On E.V. Ramaswamy Periyar and His Dalit Discourse

The time when Periyar uttered extreme diatribe against Hinduism, it was certainly radical and audacious. When his criticism of Brahminical dominance in Hinduism is justified, his suggestions to resist it through conversion, especially to Islam or Christianity, made his arguments rather weak. It sounded more like sentimental outbursts than an intellectual attack on the corrupt practices prevalent in Hinduism. This is where Ram Mohan Ray stands apart as a social reformer and a beacon of light for a society desperately looking for a leader to transform itself. The ills of a system or a society must
be challenged and changed from within and one must not try to escape from it as it is the tactics of a weak soul and the other orgainsed and deductive spiritual outfits are always in search of such weaklings.

That there is no one sect in Hinduism is its biggest strength because it is an inclusive religion giving spiritual sanctity to the faiths of the natives. All the indigenous tribal gods and goddesses as well as their indigenous spiritual philosophies became part of the so called Hindu discourse and pantheon which includes the divine figures like Kali, Shiva, Kamakhya, Bathou, Mashan, Chinnamasta, Tara, Durga and numerous other gods and goddesses who were originally the divine figures of the indigenous tribal and ethnic communities.
The Brahminical issue is the social and political aspect of Hindu society where the religion per se virtually has hardly anything to do. This malice and corruption has to be resisted through social and political movements where the philosophy of Hinduism has limited scopes to affect changes. Hence, to blame it on Hinduism for the corrupt Brahminical practices is rather naive and populist. Periyar had great contributions in forcing dramatic social reforms in the South, but he mostly remained a provincial protagonist, despite my highest regards for him, I must say, perhaps because some of his comments and desperate acts turned out be more melodramatic and copiously jibed with the amusingly clichéd conversion rhetoric.

But I must say Periyar has huge relevance in today's India primarily to reform the religious practices of Hinduism and liberate it from the monopolistic domination of the Brahmins. When the BJP govt. introduced courses on priesthood, most of the so called secular and left parties cried foul calling it safronisation of education but this opposition, especially by the left had actually revealed its ugliest high caste bias because the left had relaised that such a move would eventually snatch the established superiority of the Brahmins as the priestly caste because no state run course can be caste based and
anybody from any caste or gender might well have become institutionally recongnized priests thereby, eventually, they would have destroyed the supremacy claims of the Brahmins for ever as any body would have gained access to the sanctum sanctorum of all the places of worship as legitimate priests. The rabid casteist bias of the left is one of the root causes of the continued casteist discrepancies in Indian society, be it religion, education or politics.

Rajbanshi Poems in Translation

Phoolti Abo’s Tales

King’s canopy crumbled

Washing away river’s rule

Religion and culture are like flowing rivers

Like the way there was once satti

Now gone; reformation in a way

Yet it hardly pleases your heart: old people, old songs

The heart has its own say: the days of the kings were rather good

We could have only wild roots as food, yet had the soul to sing bhawaiya songs

Days out, and days in,

This is what Phulti abo keeps humming in

Sorrows of Sarinda

Swagata Barman

Who is playing the sarinda there

At the brow of the banyan tree

By the broken temple of Kali

As the night ripped apart

By the wild dove’s soulful tears?

So many a times Dwijen Bepari

Celebrated the wedding of the Oak and the creeper

So much of fun so much of frolic

Now the place is all about a sullen groove of snakes

Who is playing the sarinda there?

The wild dove keeps weeping …

Someone plays the sarinda there

We Still are Aliens

Tushar Bandopadhyay

We still are aliens

The thought sets my heart ablaze

Stiff are our hands like old bamboos

But they say: “we are king’s inheritors”

We sold all our herds and homestead

To beg for alms

Like homeless monks

Mahajans sucked our bones dry

Good old days haunt as we close our eyes

Villages are now empty fields, bald cremating ground

Times, they are a changing,

Times, they are all new

Let a generation sprout in the northern croft.

The Identity Crisis of the Rajbanshis and the Need for the Socio- Political Initiatives

The Rajbanshi question should not be looked into as a political issue alone; we need to understand this as a cultural question as well. Hence, there are urgent needs to take into account the historico-cultural factors also to address the issues relating to the question of Rajbanhsi identity and its nationhood. It is important to initiate a social movement for the cultural empowerment in consonance with the political mobilization of the Rajbanshis as a community.

I personally feel we can take certain concrete steps for the gradual consolidation of self respect among the Rajbanshis as a nation both in Assam and Bengal.

Vision for the Rajbanshi Youths

1. The Rajbanshi youths must be motivated to go for the hard work to achieve academic excellence which can lead to the biggest capital formation for the community to make their political claims more powerful and effective in the coming future.

2. There should be very strong motivational campaigns for the Rajbanshi youths to make it as on of their natural ambitions to go for civil services and other competitive examinations. Even if after ten years there is a steady rate of Rajbanshi youths making it to the civil services, however small the success rate may be, the community would gain greater strength in their future fights for political rights.

3. Law should be one of the most popular career options for the Rajbanshi youths. The youths should be motivated to opt for law as one of the priority career choices because the community would need a band of brilliant lawyers during the coming years of political struggle of the community. The Rajbanshis need law professionals from its own community for its social and political empowerment.

