COMMENTARY

West Bengals Election Story

The Caste Question
Praskanva Sinharay

The new politics of caste in

West Bengal has the potential to
dislodge the traditional bipolar
political discourse in the state.
While bhadralok politics is still
dominant, the question of caste is
growing in importance; whether
it finally comes of its own is
difficult to foretell.

A shorter version of this article was published in

the Web Exclusives section of the EPW website.
Praskanva Sinharay (praskanva@gmail.com) is
a doctoral scholar at the Centre for Studies in
Social Sciences, Calcutta.

10

he political scene in West Bengal,

in the context of the upcoming 16th
Lok Sabha elections, seems to be
quite unique. With the decline of the Left
Fronts (LF) organisational strength and
political appeal among the voters of the
state the present ruling party Trinamool
Congress (TMC), which this time has not
aligned with the Congress for the upcoming elections, also cannot claim a monopoly over popular support. Moreover,
the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with its
strong development-oriented political
campaign and smart selection of candidates in different seats has increasingly
managed to secure a certain level of support among specific pockets of the voting population. Therefore, unlike the
erstwhile bipolar nature of West Bengals election scene, the upcoming Lok
Sabha polls cannot be simply looked at
as a contest between two major camps.
Rather, the other prominent political
parties like the Congress and BJP among
others, quite evidently, shall play a
crucial role in deciding the results.
On the other hand, the collapse of
the long-standing LF regime in 2011 signalled the crisis of what Dwaipayan
Bhattacharyya (2011) has called partysociety.1 With the crisis of the party as the
chief mediator in rural and semi-urban
affairs, we have witnessed in the last
couple of years a host of community-based
political assertions in the state politics
(for example, the Matuas in the border
districts, the Gurkhas in Darjeeling, the
Rajbanshis and adivasis in north Bengal,
the Muslim minorities and so forth). Since
the fate of the elections is largely determined by the rural voters, the political
support of these communities, in terms
of specific issues, shall definitely play a
significant role in the elections this time.
This article aims to reflect on the
uniqueness of the upcoming Lok Sabha
APRIL 26, 2014

elections in the state, particularly focusing on the question of caste which is an

emerging determinant category in the
state election scene. In addition to that, I
also wish to revisit my argument made
earlier where I proposed that the organised
politics of the Matuas a minor sect of the
Namasudras under the banner of their
community organisation Matua Mahasangha had introduced a new politics of
caste in the state (Sinharay 2012).
Debating the Caste Question
The emergence of the caste question in
the formal-institutionalised politics of
contemporary West Bengal, as I have
argued earlier, is a recent phenomenon
of its kind. Although the category of caste
had always remained alive in popular
consciousness, and acted as a crucial
marker of political socialisation at the
local, everyday level; it had failed to
emerge as a key factor in the public domain of postcolonial politics of the state.
The emergence of Matua Mahasangha
as the frontal organisation of the lowercaste Matua community since 2007-08
with their specific demands regarding
citizenship, caste certificates among
many others, however, had disturbed
the urban, upper-caste bhadralok hegemony over local politics at a considerable level, as well as, had introduced a
new politics of mediation in rural West
Bengal (Sinharay 2012, 2013).
Such a proposition met with many
insightful responses. First, the respondents
unanimously argued that the event of
Partition of Bengal destabilised the former
dalit movements (Chandra and Nielsen
2012; Bandyopadhyay 2012; Chatterjee
2012; Samaddar 2013), and caste, thereafter, continued to be actively operative at
the local networks of power, but could not
flourish as a major factor at the state level
due to the preponderance of bhadralok
in all avenues of public life (Chandra
and Nielsen 2012; Chatterjee 2012). Second, the hegemony of the bhadralok was
strengthened by the institution of the
party dominated by the Kolkata-based,
upper-caste political leaders (Chatterjee
2012; Samaddar 2013). Third, the different lower-caste population groups failed
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COMMENTARY

