Ethnic Movements and the Post Development Paradigms: Crisis of the Rajbanshi Consciousness

Abstract 

Development is a problematic term because it is, unlike a Biblical axiom, not morally transcendental and, unlike the presumed neutrality of scientific interpretations, it is not secular either. Development is a political term with its intense significance as part of a strategy not only of economic alone but also of cultural politics. After the failure of the western model of development as a universally applicable mode of human redemption, thinkers have engaged in problematising the entire discourse of development from the point of view of post development parameters. Ethnic movements often transform into intense articulations to eventually degenerate into vociferous claims of racial supremacy, particularly because the question of ethnicity eventually devolve into a strategy towards a redemption through the received notions of development. There are counter strategies to neutralize ethnic saliencies by the skilled operators of development idioms by seducing the energy and intensity of such ethnic efforts with supposed exaltations of growth and ‘progress’.

Most ethnic movements fail to reach their vaguely defined goals as they are yet to formulate a narrative free from the erogenous allurements of development rhetoric. The proposed paper seeks to examine the Rajbanshi consciousness movement in Assam and Bengal against its proclaimed goal of achieving ‘Development’ for the community and the subsequent crises it encountered.  

Giorgio Agamben in his, Infancy and History: The Destruction of Experience (NY: Verso, 2007), while speaking of the character of experience in the contemporary reality, suggests that nowadays experience can be approached ‘only with an acknowledgement that it is no longer accessible to us’. (2007, 15) Agamben points out that modern man has been deprived of his biography and similarly his experience has also been expropriated. A modern man lay claim only to his incapacity to have and communicate experience. Agamben underlines the destruction of experience in the ‘humdrum daily life in any city’ which, ‘no longer necessitates a catastrophe’ for ‘modern man’s average day contains virtually nothing that can be translated into experience.’ Agamben goes on to describe the inconsequential details of daily life that an urban man encounters and describes how despite theses experiences being seemingly harrowing or pleasurable, entertaining or tedious, they cannot become experiences. He proclaims that this non translatability into experience has made life intolerable rather than an ‘alleged poor quality of life’ or ‘its meaninglessness compared with the past’. He explains, ‘When humankind is deprived of effective experience and becomes subjected to the imposition of the form of experience as controlled and manipulated as the laboratory maze of rats…then the rejection of experience can provisionally embody a legitimate defence.     

What is the experience of development for an ordinary individual, vis-à-vis the community having intense cultural intimacy with the landscape? Can the received notions of transformation and development ever assume the redemptive warrant of emancipation through development? Can it ensure them a collective experience of ‘progressive growth’?  Why does a community living in the adjunct against the environment of aggressive intervention of ‘development’ fail to experience the transcendental exaltation of emancipation and instead find itself alienated from its native milieu resulting in the deeper awareness of loss and defeat?   

The term ‘development’ is a loaded concept. It is politically relative and intrinsically susceptible to ideological orientation of the agents who ‘imposes’ it. Unlike our common perception, ‘development’ is not a transcendentally locatable mode of human nirvana, hence at various levels of ‘development’ initiatives the affected subjects may not necessarily be the beneficiaries of their benefactors, but might as well be its victims, therefore articulations of discontent gains the warrant of legitimacy within their communal ambit despite the apparent antidote of development being adequately applied by the state agencies.

The concept of development that is in force is largely either capitalist or a sociologist mode of ‘development’ operations which are primarily western imports. Jan Nederveen Pieterse, a postdevelopment theorist, in his essay, ‘After Post Development’ (Third World Quarterly, Vol. 21, 2000, pp. 175-122), emphasised on ‘consensus building’ on development measures. The postdevelopment discourse aims at arriving at a situation that provides, what they call, ‘alternative to development’. Post development thinkers (Arturo Escobar, Gustavo Estevaet al) have challenged the very meaning of development as it, according them, emanates from the essential structural orientation of the colonial discourse that sees development in terms of the conformity to the ‘West-North’ paprameters.