4. Rajbanshi youths must develop interest to join as print and electronic media journalists. No matter how small the newspaper or electronic channel may be, no matter whatever pay package they offer, our youths must try hard to join media. We need so many people in media for the true projection of the condition of the Rajbanshis.

Linguistic and Social Vision

5. The name of the language, according to me, should be Rajbanshi rather than Kamatapuri. We must remember that with the identity question of the Rajbanshis the status of language is intrinsically associated. We must claim our own mother tongue to establish our position as a nation. The term Kamatapur is used more with a political purpose to make the non-Rajbanshis be a supporter to its political ambitions. In near future the Rajbanshis would face a peculiar crisis if they cannot claim a language as their own. Besides, Rajbanshi should not be considered only as a name of a community. The term denotes a culture of which the non- Rajbanshis are also an integral part. Hence, if the other communities can accept the culture of the Rajbanshis as their own why not the language.

In the North East, other ethnic communities like the Bodos, the Karbis, the Rabhas, the Tiwas, the Khasis, the Garos, the Mizos, the Dimasas and so many of them have their own language. The people living in these specific territories accepted these languages irrespective of their ethnic affiliations to these communities. If we disown our language, in future, a Rajbanshi youth may not accept this to be his own language either; thereby we would separate the language from the community to which the language originally belongs.

There should be further debates on the issue. But my personal view is that if we call the language as Kamatapuri, we take away the linguistic claim of the Rajbanshis, which would make the future of the Rajbanshis extremely vulnerable.

6. There must be strong demands for the introduction of the Rajbanshi language in primary level education both in Assam and Bengal wherever the Rajbanshis are a majority. It is a fundamental right of every child to obtain his or her primary education in his or her own mother tongue. It must be ensured for our child. This is a constitutionally guaranteed right to the citizens of India.

7. There must be a demand for central universities in Coochbehar and lower Assam. The Coochbehar university should be proposed preferably at Madhupur in Coochbehar because this was the place of scholarly enlightenment during the rule of Maharaj Naranarayan. A university is the most powerful source of intellectual leadership of the community. Else the community would lag behind other communities in terms of its intellectual, cultural and social leadership. The name of the university in Coochbehar should be Maharaja Naranaryan University.

8. There should be strong demands for the incorporation of the Departments of Rajbanshi history, culture, language and literature in North Bengal University and Gauhati University.

9. Demands should be made for the immediate inclusion of the history of the indigenous nations like the Rajbanshis and the Gorkhalis as well as other indigenous communities in the history curriculum of Bengal in secondary and university level. In Assam also the history of the ethnic nations should be included in the academic curricula.

10. In the forthcoming census the Rajbanshis must identify their mother tongue as Rajbanshi

11. Demands should be made for ABN Seal College of Coochbehar to be renamed after Maharaja Nripendra Narayan who had actually set up the college. Demands should also be made to rename the Birendra Dey Sarkar Bus Terminus of Coochbehar, built up by annexing the Palace compound, after one of the doyens of the Coochbehar Royal dynasty or a reputed Rajbanshi figure. The terminus can also be named after Maharani Gayatri Devi. These are symbolic gestures but such a move will have tremendous psychological impact among the Rajbanshis as a nation with a sense of strong historical legacy and belongingness.

12. Demand should also be made to install a life size statue of Chilarai in Coochbehar. In fact, this should be the moral responsibility of the Rajbanshi people to collectively take initiatives to install the statue of Chilarai in Coochbehar.

13. There must be a museum in Coochbehar. It is an urgent requirement to keep alive historical legacies of the Rajbanshis for its future generation.

Political Vision

14. The immediate action that the Rajbanshis must take very urgently is to explore all options to ensure the release of all the Rajbanshi political prisoners languishing in the jails of Bengal for so many years. The government must withdraw all the charges against them which were falsely implicated by the communist government of Bengal and release all the Rajbanshi prisoners including Bongshi Badan Barman and other prisoners of the Coochbehar agitation.

15. We should also seriously think about demanding a review of Land Reform under the communist regime in Bengal. We must seek clarification from the government as to whether in the name of land reform there was any annexation of land of the native Rajbanshis by the government. Demands should also be made to clarify whether any land of the indigenous Rajbanshi people of Bengal was forcefully occupied by the communists. Even if a small fraction of a land is found to have been annexed from the native Rajbanshi it must be returned to the owner. Land is the legitimate right of the indigenous people. Government cannot forcefully take away land from them. We must demand review of the Land Reform so that if any land was taken from the Rajbanshis must be returned.

16. The Rajbanshis should mobilize greater public opinion for the formation of a separate state which can fulfill the political, cultural and economic aspirations of the people. But the state demand movement has not taken a logical and substantially viable shape yet apart from generating strong emotional impact. We must call for greater debate on the issue to address this issue from a more substantive perspective.

17. The Rajbanshi people must extend full moral support to the Gorkhaland movement because we are fellow travelers in our struggle for the justified political space for the native nations.

Jai Sukladhvaj Rai, Kono Amangal Nai

Presented for circulation in the Convention on Rajbanshi Identity and its Crisis at Rayganj (WB) held on 2 & 3 July, 2011

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