review -sekhar bandyopadhyay
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7/30/2019 review -sekhar bandyopadhyay
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Social Scientist
Caste, Culture and Hegemony: Social Dominance in Colonial Bengal by Shekhar BandopadhyayReview by: Projit Behari MukherjeeSocial Scientist, Vol. 33, No. 7/8 (Jul. - Aug., 2005), pp. 94-97Published by: Social Scientist
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Social Scientist
o3 of the marginalisedn developmentnd highlighthe congruence n?c4 developmental referencesf rural opulationnboth ndia and Pakistan.
Moving wayfrom hedominant evelopmentiscourse,hebook with tsfocus n viewfrom elow' s an importantontributiono thedevelopmentliterature.
./)oZ
rnr Jayatirivastava sattheDepartmentfPolitical cience,Universityf Delhi.
Caste,CulturendHegemony:ocialDominanc-enColonialBengal,hekhar
Bandopadhyay;age,Delhi,2004,pp.252,Rs. 550.
The book mostlyweaves n motifs nd argumentshatwould seem
recognizableomost eaders amiliar ithBandopadhyay'sork. hemajorthemes of 'Sanskritisation', ais as the premiere ate 19"' Century
organisationalevelopmento enforce astediscipline,Westernisation's alate tageof Sanskritisation'ndthe ontinuitiesetweenower asteupliftmovementsndBrahmanicalalue ystemsre allrefurbishednd revisited.
In keepingwith he pparent bjective f thebook,viz.to be definitivevolume t east n the heoreticalonsensuseshathave mergednthe tudyofthehistoryf caste n recent ears, he ntroductioneviewshe entireambitof relevantiteratureromLouis Dumontto M.N. Srinivas, rom
Hitesranjan anyal o GailOmvedt.Though hedemandingcholarmightseeka fuller iscussion f some of the iteraturelealtwith, et, onsideringthat t ssupposed o doubleupas an introductiono the hemesl thebookaswell, ackofdetail swellcompensatedythebreadthfvision.
The firsthapterntitledaste ndpower,eeks oestablishhe entralityoftheprinciplefhierarchyhrougllhe rticulationf ocialpower scaste.Thuscaste,Bandopadhyayightlysserts,s at itscoreaboutthehierarchic
organisationf ocialpower, atherhan ts tratificationntohermeticnits.
Thus,certain
luiditysalways
llowed orwithint,
ven nthepre-colonialera,and itwouldbe wrong o see it as an unchangingrientalnstitution,
what s never ubvertedhough s theprinciple f hierarchy.ven n thecolonial era both thereformistsnd therevivalists,eedless o saythose
orthodoxies, hich idnoteven ngagenthemodern ublic pherend ts
debates,t s thisprinciplefhierarchyhat snever hallenged.hus nthis94 chapter, andopadhyayeeks to also depictthe failure f themodernist
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project ot nterms ftheweaknessfmodernity,ut rather s the trengthof tradition.n so doinghe alsoshowshowcontraryocommonsense,he
'languageof science' and print re deployed o consolidate he hold of'tradition'.hough hepoint swellmade, newonders owBandopadhyayafterhimself avingmade the distinctionn the Introduction etweenRevivalistsnd Traditionalistsho remainedonmpletelyutside hemodern
public sphere ees thisas the strengthf tradition' ather hanas the'inventionr constructionftradition.'
The next hapterCaste and PopularReligion' howshowdespite his
consensus n thehierarchicalature fcaste he pacefor esistance as notcompletelyoreclosed. rawing n a richveinofpopularheterodox ults
ranging rom haitanya'smovemnentnmedieval engal o themorerecentAuls,Bauls,KartaBhajasetc.,he showshow on theone hand thesegroulpsarticulatedlements f resistance itlintheir ects,whilst n the other,Brahmanical owermanaged o continuouslyppropriate r marginalizetheseelements, ntil n orderto survive heyhad to acquiescence o themaintenancefcastenorms utside ftheir allowed recinctsf heirects.
The next wo hapters,Caste nd SocialReform'nd Caste nd Gender'
are argelyimilarn their hemes,s they ease ut the ommonpatriarchalcodesofBrahmanicower hat re hared venbythelower' astes.Aroundissuessuch as widowre-marriage,hildmarriage, owry tc. there s aremarkableegree f onvergenceetween he pinion fthe evivalistsndafew ecades ater heforbearsfthe asteupliftmovemencts.
The last chapter, perhaps the one with the greatestring of
contemporaneity,ealswith herunup to thepartitionfBengal n 1947,andhow theHindu eparatistsventually anage owooaway hedepressed
classmovementromts raditionalffinityoMuslim olitics. his uccess tleast npart sdue tothehegemonicrip f the aste ystemhat imited he
depressedlasses o magine heirdentitysat the ast nistanceHinduone.
Thoughundoubtedlyhebook s a mnusteadfor llthoseworkingnthe
historyfcaste, he time s perhaps ife o takethedebate little urther.Hence t smore s a possible reaoffurtheresearch,atherhan sa critiquethat suggesthefollowing oints.
