land any longer. Strangely, these non-residents of Bengal are the same group of people who would have anticipated the events much earlier. Now, the reason for the absence of this group of people from the local activity of Bengal is related again to the socio-economic process of the last decades.

Who are these missing commentators? Connecting to the symbolic epicenter of Bengal - those people whose ancestors used to be landed gentry in the villages like Nandigram in East and West and who migrated in the decades of late sixties and early seventies. Few of them are in the grave, the flag-bearers of the Romantic Movement of Bengal which has its root during the Revolutionary Movement which was part of the freedom struggle. Readers may please note that the Midanpore District of Bengal, for reasons I know not, has traditionally produced firebrand revolutionaries and Nandigram is in Midanpore district. The root of this romantic streak is deep in Bengal and surfaces in the greatest of characters[3]. With this empirical connection in mind, those who are meditating on some reconciliation might benefit themselves and their objective by reading into Bengal’s history.

But these missing commentators are not completely missing. In the visualization of history as eternal return, they have arrived – in a collective way to claim ‘ownership’ decreed in another historical ‘time’. How much uncomfortable it might seem and how much cruel it may sound. The fact is that the ‘ownership’ of the agricultural land has changed hands in each historical age, under the dual forces of economic changes and fragmentation of political frontier. Parliamentary democracy which depends on ‘locally cast’ votes by individual – real or un-real puts a high incentive on ‘settling’ people into ‘land’ where contest is low and subsistence is cheap. Most of the ‘change’ of land-ownership in Bengal or in independent India has been driven by this kind of ‘anticipated settlement’ at the Policy level. Although, there were genuine humanitarian concerns – another enduring tradition of Bengal that has always been sympathetic to the victims of revolution, persecution and unrest. The ruling elite who ruled Bengal from the decade of seventies, quite successfully displaced the beneficiaries of the Permanent Settlement and a grand class-struggle driven revenge was successfully completed. Read the effusive and highly hopeful Asoke Mitra in Calcutta 67.

This class, now landless or their land cut to size, invested in education and here is a critical, supremely critical issue for Bengal which is more cultural than anything else. This class, by instinct and due to genuine admiration for the European Civilization remained global in their outlook, even at the worst crisis of their individual fortune. We would be back to the historical process of this acquisition of values later in the essay. The best in terms of intellect and funds (as well as worst) among them got themselves educated in the best universities of West (instead of decaying institutions of Calcutta) and by early nineties, many of them were part of the global financial and managerial elite who would be immensely strengthened by the following events –

1. Fall of Berlin Wall – 1989[4]

2. Fall of Soviet Union – 1991

3. Indian Economic Reform - 1993

4. Internet Going Public – 1995

5. Individual Change of Political Leadership in Bengal – Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharyya succeeding Mr. Jyoti Basu. - 2000

Indian companies and industrialists whose competitive advantage lie mostly in the domain of influencing the Polices of a socialist Government during ‘License Raj’, after liberalization now needed the much needed Capital and that could only come, in short term (before they could raise capital from domestic market after establishing proper framework, institutions and skill-base ) from this same global financial elite. This elite or the most-powerful among them, functionally are pure Money Managers[5] and they could not but find Bengal in their highly sophisticated and sensitive investment radar. From the home side, the state was approaching the ultimate crisis of the cadre state[6] and the offer was a win-win situation. The top leadership had no choice, in economic terms – it can either find those investments going to more vigorous and enthusiastic states and that would surely cause an internal cadre-strife that would burn down the whole edifice. With systematic and organized penetration in all functions of the state[7] for generations, the cadre-disturbance can soon become a tornado; counter-balancing forces would be totally inadequate to do anything effective. Added up with the revolutionary streak associated with the land, the top leadership was in a hurry, it had not much time even to consult and reach any consensus with its political allies, much less the people who would be directly impacted. The imminent cadre-strife and offer of Capital coincided with such a resonant time-lock, time became the essence of the contract and this hurry, this intense play with time, pushed Nandigram into the historical time as well as an inspiration for the past, present and future victims of similar process in other states of India and may be abroad. Some commentators might like to link this with the broader and global process called Globalization but this is also a conditioned and fashionable but nevertheless crude method of escaping the reality - of taking refuge under a vague generalization and I am quite sure that such intellectual short-cut has started to buzz around.

