Bhadralok Communalism in Bengal (1932-1942)

Dyuti Chakravarty
Fourth Semester
M A History
Ambedkar University, Delhi

Bhadralok Communalism in Bengal (1932-1942)
Extract: Dominant discourses on the phenomenon of Communalism resulting in the partition of
the subcontinent have often talked of it in terms of ‘Muslim Separatism’. Investigations into
Muslim separatist tendencies do not tell the whole story. Through this paper, I have tried to
describe the process by which the upper-caste Bengali Hindu middle class, referred to as the
bhadralok class – bhadralok simply means a respectable man in Bengali – increasingly veered
towards a politics marked by communalism. The changing political context from the 1920s
onwards, characterized by greater democratization of organized politics with the Non
Cooperation Movement and later through the implementation of the Government of India Act
1935, the implementation of separate electorates through the Communal Award of 1932 which
brought a Krishak Praja Party – Muslim League coalition into power in Bengal, had in a way
jeopardized the prominence and power of the bhadralok. Thus, a shift towards communal
politics seemed the most convenient option for them.

Nationalism is greater than sectarianism. And in that sense we are Indians first and then Hindus,
Mussalmans, Parsis, Christians after.

-

Gandhi, 26 January 1922 quoted by Gyanendra Pandey in The Construction of
Communalism in Colonial North India, Second Edition (New Delhi: OUP,
2008), p. 233

From the 1920s onwards, there was a shift in the dynamics of the Indian national movement,
which was till then led by a reasonably “privileged” class of Congress leaders. The ‘masses’
entered the organized national movement on an unprecedented scale. The participation of
peasants and workers in nationalist activities, and their appropriation of nationalist symbols and
slogans, greatly increased. Consequently, the demands of the unprivileged class came to be
voiced on a nationalist platform far more insistently and concretely than in the past. 1 As Partha
1
Gyanendra Pandey, The Construcion of Communalism in Colonial North India, Second Edition (New Delhi: OUP,
2008) p. 233.

Chatterjee points out, with the extension of the sphere of ‘representative’ institutions, the arena
of organized politics widened its horizon to bring in larger sections of the peasants masses into a
systematic political relationship with the state. This “politics of mobilization” of “organized
politics” brought with it parochial loyalties in the form of religious imagery 2 which can be

‘located in these linkages which the parties and politicians try to forge’ with the masses. 3

To begin with, I would like to point out that Indian nationalism did not have truly secular
ideological and philosophical underpinnings. 4 As Joya Chatterji points out, nationalist thought
tended to share the colonial view that religion defined the basic unit of Indian society. The
‘secular’ nationalist ideal was that of equality of all religious communities and the spirit of
accommodation between them. Yet most nationalist thinkers tended to describe national identity
in religious terms, defining India as a nation of Hindus. 5 This was particularly marked in Bengal,
in the nationalist writings of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, Swami Vivekananda and
Aurobindo Ghosh. Though the Khilafat- Non Cooperation Movement, for a very short period,
witnessed a united organizational front (for the first time uniting Hindus and Muslims) to counter
the Colonial State, it soon collapsed with Gandhi’s withdrawal of the Non-Cooperation
Movement on 11 February 1922, in the aftermath of the Chauri-Chaura incident and the loss of
significance of the Khilafat symbol - used to mobilize support of the divergent Muslim
community - as a result of nationalist revolution in Turkey in 1924. 6 The period between 1922
and 1923 witnessed a complete breakdown of Hindu-Muslim unity with rise in the number of
communal riots throughout the subcontinent. Thus, regular invocation of religious imagery for
the purpose of political mobilization was bound to create differences among different religious
communities.

This essay will use the analytical framework stated above in order to examine the process of
growing communal differences between the Hindu and Muslim communities in Bengal that
finally culminated in the second partition of the province in 1947, resulting in unprecedented
violence and mass exodus of people across newly formed borders.

2
Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947 (New Delhi: CUP, 2002) p. 2.
3
Partha Chatterjee, ‘Bengal Poltics and the Muslim Masses, 1920-47’, in Mushirul Hasan (ed.), India’s Partition:
Process, Strategy and Mobilization (New Delhi: OUP, 2012) p. 260.
4
I draw my inference from a close study of Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided, p. 2.
5
For further explanation see Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Hindutva (Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1969) p. 10.
6
Shekhar Bandopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan,
2011) p. 304.