Development entails a set of values, knoweldge, methods of intervention, tools of defining the subjects in accordance with its needs. Hence, not only in terms of its ideational form but also in its actual applied form, development is quintessentially political, ideologically driven process with the potentiality for power, capacity to control, possibilities to rule. The dialectics of power relations become central to the operational dimension of development politcs, and in the process, there are voices that gain saliencies and the voices that are efectively silenced. Development discourse is also characterised  by the rationalising rhetoric forcing voices of dissension sound incongruous and illogical. Postdevelopment underlines development as a discourse with underlying political ideology which is policy oriented and problem driven. It is essentially effective only against a supposed pre-exisiting social theory. It also points out how development has a strong socially cinstructed aspect through which the hegemony of the rulers is reinforced.

Historically, development, in Indian context, has been a legacy essentially predicated upon the normative categories of the colonial regime. As development is not a non ideological/ apolitical idea, it is essentially political, ideologically oriented and discursively potential. Development paradigm under planned structure for the last five and a half decade has been a regime of re-modelled neo-colonial economic practice with zealously guarded over emphasis on extreme centralisation, concentration of development initiatives in the select metros, bureaucratic over dependence making the fundamental development initiatives like basic education, health care, power, road and communication as the breeding ground of redoubtable corrupt practices; more importantly, reducing the marginal territories into raw material territories for the industrial needs of the mainland cities. In fact, in Indian context, the pattern of development regime has been the same as it was in force in the pre independent India despite having rhetorically transformed into a policy regimen driven by the so called tenets of liberal socialist paradigms.

While praising certain achievements of India as a democracy with, at least regular elections, change of regime as per the voting results, free press etc,. Amartya Sen has been critical about the social progress and equity in India. For him this sector has fared worse than the democracy itself. (The Argumentative India 2005, 195) Paradoxically, Sen has been critical about the ‘weakness of the voices of protest’ which, according to him, only contributed in unnecessary slowing down of social opportunities. But at the same time, he argues ‘political voice is extremely important for social equity, and to that recognition we have to add the connection between equitable expansion of social opportunities and the force, range and reach of the process of economic development.’ (2005, 201)

The question of the Rajbanhsi social movements and the subsequent distillation of its consciousness and identity, like most other ethnic entities, have certain common historical parameters and at the same time it has its own unique character primarily because of its dual location in a major way in two neighbouring states- Assam and West Bengal.

The Rajbanshi movement began as a major social movement through its Kshatriya Anodolan having gained its formative shape in the year 1891 under the leadership of widely respected Har Mohan Ray who was the zamindar of Shymapukur in Rongpur of present Bangladesh. The Rajbanshis were organized under the banner of ‘Rongpur Bratya Kshatriya Jatir Unnati Bidhayani Sabha’ and presented a deputation on 10 February, 1891, in front of the Rongpur District Magistrate with the plea to include the Rajbanshis as a separate ethnic entity in the census that was to begin that year. Later under the leadership of Thakur Panchanan Burma the Kshatriya movement of the Rajbanshis took a more comprehensive shape. The first Kshatriya Sanmilani of the Rajbanshis was held on 1^st May, 1910 at the Theatre Hall of Rongpur. The session was presided over by an eminent lawyer, Madhusudhan Ray. That was a movement that for the first time, in a major way, made the Rajbanshis aware of themselves as a distinctive social entity that was needed to historically place themselves against a changed social reality in the wake of colonial rule in India that made some different entities as the major players of administrative and economic activities.

