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







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







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







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.

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review -sekhar bandyopadhyay

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