The Societal Structure in Bengal
A study of the process of communalization in Bengal is incomplete without a critical

examination of its societal structure. Bengal was one on the few states in which Muslims were a
majority. But their majority position was not strong enough since the Hindus and Muslims were
almost evenly matched in terms of sheer numbers. To add to that, the Muslims in Bengal were
also economically, socially and politically lagging behind the Hindus. 7 The slight advantage the
Muslim population enjoyed over Hindus was more than counterbalanced by the superior position
of the latter in economic, social and political life of the province. This generated a feeling among
the Muslims that they were ‘economically exploited, culturally subjugated and politically
dominated by the Hindus.’8

The Permanent Settlement of 1793 and its subsequent modifications of 1859 and 1885, gave rise
to two sets of rights over land- one, a right of proprietorship enjoyed, in the early twentieth
century, by some 150,000 zamindars and nearly 3 million holders of intermediate tenures; and
two, a right of occupation held by those among the peasantry who had legally recognized rights
of tenancy.9The eastern and northern districts of Bengal were the predominantly Muslim areas of
the province. Muslims formed the overwhelming bulk of the peasantry whereas the landlords
were mainly Hindus in these districts. But this simplistic explanation fails to give a complete
picture about the significance of Hindu-Muslim divide in the matter of mutual perceptions of
landlord and peasantry in the predominantly Muslim districts of Bengal. 10 But it is important for
us not to lose sight of the fact that the peasantry in Bengal was not a homogenous group. For
instance, in coastal Khulna, there were substantial cultivators (abadkari praja) who enjoyed

many customary rights not common elsewhere among the raiyats (tenants). Many were accepted
as tenureholders under the Tenancy Act. In fact the Noakhali Settlement Report says that many
of the Muslim cultivators of that district had ‘risen to become middlemen, howladars and
talukdars, and a few even zamindars (landlords), but they were all of the same stock’, and many
continued to cultivate even after acquiring superior rights. 11 But, on the other hand, in the eastern
districts of Dacca or Faridpur, with large Muslim populations, there were few cases of cultivators
operating in effect as intermediate rentiers. 12

7
For further explanation see Humaira Momen, Muslim Politics in Bengal: A Study of the Krishak Praja Party And
The Elections of 1937 (Dacca: Sunny House, 1972) pp. 1-9 and Shila Sen, Muslim Politics in Bengal 1937-1947
(New Delhi: Implex India, 1976) p. 1.
8
Shila Sen, Muslim Politics in Bengal 1937-1947 (New Delhi: Implex India, 1976) p. 1
9
Partha Chatterjee, ‘Bengal Poltics and the Muslim Masses, 1920-47’, p. 263.
10
Ibid., pp. 265-265.
11
Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations in Noakhali, cited in Ibid., p. 267.

12
Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations in Dacca, and Final Report on the Survey and Settlement
Operations in Faridpur, cited in Ibid., pp. 267-268.

For the Muslim-majority districts of Rajshahi and Chittagong divisions, the peasantry was not
differentiated in economic terms, but those who were jotedars had, in fact, risen from the ranks
of the rest of the peasantry, often participated in cultivation of their lands, were socially part of
the peasant community, and integrated to it within the same bonds of community solidarity. But
in all these districts, the upper caste Hindu zamindar or tenure-holder was clearly in a different
social category. Peasant violence against symbols of feudal authority often took a religious form,
culminating in the ‘breaking of idols that were worshipped with great pomp and festivity in the
landlord’s houses.’ Thus, as Partha Chatterjee points out, religion provided these communities
with an ontology, epistemology as well as practical code of ethics including political ethics to
protest against their oppression.13

The Bengali bhadralok, a class of prosperous, upper caste Hindu elite, were products of the
system of property relations created by the Permanent Settlement. 14 They were typically a rentier
class who enjoyed intermediary rights to rents from land. But the bhadralok class was not
homogenous group- the differences within this class were reflected in terms of the variety in size
and quality of their holdings in land, which were in part the result of subinfeudation and the

proliferation of intermediary tenures. Subinfeudation was particularly marked in the districts of
Eastern Bengal such as Bakarganj, where there were sometimes as many as fifteen intermediary
landholders between the zamindar and the tenant cultivator. 15 This was a class that lived off
rental income it generated and shunned any kind of manual labour. But, as Joya Chatterji in her
work, points out, the bhadralok category was not a straightforward communal or caste category.
Yet the peculiar configuration of the social structure in Bengal, somehow excluded the vast
majority of Bengali Muslims and low-caste Hindus from the benefits of land ownership and the
privileges it provided.16