The Kshatriya movement was aimed at gaining a social position that was compatible within the casteist structure of Hindu society. It is interesting that in the mainstream society of Bengal, which claimed its Aryan legacy, identified itself as Brahmins, Vaishyas and Shudras but there was no Khastriya community among the mainstream Bengali people. They called themselves as Bratya Khastriyas. The claim of the Rajbanshis to assert themselves as Khastriya had another justification. That is prior to the 1891 census, the Rajbanshis were in fact officially identified as Dravido-Mongoloids. Buchanan Hamilton in his book, Eastern India, (1838) called the Rajbanshis as Koch Rajbanshis. The view was endorsed by other researchers like William Hunter, Hodgson et al and even in the 1872 census identified the Koches and the Rajbanshis as the same ethnic category. This created a peculiar social crisis for the Rajbanshis in the late 19^th century. The Rajbanshis could not be ignored simply because they did not conform to the emerging dominant identity category of the Bengalis and at the same time they could not be defined as the Bengalis despite the fact that the geographical territory of the Rajbanshis was made into a part of administrative territory of Bengal. Apart from the sheer number of the Rajbanshis, estimated to be 22 lakhs in present North Bengal and Coochbehar alone before the first general assembly election in 1920 (see the letter written by Panchanan Burma to the Chief Secretary of Bengal on 5 November, 1917), the Rajbanshis were the main owners of the land and were the major peasant community. It  was difficult to write them off.   

 The Kshatriya movement of the Rajbanshis cannot be seen as a mere aspirational move to attain respectability within the casteist framework of Hindu society. This was also necessitated to resist mass conversion of the Rajbanshis by the Christian missionaries. The non political character of the Rajbanshi Khsatriya Samiti was changed when Panchanan Burma turned it into a political organization and all its candidates were victorious in the 1920 election.    Panchanan Burma even defeated the candidates fielded by the Swaraj Party of Chittaranjan Das. The move was effective towards gaining limited political empowerment by the community. But at the social level, the status of the Rajbanhsi remained the same. There was racist segregation of the native and indigenous Rajbanshis as the social pariah in Bengal (both in East and West Bengal). The discrimination and racial disdain of the section of mainstream Bengali was acutely experienced by Panchanan Burma himself when he was practicing law in Rongpur district court as one of the most successful advocates.

It is, however, apparently paradoxical that after having led a movement for the Kshatriya status of the Rajbanshis, Panchanan Burma began a movement for scheduled caste status for the Rajbanshis. In fact, being a member of the constituent committee, Panchanan came into close contact with Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar and began the campaign to include the Rajbanshis as scheduled castes in the constitution to gain constitutional safeguard for the Rajbanshis who were subjected to prolonged state of social deprivation and economic backwardness.  The movement did not gain much support in Assam. However, he was successful in making the Rajbanshis in Bengal as scheduled castes. The move ensured certain immediate advantages. Way back in 1931 when the Colonial government declared ‘Communal Award’ for the Muslims and backward class communities including the scheduled castes, Panchanan Burma joined Baba Saheb Ambedkar to demand reservation for the Rajbanshis as well and spearheaded the movement for the SC status of the Rajbanshis. Nevertheless, he did not find much supporters for the movement in Assam, apparently because the Rajbanshis were not subjected to acute racial discrimination as in Bengal because Assam being a  multi ethnic society with the pre eminent dominance of the indigenous ethnic communities did not experience acute racial and casteist segregation as in Bengal and other parts of India. Hence the leaders like Sarat Sinha, Bhuban Ch. Prodhani and others were not convinced to inspire the Rajbanshis in Assam to go for similar demand. The Rajbanshis in the erstwhile Goalpara district later had to make very strong opposition to the proposal of Mr. Atulya Ghosh, the then state president of Bengal Congress who proposed to annex the district of Goalpara with Bengal in 1955. The Congress committee president of Dhubri district, Sarat Ch. Sinha and other members like Jadabananda Adhikary, Dhirendranath Das as well as Man Gobinda Chakraborty, Dinesh Ranjan Sarkar, Subhash Chakraborty, Giasuddin Ahmed, Hemanta Barkalita, Shibendra Narayan Koch, Kalindranath Nath, Kalicharan Bharali and others also vehemently opposed the proposal of annexing Goalpara with Bengal. There was a major social movement to replace Bengali from all spheres in this part of Assam as a symbolic social resistance against the chauvinistic Bengali designs.

From such a backdrop the renewed agitational movements of the Rajbanshis in recent times both in Assam and Bengal seem redundant and misplaced. But the ongoing movement of the Rajbanshis is a political reality. What does necessitate the continuation of such a long social movement of Rajbanshis? What might have been the reason to seek the same old constitutional safeguards?