A thought-story – History as a novel

Before we track this class again, let me break another tradition and narrate a compressed novel thought by me – Imagine two friends from the same economic and social background studying in a good school somewhere in Calcutta in 1975 – in their early twenties. Both of them did exceptionally well in their exams and one became an IPS officer and another went to Harvard to have his MBA done. After quarter of a century, one became the Head of Asia Pacific of a large Investment Bank and the IPS officer became DIG, Traffic looking after the traffic of Dumdum to Writer’s Building. Now, imagine this Investment Banker is coming to meet Chief Minister to confirm some development fund crucial to set up some industry which would create few thousands of jobs. Now, a red carpet is given to this Banker, his all caprices are taken care of, entire Cabinet remains at his service ( rather they have to, for their own interest), he directly meets Chief Minister who greets him in person and extends a kind of greeting a state guest generally commands. I have seen this spectacle in technicolour in local media and newspapers. This banker’s classmate from the Class of 75 was entrusted with the duty, may be in a meeting previous evening, to make sure that this Banker’s cavalcade should be not be stuck in traffic snarls from Airport to Writers, which is of course something of a bad impression to a potential investor.

This is of course a highly imaginative scenario. But I don’t think this is not an impossible scenario. Now, using the novelistic style of entering into the Police Commissioner’s internal monologue, there is theoretically infinite variety of dialogues possible. I would, as a novelist exercising my artistic autonomy would like to highlight two monologues – one of them is the humiliation which any able and self-respecting man will feel looking at the situation, even objectively and secondly – an impotent rage or anger which would be only satiated by involving into something totally disconnected with the situation under consideration. This response in collective psyche among colonial people – as told by Amartya Sen, citing Partha Chatterjee where a colonial mind, having humiliated by its own incompetence or lack of prominence in certain ‘mainstream’ sphere of activities creates its own domain of specialization and takes up quite esoteric, uncommon and private interests. One characteristic is the total disconnection of this interest from the mainstream domain. I am only hinting, please note only hinting on the strange interest of a Police Commissioner of having aspired (although defeated by a more powerful force ) to become the President of Cricket Club of Bengal.

I can also assure you, this novelistic imagination helps us to understand one key psychological issue that is generally overlooked by experts. This applies equally well to individual and collective. I would call this factor as humiliation. An individual or a group do not become as frenzied, as violent by simple economic or social reasons alone. Humiliation gives rise to generalization, quite irrespective of the source that initially triggered it and in time, this generalization takes a lively form, an agenda, ingenuity and then it no longer remains an event, it becomes a social process in motion. History is replete with examples of individual or group humiliated and then propelling movements of gigantic proportion. All successful administrators understand this subtle aspect of human nature. My former boss gave me an advice : Don’t criticize someone in front of his junior. If you do that alone, it is considered kindness and if its done in front of the junior – its humiliation. Humiliation of a Brahamin called Chanakya by a king of India whose military prowess was one of the reasons of Alexander’s return, paid with his head and the overthrow of the Nanda Dynasty. Humiliation of a young Indian barrister in South Africa by a petty police sergeant might have, in some internal and inscrutable recess of human affairs, sowed the seed of a powerful movement that caused the Empire to collapse. Humiliating rhetoric by an otherwise good Professor – Mr. Owen of Presidency College, Calcutta ignited some flame in a student’s mind that this man – Subhas Chandra Bose became in course of time – ‘Enemy Number One of British Empire.’ How powerful can the revenge of a humiliated man become is amply illustrated in the imaginative domain by Dumas in The Count of Monte Cristo. And coming to more engaged reality – humiliation is the key to understand the rage that sweeps Middle East and other Islamic communities. The insurgency that sweeps North East of India in spite of all rhetoric, funding and developmental promise and actual development is about humiliation of people – who are considered expendable. An activist friend of mine from North East India told me while discussing about Look East Policy – Mainland India considers us [North East] as a corridor to South East Asia. We are just a corridor. They still call us North East and then what shall we make up of it.

People of Nandigram were, anything else, humiliated. Their protest could not have taken this form, had they not felt to their inner core some humiliation that goes beyond skin, bones, and marrow. I am not one of them and hence not qualified to analyze what they felt in economic, social and other terms. But as a human being shorn of all prefixes and suffixes and qualification, I can understand what rage unsettles us when we get humiliated. And pure humiliation is personal and direct. It is something like being fired – it is not 10% unemployment that time but 100% unemployment!

I may venture to add now – this is the attempt to present what the most honourable of the ‘missing commentators’ would have presented. We are also nearing a round-about entry into the essence of our first question: the search for historical parallel in Bengal’s history. We have just uttered it: The Nandigram debate is more about humiliation than economic and social settlement.

In the next sections, we would focus on the highly nuanced term called humiliation in the context of Bengal, in two historical ages and the reaction thereof. This action-reaction, in individual and collective would constitute the discussion on the second question.

Humiliation – a study on Nandigram

Humiliation is the material aspect of power that is and also the sign of its internal decay. A confident power never humiliates because it’s in control and does not need to. A sensible parent may be harsh with the child at times but the object is not to humiliate the child. Rather, any sensitive and secured enough power understands the forces it would unleash. Humiliation is also a sign that love and trust are missing in the relationship. How many great men of history have chastised all of us, while being humiliated by birch, cane and other ingenious pulling of ear and nose in front of their peers. Dickens, one of the most acute observers of injustices felt by children created characters that carried this lifelong scar. The first encounter with power left many of us with a bitter taste in our mouth. How many men or men kept that vial of acid within them and spew them in their later relationship while being humiliated during their teens while being ‘humiliated’ – really or in a perceived manner in their unrequited love or turned-down proposal.