As Shila Sen in her work points out, the Hindus in Bengal had achieved some sort of cohesion by
the early decades of the twentieth century. This was provided by western education which was
introduced by the British.17 In fact, Calcutta remained at the centre of all academic endeavors, as
far Bengal was concerned. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Calcutta alone had twenty
two colleges, beside the only University in the whole province. 18 Here too, the Hindus were able
13
Ibid., pp. 268-269.
14
Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947 , p. 5.
15
Tapan Raychaudhuri, ‘Permanent Settlement in Operation. Bakarganj District, East Bengal’, in R. E. Frykenberg

(ed.) Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History (Madison, Wis., 1969) pp. 163-174, cited in Ibid., p. 5
16
Ibid., p. 6.
17
Shila Sen, Muslim Politics in Bengal 1937-1947, p. 2.
18
Humaira Momen, MuslimPolitics in Bengal: A Study of the Krishak Praja Party And The Elections of 1937, p.6.

to tap the available opportunities better than the Muslims. 19 As a consequence, the educationally
advanced Hindus were able to take advantage of the available economic opportunities because of
their positive attitude to the changes brought about by the new rule. 20

The Communal Award
With the widening of the horizon of “organized politics” 21 since the early decades of the
twentieth century, the Colonial policy makers in London realized that more political concessions
were due for the “depressed classes” and the minority communities. The policy makers started
initiating policies of “protective discrimination” in their favor. This meant provision of special
schools for their education and reservation of a share of public employment for such candidates
and finally, provision for special representation of these classes in the legislative councils. This
provision was initially through nomination in the Act of 1919, and then through the

announcement of separate electorate in the Communal Award of 1932. 22 Scholars have often
been skeptical about the Colonial intentions behind the announcement of the Communal Award
of 1932. For example, Joya Chatterji looks at it as an integral part of a strategy intended to limit
the scope of the greater ‘autonomy’ which was being offered to the provinces. The Communal
Award was the result of a decision to divide power in the provinces among the rival communities
and social groups which, in its view constituted Indian society. 23

The purpose of the Communal Award was to carve up seats in both central and provincial
legislatures, between various ‘communities’ and interests: Muslims, depressed classes, Sikhs,
Europeans, and the ‘General’ population of Hindus, as well as the ‘special’ constituencies of
landholders, workers, women and dons. The seats allotted to each of these groups were intended
to reflect the ‘importance’ (which tended to be defined in terms of loyalty to the Raj) of each
group, more than mere numbers. 24 The most significant feature of the Communal Award was the
19
In proportion to their relative population,, Hindus were able to gain twelve times as many University degrees as
Muslims and sent thrice the number of pupils to secondary schools. Ibid., pp. 6-7.
20
Shila Sen, Muslim Politics in Bengal 1937-1947, p. 2.
21
I have borrowed this phrase from Partha Chatterjee, ‘Bengal Poltics and the Muslim Masses, 1920-47’, in

Mushirul Hasan (ed.), India’s Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization (New Delhi: OUP, 2012) p. 258.
22
Shekhar Bandopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, p. 345.
23
Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947, p. 18.
24
Ibid., p. 19.

distribution of Hindu and Muslim seats. in Bengal, out of the 250 seats in the proposed
Legislative Assembly, Hindus including the depressed classes were given 80 seats 25 which
amounts to 32 per cent of the total, although the 1931 census recorded them as numbering 22.2
million people, or 44 per cent of Bengal’s population. Muslims were also underrepresented as per
the provisions of the Award. According to the 1931 census, there were 27.8 million Muslims in
all, comprising 54 per cent of Bengal’s total population, and more than a third of the total
Muslim population of the Indian sub-continent. But the Award gave them 119 seats, which
amounted to 47.8 per cent of the total seats in the Assembly. The European group, which
comprised less than one per cent of the total population in Bengal, was allotted 25 seats in all, or
10 per cent of the total number of seats. 26