First,t swellnigh ccepted oday hat aste, s a formnfframingocialpower, s not a Hindumonopoly, ethistorical orks n castecontinue o
view t as a whollyHindu nstitution.speciallyn a contextuch as Bengal,any tudyhat oes notencompasshe xpressionsfcastewithinslam,na
wayperpetuatehemythhat heveryxistence f caste (lentity akes nea Hindu,no matter owtangentially.he splitgoesso far hat,n the ast
chapter, venwhen we are privy o thestory f theHindu and Muslimconsolidationistsoth tryingo woo theDepressedCaste votebank,we
Book Review
95
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Social Scientist
hardly ear nythingbout heMuslim oliticsrsocialposition,most f t seitherthe Brahmanical mpulseor DepressedCaste response.Also inliteraturerom heearly wentiethentury, e meetruralMuslimpeasants,suchas RahamSheikh nTarashankar andopadhyay's onodebota, hoseidentitiesften ake on a formwhich, t leastto the ayreader ooksverysimilaro caste. n fact ven ntoday's ontemporaryengali iction, e meetsimilar eaturesn rural ociety,heGhoramisfAbulBashar ornstance.
The problem perhaps stems largelyfrom an over reliance on
governmentalnd propagandistources.Castes are after ll not internally
homogenised. ach region nd sub-region as itsownspecificub groupswithin nd beloweachofthecastegroup.Now theelite eadershipf thevarious asteupliftmovementslso seek odeny hisnternalractioningnd
forge corporatedentity.hus n the ndtheofficialources o notexhibitthis level of hierarchy.he onlyway to retrieve hisis to interrogatecontemporaryhroniclers.t shere hat arashankar'sovels avebeenusedto open up a wholly ewlevelof analysis or cholar uch as RajatRay.Whereas ay,theSettlement eport ftheperiodproducedbyRai BejoyBihariMukharjiBahadur, topsat Banris s a castegroup;Tarashankar'snovelHansuliBankerUpokotha,hows hat hesewerefurtherivided ntoKahar,Dalui,SikhurendGubure.ven mongstheKaharsgain hereweretwogroups, tpoureesndBeharas;ndallof these racticedndogamyndwerefiercelyonscious f theirdentities.o merelyismiss llliteraturenthe lter fthebirthdentityfthe uthor stakinghings erhaps bittoofar.
Justs the nternal eterogeneityfthe lower'castes reglossed ver,
similarlyhe nternal eterogeneityf heupper astes oo are argelylossed
over. The 1901 censusproducedan acrimoniousdisputebetweentheKayasthsnd Baidyas ver ritual recedence. hesearetwoofthehighestcastegroups n Bengal. imilarly,artha hatterjee hile ellinghe taleof
thePrincelympostor' f Bhawalmentions owtheBhawalRaj family ho
wereSrautriyarahmins,ried o ascend he aste adder y practisingoth
Sanskritichypergamy y marryingnto Kulin families as well as
Westernisation,ygettingheir rides rom alcutta's rofessionalamilies.
Tlese internalensions ithinastes, erhapswould llowusnotonly ounderstand aste movements etter, ut by introducingn essentially
localised, patialelement nto theanalysis,would givegreater cuity ounderstandinghe arger olitics ftheregion.t s alsoan interestingay f
using oth aste ndclass s tworelatedategorieshat ctually roduce ach
other, ather hanviewinghem olely sbeing elatednthe nalyst'smental
map.
96 This s also mportantince hesenternalivisionslsomeandifferential
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Book Review
exposure o factorsuch as print ulture,ducation, emographicmobilityetc.which re essential o formulatingirstly,hepolitics fthegroup nd
secondly,he pread ndsuccess f uchpolitics.SumitSarkar n BeyondNationalistrames,alksof the need to also
distinguishometimes etween ural nd urbanmembersfthe amecastes.
Manyof thecastemovements or nstance hatBandopadhyayalks boutusedBrahminsowrite amphletsnsupport f heir ewritualtatus. heseBrahminss Sarkar oints ut were argelyural ralimilnsho were lientsto the rising astesgroups eadingthe movements. hese patron-client
models oo are ignificantntheframingfcastepoliticsndpower..In tjie absenceof these patial, conomic and in general ontextual
situation of the source material,the work remains a structuralist
understandinigf hedynamicsffiramingoth ower ndresistancentermsof caste.This, despite Bandopadhyay'sosition gainstbinarism.While
undoubtedlyfvalue,yet uch tructuralistnalysesemain obe historicized
byfuture istorians.etthese uture istorians ust tartheirourney romthis ook as a comprehensiveeview fthe xtant nderstandingfa subjectthat t least n SouthAsia remainsmuchmore han nacademic oser.
Projit ehariMukherjeesPh.D.Scholart School fOriental Africantudies,UniversityfLondon.
97
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