Once their relationship with Assamese language and culture was settled in Assam, the movement for Scheduled Tribe status for the Rajbanshis began in 1968. In the All Assam Koch Rajbanshi Kshatriya Sanmilani convention held at Chautara in Kokrajhar, on 7 & 8 February, 1969, this demand for ST became part of the formal agenda of the Rajbanshi movement. Later the movement got a fillip with the leaders like Kabir Ch. Ray Prodhani, Jadabananda Adhikary and others. The Rajbanshis in Bengal began Kamatapur Movement and Greater Coochbehar Movement. As the ST movement failed to yield desired results, the frustration and the deep sense of betrayal crystalised into a major articulation for a separate Kamatapur State.

           One wonders, was there no substatntial development of the Rajbanshis in aspect of their life experience that the political history of the Rajbanshis turns out to be only a long chronicle of movements and agitations?  For the Rajbanshis as an ethnic entity to reach a definable selfhood becomes a continuous project. This has engendered their consciousness as a nation which is associated with the inherent awareness about the issues relating to their identity and ‘nation-ness’. As Puala Moya points out that the theory of identity is inadequate unless it allows to analyse the epistemic status and political salience of any given identity as well the possibilities and different limits of identities. As part of standard strategy, the nations in the periphery have been essentialized[1] by the operators of power and state. However, owing to the limitations of both essentialist and postmodern theorists they tend to overestimate or underestimate political salience of actual identities.

Development as an empowering intervention has apparently failed in case of the Rajbanshis in both Assam and Bengal. The devastating impact of development in Bengal is more acute primarily in relation to the notorious Land Reform initiatives through which the land of the indigenous Rajbanhis were forcefully confiscated rendering them both geographically and culturally displaced and homeless. In Assam the absence of any initiatives to integrate the Rajbanshi people of erstwhile Goalpara to become part of any conceivable economic intervention has progressively alienated and deluded the people. They initially aspire to be co-opted by the  mainstream as they are perpetually threatened of loosing opportunities of both economic and political representation. They eventually discover themselves as entities devoid of experience, or as a collective consciousness that has nothing to translate into experience When one makes a retrospective survey of their social history, it only becomes an exercise to come across the same old juncture from where they found their issues got diluted about one hundred years ago. They discover themselves as entities devoid of experience or as a collective consciousness they find that there is nothing to translate into the logos of experience. As Agamben would point out, he is deprived of his biography and is made to realize that his experience is no longer accessible to him. This is the inevitable experience of the communities continually relegated as the ethnic other.

End note

The West-North parameters have the in built formulaic mechanism to categorise  the North and the West as ‘advanced’, ‘progressive’ and the South, the East as ‘backward’ and ‘primitive’. Wolfgang Sachs would radiacally comment, ‘the idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape, (hence) it is time to dismantle this mental structure’

Works Cited

Agamben, Giorgio. Infancy and History: The Destruction of Experience, NY: Verso, 2007.

Pieterse, Nederveen. ‘After Post Development’ Third World Quarterly, Vol. 21, 2000.

Amartya Sen, Argumentative Indian, New Delhi: Penguin, 2000.

Ray, Dr. Deepak Kumar. Manishi Panchanan O Asom. Siliguri, Rajbanshi Akademi,  

         2009.

Das, Dr. Dhirendranath. Ed. Panchanan Smaranika. Dinhata, Coochbehar, Thakur  

         Panchanan Jagriti Mancha, 2005.

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[1] Essentialism entails the understanding of individual or groups as having immutable or discoverable ‘essence’- a basic unvariable and presocial nature. As a theoretical concept essentialism expresses itself through the tendency to see the other as one social category (class, gender, race, sexuality etc.). As a political strategy essentialism has both liberatory and reactionary effects.

Presented in the National Seminar on Social Exclusion and Inclusive Development in North East India: Challenges and Opportunities at North Gauhati College, Guwahati in collaboration with UGC, on 10-11 June, 2011.