The Communal Award did not go down well with the bhadralok class, since its provisions, for

the first time, seemed to challenge their predominance in the sphere of organized politics. As
Chatterji points out, it was viewed by them as a frontal attack upon their position, and they
reacted with indignant outrage. Interestingly, the bhadralok did not involve standard nationalist
critiques in their scathing criticisms of the Award. ‘In all the sound and fury of newspaper
editorials, petitions, memorials and speeches denouncing the Award, little was heard about
separate electorates and the old imperial game of ‘divide and rule’.’ 27 In fact, even for nationalist
leaders like Subhas Bose, it was the distribution of Hindu seats under the Award that was most
disturbing. He may in retrospect have recognized that the Award was an ‘imperial device’ used to
divide the Indians still further, so that the effect of the meager constitutional reforms may be
sufficiently neutralized, but his objections to the Award ‘was not to its basis but to its effect.’ 28
The bhadralok anger was thus, directed against the group they considered the Award’s greatest
beneficiaries, the Bengali Muslims, who were thought to have cleverly devised a plan with the
connivance of the Colonial officers to trap the Hindus of Bengal into perpetual political
subservience.29 Muslim leaders like A. K. Ghuznavi, who had earlier condemned the Award as a
betrayal, protested against speculations over re-opening the communal settlement as posing a
great danger to the Muslim community and to the country at large.

While the furor over the Communal Award was still raging, the signing of the ‘Poona Pact’, as a
result of Gandhi’s refusal to countenance the creation of separate electorate for the Scheduled
25
Out of the 80 seats that were allocated to Hindus, 10 were reserved for the depressed classes. Thus, the share of
caste Hindu seats in the Assembly was down to 28 per cent, which would have considerably altered their (bhadralok)
predominant position in the Assembly as had been guaranteed by the Reforms of 1919. For further discussion on
this refer to Ibid., p. 20.
26
Ibid., pp. 19-20.
27
Ibid., p. 24.
28
Bidyut Chakravarty, ‘The Communal Award of 1932’, p.519, cited in Ibid., p. 24.
29
Ibid., p. 25.

Castes, added a new dimension to the whole problem. Gandhi, who believed that the question of
untouchability was a religious and not a political problem, was not in favor of creation of a
separate electorate to address the problem. On 20 September, 1932 he undertook a ‘fast on death’
in protest against this Award. This resulted in the signing of the ‘Poona Pact’ between senior
Congressmen and another group of scheduled caste leaders, led by M. C. Rajah, which agreed on
reserving a certain proportion of Hindu seats for Scheduled Castes. In Bengal, the effect of the
Pact was to drastically reduce the caste Hindu proportion of seats in the proposed legislature
from about 32 per cent to exactly 20 per cent, which would have led a blow to the bhadralok
interests in politics.
Thus, in the next few years, as bhadralok opposition to the Award mounted, at the prospect of an
impending ‘Muslim rule’ and their reduced eminence in the proposed legislature, the Muslim
opinion in favor of the Award also hardened. In this way, reactions to the Award came to be
divided along communal lines, with Hindus taking the lead in denouncing the Award and the
Muslims in reaction coming increasingly to unite in its defence. Thus, the All India Congress
Working Committee’s de facto acceptance of the Award, increased the bitterness and discord,
‘driving a wedge not only between Hindu and Muslim politicians and increasingly dividing
Bengal politics into two separate, communally defined groups which were pitted against each
other, but also between the All India Congress Working Committee and the bhadralok class of
Bengal.

The Elections of 1937 and the Krishak Praja Party’s rise to
prominence
The first elections after the implementation of the Government of India Act, 1935, proved to
have far reaching consequences in the history of modern India and especially the province of
Bengal. The Congress, in spite of emerging as the single largest party with fifty two seats in the
Legislative Assembly of Bengal, could not form a government. The Krishak Praja Party 30, which
rose to prominence with its phenomenal performance in the elections of 1937, instead, formed a
coalition government with Muslim League in Bengal. The KPP, whose programmes had much in
common with those of the Congress, and the Muslim League had fought the elections as rivals.
30
Earlier known as the Nikhil Banga Praja Samity, was formed with intention of giving voice to the demands of the
‘tillers of the soil’. The formation of the party was a culmination of the ongoing praja movement in Bengal.
Although such movements in Bengal had been on a secular basis, the new organization was to mainly voice the
demands of the Muslims and the Scheduled Caste peasants as they had been oppressed and exploited for many
decades. For further details see Humaira Momen, Muslim Politics in Bengal: A Study of the Krishak Praja Party
And The Elections of 1937, pp. 35-43, and Partha Chatterjee, ‘Bengal Poltics and the Muslim Masses, 1920-47’, pp.
270-273.