Those who suffer humiliation in any form undergo sharpening of memory and with this events of past take an ‘ectoplasm-ic liveliness’ and sets the tone to ‘react’. We have to understand that we get humiliated not at intellectual level but at the emotional or rather in our non-rational level. But the reaction that comes later on marshals all the forces of reason and thinking as well. Let us take an example from recent Indian history. The forces that were responsible for demolishing Babri Masjid in 1992 could not have been simply based on the rational ground of retaliation or on a ‘strange jurisprudence of history’. The key element that roused people to cross the line of reason and common sense was this: we [i.e. Hindus – whatever that may mean] were humiliated by the Muslim conquerors [whoever or whatever they may be ] sometime long back [ whenever that might have happened ]. We were powerless and just to humiliate us, of all the places in this vast country, they [ whoever they are ] chose to make this mosque [ whether this is endorsed by all ] in the place of the Lord Rama’s birthplace [ whoever that person is historically may be ]. Listen now to the argument of some of the people of Nandigram arguing - Why of all the places in the state where there are many industrial places [locked-out or closed], the acquisition takes places in this highly fertile land? The most interesting point all through the debate is this: No party, no individual – of the city or of the village is in toto and absolutely against setting up of these plants or rather industrialization in general. They are quite aware of the positive implications of job-creating industrialization. They needed dialogue. They needed respect. They needed that greatness and broadness of the powerful to sit with them. Once that was not done, either deliberately or over some oversight or due to some mis-information, people felt humiliated. It is the senselessness of the beginning that makes the end also crossing the boundary of reason. I sympathize with Chief Minister’s hapless refrain that – if not here, not there, then where? but I think this state of affairs has been largely responsible for not being a subtle and sensible governing apparatus from the beginning.

In the former case of 1993, there was no question of ‘real-time dialogue’ with the Policy-makers [who built the mosque – five hundred years back] and this theoretical impossibility was argued to be only circumvented by generalizing the ‘real-time represenentiatives’ of the present, i.e. Muslims. I am sure, a Muslim living in Bengal – some thousand kilometers away from Ayodhya, otherwise speaking and in other situation had little interest in the mosque. But the generalization can happen with or without our acceptance of the people or group whom are generalized. History of Colonialism teaches us two aspects about human psychology: Power, like Knowledge generalizes and if it cannot, it will fail. Secondly - If in some very happy situation – Power can moderate its irrevocable trend to generalize, partnership of hitherto unthinkable level happens and sustains even when that moderation has already gone.

Akbar the Great - one of the very few great men of history who can be really called great had an intuitive understanding of this aspect of power. Even while completely secured from internal and external threats and while Rajput threat was completely neutralized, he exercised power with moderation. His IPO offer to the huge number of talents in the country, seeking military glory and power was: Don’t waste your life in some insignificant skirmishes here and there for the sovereignty of a petty chieftain or a clan. Be a stakeholder of a great Empire that history will remember. Compare the tone and the delivery of the present Policy Makers of Bengal to the people who have to make the sacrifice of their ‘land’ is: ‘We have brought these investors after very hard work. We have done a great job. Now if you don’t oblige, they will go elsewhere and we will not have any industry here. This will be a great loss for the state’. It’s the tone of power that is all ‘I’, ‘I’, speaking without understanding this simple fact that no man will pledge anything if he does not find himself a member in the enterprise, however great and however beneficial to himself. For that matter, it needs conviction from the leaders and here is the subterranean tragedy of Bengal’s leadership: They are not convinced themselves to that extent on the new mission they are embarking. In a grand irony, they are slowly embarking on a Hegelian conflict where both sides are right in their respective context.

While talking about the context of Leadership of Bengal, let us go back two hundred years back (ref. to the first question proposed earlier) and consider administrators and Policy makers like Hastings, Dalhousie, Bentinck, and Macaulay. What did they find? They were entrusted to rule and their methodology drew the power from being totally (rightly or wrongly is irrelevant in this context of examination) convinced about the superiority of the European Culture. While pushing their ideas, their inner conviction was sure of the fact that the values and ideas they are holding would be civilizing the people whom they are governing or are going to govern. At Policy and personal level, there was this irrevocable conviction that they are bringing higher Civilization to this part of the world, once creator of a great and enduring culture. So, while a Rammohan Roy writes a letter to the Governor General Bentinck, it was very carefully considered, discussed, deliberated and decided upon. None of these men could have acted the way they did if they had any lesser conviction about the superiority of the culture they are bringing about or hesitant about any grand historical mission that they are embarking upon. The difference between the convictions of the leadership on the mission can be no less striking.