to come up with a consolidated dalit

movement due to the heterogeneity in
their social status, aspirations, needs
and demands (Samaddar 2013). Furthermore, Chatterjee and Samaddar argued
that it might be too early to conclude
that the emergence of the Matua Mahasangha in the electoral politics of the state
is a serious threat to the overall uppercaste hegemony.
It is true and I agree with the respondents that Partition disoriented the erstwhile dalit movements, the event had
catalysed the bhadralok dominance, and
caste loyalties continued to function in
the apparently uninstitutionalised world
of what may be called politics among the
people (Chatterjee 1997: 83). One must
also admit that the hegemony of the
bhadralok-dominated party structure,
particularly during the prolonged LF rule,
did not allow the successful articulation
of caste interests in the public domain of
the states politics. The role of the wellorchestrated party machinery under the
LF as a specific form of power, as we
know, had given birth to party-society
in rural West Bengal.
However, after the incidents of forcible
land-grab in Singur-Nandigram and elsewhere, the LF failed to reproduce its initial
conditions of being and virtually turned
itself into an apologist for corporate
capital (Bhattacharyya 2011: 238-39). The
party-society, therefore, met with a crisis
leading to the autonomous politics of the
different communities. The TMC, being an
extremely centralised party, failed to come
up with the formerly existing party structure, and had to initially extend all-out
support towards these different communities for electoral support. Interestingly,
these communities under the banner of
their community organisations, in turn,
entered into a politics of bargain and
negotiation with the bhadralok leadership of all the prominent political parties
during this phase. The Matuas, being a
solid vote conglomerate under the leadership of the Mahasangha, at this point of
time, thus introduced the caste question in
the public domain of political activities.2
The Mahasangha, not only came up with
their specific demands, but also successfully bargained for nominating their own
representative from the Thakur family in
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APRIL 26, 2014

the 2011 Vidhan Sabha elections. It did so

in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as
well. Such a politics of bargain and negotiation by a particular community organisation of a lower-caste population group
in rural politics with the orderly world of
bhadralok-dominated party politics is
undoubtedly a recent phenomenon.
Matuas and Rajbanshis
The politics of bargain, it seems, have
been a mutually beneficial process for
both the camps the community organisation and the party. The former gains its
political salience in the institutionalised
domain of state politics; whereas the latter,
quite cunningly, aims to eventually integrate the formers discrete politics within
its influence. Such a phenomenon is evidently noticeable in case of the Matuas.
Although the Mahasangha gained its
prominence as the independent mouthpiece of the lower-caste refugees, and
negotiated with all the political parties to
meet their demands; its leadership eventually aligned with the TMC with the
appointment of Manjul Krishna Thakur,
the younger son of Baroma Binapani Devi,
as the minister of state for refugee relief
and rehabilitation. For the upcoming Lok
Sabha elections too, the TMC has played
the same card, and nominated the organisational head Kapil Krishna Thakur, the
elder son of Baroma Binapani Devi, as its
candidate from Bongaon constituency.
Therefore, even though the Mahasangha
gained prominence as an important
political actor in states rural politics; its
leadership, today, has been subsumed
within the TMCs party influence. The BJP
also adopted a similar political strategy
this time by nominating a prominent
Matua leader K D Biswas from the
Bongaon constituency. It shall also play
the Hindu card among the refugee population who had to cross the border due
to communal tensions.
A crucial question arises at this point.
Whether should we look at the integrationist attitude of the community organisation and its leadership within the mainstream political parties as strategic moves
of the time, or is that so that the bhadralok
leadership has managed to reclaim their
temporarily lost authority during the
crisis phase over local politics? Although
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there cannot be any immediate answer to

such a query, we can only identify three
major trends in the present politics of
the state vis--vis the marginal communities before the Lok Sabha elections.
One, we can see that the different communities choose to represent their political
line of action from within the world of
mainstream party politics, and hence,
there is subsumption of identities within
the party structures. After the dramatic
victory in the 2011 assembly elections, the
ruling party TMC has eventually strengthened its party machinery and successfully increased its influence among the
dalit and other marginal communities.
We have already seen this in case of the
Matuas. To take the example of another
voluminous lower-caste community
the Rajbanshis, the TMC anchored to a
politics of compensation, and met certain
identitarian demands. For instance, the
present government has established the
Coochbehar Panchanan Barma University in 2012 to commemorate the great
Rajbanshi leader. Therefore, all other
political parties, in order to augment their
influence over these marginalised communities, have adopted similar policies
that sympathise, in some way or the other,
with the different identitarian causes.
Two, although the discrete identities
have been temporarily subsumed within
the party banners, this does not mean
that these local identities have lost their
political charge. Rather, the opposite
holds true. One of the recent newspaper
reports, for example, on the pre-election
political campaigns in Dooars (north
Bengal) said, Party banners are no
longer the only identity of candidates in
the fray. For instance, Manohar Tirkey of
RSP, Dasarath Tirkey of Trinamool and
BJPs Birendra Bara are known by their
Oraon origin. Joseph Munda of Congress
has a protestant Christian lineage (Roy
2014). In other words, the party identity
of a candidate is no longer the only
strong marker of her or his political
credibility, rather the identity of the
candidate as a minority has become
crucial in support of the candidature.
Therefore, such a political trend, on the
one hand, challenges the erstwhile
authority of the bhadralok-dominated
party at the local level; whereas, on the
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COMMENTARY