But the KPP’s inability to reach on an agreement on the agenda of the release of political
detenus,31 forced it to join hands with the Muslim League to form a coalition government. 32 But it
is important to remember that the Muslim League had joined the KPP on the understanding that
they would support measures to dismantle the zamindari system only if the zamindars were
amply compensated for by rewards of office. 33 Thus, right from the beginning, Haq was under
the pressure from the Muslim League, whose secular credentials are questionable.

As a leader committed to the cause of peasant welfare, A. K. Fazlul Haq of KPP, also the first
premier of Bengal, was bound to put forward tenancy legislation and the Bengal Tenancy
(Amendment) Bill was tabled in September 1937. The Bill proposed to abolish the zamindar’s
right to extract salami (or the landlord’s transfer fee) and also his right of pre-emption, thus
enabling his tenants freely to subdivide and transfer their holdings. The Bill also sought to
abolish the power of the landlords to extract rent through the certificate procedure and slashed
the rate of interest payable on arrears of rent by half, while placing a ceiling on the enhancement
of rent for a period of ten years. All in all, the Bill was meant to curb the power of zamindars, by
inhibiting their power to collect rent from the tenants. This had attracted the ire of the rentreceiving bhadralok class, who saw it as a communal measure aimed at challenging Hindu
dominance in the countryside. 34

In 1940, the government made an attempt to go ahead with the Bengal Moneylenders Act which
made it mandatory for all persons in the business of money lending to obtain licenses, and fixed
the maximum rate of interest at 8 per cent. Such legislation would have harmed the interests of
the Hindu professional mahajans, banias, shopkeepers and landowners who indulged in the
business of lending money. But this measure equally affected the interests of Muslim zamindars,
represented in the Assembly by the members of Dacca Nawab’s extended family. This lobby of
the coalition government was, however, somewhat successful in manipulating the proposed
legislation to their advantage. According to Sir John Arthur Herbert, the Governor of Bengal:

Starting as a Government Bill to regulate moneylending, it was twisted under party pressure to a
Bill to scale down moneylenders’ dues drastically, and in the form in which it emerged from the
Select Committee, it would have been an impossible measure. Suhrawardy, though not
31
The Congress spokesmen (including Sarat Bose, Bidhan Chandra Roy and Kiran Shankar Roy) wanted the release
of political prisoners as its first priority, failing which the Ministry should be ready to resign. But the leaders of the
KPP argued that a commitment to resigning over the question of detenus would jeopardize their programmes aimed
at peasant welfare. Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947, p. 104.
32
Ibid., p. 104.
33
Ibid., p. 107.
34
Ibid., p. 105.

responsible for the Bill, in fact took charge by arrangement with his colleagues and succeeded
during the debates…in improving it a great deal, partly by widening the scope of the loans to
which it would not apply and partly by improving its provisions. 35

This “communal ministry” 36 used its political power to create new opportunities for the Muslim
middle class, which often dealt a blow to the Hindu middle class interests. For instance, in 1938,
the Haq ministry changed the rules about police recruitment to ensure that 50 per cent of Bengali
constables were Muslims. In the same year, the ministry passed a legislation that stipulated that
60 per cent of all government appointments be reserved for Muslims. In 1939, the Government
instructed local bodies ‘not to propose for appointment to local bodies persons who were known
to be actively opposed to the policy of the Ministry’, and slapped administrative controls on
nominations to the Union Boards, which accounted for one third of their total membership. 37 In
1939, the Calcutta Municipal Amendment Act put an end to Hindu supremacy in the Calcutta
Corporation which had become the traditional bastion of Hindu bhadralok power. 38 Thus, Syama
Prasad Mookerjee in his personal diary described the year 1939 as a year of “Hindu oppression”
at the hands of a “communal ministry” which deliberately aimed at curtailing “Hindu
rights”.39The final blow came in 1940, when the Ministry introduced the Secondary Education
Bill, taking control of higher education in the province away from Calcutta University and
vesting instead in a Secondary Education Board in which Muslims were to be given a greater
say.40

While discussing the Secondary Education Bill, one should not lose sight of the fact that the
secondary education in Bengal was not secular enough to attract Muslim masses. Sanskritized
Bengali was something that Muslims could not associate themselves with. As Azizul Haq, who
served as the Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University from 1939 to 1942, wrote in his note to
Kamal Yar Jung Education Committee wrote, “with the beginning of the new reaction Bengali of
fifties and sixties of the last century contained such stiff Sanskritized words and phrases that it is
doubtful, if any average Bengali, unless he is a good Sanskrit scholar, can even understand them.
No doubt the language has thereafter been liquidated to some extent in process of time. But it
still contains many hard Sanskrit words [e]specially in some of the school and college
35
Herbert to Linlithgow, 10 May 1940, FR. Linlithgow Collection, IOLR MSS Eur F/125/40 cited in Ibid., p. 106.
36
Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee in his diary entry on 2 January, 1940 had used the term “communal” to describe the
KPP-Muslim League ministry in Bengal. Cited in Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Leaves from a Diary (Calcutta: OUP,
1993) p. 27.
37
Government of Bengal, Local Self Government Circular No. 428 (5)- L. S. G. dated 19 April 1939, File No. 20-3
of 1938; cited in Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition 1932-1947, p. 107, and Shila
Sen, Muslim Politics in Bengal 1937-1947, p. 109.
38
Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition 1932-1947 p. 107.
39
Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Leaves from a Diary, entry dated :2 January, 1944, Calcutta, p. 27.
40
Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition 1932-1947, p. 108.

textbook[s]…It is with this inherent disadvantage that the Mussalman student has also to join the
present system of education. But he has also to contend against the syllabuses, schemes of study
and text-books. He reads literature and he becomes conversant with Dev, Devi, Avtar, Namaskar,
Puja the conception of life, birth and rebirth, the pantheon with the doctrines of Veda and
Vedanta, Puranas and Gita…. He hardly comes across the conception of Allah, Rasul, or the
meaning and import of Namaz, Haj, Zakat or the principles and doctrines of Islam in Quran or
Hadis.” He also raised problems with the content of history text-books, which tended to glorify
an ancient Indian past and vilify the medieval period by describing it as period of conquest,
carnage and “destruction and demolition of India’s past”. Such a system of education was bound
to create communal discord and hatred, resulting in the alienation of Muslims. 41

The idea of a separate Secondary Education Board was something that had been suggested
almost two decades back but it was mooted in the Report of Calcutta University Commission
1917-1919. The University rejected the proposal of establishing a separate Secondary Education
Board on the ground that it proposed “absolute control of the local government” over the “whole
organization relating to secondary education.” Thus, the tussle that ensued between the
government and the University was mainly on the issue of control of the proposed board. 42 This
battle was lost with the introduction of the Secondary Education Bill, on 21 August, 1940, by A.
K. Fazalul Haq. As Joya Chatterji correctly points out, higher education was not only the
“mainstay of bhadralok power and influence” but also a “symbol of their exclusive identity.” By
posing a threat to their control over this vital asset, the Bill challenged the very basis of their
‘cultural superiority’, the main plank of bharalok communal discourse. 43

The challenge posed by these measures to the bhadralok cultural superiority brought new players
into the arena of organized politics. For instance, by his own admission, it was the introduction
of the Secondary Education Bill in 1940 that brought Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerji into active
politics, for the first time. 44The supposed failure of the Congress in safeguarding Hindu interests,
coupled with the reluctance of the Bose brothers to openly stand up for Hindu cause, left Syama
Prasad and many others with no choice but to join the Hindu Mahasabha under the guardianship
of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.45

41
Poromesh Acharya, ‘Education and Communal Politics in Bengal: A Case Study’, Economic and Political Weekly,
Vol. 24, No. 30 (Jul. 29, 1989), p. PE82.
42
Ibid., p. PE83.
43
Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition 1932-1947, p. 108.
44
Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Leaves from a Diary, entry dated: 2 January, 1944, Calcutta, p. 28.
45
Ibid., pp. 27-30.