other, it publicly champions the identitarian politics of the community in

present-day rural West Bengal.
The Emergence of Dalit Voice
The third, and perhaps the most important development in contemporary state
politics, is the emergence of autonomous
dalit voice. Although the heterogeneous
condition of the different lower-caste
population groups in West Bengal did not
allow a combined dalit movement, there
had been certain general slogans (of land
and rural wages in particular) that led to
the formation of a bahujan samaj at different points of time (Samaddar 2013: 79).
The politics of the bahujan samaj had
been manifested, as Ranabir Samaddar
had noted, in the movements of Naxalbari,
Lalgarh and Jungle Mahals (ibid). Interestingly, all three examples are instances
of violent peasant resistance. I would like
to add to the list another instance of armed
peasant resistance the Nandigram
movement that had signalled the final
crisis of party society. The other instances
of Lalgarh and Jungle Mahals followed
thereafter. The policies of crass industrialisation through forcible land-grab endorsed
by the LF led to the birth of voices of
dissent from within the party. Moreover,
the prolonged marginalisation of dalits
and minorities within the party, and
increasing elitism and bureaucracy led
rebel CPI(M) leaders like Rezzak Mollah
to come up with autonomous political
formations like the recently formed
Social Justice Forum before the Lok
Sabha polls. To quote Rezzak Mollah:
The ascendency of Trinamool isa result of
the fact that the Left Front, which lips class
struggle, has failed to implement it
A piece of statistics says that 94% of the people here are from the deprived classes. If in
West Bengal, the scheduled castes, tribes,
minorities and backward classes were to
unite, they would bring down their high
caste rulers. It is ironical that Bengal always
had either a Brahmin or a Baidya chief
minister (Times News Network 2014).

The expelled leader has targeted the

2016 state assembly polls where he wants
a Dalit as Bengal CM with a Muslim as
deputy (ibid). The expulsion of Mollah
before the Lok Sabha elections and his
political initiatives to form another, if
we can use the term, bahujan samaj
12

shall, however, undoubtedly affect the

upcoming polls.
Lastly, another important political formation before the elections is the Bahujan
Mukti Party (BMP). The BMP, established
in 2012, has already created a support base
among the different lower-caste communities like the Namasudras, Poundras,
Rajbanshis, Bauris, Mahatos, as well as
among the Muslims. The party advocates
for an agriculture-based economy and
small-scale industrialisation, and strongly
opposes the liberalisation policies (like
special economic zones) of the central
and state governments. It demands decentralisation of political power, and proper
implementation of reservations for the
dalits and Muslims. Following the political line of Jogendranath Mandal, the
BMP endorses dalit-Muslim unity and
political alliance of all marginal groups
(published in their official mouthpiece
Bahujan Mukti Barta, 27 September 2013).
Sukriti Ranjan Biswas, the state president
of BMP told me over a telephonic interview,
that they are contesting the elections for
the first time, and are planning to field
its candidates in almost 30 seats. Quite
interestingly, as Sukriti Ranjan Biswas
informed me, the party is getting the
support of the former CPI(M) leader
Rezzak Mollah who is attending BMPs
election campaigns in different parts of
the state. The support of Rezzak Mollah
shall surely facilitate the BMPs fight in
the upcoming elections.
To Conclude
The caste question in the Lok Sabha
elections in West Bengal, therefore, shall
be of crucial importance. The political
expressions and alliances of the leadership of different lower-caste groups before
the polls had been quite different. Some
chose to align with the bhadralokdominated party to meet their demands,
whereas others have opted for an autonomous political position. A quick look at
the manifestos of all the political parties also informs us that the question of
SC/ST, Muslims and other minorities are
on the priority list of their political
agenda in this election. Moreover, since
the electoral fight is no longer bipolar
this time, all the players are eyeing
the dalit and minority votes for their
APRIL 26, 2014

electoral success. At this juncture, one

must not predict, rather wait and watch
the dance of democracy.
Notes
1

Party societyis the modular form of political

society in West Bengals countryside. For
detailed discussion on party society, see
Bhattacharyya (2011).
When the Matua Mahasangha held a conference on 28 December 2010 at Esplanade the
heart of Kolkata demanding the repeal of the
Citizenship Amendment Act (2003) among
many others, the dais was shared by top-notch
leaders of all prominent political parties along
with the Matua leadership. All the leaders
unanimously extended support to their demands
before the 2011 state assembly elections (Special Correspondent 2010).

References
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Nair (ed.), Theorising the Present: Essays for
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Chandra, Uday and Kenneth Bo Nielsen (2012):
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