The Congress under the leadership of the Bose brothers, made attempts to woo the masses, and
shed its bhadralok moorings and repair its tarnished secular image, which were often hampered
by constraints inside the Party itself. For instance, Sarat Bose’s ‘mass contact’ campaign never
had the full weight of the Congress behind it. At the provincial level, the campaign rather faced
strong internal opposition; it was condemned as a policy of ‘pandering to Muslims’ and it was
reported that a number of Calcutta Muslim leaders were dismayed by the Bengal Provincial
Congress Committee’s reluctance to pursue the Mass Contact campaigns and enlist Muslim
support.46

Hindu Sangathanist Politics in the aftermath of the 1937
elections
In the aftermath of the Communal Award and the Poona Pact, the election results of 1937 proved
that the caste Hindus would be able to influence the politics of the province only if they were
able to command wider Hindu support. The inability of the Congress to win more than 20 per
cent of the Scheduled Caste seats had revealed the narrowness of the social base of the party and
its failure to overcome its bhadralok moorings and reach out to the masses. As Joya Chatterji
points out, powerful political considerations pushed spokespersons of Hindu rights and interests
to woo those sections of the Hindu population which had been historically excluded from
bhadralok culture.47 The history of the abortive mass-contact initiative made it clear that any
move to woo the depressed classes could not be based on agrarian radicalism, at the cost of
bhadralok economic privileges. The consolidation of castes, thus, emerged as an important tool
by which the sphere of the Hindu political community was sought to be expanded.

From the mid-thirties onwards, Bengal witnessed a flurry of caste consolidation programmes,
initiated under the auspices of the Hindu Sabha and the Mahasabha. In March 1939, Veer
Savarkar on his tour across Bengal relaunched the Mahasabha’s programme of caste
consolidation in Bengal. On this occasion Amrita Bazar Patrika, a leading daily in Bengal, read:

A thrill passed through the audience when Sj. Savarkar was found putting his hands on the head
of five Santhal boys, who in Santhali, claimed that they belonged to Hinduism and sought Sj.
46
S. M. Ahmed to Ashrafuddin Ahmed Chaudhuri, 19 August 1937 (in Urdu), AICC Papers, File No. 47/1937, cited
in Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition 1932-1947, pp. 117-118. For a complete
account of the Mass Contact Campaign see Ibid., pp. 109-124.
47
Ibid., p. 194.

Savarkar’s lead to guide their destiny. When one of them garlanded him with a wreath of Sylvan
blossoms, Sj. Savarkar embraced them in joy. 48

Later that year, Syama Prasad Mookerjee visited Chandpur in Tippera to have the local Gaurnitai
temple, owned by the Saha community, opened to worshippers of all castes. He held ‘discussions
with the proprietors of the temple and [was] successful in persuading them to throw open the
temple to all castes of Hindus.' Several new Hindu organizations now emerged in the late thirties,
all aiming to unify Hindu society. 49 In January 1939, the Bangiya Hindu Sanghati (the Bengal
Hindu United Association) was set up to safeguard the rights and the legitimate interests and
privileges of Bengal Hindus and to promote solidarity amongst all sections of the larger Hindu
community.50

As Syama Prasad’s diary entry records:

….Meanwhile there was a great stir in the province on account of the census operations. The
Congress had done untold mischief by boycotting the Census of 1931. A large number of Hindus
were thus rendered indifferent and the entries made were hardly dependable. On the census
figures however our political fate depended, we took up a firm attitude from the Mahasabha. Our
agitation was well organized. We wanted to check the growing tendency among the Scheduled
Castes people to regard themselves outside the Hindu fold- their antagonism to Caste Hindus was
being slowly nurtured on political consideration- Caste Hindus were the enemies of the Sch.
Castes’ progress etc. we wanted that Hindu solidarity must grow; we wanted that caste prejudices
should disappear. We therefore declared that we should not indicate our castes but call ourselves
Hindus in our census returns. This was bitterly opposed by a section of Scheduled Castes people.
Still our propaganda had great educative value. We not only got all Hindus take an active interest
in the census but united them as far as possible. 51

By the mid-forties, as Joya Chatterji points out, the low castes and tribals were deployed in the
vanguard of Hindu militancy. The rhetoric of ‘shuddhi’ (purification) and ‘sangathan’
(organization) had a certain reverberation on the low caste groups who had been demanding for
several decades that they be given a higher ritual status. The enfranchised minority,
48
Amrita Bazar Patrika, 3 April 1939; also cited in Ibid., p. 195.
49Government of Bengal Special Branch ‘PH’ Series, File No. 501/39, cited in Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided:
Hindu Communalism and Partition 1932-1947, p. 195.
50
Government of Bengal Special Branch ‘PH’ Series, File No. 505/39, cited in Ibid., pp. 195-196.
51
Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Leaves from a Diary, entry dated: 6 December, 1945, Calcutta, p. 45.

predominantly prosperous Namasudras and Rajbangshis, demonstrated their new willingness to
identify themselves with the Caste Hindu community and with bhadralok political interests in the
Assembly elections of 1946, when the ‘Bengal Congress won overwhelmingly in all but three of
the thirty Scheduled Caste seats, a striking improvement on its performance in 1936. 52

Conclusion
Dominant discourses on the phenomenon of Communalism resulting in the partition of the
subcontinent have often talked of it in terms of ‘Muslim Separatism’. Investigations into Muslim
separatist tendencies do not tell the whole story. Through this paper, I have tried to describe the
process by which the upper-caste Bengali Hindu middle class, referred to as the bhadralok class
– bhadralok simply means a respectable man in Bengali – increasingly veered towards a politics
marked by communalism. The changing political context, characterized by greater
democratization of organized politics with the Non Cooperation Movement and later through the
implementation of the Government of India Act 1935, the implementation of separate electorates
through the Communal Award of 1932 which brought a Krishak Praja Party – Muslim League
coalition into power in Bengal, had in a way jeopardized the prominence and power of the
bhadralok. Thus, a shift towards communal politics seemed the most convenient option for them.

The Communal Award and the Poona Pact of 1932, had drastically reduced the caste Hindu
proportion of seats in the proposed legislature to exactly 20 per cent. This dealt a severe blow to
the bhadralok interests in the legislative politics. Thus, towards the latter half of the 1930s and
the early 1940s, they started forging solidarities cutting across caste barriers, in an attempt
towards creation of a common political grid. From the late 1930s onwards, massive caste
consolidation programmes got under way. As the Census operations of 1941 got under way,
‘attempts to record scheduled people as merely Hindus’ were reported from all over the
province.53

52
Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition 1932-1947, p. 203.
5353 Report of the Commissioner, District Magistrate of Burdwan, Local Officers’ Fortnightly Confidential Reports
for the fortnight in March 1941, GB HCPB File No. 13/41, cited in Ibid., p. 197.

This is also revealed in Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s Presidential Address at the Bihar
Provincial Hindu Conference:

‘….It is only when the Hindus have learnt to be united and consolidated, it is only when they are
strong and resolute and refuse to barter away the liberty of their country, only then will the issues
be clarified and the British realize the forces they have to fight against. It is only when the
Muslims realize that 28 crores of Hindus have made up their minds to carry on a struggle for the
political independence of India and that while the latter will gladly welcome the cooperation of
Muslims and others in equal and just terms they are not prepared to allow them to bring about a
deadlock, only then will the Muslims realize the supreme need for coming to an honorable
understanding with the Hindus.

In the new order of society that we contemplate the Hindu Mahasabha must be the meeting
ground of all classes and castes of Hindus, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, capitalist and
laborer, employer and employee. It is only by means of frank and mutual discussions that we can
appreciate each other’s point of view and resolutely endeavour to solve existing difficulties. Our
aim is to establish peace and harmony and this we can do if we can probe into the root causes of
the present disaffection amongst different classes of the people.’ 54

The Congress which had been bhadralok stronghold in the past, had betrayed the bhadralok
interests by its virtual acceptance of the Communal Award. Hence this class would have probably
alternated between shifting to Hindu Mahasabha or putting pressure on Congress leadership for a
change in policy.

Through this paper, I have tried to look at the ideological shifts and positions taken by the
Bhadralok by looking at the class interests of this group. It was not that this class was inherently
committed to the ideology of communalism (or even nationalism). But it was rather that this
class was looking at which ideology would serve its interests best.

54Shyama Prasad Mookerjee’s Presidential Address at the Bihar Provincial Hindu Conference Held in Ranchi,
Bihar, Hindustan Times, 17 April 1940, cited in K. N. Panikkar (ed.), Towards Freedom: Documents on the
Movement for Independence in India, 1940, Part I (New Delhi: ICHR in collaboration with OUP, 2009) pp. 588-589.

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